by Maria Lima
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“WAIT, HANG ON,” Luka yelled as we began to separate. “I’ve got to … umm.” He sent a pleading glance to Lev, who nodded.
“Go on, then.”
“In front of everyone?” Luka whispered as he blushed.
“Unless you can think of another way,” Lev remarked. “It’s okay, Luka, just go on over to that tree.”
The boy nodded, then trotted over to a live oak and with his back to us, unzipped his pants.
“Small bladder or too much coffee?” I asked.
“Neither,” Lev said. “Urge to mark territory. He’s young. Can’t ignore as easily as I can.”
“How does he know?”
“We marked out this place when we bought it, then renewed last week. I think I should probably do the same as we go along today.”
As I waited, I watched the boy, not out of any sense of pervy old lady ogling a beautiful fifteen-year-old, but just curiosity. Luka was extremely well built. Today, he wore a muscle shirt and olive green khakis. The cutaway sleeves of the shirt set off his well-developed shoulders. “You sure he’s only fifteen?” I said to Lev, who nodded affirmation. I shook my head. None of the boys in school with me when I was that age looked like that. Of course, none of them had been werewolves, either. An unexpected breeze brought Luka’s scent to me, clean, musky, a little sweat and oh, my. My knees nearly buckled as a wave of teenage pheromones washed over me. Tucker and Rhys, who stood next to each other by the Rover, both let out a small whimper. Ianto put a hand on my shoulder to steady me.
“Hormones,” he whispered. “That little boy is a mess of hormones, and they’re leaking all over the place.”
“Holy gods,” I whispered back, “Gregor was the same. Is this constant?”
Lev nodded. “Typical of their age,” he said quietly.
Something occurred to me. “Lev, do these hormones affect humans?”
He gave me a puzzled glance. “Yeah, probably, why?”
“Don’t you get it?” I said. “If those two are leaking these pheromones all over the high school, no wonder those church boys hate them. Anger, territorial fights. They’re defending their turf—their girls, their school—from the new guys. I’m sure those boys aren’t even aware of what they’re doing. This is instinctive behavior.”
“You may have a point,” Lev said thoughtfully.
Tucker came over. “She does,” he said. “I sensed every bit of those. If I weren’t my age and this were my turf, I’d be targeting the kid myself. Pack behavior extends to human packs, too.”
“I think your mainstreaming experiment is causing more harm than good, Lev,” I said. “Let’s chat with Mark about this when we get back, yeah?”
Lev nodded. “I’ll go get my water and talk to Luka about marking while we search. Be right back.”
“Shit,” I said to my brothers. “That kid’s packing a punch.”
“That’s not the only thing he’s packing,” Tucker grinned. “He’s going to make some girl very happy.”
“Or boy,” Rhys said, smiling.
“Oh yeah? Gaydar?”
“More like bi-dar. He was checking you out, Tucker. Me, too, for that matter. Less like older guy I could emulate and more like mmm, tasty.”
“Egad,” I said. “Age gap, much? He’s in high school.”
“And full of all those adolescent hormonal surges,” Tucker said. “I have no interest in boys of his age.”
“Nor do I.” Rhys placed a palm over his heart. “He’s adorable and gorgeous, just like Gregor, but damn, both of them are pups. Maybe in fifteen years or so.”
“By that time, they’ll be mated.” Lev rejoined us, an amused expression on his face.
“Oh, gods and goddesses,” I said. “Sorry. You heard?”
“I did, but don’t worry. Luka didn’t hear anything. He’s still embarrassed about having to piss in the company of a lady.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Why should I be? Y’all are right. He’s all full of piss, vinegar, testosterone, and wanting to fuck. It’s natural.” He eyed my brothers. “Not that I’d let him actually approach any of you. There are several girls and boys closer to his age in the pack who I’m sure will be willing.”
“Why isn’t he there with them, then? Safer that way. I don’t mean sexually but actually. Gregor’s already been physically harmed by the boys from that school. Is being a part of this community so important to you-all?”
Lev scowled. “It was, to Mark,” he said. “Not as much to me or Dixxi, but he’s our brother and our Fenrir. Now, I don’t know. I think we’ve got some thinking to do.”
* * *
WE WALKED slowly, Lev and I silent as I reached out mentally, searching for anything that would give me a clue. Smells of mesquite, dirt, and heat floated in the mostly still air, the occasional breeze a tease. Only eight a.m., and already nearly eighty-four degrees. I sent out a quick weather probe, nothing formal or focused, just getting a sense of what we were in store for over the next day or so. The sense of heat and stifling weather washed over me, an endless trail with no moisture, no break in the pattern in sight. I sighed and kept walking. When I got back to the Wild Moon tonight, I needed to do a real weather reading. I’d learned enough to feel out patterns at least three or four days out, but I needed to be able to concentrate. Not that I could do anything about it, but it was good to know so we could continue to take precautions with our people and work with the wildlife to ease their discomfort.
“Lev, may I ask you something?” I stepped around a clump of prickly pear as I walked.
“Anything,” he said.
“You talked about Luka and Greg mating soon. I’m curious, how do you-all work this out? Mark’s Fenrir, and I’d assume he’d be paired up, but he’s mentioned nothing of a mate.”
Lev chuckled. “He is mated,” he said. “She’s traveling right now, visiting her birth pack in Halifax. Sylvia’s littermate, Alan, is marrying again. Mark’s not there because of the deli.”
“Marrying again?”
“You know wolves mate for life, right?”
I nodded. “That works for wer, as well?”
“Yeah. Alan’s first wife died in childbirth. Some genetic disorder that she’d inherited. Luckily, her daughter survived. She was raised by pack members. She’s seven now. Alan didn’t want to remarry for a long time. He was so heartbroken.”
My heart sank. “Is that common, then—genetic disorders that can cause death?” I knew what Dixxi had told me at the football game, but here was a chance to hear from someone else.
“Commoner than we’d like,” Lev said as he strode beside me. We were still about fifty yards from where Gregor had been shot. “Dixxi says this particular problematic gene is recessive, but an aggressive recessive.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “Something to do with our hybrid nature. The more human chromosomes, the likelier this disease. She thinks it’s some sort of mutation. Alan’s first wife was half human. We’re not likely to mate among the human community much, but her mother got pregnant by a boyfriend when she was in her early twenties. She was too scared to tell her parents and by the time they found out …” He shrugged. “Alan’s sister and Alan were twins and both fine at birth. Nobody knew anything until Alan married and his wife got pregnant.”
“Can you test for it?”
“No,” he said. “Evidently, there are markers, but wer packs don’t have their own genetics labs. Dixxi’s one of the first wer in her field. There’s a couple of guys at Guelph, but both are undergrads still. All the packs are trying to raise money for research facilities and to put more of our kids into medical studies. It’s tough, though. Homeschooling doesn’t really allow for them to learn the harder sciences—no labs or the more specialized teachers. That’s another reason why we’re trying so hard to mainstream some of the kids.”
I kept the rest of the questions to myself. Bea’s situation had just become worse.
&nb
sp; “I think you still need to post this land,” I said, changing the subject.
“I know, but with starting the deli and all, we haven’t had much time.”
“Couldn’t someone else do it? Another pack member?”
“Physically, yes, but they all work during the day, too. It’s tough, Keira. We do try to come out here on weekends, but we’ve only owned the land a little while.”
“Okay, then, we’ll help. Tomorrow, I’ll have someone come over here and do the official surveying and post the property, if that’s okay with you. Tucker or one of my other brothers can oversee it.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
We neared a large clearing, close to the marked area. “Lev, could you walk over to the other side of the clearing. There, to the right. Keep within eyesight range, please. I’d like to sense out this place. You’re a bit of a distraction, but I don’t want to lose sight of you.”
He nodded and walked away. “This okay?” He cupped his hands around his mouth and called back to me. It wasn’t all that far, maybe eighty yards or so, but he didn’t know about my enhanced hearing.
I waved at him and nodded my head as I crouched down and touched the soil. Focusing on the land itself, I let my senses swirl open, reach out, taking in everything. Dust, dirt, heat, dry leaves and parched bark, acrid smell of urine. Wolf? Yes, old below, fresher above. Two different wolves by the feel. Some scat far left, a bobcat? Old, though, days old. A sharper smell of metal somewhere near. I focused on that, trying to make it out. Was it a bullet? I sank to my knees. No, only a nail, rusted and bent. I reeled in my senses and stood up. Lev rejoined me.
“Anything?”
“Just wolf urine,” I said. “Nothing to show there were humans or anything other than wolves here.” A tentative expression on Lev’s face made me ask, “What? You keep staring at me as if you want to ask something.”
“I kind of do.”
“But …” I encouraged him. This guy may be beta wolf, in charge of security, muscular and square, but his demeanor now seemed more puppyish. As I’d done with Gregor, I revised my age estimate downward. Less forties, probably early thirties. A little young for Bea, but what the hell. Who was I kidding when my own lover/partner was centuries my senior, and vice versa with Tucker and Niko.
“Can you tell the future?” Lev rushed the words out, like a flash flood, breaking through a deadfall.
“As in divination?”
“Yeah. Like on TV, but for real.”
I laughed. “Not in the slightest. Part of my heritage is that I have all the abilities, every single Talent that is inherent in the Kelly genes, but divination isn’t really one of them. We have some seers, those who are probably more sighted than most, but it’s not reliable. Never is. There are always too many variables.”
“But, Talentwise, you can do anything?”
“I’ve got all the possible Talents, yes, but like any ability, one must practice.” I said the last in a faux poncy teacher voice. “That little gem of information got explained to me recently.” I grinned. “I can shift shapes with very little effort—seems to be dominant in my branch. Some of the more esoteric things? Not quite yet. It’s like any mundane talent—for music or sports or math or whatever—you get better with practice and experience.” I scuffed a boot into the cracked earth. “I’m sure they’ll all come in handy at some point, like learning more than just basic cooling and heating charms, learning to forecast weather with some decent accuracy, but needs must, I suppose.”
“Have you tried seeing into the future?” Lev seemed insistent.
“Not really. I’ve not, if you’ll forgive the pun, seen much of a use for it.” Barring the visions I’d had in pre-Change, the ones that were real. Visions of the past, visions of the future, visions of present happenings; only those were the rumblings of the dice of Talent, typical of a Changeling, not of an adult, one who’d already Changed. “The one or two relatives I know who were practicing seers always seemed kind of out there—you know, lost in the vastness of branching futures. I think I prefer the good solid now.” I watched his expression grow, if not sullen, disappointed.
“Lev, why do you ask? You can be blunt with me, you know. If I don’t want to answer something, I’ll just tell you.”
“I kind of wanted to know if the thing with me and Bea would work out,” he said, staring at the dirt as if fascinated by the random cracks and small crevices caused by the lack of rain.
I twitched, remembering my conversation earlier this morning with Bea. Damn it, last thing I needed was to become some sort of Dear Abby figure between my best friend and her baby’s dad. “You care about her that much?” I ventured.
“Yeah. She’s amazing.”
“She is that,” I said, “and more.” I walked over to a tall, flattish rock and plopped down, trying to ignore the radiant heat on its surface. Good thing the rock was mostly in shade. How to address this? Lev was obviously head over paws in like with Bea, bordering on love. On the other hand, Bea wasn’t, yet she was pregnant with Lev’s baby—egad, this was a paranormal soap opera waiting to be written.
“Lev, Bea has been my best friend and the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister nearly my whole life. She’s a wonderful person who’s had crap come down in every serious relationship. She’ll probably kill me for telling you this, but you deserve some honesty.” I took a deep breath. “For a very long time, she only did serial dating. You know, one date for dinner, a second for sex, and then a third for a ‘hey, see ya around.’ She wanted to have fun, to never let herself get caught up in a real partnership, owing to her past. Just a few months ago, someone from out of that past kidnapped her and was planning to rape, then kill her.”
Lev’s big hand clamped down on my arm, his eyes wild. “Where is he now, I’m gonna—”
I covered his hand in mine as our eyes met. “Dead. Very, very dead.” Without saying another word, I let him see, dropping my guard long enough to leak out the last minutes with Pete Garza.
“Oh.” He blinked and stared out at the clearing. “She’s pack—family, but human.”
“Yes.” I patted his hand and then stood up, stretching. “I’m good with this, you know.” I waved a hand at him. “You and her. You seem to be a good man, Levon Ashkarian, and good for Bea.” I mentally crossed fingers and all sorts of other digits. Maybe something good could come out of this relationship, pregnancy or no, and despite Bea’s attraction to Jacob. I blamed the hormones. Of course, I could just be trying to fool myself into wishing a steady relationship for my best friend.
“Do your people believe in a soul bond?”
“What, seriously?” I chuckled, then realized he wasn’t joking. “Oh, you really are serious.”
His dark eyes stared into mine. “Do you believe in someone being your soul mate, like you and Adam?”
“Wow, that’s, umm …” I took a few paces forward, then back toward the boulder. Lev now stood, still watching me with that plaintive expression. “It’s not something we believe in, no,” I answered. “For us, our lives are too long to even contemplate that kind of thing.”
“But I see it in you and Adam, in Tucker and Niko. You are connected far more than a normal relationship.”
“You see it? How?”
“It’s in your scent. I may only have human traits when I’m in this shape,” he said, “but I’ve still got a decent sense of smell. Y’all are pretty intense.”
“We are.” I had to agree. “Intense” would be the exact word I’d use to describe our two pairings. “Maybe it’s the blood bond,” I guessed. “Don’t know really.” Something he hadn’t said caught my attention. “So you wolves, what’s your life span?” My half-spoken question darkened something in his eyes.
“We live about the same length of time as normal humans, maybe a little bit longer. A good life is probably eighties or nineties. Changing is harsh on us. By the time we’re in our late sixties, we tend to spend more time as wolf than not.”
As I
walked forward, my boot caught on something and I tripped, falling forward. As I threw out my hands to catch myself, my palm landed on a loose stone, my wrist twisting, and I fell flat on my face, dust billowing into my mouth.
Blood, I tasted blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SHE LOVES IT OUT HERE. Fresh air, clean land. A new beginning, a fresh start: all those tired but perfectly true clichés that meant she’d get to start over. Ahead of her, her new husband, Stephen, disappears into some underbrush. Gods, he’s fucking gorgeous, she thinks as she trots along behind him. She just can’t believe her luck. How she’d snagged—no, deserved—Stephen. Tall, dark-haired, smoky blue eyes with a permanent twinkle and so freakin’ nice on top of everything. She’s beyond lucky, bordering on the verge of “pinch me before I wake up.”
How the hell else could she explain it? Here she is, in the middle of a glorious Hill Country outdoors, enjoying the sights, smells, and sounds of nature, just as she was always meant to do. No more steel-and-glass canyons, reeking of old garbage, the stink of unwashed men and women wanting a handout, the acrid burning odor/taste of too many cars, buses, and other vehicles crammed onto an island less than twenty-three miles square. Her father hadn’t known what to do with her when he—when they—found out about her condition. As with most situations in her life that didn’t fall into his strict plans for his only precious daughter, he ignored it. That is, until it was too late.
After the first incident (that’s what he’d called it: an incident … not murder, not manslaughter, words he used daily in his position as a defense attorney), he’d spoken to her in that “you’re my little girl and I will take care of it” voice that she hated so much. Damn it, she was an adult. Daddy’d offered her the only thing he could think of: a trip around the world. Sixty-three thousand dollars’ worth of Daddy’s guilt/cover-up. Sure, it was a trip most twenty-two-year-olds would sell their bodies for, but she knew, however tempting it was, there was no way she could take him up on it. What if it happened again, this time in Rome or Paris, or … no, she shook her head remembering that fruitless conversation. After the second “incident,” just a month later, Daddy began to realize that, despite his money and powerful influence, there was absolutely nothing he could do.