“You can’t stay out here,” Isaac started.
I waved him away and addressed myself to Jed. “Come on inside. We’ll talk to Joseph about safe places for you to be and you can change this evening. Spend all night in those mountains or digging dens or whatever you want to do. Away from the farm. Okay?” I didn’t call attention to the chickens. Instead, I reached to his muzzle, brushing away dirt as I spoke, then stood up.
“Come on,” I repeated and Jed walked with me back to the patio.
Andrew had gone in. I heard his and Jason’s voices through open windows.
Kage had turned off the shower and leaned his arms into the top of the wall to watch us. Zar, still waiting, also watched with his arms crossed, glaring at his furry brother and not offering me any of his usual flatteries.
Hoping the grass had cleaned Jed’s paws, I pushed open the back door, ignoring our spectators, and let us into a little kitchen and sitting area.
On the kitchen counter rested a couple of toiletry bags—one a plastic grocery bag—a shaving kit, and a loose straight razor. They used straight razors? For real? Why did they bother about electricity? Why not burn oil lamps and eat off daggers?
The house was quite small. A futon bed down here and probably two bedrooms upstairs. There was a staircase that we were underneath, coming in this way, as it faced the front door.
“Can you go up and get your things? Wherever your bag is? And change, please?” I asked the wolf, who was looking morosely across the room. “Just for now, Jed. I’m sure you’ll all have fun here. I wish I could change with you to run around tonight.”
He looked up at me.
“I do. The freedom? It’s not like I’m all that mobile on foot. This place is beautiful. But just for right now, to be good guests here, it would help if you could change.”
He padded on around the staircase, heaving a sigh. I heard Jason and Andrew move overhead. I hoped Andrew wouldn’t start more trouble, but this was as much as I could do. I wasn’t the nanny.
Not that being here didn’t make me think of The Sound of Music…
Would we have a chance to see a bit of Austria?
Zar had the shower now, shampooing his long hair. Kage was drying off in the sun with a towel that confused me. How hadn’t Andrew snatched that also? Where had it been? But I didn’t ask. Face hot, I hurried past them.
“Our wolf whisperer now?” Kage called after me. “Anytime he bites someone or hamstrings a goat? You’ll give him a pat and tell him he can do better? You spend a night with him and now think he’s nothing but a big puppy? And we’re all just gits? Is that it?”
Blood beating in my ears, I walked back to my coffee. Isaac was still in the yard.
I imagined a dozen things to snap back at Kage, but all would have involved answering him. I knew Kage adored attention. It didn’t matter if I was kissing him or cursing him. Any answer from me would be satisfying to him. Only a lack of one would hurt.
Anyway, he was right about one thing. I did think they were all “gits” about Jed. Jed had his own problems. Particularly when he could talk. But two devils didn’t make a saint. This eye for an eye policy that even Isaac seemed to follow wasn’t one I could get behind.
“Cassia?”
“Don’t you start,” I snapped at Isaac as I walked back around my bench for the plate and mug to take inside.
“Thank you,” he finished.
I looked up.
“It wasn’t my intention to put you on the spot about doing something for Jed. We had an agreement last night that he violated just by being out here. That shouldn’t have become your—”
But he was cut off by a great crashing and shouting from inside the guesthouse.
Chapter 28
“Moon, Sun, and stars—bloody Moon,” Andrew was swearing on the wood floor as we ran up to the back door. He’d fallen down the stairs, apparently crashing through the confined foyer to the front door.
Jason was running down, fully dressed.
“What happened?” Isaac hurried in while Kage and I followed.
“The bastard—” Andrew hissed his breath out through his teeth, clutching his arm. His glasses were broken, the glass in place but shattered in one lens. And there was something weird about his arm.
“Jed knocked him down the stairs,” Jason said, panting, hurrying to kneel by Andrew.
“What did Andrew do?” Isaac asked.
“Nothing! Andrew was going downstairs and Jed was coming up. I saw them. Jed rammed him in the back of the knees with his head.”
Andrew was still cursing—and still in only shorts—as Isaac bent over him to study the arm.
“Your shoulder’s dislocated.”
“Really?” Andrew spat. “I had no bloody idea.”
I let out a breath. Not that bad. Potentially. Unless it wouldn’t go back?
“Are there any clinics out here?” I asked. “Maybe Joseph or one of the sons would drive him into town?”
No one was listening.
Isaac helped Andrew to his feet while Jason darted past Kage and myself for the kitchen. He grabbed a hand towel off the counter. As I turned to watch him, I noticed Kage was smirking at Andrew.
“What is your problem?” I demanded.
Kage shifted his eyes to my face. “Come again?” He waved a hand at his bare midriff as Jason rushed back past. “You see a problem here?”
Kage held his bath towel around his waist with his right hand. Otherwise still naked and wet. He looked like he was on his way to the beach where his makeup artist would apply body oil before the photo shoot. Between his chiseled face and carved muscles, medium brown hair, variegated hazel eyes, he was so beautiful it made me that much angrier at him. He didn’t deserve his own appearance.
One thing I’d never noticed before, though: a network of pale scar lines across his collarbone and shoulder. As if from bites.
I tried to focus only on those eyes.
“You think this is funny?” I gestured toward Andrew.
“Sure,” Kage said, still smirking. “Don’t you? What? Just because he doesn’t pinch anything off you for a day or two you think Andrew’s a good wolf now?”
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about him! You all attacking each other matters! You’re supposed to be a pack, in this together!”
“Here, aren’t we? That’s something. We’re all sleeping together, following you around, going wherever you point, asking ‘How high?’ when you say ‘Jump.’ What more do you want?”
“You don’t have to be with me! Go home if you’re upset with the situation!”
“I didn’t say that.” He was still smiling. “Just saying how it is. Moon knows we’re doing our best. Not sure if you’ve noticed, though.”
“No. I haven’t noticed. Your ‘best’ looks like a lot of juvenile, petty bickering that regularly turns dangerous. If your best means laughing when your packmates attack one another and cause serious bodily harm—”
Crack.
I spun around.
Isaac and Jason held onto Andrew, who had a rolled up kitchen towel clamped in his teeth, eyes glazed, screaming against the cotton gag. Isaac felt across his shoulder while Jason kept him in place.
“Lift it,” Isaac ordered, watching impassively.
Andrew spat out the towel on the floor. Gasping and leaning into Jason, he tentatively flexed his right arm, moving it back and forth, then out at the shoulder. All seemed to be in order.
“Fine,” Andrew panted. “Thanks.”
Isaac let him go and Jason gently lifted the broken glasses off his nose.
“The frames look all right. Have a spare?” Jason asked.
“Contacts. Do you have arnica in your kit?”
They started back up the stairs. Kage stepped past me to follow.
“Your mouth’s open, princess,” Kage told me. He was still smirking as he left.
Isaac picked up the kitchen towel and studied the banister, perhaps to make sure it wasn’t broken.
<
br /> “Do you have … medical training?” I asked and closed my mouth.
“It was only a dislocation.” Isaac shrugged as he straightened up from his inspection. “It happens.”
“Oh, right. How foolish of me.” I walked out.
Zar was just turning off the shower, grabbing his towel off the door from the inside.
“Everyone all right?” he asked as I marched past, heading once again for my bench to get my dishes.
I didn’t answer. A good question, wasn’t it? One I wished someone else was answering.
I’d gathered my things and started back toward the house to return them when Isaac met me in the yard.
“Cassia? Did I offend you?” His voice was back to its calm usual between us.
“Of course not. Why would you—?”
“You’re upset.”
“No, I—yes—” I held up the empty plate against morning sun in my eyes. “I guess I am. But not because of vigilante medical care. That was just a … surprise. It’s because I can’t wrap my mind around this social group in which violence is so everyday. But your society is not mine. Your standards are different. It’s not my place to impose my belief system. Just like any other kind of travel and meeting new people. And I’m sorry but it’s difficult for me to see people get hurt and to shrug that off like it’s no big deal. To me…” I hesitated, remembering that night in Cornwall again. The first night I’d seen a shifter in fur. The limping white wolf, his eyes meeting mine. They’d only attacked him because of me.
I swallowed and finished, “To me that is a big deal.”
Isaac’s brows were drawn. He watched me in clear concern. “There’s no need to apologize for being compassionate. On the contrary, I’m certain your empathy is a gift. It may be hard to see in current company but my people are not a violent race.”
When I didn’t answer, he went on. “Many years ago, human biologists developed behavioral theories that they attributed to wolves based on studies done in unnatural, captive situations. What they observed was constant fighting, challenging, struggling over status and each member of the group living a life of stress and drama that revolved around pecking order, alphas and omegas, and daily battles for place in the pack.
“These humans came away with the idea that this was normal behavior for total wolves. Despite the fact that they were being observed in captivity, that the wolves were not family or a normal pack, and that conditions such as this would never have existed for normal wolves. Of course, most of their theories have been disproved. But my point is, if you create unnatural environments, you will get unnatural behavior.
“You’ve been to our homes. Did you see wolves fighting each other in the streets? Or supporting their pups and working in their trades? Yes, we fight and there are plenty of problems with conflicts and status among young males in particular—as there is in humans. And we do tend to solve our problems with an over emphasis on physical confrontation. But please allow that we spend a good bit of our lives in fur, in a state in which we cannot speak. It’s true our thinking is not human. But, just because we sometimes bite, it doesn’t mean we’re all savages.
“I’m sorry for the circumstances. I hope you won’t judge us too harshly because you drew the short straw when it comes to landing with the better-natured in our pack. What we have is an unnatural environment in which to study the species.” He smiled a little. “Combined with stuffing Sable reprobates together.”
I sighed. “Diana has a peculiar sense of humor.”
“Or she hoped our enemies would think twice before messing with your guardians?”
“That must be it. Not that I’ve needed bodyguards. Whoever’s doing this probably has no reason to fear anything we’ve been up to yet. We’re hardly less clueless than when we started. Unless the vampires are now somehow monitoring us…” I shook my head.
“Speaking of the trail, I’ll take a couple of the others and drive out to the cemetery today. We’ll try to find the grave and scout the area. Then we can form a plan. There’s no point running off there in the night without first knowing what it’s like.”
This caught me up short. I’d totally forgotten why we were here.
“I need to come with you,” I said after a blank pause. “I’ll scry there. Make sure we’re at the right place.”
Isaac shook his head. “How about a break? Stay here today. We’ll find the site. You can help us with a plan and your abilities. If there are security cameras, for example, can you use your magic to deactivate them?”
I shut my eyes. “Yes.”
Never, in all the training, all the years… Never a use like this. Nana was turning in her grave.
“If you don’t mind then, relax today. Enjoy the farm. Enjoy being on holiday for a minute. I’ll take Andrew and Jason. They’re good with humans and each other. They’ll help track Max down. And it will keep them away from Jed.”
I nodded, but this reminded me of something else. “Are you all right? I was concerned … last night…”
“We all went straight to bed. And tonight Joseph wants to host us all for tea—dinner that is. We’ll stay busy. Tomorrow night, may I take you to dinner? Elisabeth says there is a very good Austrian restaurant in Flintsbach.”
When had he even talked to them?
“I can’t say I’ve ever been to an Austrian restaurant. I’d love that. But I hate the idea of continuing to dig your grave—speaking of them. Anyway, will we still be here tomorrow? Depending on what you find out, we’ll go back to the cemetery in the middle of the night.”
“I’m sure our hosts would be hurt if we stayed less, so let’s assume we’ll make it that far. We can leave early on the morning after next. As to my grave…” Isaac smiled. “I would gladly trade an early demise for a single evening with you. However, it won’t be necessary. I am not afraid of my pack, yet they are of me. In many a fight this is all the advantage one needs.”
I narrowed my eyes as I looked up into his. “I’ve noticed that. Why? Just because your own status is higher?”
“Perhaps you’d enjoy delving into the matter more over dinner?”
“Did I not accept that invite yet?”
“I’m afraid not.”
I started on toward the back door for the sunroom, saw the elder in there spinning, and turned again.
“What is your sign?” I asked.
“Aries.”
“No.” I felt a jolt even as I said it. The polar opposite. According to my mom, the best match.
He lifted his eyebrows slightly. “I assure you, it is. My Sun anyway.”
“You don’t seem like an Aries. But that’s … seventh house … relationships … opposite me on the wheel.”
His eyes sparkled. “You’re a Libra? I hadn’t realized.”
“You know astrology?”
“I’m a wolf.”
I blinked. “I thought it was our hosts. Wolves in general are into astrology?”
Isaac opened his hands, palms skyward, and glanced to the heavens.
“Moon,” I murmured. Sun, stars… “Of course you are. Martha is interested in our charts.” I jerked my head toward the spinner visible in the sunroom. “If anyone wants to speak with her? She said we have too much fire.”
Isaac pursed his lips. “Do we? The only other fire sign is Kage. Perhaps fire in Moon?”
I nodded. “She must be considering greater influences than only our sun signs. She already guessed I was a Libra and I don’t know how. She’s hardly seen me.”
“Some wolves, and even fewer humans, get by much farther than one might expect on pure instinct.”
“Sounds like my grandmother.” I smiled. “Do you want breakfast? Do they have anything for you in the guesthouse?”
He shook his head. “We’ll take lunch and tea with the family. Joseph told us last night they take two light meals a day and for us to join. Perhaps we can all have lunch together before we part ways to drive up north?”
I eyed him skeptically. “You think
I believe that?”
Isaac hesitated. “That they eat twice daily?”
“That they have ‘light’ meals.”
He grinned. “I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
Chapter 29
Wild boar. For all the plethora of livestock they raised, Joseph explained to us in booming joviality, that wild boar were an unmitigated nuisance in the country and his family hunted down one or two a week when they could to supplement their diets.
Off the main house was an added brick fire pit room the size of a large American bathroom. Just the space to roast a while steer and a couple of goats at one time. The boar was cooked in this pit whole, only gutted and cleaned. The bristles were first gathered to be washed and sold for making men’s shaving brushes. The rest of the hair was burned away, leaving a black, hard skin all the way around.
The flesh was fall-apart tender after cooking overnight, much like American barbecue. Yet the flavor was so intense and gamey, I found it difficult to eat. The word “rank” came to mind, in fact, although honey vinegar sauce Elisabeth made, combining sweet, tart, and salty, did make a small serving manageable.
Besides the sauce, the boar was served with roast root vegetables and a few other stray vegetables that had been tossed in as if by mistake—a bit of broccoli and cabbage.
The sons, Raphael and Tobias, set up an extra long wood table joined to their usual one out back, as well as long benches. No one was too crowded this way, yet I remained surprised by communal eating and I noticed many raised eyebrows among my six companions as they took in the table arrangements.
Everyone filled a plate with two or three pounds of meat as Joseph pulled it apart with massive tongs rather than a carving knife, then added a scoop of vegetables like the crown on top. Back at the table, sauce or farm butter was applied as everyone sat down, all trying to avoid getting too close. There was an occasional growl from the English lot. The Bavarians seemed perfectly content to eat together.
They took their cues from Elisabeth and Martha, who sat first with their plates but did not eat, faces bowed to their food.
Moonlight Hunters: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 2) Page 18