by Lauren Dane
She puttered around the kitchen—one of the rooms they’d remodel come spring—getting the soup heated as Aimee let out some more of her guilt and anxiety.
But now the situation in town—heightened tensions between the shifters—came into focus once more.
A different sort of anxiety.
Katie Faith’s father had suffered a heart attack that’d nearly taken his life just four months before. Her family had needed her for support and to run the soda fountain and it had brought Aimee’s best friend home, had given Katie Faith real true love and had come at a time to be a match to dry grass.
The wolves’ constant back-and-forth had dragged the witches into the fray. Which had involved Katie Faith and, in turn, had only made her father’s health more precarious, and her normally really easygoing mother actually got into a public brawl just the month before.
The town was a magical place. Literally. But the more drama and anger that was dredged up, the harder the land had to work to connect with the magic of all the witches. Everyone was at odds and it was exhausting.
“Dude, this is bananas. Like every last bit of today has been absolutely ridiculous and all this town stuff is bonkers. I stopped by to see your dad yesterday on my way home. He’s looking better, but his energy is a little frantic.”
All her life, Aimee’s magic had been the nurturing type. She wanted to make things better for people and animals. And plants too.
She was a green witch. Happy to bring life wherever she went. It meant she was able to use those gifts in dealing with clients because she was empathic. Avery, Katie Faith’s dad, was anxious for his family. Resentful that he’d been weakened and guilty because he felt he didn’t do his job.
Aimee helped relieve some of his stress, talked him into a better place where he could more easily see he was doing so much more than he’d thought to protect his family.
“My mom told me you hung out with him for an hour having tea and listening to his country music. Thanks for that.” Katie Faith had her own frantic energy, as she’d been at the center of a lot of the mess in town. Though here, in this big solid house, it was calmer. More steady.
“Your dad is great and he made hummingbird cake, so naturally I had to stay for tea.” He’d started to loosen up, let go of the negative energy he’d been clinging to. “I encouraged your mom to get him away from town more often. I talked to Wade and he told me he’s going to be traveling for work and he needs a house sitter to hang with the animals, deal with the gardens, all that stuff. I suggested he call your mom so that’ll happen soon too.”
Wade was Aimee’s brother. He’d left Diablo Lake to settle in Asheville after college. He did employee training seminars on tech support so he traveled several times a year. His place was near enough, but far enough away that Katie Faith’s parents could go and not feel guilty but be out of the drama.
“What a big old Softie Softerson you are.” Katie Faith put a bowl of mushroom soup in front of her.
“Am not. I’m heartless and cruel. Oh, and I’m a strumpet.”
Katie Faith snickered. “A strumpet? I was thinking more a floozie with loose morals.”
Aimee nodded as she thought that over while she ate her soup. “I’ll have to consider that.”
“I couldn’t talk them out of the Consort meeting though,” Katie Faith said of the group of witches in Diablo Lake and their regular meeting. “I tried but my mom said she wasn’t going anywhere until she got her say. So.”
Jace wandered in, grabbed beers and left once more, pretending he hadn’t been checking on them.
“He’s so cute to pretend we don’t know he’s listening to all this,” Katie Faith told her with an eye roll.
A while back her friend had told her of how nosy and bossy and in-your-business wolves were, and the more Aimee hung around them, the better she understood what she’d meant.
But at the heart of it with Jace was his wanting to protect Katie Faith’s well-being. And as Aimee cared about that too, she gave him some leeway.
If only the same could be said of all the wolves in town. The constant tussling over power had always been part of life. But lately it had been much more personal and hateful as some old grievances had resurfaced.
The witches had been pulled into the whole mess and they’d all had it. All that negative energy would degrade the heart of power all those who lived in Diablo Lake were protected by.
That heart of power the witches had taken an oath to protect, back in the very beginning of their peculiar little town in the middle-of-nowhere Tennessee, also happened to feed their magical power. The earth fed their magic so they were being impacted on multiple levels.
The Consort, run by the elder witches in town, had called a meeting to discuss the situation the following week.
“At least it’s not before eight in the morning.” Aimee didn’t much mind getting up early. But on a Saturday when she’d had the week she had?
Katie Faith curled her lip at the very idea of getting up that early, though she’d do it if she had to. As her friend was a nightmare of a human being before she had coffee, Aimee was relieved on that front as well.
“Why don’t you stay over? You can sleep in the spare room. We can watch something scary, even.” Katie Faith’s hopeful expression made her feel so much better.
“Thank you. But I’m feeling better now. I mean, I wasn’t bummed we weren’t together and now it makes me even more glad. I just feel dirty, and not the good way. I’ll walk home.”
“No, you won’t. There are a jillion wolves here, and one of them hasn’t been doing tequila shots so they can drive you home. But you don’t have to go just yet, right? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“You got married a week ago. I’ve seen you three days this week so far. I think we’re okay.” Aimee rolled her eyes, glad to have a friend like Katie Faith.
“Being married has been pretty cool.”
“So you two still bang and stuff? Now that the thrill is gone?” Aimee teased.
“It’s a chore, but we make it work. I mean, someone has to do Jace, it may as well be me.”
“Glad you make the sacrifice.”
Chapter Two
Macrae Pembry, better known as Mac, shut his computer down, readying to leave after a long day trying to get the Pembry Wolves back on track as a business.
His dad had called him away from London to come home. Come back to Diablo Lake because the family needed him.
Because of course he’d come when called.
The town was on the verge of blowing up and, as it had been for years, his brother’s stupid bullshit was at the center of it all. He hadn’t expected the hot mess of complicated inter-pack politics he’d discovered upon his return. His mother seemed on the verge of a breakdown, her behavior more and more erratic, and his father and brother were on the outs with the witches.
As much as he wanted to wade in, set stuff on fire and kick the butts of everyone involved, control was what he needed. A wolf in control could run a pack. A wolf without it just made things worse.
He’d need to reach down and use every bit of his training to do this without ripping things apart further.
“Thank God you’re finally done. I was thinking I’d have to stay here, pretending to work for another hour at least.”
Mac looked toward his cousin Huston, who’d become his assistant when he’d come back home.
“God forbid you actually work hard.” He stood, stretching his back, satisfied by the cracking of his spine as he did. It’d been too long since he’d been on a run. If he didn’t get out at least every few days, he began to get antsy.
Things in Diablo Lake were tense enough without his energy adding to it. But for that night he planned dinner, beer and television and bed before ten.
That w
as as sexy as it got for him in the two months he’d been home after spending years in the army and then in college, preparing to come back strong enough to lead his pack.
Though he hadn’t imagined the pack would be in such a damned mess when it was time. Or that he might have to push his father out, even when they both knew he was better to run things than his dumbass brother Darrell.
“I’m up for a pizza and some beer, your treat,” Huston said.
As Mac lived in his cousin’s house now, which saved him from having to bunk at his parents’ or with one of his siblings, he figured he could swing that.
He nodded. “Lots of beer.”
They headed out of the small building the pack owned just north of city hall. It perched right on the edge of Dooley and Pembry territory. A poke in the eye, his grandfather had said when he bought it.
The last thing Diablo Lake needed just then was anything that provoked pokes in the eye. Then again, it had probably been the last thing needed at the time as well.
Sometimes werewolves could be total assholes.
Case in point, it was taking everything in him and a few others in the pack to keep his mother and brother from starting a damned war over some fucked-up bullshit from the past and his daddy’s overinflated ego.
Not for the first time, he thought about what his life could have been if he’d stayed away. But there was no staying away from Diablo Lake for him. He had a role to play, one his uncle reminded him of when he’d called to get Mac home once more.
* * *
The Red Roof Inn sat on Diablo Lake Avenue, the main street that bisected what was their tiny downtown business district. A grocery store that still closed on Sundays and after nine every night was at the far end of town. Two bars including Pete’s, a windowless haunt full of the type of guys Mac had spent his time avoiding while he’d been in the military and the kind of place that still had pickled eggs in a jar on the back counter. Salt & Pepper, a diner, and the Counter, a soda fountain and sandwich place, also made up that business core.
The RRI had only opened up two years before. A local brewpub that also made pizza, burgers and wings, it was run by two witches who’d gotten themselves trained and educated and had returned home to put that knowledge to good use for everyone in town.
The younger generation of adults in town flocked here and left all their beefs at the door or risked being barred. This was their place.
He pushed the door open and a rush of magic hit him, welcomed him. Reminded him why he’d always planned to come back to Diablo Lake.
Inside there were witches, of course, and shifters from all walks of life and parts of town. Dooleys and Pembrys made up the wolves while Cuthberts and Ruizes were there among other cat shifters, though they mostly kept to themselves, as cats tended to do.
Lots of pretty women laughed as they sat at the bar or at the booths and tables throughout and he was even more glad he’d come that night. Perhaps some of that tension knotting his shoulders could be lessened if he found solace and naked cardio with some female company.
Across the room, a table full of cousins and friends waved them over with a hail of their names. This was another thing he’d found himself missing when he’d been away. The camaraderie he experienced, the belonging, was like nothing else.
“We just ordered a few pizzas. Pitchers will be here shortly too,” Everett, Huston’s older brother, told them once they got settled.
Growing up, Mac had spent more time with his aunt and uncle than he had with his mother and father. Darrell was the favorite and no matter what anyone else did, it never mattered.
Because his uncle had challenged Mac’s father and lost, that he’d given a place in his household to Mac had simply been part of how pack and family structure worked. His aunt and uncle understood what it meant to give comfort and a place of stability and safety to the next generation of pack leadership.
Hard to believe Huston and Everett’s dad had been raised in the same house as Dwayne. They might have been brothers, but the two couldn’t have been more different.
His uncle had the heart and soul of a leader, and always would. He’d instilled a great deal of important values in Mac. But he wasn’t as physically strong, or as viciously needy to be in charge as his brother, Mac’s dad. And it was their way to respect and extol the virtues of physical strength.
And yet, sometimes it netted stupid assholes in charge, or in line to be in charge, like his brother Darrell.
Irritated, he needed to move a little, burn off some energy.
With so many of them at the table, they’d be out of beer before it even settled on the table long enough to leave a ring around the glasses. “I’m going to order an extra pitcher or two,” he told Huston as he stood. “I’ll be right back.”
He ambled over to the bar, looking around the room, still in the process of coming home. People had changed in many ways, but underneath the beards and whatnot, they were the same in all the ones that counted.
As he waited for the bartender to make her way down to him, he stepped back and nearly clotheslined someone when he reached out to drop some cash in the tip jar.
“Oh crap! You okay?” He grabbed the woman, keeping her upright, and all that delightful, sexy magic she carried washed through him. His scalp tingled, his own magic reared up to touch hers. And his dick was so hard it hurt.
“Whoa!” Her eyes wide for a moment, still startled, Aimee Benton stood so very close to him he had an urge to rub himself against her.
Damn it all, the woman was fucking gorgeous. She smelled really good and she’d grown into her beauty in all the best ways.
“Sorry about that,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets instead of reaching out to touch her hair. It’d been nearly to her butt just a few days before when he’d checked her ass out at the grocery store. As he did every time he saw her. “You all right?”
“I nearly got laid out by a once-star tight end. Not too many people can say they avoided it.” Her mouth quirked up.
She’d remembered. Huh. Stupid to be flattered, but he was anyway.
“Lucky for you the army helped me hone my speed with some control,” he teased.
She paused a moment, her tongue sliding over her bottom lip and he came so close to actually whimpering, he had to fight a blush.
Jesus. Like a fourteen-year-old first-transformed wolf.
“Looks like it worked out for you, as you didn’t knock me on my ass,” she said at last.
The bartender came to take their orders and he needed to get back to the table and his friends and family, but damn if he didn’t want just a little bit more of her.
“I like the hair.” He tipped his chin.
A flush of pleasure worked up her neck and he fought the desire to brush his lips against the skin at the nape where he knew she’d be downy soft and fragrant with power.
“Yeah? Thanks. It’s a big change. But sometimes that’s what you need, right?”
He nodded, trying not to stare at her mouth. Or her tits as they pressed against the soft cotton of the long-sleeved shirt she had on.
Or the freckles dancing across the bridge of her nose.
Her blush had brought her scent to his senses like a caress and he sucked in deep, wanting all of it and more.
She gulped and the predator in him stepped closer before the man could even think about it. She wasn’t alarmed though. The kick in her pulse and the catch of her breath were from pleasure, not fear.
“I should, uh...” she said, her gaze locked with his as they continued to stand there as the world seemed to fade into the background. He shifted, shielding her with his body so the crowd couldn’t jostle her and she smiled her thanks.
Somewhere in the background he heard her name being called and she broke her attention away to glance back over her should
er.
“I have to go. Have a good night,” she said, grabbing the bottles after handing over her money. She dashed away through the crowd at the bar so he made his way back to the table with two extra pitchers.
Once he got a slice of pizza and filled his glass, he leaned back, scanning the room until he found her sitting with her friends. At one point she tipped her head back as she laughed at something Katie Faith said, the two thick-as-thieves, sitting at the same table with several witches and more than a few Dooley wolves.
He chafed at that.
He wanted... Well, he wasn’t quite past the stage where he’d been consumed with thoughts of having sex—a lot of sex—with her.
Even as he stared at her, he saw the division in the room. The only witches with Pembry wolves were those who were already married in and their close relations.
His father had allowed this alienation to take root and it had to be dug out. It was outrageously dangerous to do anything else. Let this bubbling tension erupt into full-blown aggression between packs and they risked the loss of the magic that kept the whole area—and those living there—safe. Many would move away but there were very few places like Diablo Lake, and none more special than his hometown.
“Stop staring at her like that. She’s going to think you’re scary and you’re going to creep her out,” Huston said, breaking into Mac’s thoughts.
Defensive, he flipped his cousin off. “I wasn’t being creepy. I was just thinking about the state of things in town. The alienation is beginning to feel normal. We can’t allow that to continue.”
“And you thought all that while you were staring at Aimee like you were starving and she was your steak dinner,” Huston added.
Mac snorted a laugh. “Looking at a beautiful witch helps my concentration on my Machiavellian plans.”
“She’s single.”
And the best friend of the witch who’d just married his archrival. Or whatever his mother liked to fuss about at any given time when it came to her never-ending hate-on for Jace Dooley and his long-dead father.
“I’ve been back two months, let’s just take this one step at a time. Let me deal with all this shifter business and then maybe I can consider dating.”