Diablo Lake: Protected

by Lauren Dane

  He followed her to their bedroom, undressing in that very shifter way—unashamed of nudity—and catching her attention for a few moments.

  “This feels like home to me. You’re a big part of that. But this house gives me a sense of peace and safety. My wolf likes it. Likes the way you smell and the way our things carry a scent unique to just you and me.”

  She gulped, snapping out of it long enough to change into flannel pants and a long sleeved shirt. He kept her house cooler than she did before, but as he was a giant, gorgeous furnace, she made do without complaint.

  He knew she used the movements, the space to get changed, to think over her reply.

  And how did one reply to her perfect male saying such amazing things to her and about her?

  There weren’t words that could do it justice. So she settled on “Thank you. So, I guess I should tell you that you’ve got my magic all over you.”

  Naked, tawny and gorgeous, he prowled from the bedroom and out to the kitchen. Naturally, as he was the aforementioned naked, tawny and gorgeous, she followed him out.

  “Like how is your magic all over me? Tell me how it works?” he asked as he grabbed the champagne from the fridge.

  “I think my magic is a lot like your wolf. Part of who you are. A life force that is of me, energy I can manipulate and shape to my will. But also I’m part of it. I need to nourish and respect my magic or it could fail me. Grow weak. It happens sometimes.” Aimee shuddered to imagine reaching out to connect with her magic and it not responding.

  She grabbed some cheese and crackers and a few trays of appetizers she’d made earlier in the day before everything had gone to shit and ferried them to the big bed they so often spent their time in.

  “So when I was upset and you touched my arm, you obviously used your magic to calm me down. How did that work?”

  He poured them both a glass and they toasted.

  “It’s more like my magic helped you clear your head long enough to think about it. So I didn’t calm you as much as I helped you focus. That’s the key to you.”

  After she said it, she realized how creepy he might find such a thing to hear.

  But instead he smiled in that soft, boyish way that made her heart go all gooey and then want to punch his momma. Like he did not hear how special he was often enough.

  She needed to always remember that. She held the key to his most vulnerable side and that was a responsibility.

  “The key, huh?”

  “You’re a natural leader. I mean, obviously because you’re Prime and soon to be Patron and those things don’t happen to lazy wolves who only feel, or weak wolves who’re afraid to own what they are. At one time even your daddy had the guts to look himself in the mirror and lead Pembry.”

  That was such a “Katie Faith” thing to do she stunned herself silent for long moments.

  He wasn’t offended though. Something like pride seemed to flow from him.

  “Usually it’s Katie Faith who blurts and speaks before she thinks. You’ve made me more like that. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to insult your dad. I mean, not at this very moment anyway.”

  Mac rolled his eyes. “You didn’t insult either one of us. You were telling me about your magic and the key to me.”

  She sent him a pretend-censorious look before going along. “You have a huge, passionate heart. The heart of a leader who does not expect anything less than total commitment from those under their command. But you’re also a trained thinker. You’re strategic. You see problems and immediately begin to break them down to figure out how to fix them. In a situation like the one you brought up, my magic helped you think because that’s what you needed to do.”

  The wonder on his face was a gift. So rarely could she really talk about her magic like this. Other witches understood, as they had their own gifts but it was old hat after a while. And when she dated a human, she didn’t discuss it at all.

  Opening up this part of herself to him mattered to her. Like it mattered that he wanted to know. Wanted to understand her.

  “That’s pretty cool. So if someone else needed to feel more, your magic might work differently on them?”

  Aimee nodded. “The better I know someone, the more intuitive my magic is. It’s why I chose this sort of work originally. It gives me the opportunity to develop years-long relationships with the people I see. My empathic ability is different with each person I encounter so that plays into it as well. Sometimes people just need a freak-out, you know?”

  He paused, thinking about it. If anyone needed a little loss of control it was Mac. She doubted he even knew that.

  “Do you think? What about my mom?”

  “I’m fairly sure your mother gives in to her need to flip her shit on the regular. However, in general she’s a very guarded individual. She holds herself close and, look, lots of people do.” Aimee shrugged.

  “Like she’s hiding something?”

  “I can’t read minds,” she reminded him.

  “I know you can’t. And I know we’re stepping over the line where we don’t talk about my family and the election. But I can’t imagine how we can continue to pretend to ignore the problem. And it appears the biggest problem is my dad and mom and I’m trying hard to figure out what the fuck to do. So any help would be appreciated.”

  “As we talked about earlier before you sullied me in your truck, Scarlett Pembry is an angry person.” Maybe if she used Scarlett instead of your mom it would soften the blow a little. “She’s fearful, which is sometimes an indicator of harboring secrets. Sometimes those secrets are things that have happened to that person. They’ve been victimized and then buried it for self-preservation or it was part of the abuse and they’re silent out of fear, humiliation, pain, confusion, that sort of thing. And sometimes it’s secrets about things someone has done or knows about that bring a great deal of anxiety.”

  “Which is she?”

  Aimee sighed and ate some more. “She’s the latter. She’s done something, or someone close to her has, and she’s terrified someone will find out.” God, she really hoped none of those brothers of Mac’s were actually Josiah’s. That would be so weird and horrible for everyone.

  “But I have to find out,” Mac said. The sadness was clear in his tone.

  Scarlett was a grumpy old bitch who’d made Aimee’s best friend’s life hell, but she was Mac’s mom.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I could be wrong. I could be reading her wrong. It’s not an exact science.”

  He gave her a look. “Aimee. Darlin’, I love you for trying to make me feel better right now. But you’re rarely wrong about people. I know that.”

  Except for that whole “dating a married man on and off for a few years” thing. That big, glaring mistake.

  She should tell Mac about Bob.

  After the election, or at the very least, after Mac dealt with his parents and the whole future of the pack, she’d tell him.

  Yep, total hypocrite because now she had a secret. And like most people with secrets, she told herself it was for the best if she just kept quiet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aimee got up before Mac to make him a big breakfast. He’d been working himself to the point of dropping into bed, totally exhausted as he tried to rein in his parents who’d still been avoiding him.

  What. Assholes.

  It pissed her off to no end because it made him responsible for the mess Scarlett and Dwayne made but they’d still complain about whatever he did while they were gone.

  How dare they order him not to do anything to the wolves who’d broken pack law? They put him in a place that no matter what he did he couldn’t win.

  He stumbled out of their bedroom about ten minutes later, drawn by the scent of freshly brewed coffee and biscuits in the oven.

 
Naturally, she stopped what she was doing to take in the sight of him.

  “Morning. Long day today so I figured you might like more food than usual to start off right,” she said as he pulled her to him for a kiss.

  The anxiety and worry seemed to cling to his skin, even as his power dominated it.

  “You nervous?” he asked.

  That night was a town hall debate where she and Dwayne would take questions from the audience and the panel. She’d done all she could to prepare by that point. Spent a lot of time reading up on the basics of the town budget. Came up with some ideas as to how to make some improvements, save some money, spend it on the crumbling infrastructure like giant potholes on Diablo Lake Avenue and the sidewalk around the park with big cracks people kept tripping over.

  “At least I’ll know where to find my mom and dad tonight. I’m going to stake out city hall and have this out once and for all. Ducking me for three days. Bullshit.”

  She shoved him toward the table. “Get us both some coffee and I’ll deal with everything else.”

  Huston came to the back door, knocking to be let in, along with Everett. Thank goodness she’d put on clothes when she got up, and made extra food. Some of Mac’s wolves had begun to show up there at the house on a regular basis for advice or reassurance, so Aimee had learned to put on pants and a bra before doing anything that let Pembrys know they were home and ready to receive visitors.

  “Huston and Everett are here,” she called out. “I’m up to my elbows in sausage gravy so you need to answer it.”

  “Your momma raised you right,” she told them when they dropped a heavenly smelling brown paper bag containing some sort of hot, doughy delight on the table.

  “Why are you here?” Mac asked them and she swatted his adorable butt.

  “Stop being grumpy,” Aimee told him.

  “We were about to have breakfast,” he told her.

  “I’ve noticed most of our meals here at home will have an extra guest or two. There’s plenty and now we have something sweet and warm for dessert.”

  “There’s no such thing as dessert after breakfast.”

  Aimee made a face and looked around him to his cousins. “Please tell me you all weren’t brought up so sad.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m a big proponent of dessert after every meal. Or even every meal being dessert.”

  “I like you.” She pointed at Huston. “You got some sense. For a Pembry.” She winked at Mac as she went back to her gravy. “G’wan now. You’re Prime and they need you.”

  “We don’t really. It just smelled good and we like to look at you.” Huston kissed her cheek as he passed on his way to get a cup of coffee.

  “See, if you make them feel at home, they’ll take you up on it and make themselves at home. I keep telling you that,” Mac said.

  “You did not.”

  His adorable little pout nearly tipped into a smile. “Well. I thought about it. I was going to during breakfast this very morning.”

  Aimee snorted. “You’re going to hell for lying, Macrae.”

  Everett laughed. “I’ll have you know these are Nan’s cinnamon-and-sugar doughnuts. She showed up about ten minutes ago to the house. Tossed us this bag and ordered us to share.”

  “She told us to make sure Aimee got at least two because the ‘nasty-tasting junk’ you gave her for her headaches seems to be working,” Huston added.

  Mac shoved past them all, opening the bag and shoving an entire doughnut in his mouth.

  “I guess all the good ones are taken, huh?” she teased Huston.

  They settled at the table and began to eat not too long after that. Aimee had a doughnut as a breakfast appetizer and was quite glad of that choice.

  “These are amazing. I knew she could bake like nobody’s business, but I had no idea she made doughnuts that God probably has at Sunday after-church mixers.”

  Mac snickered. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

  “She already loves Aimee, that’ll only raise her stature to Nan,” Everett said.

  Mac nodded. “Yeah, it would.” He turned back to her. “She only makes these for birthdays.”

  “And only if she likes you at the time your birthday comes around. Sometimes you’ll just get cake, even if your favorite is doughnuts and she made them for you before. She holds a grudge,” Huston said. “Apparently she likes your girlfriend.”

  “Right now,” Mac said.

  “Right now is all we’re assured in the world,” Aimee said as she peppered her gravy.

  “She’s steely like that too. Probably why you rate doughnuts for no special reason of any sort and definitely not to say hey, good luck debating against my son tonight.” Everett added lots of emphasis so they got that it probably was, indeed saying that very thing.

  Mac just stared at Everett, shaking his head. “You need to work on your subtlety.”

  Aimee couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Imagine what the world will be like when we get her together with TeeFaye and Nadine, huh?”

  “I’m not sure space and time could handle the three of them in one place. Maybe we shouldn’t cross the streams on that,” Mac said.

  “As long as it’s not aimed at you, it could be fun to watch.”

  She eyed Everett carefully. “I bet.”

  * * *

  They finished breakfast up and when Everett and Huston told Aimee to go on and get to work and that they’d clean up after breakfast, Mac knew they had some official business to relate and didn’t want to do it in front of an outsider.

  She didn’t need the added stress of whatever it was they were going to tell him anyway.

  “Okay, she’s in the shower. Spill.” Mac tipped his chin at Huston.

  “Sam called Nan and told her he wants to talk to you about something privately.”

  Mac’s youngest brother, Samuel, had a checkered past and had only just gotten out of jail the year before. But for the first time since Mac had left home, Sam was truly trying to change his life.

  He worked in the freight warehouse the Pembry family owned and by all accounts, showed up on time, worked hard, was respectful and had a good attitude.

  They weren’t exactly close; in fact he’d only seen his brother twice in the months that he’d been back home. But he’d been cheering his brother on in this effort to turn his life around, including buying him the clothes he worked in, which his brother had been repaying slowly but regularly.

  “Why Nan and why didn’t she just call me herself instead of sending you two over here with doughnuts?” That old woman was up to something. Multiple somethings.

  “Yeah, well if you want to know that, I’ll let you do the asking. Because I like having her make doughnuts for my birthday,” Everett said with a shrug. “Call her to set up a meet with him. This clandestine crap means he’s got some dirt he wants to make sure your dad and brother don’t know he’s telling you.”

  Mac knew she had bigger and more complicated plans for whatever she was up to, but he also knew she was smart and a well-respected elder who had his best interests, and the best interests of the pack, at heart.

  And though he had reluctance at letting his grandmother act like she was making some sort of secret spy drop, he’d do what she and Sammy asked because it was most likely important, as Everett had just pointed out.

  Once Aimee got out the door to work, he showered, got dressed and then called his grandmother, who told him to get his butt over to her house within the hour because it was already after nine in the morning, and why wasn’t he at work anyway?

  * * *

  He drove out to his grandparents’ place. It sat out at the edge of the forest, up on a rise. A den his grandfather felt could be defended and that served as the heart of the pack. Pembry wolves were encouraged to spend time the
re. They hosted many seasonal events—bonfires in the autumn, summer picnics. The land all around the house meant an abundance of hunting both two and four legged, as well as plenty of fish to be caught in the nearby stream or at the far edge of the lake.

  Growing up, Mac and the other kids in the pack had slept in the giant bunkhouse that still stood to this day. Mainly it was older wolves now who spent the night out there on a regular basis. His grandfather had died and when Dwayne had won the challenge to be Patron, he’d chosen to live in town, shifting the social heart of the pack along with him.

  Except wolves didn’t really hang out in his parents’ large yard or in the house unless it was a special pack event. Sure, Darrell and his buddies did, mainly to mooch food off their mother. Mac found himself taking runs as his wolf on his aunt and uncle’s land far more often than his parents’.

  There needed to be a reestablishment of the heart of the Pembry pack. Be it here once more, or in town. Their wolves needed that camaraderie and connection. Needed a place to come and go, just to be around one another in whichever form they chose. They’d let go of some of the important rituals to keep them close.

  And it showed.

  With that niggling the back of his mind, he paused to breathe in the crisp air, full of home and family.

  His grandfather had been dead for just over thirty years and the scent of his magic still permeated the air. It made Mac relax a little every single time he came out here.

  Rebecca Pembry opened her front door and he marveled that her hair was perfectly done. Her lipstick matched the flowers on the flirty scarf tied jauntily—and perched perfectly—on her shoulders.

  He hugged her once he climbed up to her. “Morning, Nan. What are you up to?”

  She patted her hair and then waited a few beats.

  “Oh! New hair. I like it. Suits you.” He had no idea what exactly she’d done to change it, but “new hair” would encompass a lot of things and he’d complimented her like he was supposed to and they could get down to business.

  “Thank you, honey. Come on through to the kitchen. I was just making a pot of coffee. Your brother is here already.”