I told them about my ideas that this wasn’t a focused group but a collective effort. About the block and interference with my scrying—how that had to be either casters or some other sort of magical or telepathic reach.
Then, though the scary part should already have been over, I told about the successful scries I’d managed, about my dreams, and finally read them the texts from Rowan that he’d sent late last night about shaman shifters.
I wrapped the whole thing up with a long sigh.
“I’m sorry that’s all I have. If there is any way to connect with these people, I want to find it. Diana is trying to reach out. I’m thinking of even asking Gavin. He talked to me in a scry. Could he talk to a shaman in one of their journeys? I don’t know. Right now, though, this is all I’m getting as to the next really important step. And the twins mentioned them. And Rowan says talk to them. Everything about this is pointing that way. I know it’s right. I just don’t know how to do it. That’s the part we need a solution for.”
Kage gave me a very pointed, patronizing stare as I talked.
Isaac frowned slightly, looking confused. Jed still sat rigid, as he had since the Beeches had come up. I don’t think he’d heard a word I said. Jason also looked confused. Andrew drummed his fingers more on the back of Zar’s chair.
Zar, after a moment’s thought, gave me a helpless little shrug, opening his hands as if to receive a ball I was tossing to him.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Obviously we’ll have to go.”
Kage smirked at me.
I pinched the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. “No, Zar, that’s the whole point. We can’t go there to look for shamans on the ground.”
“Don’t you think you could find them once we were there?” he asked. “Or we could in fur with a day or two. General idea… I’m sure we could get that part sorted.”
“No.” I sat up straighter, speaking forcefully. “Listen to me.” Looking from Zar to Kage and back. “You have no idea of the implications of what you’re saying. Days—weeks—of time, thousands and thousands of dollars—or pounds—needles in haystacks, the practical logistics of the thing—”
“Do you have another plan?” Isaac asked quietly.
I looked at him.
That was why he’d been confused. Even Isaac, like Kage, like Zar, thought the answer was simple.
“Isaac,” I started, almost pleading, needing someone in the room to inject a note of sanity.
“You just said everything is pointing to them, Cassia. I know we’ve had stumbling blocks. It certainly feels like we’re taking the long way around on this. But you led us to druids who led us to London; which led us to finding out about the kindred and vampires. You even led us to meeting Gabriel. If a coyote shaman is our next step, we have to take it. It’s not about the money or the feasibility. Or even the time of the thing, though certainly that does have us all scared. We can figure that part out. It’s about following these paths until they lead us to where we need to be. Which is about our lives. To us … this is non-optional.”
Chapter 48
“We can’t all go. How could you possibly get that kind of money together? I don’t have it. I assume you don’t. You can’t take it out of the pack savings now that we’re more or less free agents.” I felt like someone had put a huge brass bell over my head and smacked it with a club.
We’d already been talking money for a couple minutes while my brain buzzed.
This was not even…
“We all have spending money of our own,” Zar said. “Every penny doesn’t go straight to the pack.”
“Even so, I would need to go. And then … two of you? Three at the very most? That could still be six thousand pounds with last-minute tickets in the middle of summer and high season. For horrible coach tickets, all split up from each other in center seats for ten hours.”
Zar blinked, leaning back sharply in his chair like I’d slapped him.
No idea. Goddess, they have no idea. The real, mundane world. Maybe Andrew and Isaac, but… Not even possible…
“So which three?” Andrew asked. Always the important questions. He waved around to himself, Zar, and Jason at the chair. “Do you want the brains of the outfit?” Waved to the loveseat with Kage and Jed, Isaac off a bit at the window. “Or the brawn?”
“Andrew, please.” I sighed. “Let’s not start—”
“I mean,” he went on, “not like the three of us can’t open a jar for you, darling. Or obliterate an eight-legged terror with a single thumb. But … really. We all know who’s playing for which team around here.”
“Why doesn’t the brain of the operation figure out a way for us to pay for three or four plane tickets to the States? As well as food and accommodation for … I don’t even know how long. Plus a ticket back. But, oh yes, we don’t know when that would be. So both would have to be last-minute, one-way flights.”
“Sometimes you can get deals last-minute.”
“How do you even know that? Who here has ever been on a plane?”
To my surprise Isaac and Kage raised their hands.
“Okay, I’m impressed. Where’d you go?”
“Flew with Mum to see family in Helsinki,” Kage said. “Just a pup then.”
“I’ve flown a few times,” Isaac said. “Iceland and Europe. And … she’s right.” Looking around. “You don’t know what it’s like. It might be just as well to only take two or three.”
“We can’t do that.” Zar still sounded shocked by the idea. “We’re a pack.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” I said sadly. “But we’re a pack that thrives with space between us anyway. Maybe you’d all enjoy a break from each other?”
“Still family,” Kage mumbled, glaring at the table, as was Jed. “That’s an excuse not to get along. Doesn’t mean we don’t stick together when we’re in trouble.” He met my eyes.
“We wouldn’t be in trouble there,” I said. “We really do have reason now to think we could be in danger here. Someone knows what we’re up to. And there was something in Yorkshire that shouldn’t have been there. Not in the States. All we’d have to worry about there would be grizzly bears.”
Jed looked up for the first time since the Beeches’ name was dropped.
“But we’re still a pack,” Zar repeated. “It’s not only about protecting you. Diana wanted you to have protection since we didn’t know what we were dealing with and she couldn’t send you off alone. But it’s about being in this together. Running together, hunting together. If we don’t have a pack…” He shrugged, holding up his hands again. “Where would we be? We wouldn’t have found wolves here, or vampires. We wouldn’t have reached Germany. If we had, we couldn’t have made it out of the castle alive. We wouldn’t have made it out of Yorkshire alive either. If you’d just been a witch and one or two wolves all along … nothing. We just couldn’t have done it.”
“We go as a pack,” Kage said with a very silver air of finality. “Or you’re right. We’d have to try to come up with some other way to get in touch, or give up on shamans all together.”
“Fine.” I looked listlessly to the white lid of my almost drained latte. “You come up with, oh, ten thousand pounds, plus spending money for being over there—car rental, hotels, little things like that—and just let me know when you want to go.”
“I’ll talk to Diana,” Kage said. “We have that much in savings. She can’t just turn it over to us. But a little of that, us all pitching in whatever we can, plus get the price down?” He looked up to Andrew. “Can you really find offers?”
“I’ll do my best, mate. What airport are we looking for? What day are we leaving? How long do we have to try to get this cash together?”
“Whenever the cheapest and soonest tickets are…” I shook my head. “This is insane.”
“But, Cassia, you do think we need to go?” Jason spoke up tentatively. His dark eyes were anxious. “You said so, right? Everything pointing this way.”
“I … yes, I do. I just don’t see how we can do it. I’m not even working right now. You can’t take that from your pack. Even if Diana would offer. What if they have to take off? What if they do go into hiding? This is a moment of truth for them. Everything they have, they could need it. And what are you all going to do? When you say you have some money, are you talking your whole combined life savings and bank accounts? Yes, this is important. But it’s still me: the witch who led you to Dieter and Blood Tomes. Your faith in me is a little … excessive.”
“That could never be true, Cass,” Zar said quietly.
They were all looking at me. Even Jed.
“Isaac’s right,” Zar continued. “But the long way doesn’t mean the wrong way. If we didn’t have you right now, what would we have? Our tails between our legs while we dug dens to hide? Or pitchforks in our hands while we charged around pounding down the door of every shifter in the neighborhood who used to be our friend? But we have you.”
“And you need to know you have us,” Isaac said softly.
“A pack hunts together,” Kage said.
“How?” I whispered so my voice wouldn’t break. “How, exactly, are we going to stay together this time?”
“I’ll get your tickets.”
Silence.
I shut my eyes as everyone looked past me. Because the voice had come from behind me.
“Gabriel,” I started, still in a whisper, eyes squeezed closed. “No, this is not—”
“It’s okay, Cassia. This is not your fight either.” Gabriel’s voice was quiet and level, yet sad. “I’ll pay for the tickets and any major expense, like hotels. They’re right. If you’ve been working together, stay together. Do what you need to do there, find who you need to talk to, and keep on solving this case. Finish what you started. If I can help in my own way, I will.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“I know.”
Chapter 49
I returned to Heathrow days sooner than expected, with far more companions than expected—with a completely different set of feelings than I’d expected.
This is why we live in this Moon. This is how wolf magic works. By letting go of small betrayals to focus on big loves. By trust and commitment to pack, silver, mate, and Moon. By not worrying for a future we cannot see or name, but living now, in thanks for every breath of our own and those we love.
“You’re going to be all right. Just one very long day, then we’ll be together. And we’ll be fine.” I spoke to each of them in the airport, embraced them, feeling tight muscles, looked into their eyes, seeing dilated pupils.
We had to split up after all. By much poking around, Gabriel, Andrew, and I had found coach tickets on two different flights, two different airlines, but same day, similar timing, no one trapped between two mundanes in a center seat.
After security, once gates were announced, we had to divide into two groups. We stood in one of the great Heathrow holding areas where passengers were forced to mill before being allowed to know and head for their gates. Like the busiest, most enormous shopping mall you can imagine. Times ten.
I held onto Kage, hands at his back and in his hair. “Consider this a part of your core training. Listen to Isaac. You can watch TV the whole time, you know.”
I kissed Jason’s cheek, held onto him while he thanked me, then pressed his and Kage’s hands together between my own. “Take care of each other.”
They nodded.
I hugged Isaac, unsure what to say. Then he was the one to tell me, “We’ll be fine, arä. Ours is the easy flight. You’re the one changing. We’ll be there waiting for you.”
Then Andrew, who smelled like cucumbers for some reason, making me think of Kage’s having given me a new toothpaste—sans mint.
“This is practice, right?” I whispered in Andrew’s ear. “For your flights to Australia?”
“Been waiting all my life.” He kissed my nose, stepping back, looking into my eyes. Then said in a normal voice, “‘The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.’” And did the vow to me.
Isaac, Kage, and Jason joined him. While Zar and Jed were behind me, perhaps doing the same.
“Moon bless,” I murmured. “See you soon.”
Then the four of them turned and I did as well, around to the brothers, who walked with me to our gate.
Zar’s palm was wet with sweat. I felt his pulse in his thumb as he clasped my hand.
Once we reached the gate with its rows of vinyl seats, throngs of travelers ready to board, and glass walls looking out to tarmac, Zar sat against me, jumpy: watching every motion and starting at a world of noise. Jed would not sit at all, but paced around the glass, up and down the wall, looking out, stopping and gazing at the Icelandair planes taxiing in and out, watching more distant planes take off.
Watching him in turn, I forgot to worry about the other four looking after each other and having a peaceful flight. I even forgot to worry about getting the three of us smoothly through this ordeal. Jed wasn’t like the rest. He wasn’t obeying the magic of being in this Moon. Not right now.
I read it in his face as he followed another plane on takeoff, fixated until it was lost to sight, then glanced around to check on us. He met my eyes. Jed, for one, was excited more than afraid, looking forward more than aware of right now. Jed couldn’t wait to go. Which made me also realize it was the first time I’d ever seen him excited to do anything. Besides maybe play with a wool ball.
That feeling, that wonder of a child as he looked to the skies and around to me with a light in his eyes I’d never seen there, brought me out of the tension and into expectation as well. This wasn’t supposed to be about us personally. Yet, all at once, I was so glad we were doing this I wasn’t worried anymore.
I remembered the dreams of my first night in the hotel—the songs wild as the wind, the pack free as the sky—and thought of where we were going.
I offered Jed a smile, which he returned. Then I stood, pulling Zar by the hand, and we walked to the glass to join Jed, where I took his hand also. He didn’t pull away, but squeezed mine, all of us looking to another plane taking off.
Maybe we would find the answers we needed. Maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe we would save the pack and others. Maybe we wouldn’t.
Even so, looking to the future suddenly seemed a wonderful, magical, beautiful place. An open door for a tomorrow I couldn’t wait to step through. A song I couldn’t wait to hear.
Dear Moonlight Pack
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Moonlight Betrayal: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 5) Page 28