by Reine, SM
But Abel gripped his brother’s wrist and hauled him onto the snowy ground.
“Grab the feet,” Seth said, oblivious to Abel’s temptations.
They had wrapped the body in several layers of bed sheets and secured it with twine. Abel grabbed the narrower end while Seth took fistfuls of cloth at the shoulders, and together, they heaved the body into the hole.
The grave was beyond the trees, where it couldn’t be seen from the main house. Hopefully, it was also a place that future landowners wouldn’t be surprised to find bones. Gwyneth had mentioned that there might be other graves in the area from the family that used to own the land anyway.
“So that’s it,” Abel said as the snow drifted on the body in the hole.
Seth sighed. “Yeah.”
They didn’t speak again while they shoveled soil back into the hole.
After another hour of hard work, Abel pushed fresh snow on top of the grave’s bulge to conceal it.
“One more good snow, and nobody will know anything’s here,” Abel said, but Seth wasn’t watching him.
“We’ve got company,” he said, dropping his shovel.
A pair of black SUVs were creeping up the driveway toward the house, one after the other. There were American flags affixed to the hood.
The Union must have been looking for their dead hunter.
Rylie emerged from the back door as Abel and Seth crested the hill, wearing a loose white dress and Bekah’s damaged jacket. “Did you guys take care of it?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yeah. And just in time.” Abel nodded toward the SUVs.
Her face paled when she spotted them. “Oh, no.”
“You have to hide, Rylie,” Seth said. “They can’t see you. If they realize that you’re pregnant…”
He didn’t have to say anything else. She nodded. “I’ll get in the cellar. Go meet them.”
“On it,” Abel said.
He jogged around the house. The SUVs had parked in front of Gwyn’s truck as if to block an attempted escape, and a crowd was forming underneath the tree. The Union’s arrival had woken up the entire pack, including Bekah and Levi, who stood in the very front like a welcoming committee. Gwyn and Scott were nowhere in sight.
A door opened on the first SUV, and a couple of men in black suits emerged first, followed by a face that Abel recognized: Secretary Gary Zettel of the Office of Preternatural Affairs. He was even uglier in person than when he was making television appearances, and much shorter. The collar of his shirt barely concealed an ugly white scar ringing his throat.
“What do you want?” Levi asked, stepping forward.
“I want to speak to the owner of the house,” Zettel said.
“No, you don’t.”
“All right. I want to talk to your Alpha.”
Abel steeled himself to speak up, but he didn’t get the chance. Levi thumped a fist on his own chest. “You’re looking at him.” His tone grated on Abel’s nerves, but if the kid wanted to claim responsibility for the pack in front of people most likely trying to kill them, Abel was not going to argue.
“So you admit that this is a werewolf enclave,” Zettel said. “Then we can get right down to business. I’m with the Office of Preternatural—”
“I know who you are,” Levi interrupted.
The black-suited men shifted, hands at the ready, like they were on the verge of tackling Levi. But Zettel was unruffled. “So you’re probably also aware that we’re about to pass comprehensive legislation regulating things like you.”
Abel bit back a remark as he paced at the back of the pack. Seth had joined him, and he didn’t look any happier.
“I know you’re trying,” Levi said.
“You should realize that we’ve been preparing for this for years. All we need is a few signatures to make it legitimate.” Zettel reached into his jacket, and the entire pack tensed. Crystal, near the front, dropped into a half-crouch. Brody growled audibly. The Secretary froze. “I’m not drawing a weapon.”
Levi nodded, and Zettel extracted a folded piece of paper. Abel had to step around the crowd to see it. A pamphlet? The white UKA logo on the front was unmistakable.
“This is a private contractor that the Office of Preternatural Affairs has hired to handle operations on the ground. The Union of Kopides and Aspides—also known as ‘the Union’—is recruiting soldiers of all species. They offer a salary, benefits, and amnesty for all members.”
Abel snorted. Amnesty.
“The Union is a security company, in a way. As an employee, you would be trained to fight and put into the field …and Union employees will be exempt from the registry taking effect later this year.” Zettel handed the pamphlet to Levi. “There are more details there.”
Abel couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. “So you came here to recruit the pack.”
“I’m here to help you while there’s still time,” Zettel said.
“Bullshit.”
“Abel,” Levi snapped. “Watch yourself.”
He cracked his knuckles. He’d watch himself all right. “Then you didn’t come here looking for anyone in particular,” Abel said, addressing Zettel. “Say…a missing Union hunter.” Seth blanched.
“I don’t know,” Zettel said calmly. “Do you know of any missing Union hunters?”
They stared each other down. Something about Zettel, almost a full foot shorter than him, made Abel think that a fistfight between them would be fairer than it should have been. Zettel looked like a hard man. A guy who would fight dirty.
“No,” Abel said after too long of a pause.
It was an obvious lie, but Zettel only returned his attention to Levi. “What’s your decision, Alpha?”
Levi tore the packet in half, threw it at Zettel’s feet, and spit on the ground.
Someone gave a quiet cheer. Was that Trevin? Nobody else dared make a sound.
Zettel ignored the pieces of paper fluttering on the ground. “Once we leave your ranch, we won’t return on friendly terms. You can enlist now or deal with the consequences later.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Levi said.
He walked back into the house, and one by one, the pack split off to follow him—some with less confidence than others. Abel didn’t move. He was rooted to the ground.
“Guess you have your answer,” Abel said.
The Secretary faced his guards. “Search the property.”
Seth and Abel stepped forward at the same time, blocking the suited men. “Do you have a warrant?” Seth asked.
“We don’t need one. H.R. 2076—”
“Hasn’t passed yet. If you don’t have a warrant, we have to ask you to leave.”
“A warrant like this?” Zettel pulled another paper out of his jacket and held it up for them to examine. There was a judge’s signature at the bottom. “Just because I don’t need a warrant doesn’t mean that we didn’t come prepared.”
Seth swore under his breath as half of the guards split away to walk around the property. Abel tried to remember if they had covered all of the bloody snow. What would the OPA do if they found the grave? Did it look like a grave? Would they realize what had happened?
If any of them so much as glanced at the cellar…
“There’s a lot of land out here,” Zettel said. “It would be easy to get lost or go missing.”
“Maybe people that don’t want to ‘go missing’ shouldn’t mess with us,” Abel said.
“I’m not just talking about outsiders. I’ve heard that nobody has seen the woman who owns this property in quite some time. Months. Have you spoken to Gwyneth Gresham lately?”
“She has an apartment in the city now,” Seth said without batting an eye.
“Do you have her permission to occupy this property?”
Abel wondered if that was meant to be a trick question. If they said no, could they be kicked off for squatting? But if they said yes, then it would confirm that Gwyneth knew about werewolves.
“My brother and
I maintain the fields for her,” Seth said. Good answer.
“What’s her phone number?” Zettel asked.
“Why? Want to ask her out on a date?” Abel smirked. “You’re not her type.”
The suited guards returned. One of them was holding a smart phone. “Did you find it?” Zettel asked.
“No, sir.”
Abel peered at the screen of the phone. It looked like some kind of GPS. They must have been trying to zero in on the location of the Bluetooth headset.
“If you’re done, then I think it’s time for you to leave,” Seth said.
For a long, tense moment, he thought that Zettel might refuse. Abel could smell guns under their jackets. But the Secretary nodded, and everybody climbed back into the black SUVs.
He didn’t breathe until they were gone.
Rylie hadn’t expected to find anyone in the cellar at that time of morning, much less the strange witch with the white hair. They hadn’t really been introduced yet. She had only glimpsed him arriving and leaving, once a day, like he was showing up for a job at the ranch.
She froze on the steps with her hand on the cellar door.
“Do you need something?” James asked, crouched on one cardinal point of the circle with a small mortar and pestle in hand.
It took her a moment to remember how to speak. “I have to hide. The Union…”
“Close the door. Quickly.” He crossed the cellar in a few steps and mounted the stairs.
Rylie shut the doors, and James pressed his gloved hand against the latch. He muttered something that sounded like a poem, and when he drew back, Rylie tried to open the latch again. It wouldn’t budge.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Just a little something to protect the door. You’re hardly the only one who wants to hide from the Union.” He returned to the circle and picked up the mortar and pestle again.
She hesitated on the stairs, uncertain if she should enter the cellar. All of the boxes had been removed. Candles were placed around the room to provide flickering light, and her sensitive nose picked up the smell of herbs, like rosemary and dragon’s blood and lotus. Polished agates were laid out in a grid on the floor.
“You can get comfortable,” James said, resting the mortar on his knee to free up a hand for writing in a book. “I’m not doing anything sensitive yet, and I’m sure you want to sit.”
Rylie flushed and settled herself on the bottom step.
“I don’t think we were ever introduced,” she said. “I’m Rylie.”
“Nice to meet you, Rylie. My name is James.”
“Um…” She bit her bottom lip and tried to think of a nice way to phrase her next question. When she couldn’t come up with anything, she just asked, “What are you?”
“I’m a witch, much like Stephanie and Scott, although their abilities in magic are a far cry from mine.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he was stating an obvious truth rather than bragging. His irises were a very pale shade of blue, and she felt very uncomfortable when that gaze was directed on her. “What are you?”
She focused on her feet. “I’m a werewolf.”
“Oh? Then you must be the Alpha.”
That was usually the point that people started acting weird around her, or too respectful, or even scared. But James returned to drawing the circle as if being an Alpha wasn’t interesting enough to suffice as a conversation starter.
He sprinkled the herbs he had been grinding on the floor. Then he painted swirly, looping lines from one side of the cellar to the other, encircling the agates and candles. It was fascinating to watch. Rylie had been stuck in the company of witches a lot lately, but she didn’t get to watch them work very often, and what James did was completely different from the California coven’s idea of magic. He didn’t have any of those creepy pentagrams in his symbols at all. In fact, she didn’t recognize anything he drew.
When he filled one entire quadrant of the room outside the circle, he set down the brush and joined her on the stairs. He smelled weird. Like sunshine and fertile soil and clean laundry hanging on the clothesline.
She edged away from him.
“I think that’s all I can do this morning,” James said, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort. “I’m out of ink, but I’ll have to wait for the Union to leave so I can prepare more.”
“Why are you hiding from them?”
“I’m on the very long list of people that the Union doesn’t like. Frankly, I think that list is much longer than their list of allies, so it’s really nothing worth getting excited about.”
His casual tone only made Rylie more suspicious. Had he killed someone?
She inched as far to the right side of the stairs as possible without falling off.
“How do you know Stephanie?” Rylie asked, just to change the subject.
“She’s my ex-girlfriend.” That wasn’t the answer that Rylie had expected. Stephanie seemed like the kind of person who would be married to her job. James noticed her surprise and chuckled. “She’s as wonderful a person as she is a doctor. I know that’s probably hard to see. She can be hostile at times.”
“Oh, no, I know that she’s great. I couldn’t do this without her.” Rylie pressed her palm against the side of her stomach. One of the babies kicked her hand.
“When are you due?”
“Um…Stephanie says early August, but she also said that twins often come prematurely, so…I don’t know. I guess it could be just about any time this summer.”
“Twins? Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Rylie said, even though she still wasn’t one hundred percent certain that it was something she wanted to be congratulated for.
The babies started kicking harder, like they knew that people were talking about them. She could feel them tumbling around her navel. Rylie imagined them attacking each other and play-fighting like werewolves on a full moon.
They bumped around hard enough that her stomach visibly twitched. James watched intently. “May I…?”
She realized that he was asking to touch her stomach. It wasn’t an unusual request, but she eyed his gloved hands and felt the strong impulse to refuse. But the awkwardness factor of refusal beat out her unease. Reluctantly, Rylie nodded.
He pressed his palm to the curve of her belly, and his touch spread warmth from her breastbone to her knees.
The bumping moved to the opposite side of her stomach.
Pain flared in her ribs. One of them must have elbowed her. “Ouch,” she said, wincing.
James’s smile had grown to warm his entire face. “Feisty creatures.”
“You have no idea.” She gazed at him mistrustfully. He had leaned close enough that she could see white stubble on his jaw, the faint imprint of scars on one cheek, and slivers of a darker blue radiating from his pupils. He wasn’t quite so scary up close. The little flaws made him look more human. “Are you really going to be able to fix Gwyn and Scott?”
“If I can’t, nobody can,” he said, moving his hand to the other side of her stomach.
“Not much of answer.”
“I can’t make any promises. I’m sorry.” He laughed when a kick landed solidly in the middle of his palm. “I don’t think they like me.”
The cellar doors rattled.
Rylie started to stand, but he lifted a hand to stop her.
“Who’s there?” James called.
The doors shook again, and a muffled voice came from the other side. “Rylie?”
She was nearly overwhelmed with relief. “It’s Seth,” she said. “It’s okay.”
James passed his hand over the magically locked door, and Seth pulled it open from the other side. “They’re gone,” Seth said, sliding around James to grab her hand.
“What did they want?”
His jaw tightened. “They want the pack.”
ELEVEN
Hometown Visitor
The next time the full moon arrived, Rylie spent the entire day dreading it. It had been too long sin
ce she last bled her energy into Abel, so her wolf was aching to go for a run…and not on two legs. It wanted her to shift, flee into the hills with her pack, and howl all of her pain into the night.
She paced outside the back door of the kitchen, gnawing on her thumbnail as the sky darkened. Moonrise came earlier in the winter, so they were already just an hour from the change. She had to be prepared to help them. But the last couple of changes had been harrowing. When she walked among the wolves like she usually did, she had almost lost control.
How was she going to keep a grip on herself when she could barely stay human with the sun in the sky?
“Relax,” Gwyn said. She was sitting on the porch swing while Rylie paced in front of her. “You’re wound tighter than the strings on a fiddle.”
“I am relaxed. I am exactly as relaxed as it’s possible to be right now.”
Gwyn sighed. It rattled in her shredded lungs. According to Scott, the fact that she could sigh at all was part of the same necromantic magic that kept the rest of her body functioning. “Maybe you should sit this one out, babe.”
“I can’t. What if the OPA comes back tonight? Who will protect the pack?”
“He can.”
She turned to see where her aunt was pointing, and saw Abel approaching at a jog. He only wore sweatpants and a sheen of sweat. If he had worn himself out, then he must have been running for quite some time.
“You look like you’re full of sunshine,” Abel said when he drew near.
Rylie flushed and tried not to stare at his chest and abs. “I’m fine,” she said, a little sharper than she probably needed to.
She expected him to tease her, but he only looked sympathetic. “The moon?”
“The moon,” she admitted.
“You can handle the pack on your own, right?” Gwyn asked in that you better say yes kind of tone.
He grinned. “Of course.”
“That’s what I thought.” She gathered the blanket around her body and stood. “Don’t let Rylie wear herself out.”