Moonlight Magic: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 9)

by K. R. Alexander

  I nodded. “Makes sense. It’s a beautiful place. You’re hotel, I mean. It’s been such a treat visiting. Not that it wouldn’t be anytime. Just this particular summer… Even more of a treat. We’ve thrown a monkey wrench in your summer but I’m grateful we found you. We all are.”

  Andrew was arguing with Isaac across the table. “How can you say that? It’s bang on, mate.”

  “I didn’t say it was bad. Hardly the best I’ve had. That’s all.”

  “You’re a conceited toff. What would you say would make it better?”

  Isaac regarded his haggis and fork with a speculative eye. “Rosemary, for one.”

  “Come again?”

  “And a touch of fennel seed.”

  “Is that how they usually make it?”

  “They should.”

  Now Andrew seemed genuinely interested—as he was in a whole other way to the rest of the wolves when it came to food.

  To Isaac’s left Zar sat quietly in the corner, eating steadily without looking up. At the other end, in the added chairs, Kage and Jed ate as if in competition, their usual efforts at civility in public dining establishments totally thrown out the window after the starvation rations they’d endured.

  Gabriel didn’t answer me for a moment. Perhaps he was searching. Eventually he nodded and added a few sweet potato fries to Jason’s plate, breaking the monotony of the licking.

  Jason swallowed and stuck his nose up at the edge of the table, nostrils quivering.

  “I didn’t wish to be found.” Gabriel answered me, absently handing another fry to Jason. “I didn’t want anything to do with returning to that life. At the same time … I didn’t want to…”

  “To be completely unfindable?” I asked, watching him. “You could have changed your name. You could have gone farther than an hour’s drive away. You didn’t. Maybe … in case anyone in your family changed their minds one day? Wanted to leave? Or … in case there was an emergency? In case you wanted to check in?”

  “It was certainly not my intention ever to return there.”

  “I know. I’m not sure what we would have done without you, though. This has been a difficult and painful time for all of us. Not least you. I’m sorry…”

  “You did nothing wrong.” He sighed as if imagining all the wrong in the world, his dark brown eyes directed at his burger.

  It felt like a solitary moment among a crowd, somehow intimate, broken by the massive dark muzzle between us, pointed straight up, jaws open.

  Gabriel dropped in an apple slice. I was glad of Jason’s head between us, pushing me against Andrew—who still argued with Isaac. Gabriel fascinated me in a depressing way. Like those people in your life whom you love but wish you could understand why they make the sad choices they do. I could have watched him and asked questions all night. Only that would have given the wrong impression, and I was pretty sure Gabriel wouldn’t take kindly to being interrogated even if we’d been alone.

  He was so beautiful, and so well-groomed, only slightly slipping after days on the road, it added to the delicate situation of not staring when he was inches away. Circle beard still neat, his hair mussed from the bike helmet, but springing back. Wavy, like Zar’s, only short. He was the only one of the brothers without jet black hair, instead showing hints of gray around his temples, although he was also far too young for it.

  Was his youngest brother heading the same way? While Jed was crawling out of a crippling depression that had lasted most of his adult life, was Zar sinking into one? Why didn’t he have support from his brothers?

  I couldn’t be surprised about Jed ignoring him, but Gabriel? Back together after several years, dealing with life or death situations, mother just murdered, and they hardly spoke? I shouldn’t be judging them. Still, I wanted to ask them all to shake hands at the very least. Then … slip them some Prozac. Not that that was judgmental or anything…

  I took up Jason’s polished plate and transferred his second helping of fries, added blobs of catchup, asked him to please not get any of it on the only clean pair of pants I had, and set it down. He ate at a sedate pace.

  Fine to ask some things, wasn’t it? I couldn’t stand a whole dinner with no questions.

  “How did you adapt to London?” I asked once Jason was eating again and Gabriel had finished his burger. “Had you spent any time there before?”

  “Very little. It’s a matter of habit. Working hard for something you want, making it happen through force of will more than any innate talent or training. I did read a few books on public speaking and overcoming social anxiety, as well as autism. All of which tap on certain issues that I had to overcome to integrate well into society. Also travel guides.”

  “Travel guides for self-help? Sounds like my kind of reading.”

  Gabriel gave a somber nod. “Guides to England and Britain. Travel memoirs and cultural studies. I was raised with only optional exposure to a whole world and culture beyond my own front door. When I went to meet that world, I had to educate myself.”

  All the time I noticed how he said what he said as much as the message. Any outside observer would listen to Gabriel and never get the slightest hint of wolfness. Not only that, he kept saying “I” instead of “we” to keep himself apart. His little brother sat across the table from him, but Gabriel saw Zar as a wolf, himself apparently as a human. There could never be a “we” in his past. Zar and Jed, their parents and extended family, had been one thing. Gabriel another.

  “I commend you,” I said. “Andrew went through a bit of the same thing, I think. Not on so dramatic a scale, but making a deliberate choice to get involved and work. I know it’s a horrible, horrible tragedy, what’s happened to the whole South Coast Cooperative. But when we stop it, when they have a chance to rebuild, maybe there will be room for change. For more integration and less isolation. More respect and less fear.”

  Gabriel paused in eating his fries. No one else, including the now licking Jason, seemed even to notice our conversation besides Zar, who finally looked up from his own haggis plate, which he’d stacked on top of the empty burger plate.

  “What is it?” I asked Gabriel, watching his eyes as he frowned, then looked at me with an expression I could not place. Something sad, almost like pity.

  “You are truly dedicated, Cassia. An admirable trait.”

  “I’m not sure I follow…”

  “To your cause. You are certain we shall succeed? Certain there will be rebuilding? Hoping for a bright tomorrow at a stage in the game when you face nothing but defeat and dead ends? When recent exploits nearly killed you all? Yes, they might change. One day they might integrate well and rise beyond all they now know. One day we might have a Green Party prime minister, or no longer have war. People do change and times change. You are right to hope for something better. I apologize… I have lost that particular habit whilst I was claiming new ones.”

  “Then I’m sorry for you,” I said quietly.

  Gabriel looked up, met my eyes, and said nothing for a long moment while Zar and Jason also watched him.

  He dropped his gaze. “Perhaps you are right for that as well. Perhaps it is the only reason you will succeed at all.”

  Chapter 24

  We were finally thrown out of the pub only after ice cream—and long after closing.

  In the meantime, I’d kept an intermittent conversation with Gabriel going—we talked about London and travel, Portland, The Abyssinian, and other safe subjects—and everyone, including he and I, had relaxed.

  The pack ate their sticky toffee pudding for Andrew, strawberry sorbet for Zar and me, and mostly vanilla ice creams all around in the mellow manner of human beings who’d just come in hungry from a long day of work. There were smiles and no more arguing or looking around at the door. The place was empty aside from us and a couple of old men at the bar who leaned conspiratorially into each other while talking very loudly about the corruption happening in football these days—particularly in England.

  No one
was in any rush to go. All we had to look forward to was venturing into a frigid night and driving to a campground in the dark and pouring rain—it was battering the window glass beside Gabriel and Zar, who gazed at our reflections there.

  So we lingered, all but Jed’s dessert dishes being held for a few seconds under the table while Jason made the rounds. He ended with his head in Kage’s lap while Kage rubbed his ears, telling Andrew and Isaac and anyone who would listen about old wolves of Scotland as notorious as the Mayo Pack in their day and able to carry off Highland cattle easy as fawns. Isaac listened with an indulgent smile on his face while Kage insisted it was true, that his mother used to tell all about them when he was a pup.

  I imitated Zar in gazing at the window. This black glass showed the length of the table and bar beyond, including all our faces. A fascinating study, not least for seeing the pack just … together. Even Jed told Kage he was daft for the stories—which was more participation in the conversation than he’d offered all evening. Isaac started telling them a fox legend from the Highlands—to which Kage retorted that his story hadn’t been a legend, it had been history.

  Isaac slightly lifted his eyebrows. “Prove the difference.”

  “History is fact. Legend is fiction,” Kage said.

  “Sure. But prove it.” Isaac smiled. “History is recorded by someone who is fallible, who may get things wrong, or even deliberately alter details for reasons of sensationalism, cover-up, or anything else. While legend stems from some spark of knowing, of truth. Who draws the line? Who proves that one is exactly accurate fact and another is wild imagination? Especially hundreds of years or more ago?”

  Kage let him tell his fox story. About a fox couple whose kit was murdered by an eminent human so they put on their fur and cursed his household. They slew all his poultry and newborn livestock, filled the night with their screams and haunting cries, and waged endless assault, always getting away from the hunters and hounds, until the tormented landowner was driven mad and killed himself.

  By the end Kage was enjoying the story, though he wouldn’t admit it. “Verus busipa deserved it,” he muttered, still rubbing Jason’s head.

  “Odd story,” Andrew said, leaned way back in his booth and against me, sagged down so he looked ready to doze. “A moral you want your enemies to hear, not the people who you’d actually be passing it down to. Don’t mess with our pups, you know?”

  “Kits,” Isaac said. “They’re kits.”

  “Whatever. Your mate Traigh’s a bit mad. He always been that way?”

  “Oh, no. He’s mellowed these days.”

  “Moon and Sun…”

  It was during the story that I realized my watching the glass looked as if I was looking at Gabriel. I sat back with Andrew. Unable to think of anything more to ask or say that wasn’t overly personal. Had we been alone, I wouldn’t have minded coming right out about Zar and their relationship. Not here.

  Then, with Gabriel also watching glass, he said something himself. “Fancy learning the gun?”

  Zar, elbow on the table, chin in hand, dragged his gaze from the reflection to Gabriel across the table without moving his head. He gave a tiny shrug.

  “We haven’t had much of a chance to try them, but you don’t need to be marksmen,” Gabriel continued. “Safe handling, being able to fire and load. That’s all you need to know. Andrew is already quite good with it. It would be smart if someone else knows them.”

  Zar nodded slightly and went on watching out the window.

  Then I realized. How many other times had Gabriel made some effort to engage? Offered something for Zar to grasp? So it wasn’t just me that Zar was trying to break up with. At the same time, the youngest grim brother had never needed us more. But what could we do? What about respecting him and his wishes?

  I just couldn’t believe that breaking it off between us was really his wish. My mind was tumbling, aching for a chance to talk with Zar, when the waitress informed us that they’d closed up some time ago.

  Kage dragged himself to his feet, sluggish and happy after a burger and fries, haggis and sides, a bloody steak, a shepherd’s pie, and vanilla ice cream. He bent painstakingly toward the floor for the slip leash. Jason, still half under the table, grabbed it in his jaws to offer. Kage slipped it over his head, asking did he get enough fish.

  “Whooooo-woo,” Jason said softly, prancing his uneven forepaws in place.

  “Thanks, Gabe,” Kage said, rubbing the bridge of Jason’s nose with his thumb.

  Gabriel had already paid with a credit card—it must have been at least a few hundred pounds—and a round of thanks been offered. He just nodded.

  “Care for a shower?” Isaac asked.

  “Don’t mind if I do, sweetheart,” Andrew said as he heaved himself off the back of the booth. “Your place or mine?”

  Isaac ignored him. “The water up here is fairly clean, but after that river—”

  “I would pay a hundred dollars for a shower right now,” I cut him off. “But I’d assumed one wasn’t on the menu when you couldn’t find a room.”

  “I don’t think they’re common in campgrounds up here, but we’ll find one.” Isaac smiled. “At a better rate than that.”

  “That would be a blessing, thank you. They know where we are here, so a bit of distance would be nice. On the other hand…” I looked to the window and rattle of rain sliding down in the dark beyond. “The bikes? We need shelter.”

  “Bet a reaver could attack in this and no one would hear.” Kage also looked to the glass.

  We dragged ourselves from the booths—even I felt stuffed after sharing an array of chips and sampling the shepherd’s pie from Andrew, plus other bits along with my own meal and dessert. Isaac showed Gabriel, Jed, and Andrew where we were going on the paper map. He wasn’t sure if the campground had showers but it was the nearest.

  While Isaac briefed the drivers, I returned to the bathroom, wishing I’d had a hot fudge sundae. Funny how I’d had chocolate in the back of my mind lately. Wasn’t it too early to start food cravings? Which reminded me: the news. Goddess, why hadn’t I told them at dinner? No … it would have caused a stir. Make a note, set a reminder on the phone, woman up and tell—

  Oh, right…

  Write it on my hand?

  Isaac had my purple pen, which had been in his hand with the map when I was washed away. A bit pointless to be glad for the salvation of a pen that could be replaced in any office supply store. Still, maybe I could get a Scottish notebook and recreate and start new notes. And reminders about important news.

  Setting forth into the dark was unnerving. And extremely wet.

  Of course, nothing lurked in the streets. We just had to get out of here, clean up, figure out what was next. Tonight only think about that shower and the pack being together and helping Zar and hot fudge in a tall glass served beside a five-layer chocolate cake worthy of a magazine. Hmm… Maybe it wasn’t too early. Or the unusual pregnancy? I couldn’t even say what a normal gestation was supposed to be.

  Kage and Zar in the back, Jason in the far back, me turning up the heater to blasting, we set out behind the motorcycles in the rain and pitch darkness broken by headlights and little red taillights flashing away.

  The second we were beyond the village there was not a streetlight, not a house, not even the faintest glow of a distant farm.

  We curved away, Gabriel and Andrew out front, Jed behind, the Jeep trailing them, into that midnight expanse and began to pick up speed.

  “What is that?” I sat forward, looking across the second lane as an animal ran into the road.

  Isaac braked slightly. The windshield wipers flashed. Then something huge and black raced across the right lane, into ours, launching at the bikes as they sped past. All in the same second, a blink, it crashed into Jed, sending bike and rider and beast all flying.

  Chapter 25

  Isaac slammed on the brakes. Jed was hurled into the steep ditch at the side of the road, through scrubby brown grasse
s and brambles, out of sight in the darkness and pelting rain. His motorcycle flew forward. It crashed to the road and pivoted on its side until the headlight aimed back into our eyes. Andrew hit his own brakes, whirling into a 180-degree turn that drifted him across the next lane.

  In as much time as it took for that headlight to whip around and face us, less time than for the Jeep and trailer to stop, the lights were cut off by furry, scaly, winged or horned or hoofed or clawed beasts bursting over the road. Andrew crashed into one, his bike flipping him off like a bucking horse. The impact into the creature’s side hurled it with him so Andrew landed part on his helmet and part on top of the beast.

  Everyone seemed to be shouting in the Jeep—Kage throwing open the door long before we’d come to a stop, Jason leaping out, Isaac grabbing me with one hand, the other on the wheel when I already had my seatbelt off.

  “No! Cassia, stay here!” Isaac released the wheel with the vehicle sliding to a stop, slewing the trailer sideways in the back. He was trying to get into the glove compartment with the second handgun. Gabriel had the first with him on the bike. Yet Gabriel hadn’t seen what happened and was still driving on, the red taillight vanishing into the rain and blackness.

  I twisted against Isaac’s thumb in a grip that felt like he could pull my arm off, falling from my seat, catching at the door to keep from landing flat on my face on the road.

  “Cassia! No!”

  But there was so much more noise, so much more important, I hardly heard him. Jed and Andrew shouting, rain hammering in my ears, engines rumbling, Kage running and calling, Jason snarling as he slammed into the reaver pinning Jed in the ditch and threw it off him, but mostly—like a battle cry from hell—the ghastly roars and shrieks and hisses of a pack of undead, eyeless monsters taking over a lonely country road.

  Far off, a single headlight whipped around to face us. Gabriel had realized something was wrong, either by sound or by the absence of headlights keeping up.

  “Get in the caravan!” Kage was racing for Jed, catching his hand as Jed struggled up. Jason was fighting the one that had hit him five feet away.