Shifter's Magic (The Wolvers Book 8)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "How long has this been happening?" Donna asked. "And why haven't you told the Alpha?"

  Shelly's eyes shifted down and away. "It hasn't been that long. They never come in on clinic days and usually not when Marty's here. We've been selling more lately. Folks stocking up for the holidays, I guess. Marty went into town to pick up more stock. We thought it would be all right since they were in here day before yesterday and I was going to close early for the run." She looked as if she might cry and Livvy couldn't blame her. The woman sniffed and went on.

  "It never used to happen at all. Not when Boss was around. It happened a few times after he left, but more of them were packing up and leaving, too. Marty thought we could wait it out." She brought out a mop to take care of the spilled beer.

  "You should have told the Alpha," Donna insisted.

  "I know that now. Back when it started, we'd just bought the place with the Mate's help and Marty didn't want them to think they'd made a mistake, that we couldn't handle it. We didn't want to cause trouble for the pack and it was only a bit of stealing, not trashing the place like this. There are a dozen or so of them left up there. We don't think they're leaving, and they're getting bolder. We decided to tell the Alpha after the holidays."

  "You tell him right now. You tell him or I will."

  "No. Please, Donna, please don't tell. Let it go until after the full moon. They won't be back. They never come when the moon is full, and Jenny is so excited about this skating party. She doesn't know about any of this and you know how word spreads through the pack. The cubs will be asking her questions. Don't spoil it for her. I promise. We'll go to him as soon as the Winter Moon is done."

  "The morning after it's done," Donna warned.

  When the place was put to rights, the three women loaded up the car with hot dogs and snacks and a case of powdered hot chocolate. They added napkins, and plates, and plastic tablecloths, and cups for the chocolate.

  When Donna pulled out the money to pay, Shelly told her to put it away.

  "We said we'd donate."

  Donna slapped the money back on the counter. "You've donated enough for the peace of the pack. You can donate next year when things are better."

  They were back in the car and heading up the hill to Gilead. Neither of the women spoke. Dark thoughts clouded Donna's face. Her jaw was tightly clenched and she looked ready to spit nails. Livvy, conversely, let her thoughts slide to the brighter side.

  Mama was right when she said there was more out there, but not better. Better was right here in Gilead. It was a good place to live, better than any other in the world because of wolvers like Marty and Shelly. They'd tried to keep the peace, not just for themselves, but for their pack as well. They were wrong, but their mistake wasn't made through selfishness or greed and Gilead was filled with dozens just like them.

  People like Opal and RJ, who took their full moon turn of babysitting everyone else's pups when they probably, and desperately, needed a night on their own. Look at the night they hung the Christmas lights. Gilead partied. Everyone brought something, no matter how small, to share with the pack. Where else could wolvers like the vegetarian Miz Ezzy and her boys, and the trashy Tilsons find a home where they were wanted and cared for. Old man Tilson's greeting said so, didn't it?

  "Don't need no handouts and don't need no help," he said about half the time.

  Why would he say that unless folks came to his door with contributions of food and offers of help and pretty regularly, too? And didn't he take in his grandchildren when their father and mother took off for parts unknown? Not a good man, but not a bad one either.

  "What are you smiling at? Nothing to smile about, near as I can see. I'm runnin' an hour late, and I just found out two of the nicest wolvers you ever wanted to meet are both dumber than a pile of rocks and mated to fools. What do you think that poor Jenny's going to grow up to be with a mama and daddy like that?"

  "Probably just like them, and wouldn't that be a wonderful thing," Livvy answered.

  "Hmph. You're beginning to sound just like Ellie. I used to call her Little Suzie Sunshine when she was a pup, right up until her rock throwin' improved. Always looking at the sunny side of things."

  A year ago, Livvy would have cringed at the comparison. Now, coming from her aunt and knowing how much Donna loved her sister, she took it for the compliment it was.

  "You can't fool me anymore, Aunt Donna. I'm all grown up now and I can see right through you. You're not half as mean as folks say you are."

  "Me? Mean? Why, there's not a wolver on God's green earth that would call Donna Mae Morrissey mean. Leastways not to my face."

  Yep, that was another thing Livvy loved about Gilead. Her Aunt Donna lived there. The cantankerous female could always make her laugh. And she kept laughing even when Donna, being Donna, had to add her last little nip.

  "And if you're so all fired grown up, why ain't you huntin' down that good for nothin' Brad Seaward, and giving him a taste of your tongue?" Her eyebrows fluttered up and down with what could be construed as salacious intent.

  Livvy was pretty sure her aunt wasn't referring to French kissing, but then again, with Donna, you could never be sure.

  Chapter 18

  If wolvers could get drunk the way humans could, anyone watching Brad Seaward stumble from his tow truck at two in the morning might have thought the man had imbibed a bit too much. He wasn't drunk, however. He couldn't be. Edna and Edith had cut him off from the only possible source of inebriation. His stumbling gait came from exhaustion.

  He'd been taking every run he could get his hands on, leaving Stan and Matt to strip cars and answer the phone. Exhaustion was the only way he found any peace when he closed his eyes. Being on the road constantly was the only way he found any peace from the pack. He knew what the deer felt like now, being hunted by hungry wolves who wouldn't quit until they brought their prey to ground.

  Somehow, the fact that he was the injured party here had gotten lost in the sea of gossip and the source of that gossip could only be P-o-o-o-r Livvy. Yeah, right, poor, sweet little Livvy. In a way, he couldn't blame them. He'd fallen for it, too.

  All those years, he'd tried his best to accept her decision. It was the right one, and the one he knew was coming from the moment she smiled up at him and said hello. If he'd been smart, he would have turned around and walked away, but he'd always wondered what it would be like to have a girl like Livvy Dawson smile at him that way. She was kind, and loving, and pure in the way she only saw the best in people, the way she saw the best in him. He knew, way back then, that someone like him didn't deserve someone like her. How right he'd been. Nobody deserved the whack-job woman she'd become.

  What did you say? What did you do? What kind of monster would throw that dear sweet girl out, naked, into the snow? And if you didn't throw her out, what kind of cruelty did you perpetrate to make her risk frostbite in order to escape? Oh, sure, they didn't ask their questions outright, but their hints were sure as hell strong enough. What the hell had she told them? Why hadn't he left well enough alone?

  He'd accepted the breakup as best he could. He'd built a life, put the past in the past. He'd thought her mating the weasel would be the final nail in the coffin of dead dreams. He could finally move on. But no, she had to come back.

  And he, like a damn, fucking fool, thought they could be friends. He let her get under his skin. He could have handled that. He was handling that, and then fucking Tony Carmichael had to stick his dick in where it didn't belong, and he'd lost it. When he saw her fall from that pole, he'd lost it again. All he could see was Livvy lying dead and broken on the ground – until the bastard kissed her. Even then, he tried to keep it under control, but when his wolf took over, he'd lost it completely. He'd used the last of his willpower to keep the animal from killing Tony.

  That night was one of the best nights of his life, second only to the first time he and Livvy made love. Now he was paying the price.

  After fumbling the key into the lock,
he staggered through the door. He almost shit a brick when a head popped up from the bed of Justice's truck, covered in the blankets he'd been sleeping under for the past two nights.

  "How the hell did you get in here?" was his greeting once he realized who the blanket covered intruder was.

  "It's a simple lock. If you want to keep people out, you should find one that's harder to pick." The Mate hoisted herself up to sit on the wheel well inside the bed.

  "It's two in the morning," he complained. What kind of Mate came visiting at two in the morning?

  "Tell me about it," she said. "I've been here since eleven. I would have been happy to stop by earlier if you'd answered my messages." She pointed to the open hood of the truck. "I replaced the belts with the new ones I found sitting on the block, tightened up a few things, and put all your sockets back in their neat little box, except for that twelve-pointer I left on your desk. It needs to be replaced. You really should take better care of your tools. I also cleaned your bathroom. Has no one ever told you about the miracle of bleach? It's not just for laundry, you know."

  No one should sound that chipper at two a.m. "Why are you here?"

  "Well it sure as hell isn't to sleep in the bed of a rusty old pickup truck, I can tell you that. My question is, why are you sleeping in the bed of a truck when you have a perfectly comfy mattress over at the twins?"

  "Have you ever been around those two when they want information?" he asked and then wished he hadn't. He was too tired to think.

  Jazz laughed. "Ah, now I understand. Whoever coined the phrase 'enquiring minds want to know', stole it from the twins. If they don't get the whole story then their busy little minds fill in the blanks. So, does this mean Livvy wasn't really naked when you carried her home?"

  The Mate was no different from the rest. Brad shook his head in disgust. "She wasn't dressed for the shift. I gave her my tee shirt because that's all I had."

  "And she had nothing." The Mate sighed happily. "Just like my Griz."

  "What?"

  She waved her hand. "Never mind. I thought as much. That rumor came from the twins," she explained. "Their idea of naked is very different from ours. Next question. Did you throw her out or did she run away?"

  "What did she say? And don't tell me you haven't asked her."

  "Okay, I won't," she said agreeably. "Doesn't matter if I have or I haven't. I'm the official keeper of secrets, so I couldn't tell you what she said anyway. It would be against the Code of Ethics. It's in the Mate's Handbook, or it would be if there was one. Right now I'm asking you and your answer will be my secret, too."

  Some secrets shouldn't be told. He had his locked down tight and that's where they were staying.

  "Look, with all due respect, Miz Jazz, it's late. I've had a long day, and I'll have a longer one tomorrow. I need to get to bed."

  "Not as long as I'm sitting in it," she said cheerfully. "So let's get this show on the road."

  Brad let his chin fall to his chest and sighed in resignation. "I didn't throw her out. I was asleep. I woke up. She wasn't there. It was early and I figured she was down the hall using the bathroom. I waited for her." Smiling and hoping against hope that she wasn't too sore or worn out to enjoy an early morning quickie. "When she didn't come back, I went downstairs." Still smiling because he thought she might be making him breakfast. He liked the idea of eating breakfast with Livvy, liked it almost as much as an early morning quickie. "Edith and Edna were in the kitchen. They hadn't seen her. That's when it hit me that she'd taken off. I followed her footprints until I was sure she made it home. That's it, end of story."

  "The end, but not of the story. What happened to make her leave?"

  "I don't know." He shouted it and threw up his hands. "Maybe she realized she'd made a mistake and was right the first time. Maybe she got what she needed to scratch her itch and figured it was time to go home. Maybe she's competing with Miz Ezzy for the bat shit crazy award. Normal people don't go trudging through the snow half naked and shoeless."

  "Something had to have happened, Brad," the Mate said quietly. "Think about what you said right before you went to sleep. Think."

  Think. That's all he'd done since he walked down those stairs and found her gone. He was so damn tired of thinking. His whole body was sagging with exhaustion. His legs felt like rubber. Brad took a step back, and then another, until his back hit the wall. He slumped to the floor. Resting the back of his head against the wall, he closed his eyes.

  "Nothing happened. I didn't say anything that didn't make her smile. God, that smile." He hadn't meant to say that last part aloud. Embarrassed, he lifted his eyes to the Mate. She was smiling, not in a laughing way, but soft and gentle.

  "That's right, honey. She was happy, so happy I couldn't contain it. So happy, I had to let it out." She touched her hand to her chest, over her heart. "So happy, I shared it with the other females of the pack, so they could pass it on. And just like that..." Jazz snapped her fingers. "Everything went to shit. She was in misery and my heart broke with hers. Good thing for all of us, I didn't share that."

  "You shouldn't have shared any of it." His eyes were wide open now. Anger began to crack through his efforts to maintain his blank faced facade. "What I do and who I do it with is no one's business but my own."

  "I used to think that, too, until I came to Gilead where everyone's business is everyone's business. It's hard to understand when you're used to being alone. We're pack, Brad, and in Gilead that means we share, and yeah, sometimes that means we share rumors and gossip. Nobody claims that we're perfect. We're nosy. We know things about our neighbors that we wish we didn't, but we also know when our neighbors need help.

  "What I share is feelings, not gossip. I never knew a Mate could do that. Like you, I never felt it before I came here. In my father's pack, the Alpha's Mate was just another piece of the Alpha's property and her purpose was to produce his replacement. In Gilead, that's not my job. The only thing my pups will inherit is a love for their pack.

  "My purpose, according to Doc and the late Miz Mary, is to bind the pack together through shared feelings. Shared joy helps us all rise above our burdens. Shared sorrow makes those burdens easier to carry. Confession can be good for the soul. I don't share things like hatred or bitterness. They're diseases of the soul. Like all feelings, they're contagious, too. I do what I can to ease the pain and make sure the disease doesn't spread. I help those that'll let me. You'd know all this if you weren't a member of Gilead in name only. You'd know this if you didn't shut me out. You'd know this if you'd open yourself up and let me take you fully into the pack."

  The Mate's voice was lulling, quiet, and sincere. She made him want to believe.

  "What I shared with the pack the other night didn't go out with a name tag attached. Only I knew who it came from. And yeah, I'm a grownup. I was pretty sure I knew where those feelings were coming from, but I wasn't looking for the detes. I don't have some third eye that I use to spy into people's bedrooms, and frankly, your sex life isn't worth sharing. Most every couple around here already has one."

  Jazz chuckled at her little joke, and the sound of it was quiet and reassuring, too.

  "What I shared was the love, and the joy, and the happiness you brought to the one you were with. Those feelings are always worth sharing. They're the kind of contagion that's good for the pack."

  She was weaving a spell. That's the only way he could explain the feeling stealing over him as she spoke. He felt relaxed and warm in the comfort of it. Warm was good. Relaxed wasn't. Relaxing your guard left you vulnerable.

  "Stop it," he said, suddenly alert. He sat up and glared at the Mate.

  She returned his glare with a wolf-like smile, sly and cunning.

  "I didn't say a word to her," he said sullenly. He ignored the rest. He'd learned early on that sharing, particularly 'feelings', did nothing but get your ass kicked in the long run. It either exposed your weaknesses or got you labeled as a pig, a squealer, which in his father's book, was one st
ep lower than a cop.

  "You must have said something," Jazz argued reasonably. The smile had disappeared and she was back to her irreverent self. "Since neither one of you are into that threesome shit, you were the only one there who could say something."

  "Well, I didn't. It doesn't matter anyway. Whatever happened, it's over. It's for the best."

  "For the best? Are you crazy?"

  "She'll get over it."

  "Maybe she will and maybe she won't. That's not why I'm here. I'm concerned about you."

  "No reason to be. I'm fine."

  "Yeah, sure, Mr. Tough Guy. If being miserable is your version of fine, then you're just dandy. If working twenty-four hours a day because you can't face your friends, your pack, or yourself is fine, then you must be living high off the hog. If watching the woman you love walk away for the second time without trying to find out why is your idea of a good time, then you're in Party Town. Tell me again how you're fine, and I'll tell you how you're a damn liar."

  She was watching him while she spoke. She didn't glare or stare, but he felt it nonetheless. Her eyes bored into him as if she was searching and yet, when he watched her watching him, he could see nothing out of the ordinary in her face or in her eyes.

  This was a different kind of magic, unlike the one she used before. This was prodding, probing, like she was looking for an entrance to his mind, no, to his soul. "Good luck with that," he thought. He hoped she was prepared to get dirty, because his soul, if he had one, was knee deep in filth.

  "Stop it," he said again. He pushed himself up to standing.

  Jazz shrugged the blankets from her shoulders and grabbed her jacket from where it hung on the tailgate. Using the back bumper as a step, she climbed from the truck.

  "Your secrets are your own. Share them with me or don't. It's up to you," she said as she slipped her jacket on. She tapped her temple with the first two fingers of her right hand. "I don't have the power to dig them out." The two fingers moved to her chest and tapped the place over her heart. "I only have the power to feel, and what I felt tonight gives me a sense of who you are. No secrets there," she said and smiled. She walked over to him and using the same two fingers, tapped his chest. "You're the same on the inside as you are on the outside, Bradley Seaward. You're a good man, a good wolver. Whatever those dark secrets are, you need to expose them to the light. You need to let them go. Your fear of them is holding you back from the things you want most."