“Right now, if you’re a wanderer in Dallas, I’d say move as far away as possible.”
“Why haven’t you left?”
“Because I caused this mess, Myers. I am the only person responsible for what happened, what is happening, and what will happen. I have to be here.”
“And don’t you want help with that?”
I sat up. “I want you to get all trained up and then you can make that decision.”
His jaw clenched and his knuckles went white as he wrung them together. “Fine.”
“Don’t you fine me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t trust me yet, but you trust the men that kidnapped your best friend.”
My anger flared. “Yes. I do trust them because they have proven themselves worthy of that trust.”
Myers jumped off the couch.
“Myers. Listen to me.” I followed his stance, and stood. I caught his shoulder and turned him around. His wide green eyes were angry and his jaw still clenched.
“Didn’t you see how hard it was for me to tether those four to me? And it wasn’t exactly by choice. I want you to have a choice. I want you to be free and be able to do what you want.”
“You don’t think you’ll have that anymore? Freedom.”
“Not anymore. Doesn’t mean I regret anything, but it’s not for everyone.” It wasn’t for Chaz, I thought. Being tethered to one person and one place.
Myers softened. “What if I want that?”
“Then you’ll get to chose when I’m ready to offer it.”
“Yes, Prima Violet.”
THE OTHERS CAME home from their various errands and we again cooked dinner as one big happy family. We ate and the boys played a bit of football with an old ball that Tyler found in the yard.
“One of Chaz’s old things, probably,” Iris said from her rocking chair next to me.
I felt the familiar pressure on my chest. “Have you talked to him?”
“He called at some point. Said he was fine. Why are you asking me all this?” Iris glared at me.
“He won’t answer my calls.” I couldn’t bear to tell her what I’d seen in the mirror. Could barely think about saying it out loud.
“Oh.”
There was something in that Oh. “Iris?”
“I thought it was just me. He usually lets me know when he’s out of town.”
“Do you think something’s going on? Should I be worried?”
“I don’t know. Off the White Hat Broadband, you know. Permanently, now I suppose.”
We looked out across the field. The pull of the moon was less, but it still illuminated the boys playing.
“Chaz doesn’t have a long history of significant others.”
“I’ve been told he’s more of a witch in every port type.”
“Well,” Iris chuckled. “I wouldn’t go that far, but three months is the longest I’ve ever seen.”
I rubbed my arms, suddenly feeling a little chilly. “He told me about his mother. Back when I thought we were going somewhere.”
“You’re still going somewhere.” Iris didn’t sound sure at all.
“Down the drain maybe.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Glad that you can be so sure.” I sighed.
Myers waved at us girls on the porch and Tyler tackled him rather roughly.
I winced until Myers got back up again.
“Maybe I should focus on them right now. Being the best Prima that I can be.”
Iris tsked her tongue. “Not unless you want to end up like me.”
“I don’t know,” I said leaning back in my rocking chair. “I think I could manage.”
AS IRIS AND I prepped another tray of hot chocolate for the boys, I desperately tried to talk about anything that wasn’t my increasing mountain of boy problems.
“What do you know of our origins?”
“The Wanderers? Thought we were beyond that.”
“No, the animals. Why which animals? I don’t exactly scream panther and the Briggs boys are so much stronger than Labradors. Is it really based on just who bit you?”
Iris chuckled. “And three petite girls from Texas are supposed to be lions?”
My face melted into a small smile. I’d been trying to get Iris to talk about her sisters for almost six months. The little pieces I got were always so sad. This wasn’t any better.
“There was someone. Irene had a boy that she was just head over heels with. He was the son of one of the Barons.”
“You guys called them Barons too?”
“My father thought he was a funny man. There was a phrase running around town. Oil Barons. He started calling them that, and I guess it stuck.”
“Like Haverty still called it a Pride when technically it’s a pard.”
Iris’s said what with the wrinkle between her brows.
“A group of panthers is a pard.” I really was a nerd first and a panther second.
“Right, right. Well. We knew that he had wanderer blood and one night I guess things got a little frisky and she bit him.”
“Wow, go Irene.” I couldn’t help but remember the scratches down Chaz’s back. But that was a whole different set of messiness.
“He was petrified that he was going to be a lion. Tore Irene apart.”
“Did you tell Chaz this story growing up?”
Iris pressed her lips together, and I knew that I’d better shut up or I was never going to hear the end of this story.
“We waited for the full moon like it was the end of the world. And when he didn’t shift, we were so relieved. But he still left her. He couldn’t stand the threat.” Her blue eyes started to water as she looked out across the fields.
I reached across the small space between us and squeezed her hand. Four months ago, she could have slapped my hand away. Guess she really was getting used to me.
“The conditions were right but the shift didn’t stick for him. Its strange who it takes in and who it doesn’t, like the animal has to match the soul.”
“And a chunky writer from nowhere is supposed to be a panther?”
“Guess so,” Iris said as she watched the boys play. “Sure got the instincts for it.”
“Jumbled up that whole Prima thing.”
“Like I said, it’s different for each person. Wasn’t a cake walk for me.”
I turned toward her and curled my legs up under me. All I needed was a hot cup of coffee and I was ready for a story.
“It was hard, being the youngest and the most powerful. My ties to my pack were different, it was about me protecting them, not bonding with them. After what happened with Reade, I couldn’t open myself up like that anymore.”
I just went ahead and begged for it. “I need something, Iris. Anything. Any scrap of advice that you could give me would be appreciated.”
“Always bring comfortable shoes and clean socks. I was always finding myself ankle deep in stuff.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
“And as hard as you think it is now, you’ve got to keep honest to those around you. Especially to Chaz.”
I snorted. Like he was being honest with me? “Why?”
“You’ve got to have someone who knows you and knows when you’re not being yourself. You’ve got to have someone to go home to.”
A chill ran down my spine as I looked out across the field. The boys were still at their ball game, and I wasn’t quite sure if they were even still playing football or if it had morphed into some sort of odd keep away.
“You’ve got to have a reason to get home.”
Chapter Eighteen
ONE WEEK. After the full moon, there was one week of nothing but rain. No phone calls from Chaz. No random dead bodies. No whiff of the Warthogs anywhere. There wasn’t a stitch out of line.
Probably because like me, even the bad guys didn’t want to get wet. I was trapped in the house. My Miata’s convertible top tended to leak in rainy weather, and I didn’t want to tempt fate by goi
ng out. At all.
The boys and I worked on ‘plucking the heartstrings,’ if you will. I worked on finding who was who and calling them to me. Each had their own feel, their own sound. And by the end of the week, I could pull on one and the right boy would call me back.
“Violet? Everything okay?”
“Peachy, Just practicing.”
I had to promise Tucker that I’d stop by the end of the week.
Nash started his job. Tyler started looking for one. Tucker grumbled all the way the storeroom to sort through videotapes.
Myers and I took a hiatus from working together. I had this inkling that his feelings were still hurt from me not letting him join the big boy’s club, but I asked him to work on drawing his cat out in human form, worked on Listening, capital L, even if it wasn’t with me.
The moment that it stopped raining, I went out to lunch with Devin. He had a halfday at the clinic and was just itching to ask me questions about what had happened over the full moon and what else was real and how it happened. In his barrage of questions, he even included one that I hadn’t been expecting.
“What do you want to do for your birthday?”
“Huh?”
Devin smiled and leaned back in his seat. “You’re birthday. That day of the year that is all about you and you can cry if you want to?”
I hadn’t occurred to me that it was even March yet, let alone almost fifteen days in. Didn’t I have something due at the beginning of the month?
“Maybe just a dinner with the gang?”
“The gang or the pack.”
“Ha, ha.” I snapped as I sipped my desert coffee.
What did I want do to for my birthday this year? There were significantly more people to consider this year than there was last year. Last year, it had been just me and Jessa, and I was still nursing the wound of a cheating boyfriend.
Maybe nothing had changed since last year.
“Dinner maybe, somewhere not too expensive. Drinks?”
“Done.” Devin smiled. “And for presents?”
“Dinner and drinks will be fine.”
“And this is the big twenty-eight, right?”
“Yep.”
“Do you need to go shopping?
“Yep.”
Devin’s smile got wider. “Dress is on me, birthday girl.”
I CALLED JESSA TO see if she wanted to join us in the mall extravaganza. It usually took me a few more nudges toward the mall, but frankly, I needed some girl time. A weekend with a bunch of men, and I was craving nail polish and lip stick recommendations.
“I’m stuck at the office.”
“Define stuck at the office?”
I heard her cup her hand over the phone and mumbled something.
“Are you playing nice with Construction Boy?”
I heard a door close. “He hasn’t asked me out again, and he’s doing his work, so I can stare at his ass in peace.”
I laughed as Devin and I walked into the mall. “I’ll send you pictures of the dresses for feedback.”
“You doing okay, Violet?”
I sighed. “Avoiding dealing with shopping.”
“Check, fearless leader. Call me later.”
Five stores and a million wardrobe changes later, Devin found the dress. He spun me around in the mirror. It was all very déjà vu.
“Damn, I look good,” I nodded approvingly.
It was a simple strapless green satin that was again, not a bit appropriate for the weather outside. But it was on sale, so I didn’t feel bad that Devin was picking up the tab.
“Chaz is going to love you in this,” Devin said as he slid his credit card in the machine.
“Chaz and I aren’t talking right now.”
Devin simply laughed. “In this dress? He’ll talk to you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not so sure I want him too.”
Devin froze and looked down at me, the dress halfway across the counter. “No, Violet. I’ve seen you two together. Heard what you two have been through together.”
“Did I happen to mention that we can’t have sex?”
His eyebrows jumped, as did the poor attendant who was listening in on all this.
“Can’t . . . Because . . . oh.”
“Yeah.”
Devin slowly pulled the dress to him. “I’m sorry, Violet.”
“So, on top of everything else, I need a good party.”
Devin hooked his arm through mine. He was quiet on the walk back through the mall and didn’t speak again until we reached the valet podium to say good-bye.
It had started raining again. Good thing that new dress was in plastic.
I’D DONE THIS before, exorcised an apartment from any manly thing I could find. The last time was easier. I’d moved and threw away everything that reminded me of Kyle. Cut my moving expenses in half.
This was harder. As in real life, Chaz had worked his way in slowly and with small things. His toothbrush. His drawer of T-shirts. His sports magazines in the bathroom. Why is it always the bathroom? What is it about BMX that needs to be read in the bathroom?
I walked from room to room with a box. I tossed in shirts, a comb, a bottle of shampoo that didn’t smell like anything and was mostly there for show. I knew for a fact that he had started using my salon shampoos a month ago. The nose knows. I tossed his loofah from my shower, after unabashedly rewinding the shower scene in my head. I was going to miss that loofah.
As I walked around the second floor, tossing in shirts and a few stray socks that needed to be replaced, I could hear a small voice in the back of my head begin to whisper. It’s better to be alone. You can be stronger alone.
The thoughts sizzled down my neck and burned through my shoulders. You can’t be weighed down by others. It will throw you off balance.
I dropped the box to the floor and ran my fingers through my hair. No. What had Iris just said. She needed to open up to people.
But those people can hurt you even more.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I could smell Spencer’s sharp stinking scent around me. I thought this was over. I thought I had closed the doors or whatever needed to be closed.
I leaned against the wall and took in a deep breath. With it, came the musky scent of Chaz and a waft of roses from Jessa.
You need a reason to get home. The truth of it hummed through me and all notions of Spencer and his scent were gone. You need people, because without them, there is no home and you are lost.
Like Spencer was lost in that god forsaken place he’d built for himself.
I left the box in the middle of the hallway and decided I needed more coffee to get through this day. I needed to keep on my toes if thoughts like these were going to be running around.
I passed the window in my hallway and wondered who was on Violet watch tonight and if they wanted to catch a movie. Alone might not be the best option right now.
There was a black lab basking in a puddle of sunlight in the front yard. I let a little of my power out and smiled. With a little pluck, I watched as Tyler jumped up from his comfortable place on the front yard. He stretched and then trotted up to the door.
The door bell rang.
I skipped down the stairs. My neighbors were going to think that I was seriously taking in stray dogs. First Shadow and now Tyler.
I opened the door but put my hand out. “Just take it easy. My wards didn’t like Tucker last time he tried to get in.”
Slowly, the large black lab stuck his nose over the threshold and when he didn’t get thrown back, he walked into the living room.
As I locked the door, I felt him shift, the ruffle of fur across my stomach.
“What’s going on?” Tyler asked.
I turned to find him buck naked in my living room. “Oh my god, Tyler,” I screeched as I hid my eyes. “Why don’t you have any clothes on?”
Tyler laughed. “I was on Violet Duty. Nothing happens on Violet Duty.”
“That’s not an excuse. Upstairs. There’s a
box in the hallway. Put some clothes on.”
I closed my eyes until I heard him bounce up the stairs. I tried not to let my brain think anything about his parts bouncing up the stairs. But it made me smile. Of course, Tyler would be naked. It was just so very him.
Tyler came back down stairs in Chaz’s UT shirt and a pair of jeans. He was bigger than Chaz and the T-shirt was tight across his chest and the jeans didn’t drape around his ankles like they did over Chaz’s boots. But what were we going to do about shoes?
“Better. And please don’t do that again.” I went to the coat closet and pulled out a pair of boots that Chaz had left here.
“Is that an actual order?” Tyler asked.
I turned toward him and arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t remember nudist being in your profile.”
“When you’re blessed,” Tyler said as he spread his hands out wide.
And I found myself smiling again with his easy manor.
“Why’d you call?” he finally asked.
“Just wanted someone to go to coffee with.” I started packing my bag. Now mace and flashlights and a small first-aid kit came with me everywhere.
“Tucker not answer the phone?”
I put my hands on him and watched him for a second. “No. I want to go to coffee with you.”
“Oh,” his eyebrow’s jumped. “Okay.”
“What is it? Don’t make me pull it out of you.”
“Can you do that?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m all bark.”
Tyler laughed but the warm flurry of fur around me was brief. “It’s just that I don’t have anything you need. Nash is all books and Tucker’s all frowny, but I’m just . . . well, me.”
I pulled my purse onto my shoulder. “You are something, Tyler Briggs. And I’d like to take the time to figure it out.”
CRISTINA CALLED ME in the middle of Tyler’s string of hilarious stories. I’d nearly shot coffee out my nose on a few occasions with his active descriptions of some of his not so shining moments.
“Hold on,” I smiled as I answered the phone. “Hey there.”
“Miss Jordan? It’s Cristina.”
“Yes, I know Cristina.” My eyes locked on Tyler’s face that turned to stone when he realized who I was talking to. “What can I do for you?”
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