This lack of options, or else a belief in respecting their freedom, was why Jed himself would make no attempt to change them. He would only walk away. While his disagreeing with them would likely never alter how much he loved them.
I swallowed and shut my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
It still beat at me. Almost a year together. Thinking he’d found his pack, his bliss, his mate. I don’t even know her name. Then seeing what was happening to the growing generation.
And her side of the story? He couldn’t have told her why he left—that he didn’t agree with her family’s lifestyle. One day, Jed would simply have trotted out of New Forest and she’d never seen him again. Until last night.
Her cry after him an hour ago, as if in pain, beat in my ears.
I leaned my elbow into the back of the bench, pinching the bridge of my nose, eyes closed for a long time before I could say anything else.
Finally, I let out a slow breath, gulped, and said, “Thank you for bringing me.” I turned on the bench to lean out, elbows on knees, and rubbed my eyes on the cuff of my hoodie sleeve under the leather jacket. “I’ll tell the Sables I met them and … used magic. That we know for sure.”
From the corner of my eye, I could just see Jed nod. It seemed he would say something more. Instead, after a moment, he turned away and walked to the bike.
Neither of us said another word as we drove east, away from the forest and England’s one wild wolf pack.
Chapter 24
It was still early morning, sun newly up behind clouds, by the time we reached the road heading for the mobile home park. Jed pulled onto a gravel verge to speak to me.
“Rather be back at your sister’s?” he called through the idling engine noise and our helmets.
“Yes, please. But not yet. I’ve got to see Diana, and better talk to the others as well.”
“To make your plans?” His sarcastic tone returned. “Offer up lists of points? ‘Firstly there’s a vampire in London, secondly there’s a body in Germany.’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I called stiffly, still hanging onto him on the back of the bike.
“Of course you don’t. In case you care, though, there’s no need to discuss plans and options with everyone if you want to lead a wolf pack. Just tell them.”
“I’m not trying to lead any—”
The engine noise exploded as Jed took off again, roaring up the long road to sprawling farms and little communities and the mobile home park off another long, pitted, worn out road.
The noise of Jed’s motorcycle attracted a crowd as we arrived. Not only the five I’d been expecting to be upset about us having taken off, but a dozen more, young and old, including Diana herself, emerged from their homes and rushed to the street.
Well, they were making this very easy for me.
Jed turned the bike, ready to head back out, and again let the engine idle, remaining in place.
I jumped clear, stiff and sore all over, pulled off my helmet, and was at once bombarded with questions and reprimands. So was Jed—who ignored them.
Kage, Jason, and Zar were all running up.
Then Isaac coming from off through an alleyway.
Kage shouted at Jed, asking what the hell he was playing at.
Zar wanted to know what was going on.
Jason asked if I was okay, like he thought Jed would have attacked me.
Isaac called my name in a worried voice as he hurried toward us.
I took a step back to the bike, feet planted, and held out both hands: stop.
They did.
“We went to meet some of the Beech Pack.” I projected, though they may not have needed it. “All Jed did was what I asked him to. It’s not the Beeches we should be worried about. I know they didn’t do this. Could it be other wolves? Or vampires? Or humans? I don’t know. But it’s not them or I would have been able to scry it.
“Jed is taking me home. I’m going to clean up and pack my bag and eat breakfast and talk to my sister. I will be ready to head for the Dover ferry at noon. Anyone who wants to go to Germany, please be there to pick me up at that time. But I’ll meet you at the end of the street. Don’t come to the door.
“If you have contacts in Bavaria who would be gracious enough to put us up for a short stay, it would be very much appreciated. I don’t really have a budget for this.” I turned back to the idling motorcycle and its silent driver, then remembered to add, “Thank you.”
I climbed on, pulled on the helmet, and we were off.
Chapter 25
It rained all the way across the English Channel, dampening not only my newly washed and dried hair, but my view from the ferry, disposition, and general sense of wellbeing. There was still a view to be had, the receding White Cliffs of Dover, then France gradually taking shape to the south, but it all came through in a gray blur.
On the crossing, I texted Melanie with thanks and assurances that I’d be back soon, then called Rowan—the young druid we’d met by chance or fate at Stonehenge several days ago.
Along with the wolves’ losses now at nine, the druidic community in the South of England had suffered two murders matching the same profile, making them our first outside clue. Unfortunately, that clue hadn’t helped much since none of us knew what it meant. Who wanted both shifters and druids dead?
Even so, Rowan and Ellasandra had helped us with the lead to looking for urban wolves—since the druids suspected a rebel group of shifters.
I left Rowan a voicemail, explaining that we were putting any shifter trails on hold for now, following the more likely course of vampires, even though it was leading us far afield. In the meantime, I asked if he would text me any new information they might turn up. I wasn’t sure if I’d have a real phone signal at all in Germany with my international plan for the UK, but should still be able to get on WiFi connections.
As I talked to his inbox, I flipped open my paper notebook to see the list I’d made on the train into London. Our wide world of suspects that wasn’t real or solid or truly evidence-based. It was the whole region until proven innocent. Not a rewarding or sensible way to carry out an investigation.
The list reminded me that Kage had theorized about deviant druids, just as they had suspected deviant shifters. A voicemail didn’t seem the time to ask Rowan if they knew of any, however.
I thanked him, hung up, and doodled around my list. There wasn’t much to change. Which realization depressed me even more than the gray skies.
Still, I crossed out the Beech Pack and underlined vampires, leaving my updated list: urban wolves, vampires, possible but unknown mundane humans, rogue druids, or casters. A caster group such as Broomantle, who might have decided to kill wolves. I didn’t believe it—didn’t even want to think about it. But I couldn’t ignore the pack’s experiences with Broomantle members being hostile.
And vampires? Could they do this? I had repeatedly seen them in scries. They had a motive. Did they have the power? Enough newborns?
It didn’t matter, though. The way I saw it, undead guilt or innocence was not relevant to the mission we were on. Because I was absolutely certain Dieter knew something about what was happening—whether it was his own people or not. And getting that information from him was what mattered right now.
On the other side, driving off this great, industrial type car ferry, we disembarked on motorcycles. Five of them. Kage was riding with Jason and I shared with Isaac.
It turned out Kage had sold his bike to allow him to buy the used Jeep Wrangler not so long ago. The rest of them, particularly Jason, seemed to think this was amusing, especially since they mostly seemed to feel disdain for “four-wheels.”
We passed through Customs and Immigration but it was a simple affair compared to flying in. French customs agents hardly glanced at my passport. They didn’t seem much bothered about what I was doing there.
Then Zar, Jed, Andrew, Jason and Kage, and Isaac and myself roared out of Calais, heading southeast toward Arr
as in a fine summer rain and without pausing to enjoy the sights.
I’d been to Pairs once, traveling with my sister, but done only touristy things and never seen any other part of France. I even spoke some high school and college French—or at least I’d thought I did until that one visit when I’d realized I knew nothing. Now, though, was no time to enjoy the moment wrapped up in my love of travel. I just wanted to get back to Brighton as fast as we could. Preferably with a bag of bones, no sniffer dogs at customs, and answers for the South Coast Cooperative.
By the time we hit a town called Reims, after passing much open French countryside and farmland through what was once the Western Front of World War One, the rain had mercifully cleared. The day was hot, muggy, clouds fading the farther south we went, with the afternoon sun breaking through. The roads, rooftops, and fields we passed, and even the cattle in those fields, all steamed in fresh sunlight.
It was 8:00 p.m. when we reached the French city of Metz and stopped for petrol and dinner for me. They’d all eaten whatever it was they ate at home—three or four steaks apiece maybe—before leaving, and didn’t seem interested until Jason turned up the smell of boeuf bourguignon down a cobbled street and all bets were off. He was right. It smelled out of this world.
It seemed a crime to allow this lot to eat French food at all. But it was their dime.
Between their broken English and my broken French, I requested seven portions, all to go, from the two confused servers helping me.
We had to wait an alarmingly long time for the bags while the sun sank and real evening neared. I knew they weren’t making the stuff from scratch in that time since it was a slow-cooked dish, but something kept them.
Isaac had assured me we could reach our hosts by late tonight, even though we hadn’t landed in France until 4:00 p.m. and, according to my mapping skills, this sounded insane. But I seemed to be the only one concerned about us meeting their Bavarian kinfolks in the wee hours of morning. Anyway, it wasn’t like I wanted to spend another night on the road like my last one. I could doze against Isaac for this next stretch. Soon the sun would be down anyway—no chance to admire the distant Alps.
I should have known: authentic French cooking is always worth the wait.
After Metz, I expected it to take us another six hours to reach the farm between a village called Flintsbach and another called Bayrischzell. Nestled by the Austrian border, in the foot of the Austrian Alps, I was looking forward to seeing this place far more than to hunting old graves north of it. Six hours, it turned out, was for lesser mortals.
We’d been speeding in France. In Germany, any slight concern they may have had for cops or rules of the road melted. The five motorcycles flew so fast from Metz to Stuttgart, I didn’t have time to relax enough that I was in danger of falling asleep on the bike. No one straggled, either. They kept an evenly spaced pack, like wolves loping to cross long distances through vast territories.
They were good drivers, watchful of other traffic, but opening up more and more by night as the roads cleared. Beyond Stuttgart, midnight, and more petrol, we saw hardly any other vehicles and the way opened like a dark racecourse. When one had something to communicate, like the stop at Stuttgart, they used hand signals. No one argued or fought for spots in the bike pack. Everyone seemed to know. The great equalizer: on the road, at 90mph and up, respect each other, even if only for those few minutes.
When we finally reached Brannenburg—something like two hours ahead of my best guess at scheduling, Isaac lifted his hand and they slowed for the first time to a normal speed, watching for the turnoff of 93 to Flintsbach. I could tell nothing about the landscape in the dark until we took a right and rumbled sedately through the heart of the tiny Bavarian village, lit with streetlamps and void of life. It was the kind of village with one row of shops, two inns, a restaurant: that was it.
We took a narrow country road, smooth and maintained, past little old houses, up a hill, then between … corn fields? Was Germany a big corn producer? It had never occurred to me. One of these fields opened up and I smelled cattle, though couldn’t see any in the dark.
Then even slower, looking at street signs. I produced the map on my phone to confirm the final bit. No phone service, but I’d thought to take screenshots in advance.
After a pause at a corner and conferring with Isaac, we found our final way to a gravel road that ran smooth and easy up to the farmhouse. I couldn’t tell much else about where we were arriving than that it was a house, the yard smelled like goats, and it was very, very dark—miles from the village.
The house itself was lit—expecting us.
As we pulled up to a couple of parked cars the front door opened and a massive white dog stood on the path before it, barking at us. They kept a dog?
A female voice said something to the animal in German as we climbed from the bikes. I pulled off my helmet and shook my head, ears ringing.
She talked in a sing-song to the dog, which padded amicably toward us, waving a big, plumy tail over its back. A Great Pyrenees, I was to learn later.
“Willkommen!” she called, also coming down the steps to meet us. “Welcome to Bauernhof Landesgrenze.”
Chapter 26
Without noticeable sleep for two nights in a row, I had few clear memories of arriving at the house when I woke to sunlight streaming through east-facing windows. Only that the place was old, close set, feeling smaller on the inside than it had looked on the outside, that our host and hostess had been enormous—the male even taller and broader than Isaac—and that I was alone.
They had this empty room of their daughter’s all made up for me, while “your pack”—to use my host’s accented expression—was being boarded in a detached guesthouse. I’d fallen asleep worrying about this. First of all, I didn’t care for the favoritism and hated the idea that they were putting themselves out just to accommodate a delicate human. If I was in her room, where was the daughter? Had they been through much trouble to prepare this space for me when they already had a guesthouse they could have put me in?
Besides this, though, I worried for Isaac. With me off behind closed doors, what if that pack of mine went for him again? Isaac could take care of himself, yet five against one—Jason would join in on Kage’s side—could never be fair.
I’d had little time to worry too much, though. Asleep almost the instant I’d found myself at last horizontal. Now I woke with confusion as to my location, followed at once by anxiety for Isaac, regret that I hadn’t switched bikes to ride with others off and on yesterday, and a hope that, since they also had been exhausted, they would have all gone right to bed, forgoing any bloodshed.
I could have laid there all morning—could gladly have gone right back to sleep. But my worries drove me from bed with the crow of a rooster, which I realized was what had woken me in the first place. Maybe they’d been going on for a while, in fact, and been incorporated into my dreams.
Dreams about wolves … burning city skylines … battlefields … fangs dripping with blood in chalk white, human-like faces. And Isaac.
It had been a joy being with him yesterday, close on the bike for many hours, for all that we’d had no chance for conversation, even on the ferry, when others had been always around.
But the wolf dreams … that first part, that hadn’t been Isaac. A silver wolf and a black.
With so much going on yesterday, there had also been thinking time on those hours of highway over mostly farmland. And I’d spent too much of it thinking about “strangers.”
If I should be fretting about anything, it was what we were here to do. Yet that had hardly registered. Today, I was going to have to face that issue. We must find Max.
Not right this minute. Right now up, bathroom, wash face, pull hair back—I foresaw more helmet head in the future so wasn’t going to wash it again this morning—thank my hosts, and take stock of where I was.
All went well until the hosts part. I couldn’t find anyone in the house except an old lady—or wolf?�
�who was spinning wool in a back sunroom that was clearly an addition to the historic house.
In answer to my thanks and good morning, she said, “Bleiben Sie in Balance?”
I smiled and excused myself.
Heading out back, I gasped.
The farm was situated in a valley with mountains on three sides. Not Oregon mountains with lush, green slopes and snow-capped peaks in the distance. These were vast dragon’s teeth, springing straight up from the ground. Their sides were bathed in early morning sunlight, fiery reds and golds plunging to deep purple shadows and dark umbers of rocky sides. Some slopes were forested. In fact, a wood started a hundred yards from the farmhouse’s back door and ran up into those mountains. More, though, were so sharp and bare, I saw shapes of boulders and white lines of waterfalls.
To the south, the back door where I came out, these heights were most breathtaking. Walking around to the east, they stretched out more distantly. I could just see the tip of a white church steeple miles away in one of the villages.
Close by were multiple outbuildings and animal pens. A machine shed and chicken coop were nearest, then a massive barn and hayloft. The air was rich with the smell of barnyard and sound of those noisy roosters, two of them.
Around to the north was the only open view, leading off down the gravel road where we’d come in the night before. Here were miles of fields, some crops, some fenced grazing for livestock.
To the west was the guesthouse, three greenhouses, and open gardens and beds in long rows. Also, closer to the house, a Ford pickup truck, an old SUV and five motorcycles.
As I walked all the way around the house, I heard many animals besides the chickens—mostly bleating goats—and voices as well. English voices coming from around the guesthouse.
I didn’t rush to chat. I stood for a long time in the backyard in the sun, bees buzzing past me for the honeysuckle and many blossoms around the house, chickens clucking, those mountains enchanting me.
Moonlight Hunters: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 2) Page 16