by Lori Drake
Smiling, Joey shrugged. “Sorry, I’m just curious about you all. Mom always said I ask too many questions. I don’t mean to offend. Do you have any questions for me? I’d be happy to answer them.”
“Just one,” Lewis said into the silence that followed. “What are you really doing here?”
Chris found Dawn chatting with Jenny in the living room. Jenny’s homework was spread across the coffee table, as was often the case on weeknights. She had a desk in her room, but rarely used it, insisting that having noise and activity around her actually helped her concentrate.
Dawn looked his way and smiled when he stepped into the room. The illusion she hid behind still boggled his mind. He got the feeling he was only familiar with a small fraction of what Cathy could do, and for the first time since the previous night, he thought about what Cathy had said to him about Dawn’s potential for magic. With time and practice, would she be able to weave her own disguises? He pushed the thought aside, along with the knot of dread that’d begun to take root in the pit of his stomach. Unannounced visitors rarely brought good news.
“Hey,” he said, approaching her. “Is everything okay?”
She tilted her head. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
Chris raked his fingers through his hair and blew out a breath, tension unspooling at his core. “It’s been one of those weeks. What brings you by?”
“Nothing important. I was bored, felt like a drive.”
“And you ended up here?”
“Yeah. Sometimes that happens.” She glanced over his shoulder and smiled, waving a hand.
“It does?” Chris looked behind him and found Adam lurking in the mouth of the hallway. The beta smiled back at Dawn and waved, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. Chris resisted the urge to rub his temples. Barely.
“Yeah. I start out with no destination in mind and end up somewhere I need to be.” She shrugged. “Sorry, I probably should’ve called first.”
“Eh, it’s okay. You’re not interrupting anything. I was just sitting in the dark in my office, thinking some stuff over.”
Her lips twitched, and she squeezed his arm. “Sounds like you could use an ear. Got anything sweet in the house? I could use a fix.”
“Probably some ice cream. Wait, are you still vegan?”
“Not too vegan for ice cream.” Her smile twitched into a playful grin, and she motioned for him to lead the way.
He did, half expecting Adam to shadow them into the kitchen. But when Chris glanced over his shoulder, the beta was nowhere to be seen, and Jenny was bent over her studies again. In the kitchen, he motioned to the breakfast bar in invitation and got out a couple of bowls while Dawn climbed onto a stool.
“So, if you’re not too vegan for ice cream, how vegan are you these days?” Chris asked. She’d been vegan as long as he’d known her, and fairly strict about it.
Dawn perched on a stool and leaned her folded arms on the counter. “The funny thing about the big house: they’re not big on special diets unless you’re legit allergic to something. My principles only lasted so long.”
Chris opened and closed drawers, rummaging for the ice cream scoop. “And now?”
“Leaning more toward vegetarian. Feels weird to say it, but prison reminded me how much I love cheese.”
“So, no bacon ice cream, then?”
Her eyes widened. “Is that a thing?”
Chris laughed. “I don’t know if we have any, but Lucy did bring home some candied bacon ice cream once. It was weird, but not awful. Joey said it was an abomination.”
“I’ll pass. What I don’t know won’t hurt me. But I’m all in for chocolate.”
Opening the freezer, Chris peered inside. “Rocky road, Neapolitan, butter pecan… ah! Here we go. Chocolate.” He retrieved a half-gallon carton from the freezer and hefted it, trying to judge if it contained enough for two.
“Jeez, do you guys have anything in there besides ice cream?”
Chris dropped the carton on the counter and slid it across toward Dawn, along with the scoop. “Do body parts count?”
She cracked the carton open and took up the scoop without complaint, but wrinkled her nose at his joke. “You know, for someone with actual bodies buried in the backyard, you might want to watch your gallows humor.”
Wincing, he nodded. “Fair enough. Wait, how’d you know there was more than one?”
She paused mid-scoop. “There is? Huh. How many scoops do you want?”
“Two, please.” Chris separated the bowls and set them side by side.
“So, who else is out there?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Do you really want to be an accessory?”
“Hey, I’m already a fugitive. Do your worst. And unless you want me to lick this from the bowl like a savage—which I’m not too good for, to be honest—I’m going to need a spoon.”
Chuckling, Chris retrieved a pair of spoons. “So demanding. Anyway, there are a couple of members of the pack out there that died inauspiciously…”
“Is it possible to die auspiciously?”
“Now you’re being facetious.”
She grinned. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”
Chris found himself smiling as he accepted a bowl of ice cream from her. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how much he’d missed her. When everyone around you was either your subordinate or a relative, it was good to have a friend.
Dawn put the lid back on the ice cream carton and hopped down from her stool to return it to the freezer. “You were saying?”
“Oh, right. Uh… yeah. There are a few. I didn’t kill any of them, for the record. Well, except Kate. Sort of.” He poked at his ice cream with the spoon before taking a small bite.
“What do you mean sort of? I thought you said Colt killed her while he was possessed by an evil spirit.”
“Well, you know about my astral walking ability, right?”
“Right.”
“That night was the first time I ever used it since I got back. I didn’t know I could do it… I thought my first out-of-body experience was a one-time thing. Anyway, I was on the astral plane when I found Colt trying to kill Kate. Kate was…” He hesitated to say weak, because that didn’t quite suit and felt unkind. “Well, she had domestic abuse in her past, and I think she just froze. I possessed her and tried to fight back, but she was pretty beaten up when I got there. I wasn’t able to stop him.”
Chris had been staring down at his bowl while he explained, and when he finished and looked up, Dawn was sitting across from him again, her features tight with concern. He’d never told anyone the full story of what happened that night except Joey and Cathy.
“Wow, that must’ve been intense,” she said softly.
“It was. Anyway… I’ve always wondered if I did more harm than good by intervening. If I hadn’t taken Kate’s free will away, maybe she would’ve managed to save herself.”
She reached across the counter and put her hand over his. “You can’t think like that. It’ll eat you up.”
“That’s almost exactly what Cathy said.” He smiled faintly and shrugged. “I try not to dwell on it. This shit with her daughter and the cops has stirred up some old feelings, though.”
“Yeah, I bet it would.” Dawn dug into her ice cream, closing her eyes after putting the first bite in her mouth and breathing a blissful sigh. “Do you have any idea how many cigarettes a chocolate bar costs?”
“Um, no.”
“I hope you never have to find out.”
“Me either. But it seems like a very real possibility. You know what this needs? Chocolate syrup.”
Dawn grinned. “A man after my own heart.”
Chris fetched the sugary syrup from the fridge and brought it over, giving them both a liberal squirt. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay. How about this astral walking ability of yours? Tell me more about it.”
It wouldn’t have been Chris’s first choice,
but it was preferable to the previous topic. “I’m not sure what I can tell you that you don’t already know. Cathy’s been helping me work on control, and it’s been quite a while since the last time I accidentally left my body. And nearly as long since I got trapped outside it.”
She lifted a brow. “There’s a story there. Dish.”
Chris sighed and told her about Cathy’s early attempts at anti-possession charms and how one had gotten him trapped outside his body for a few hours. She thought it was quite funny, until he explained the circumstances of how he was trying to rescue his mother at the time and ended up being taken prisoner instead. Followed by the whole chain of events that led to his mother’s death. He hadn’t really gotten a chance to go into it with her in depth, on account of their phone calls being recorded and monitored by the state of California until the previous day.
By the time he finished, their bowls were empty and Dawn’s expression was grave. “Damn. I hate to move straight from chocolate to the hard stuff, but I feel like it’s warranted after that tale.”
“Eh. It is what it is, I guess. But I think I may have figured out where my astral walking ability came from. Justin found my birth mother’s name in the journal of another woman, one who we thought might be an astral walker.”
“Really? Wow, that has to be at least a little comforting. I mean, it means that Marcus’s nasty spell didn’t damage you somehow, weakening your spirit’s connection to your body. I’ve been worried about that. I even asked Cathy if there was anything we could do to fix it.”
Chris mustered a weak smile. “I appreciate the thought, but I think all he did was wake up something that was already there. He probably didn’t know it was there to start with. That spelled dagger he sent Tasha after me with interacted with my lycanthrope nature in a few unexpected ways.”
“Yeah, I’ll say. I wish I’d killed Tasha myself. She was always an insufferable bitch.”
“Wow, awfully bloodthirsty for a vegetarian.”
She snorted. “I didn’t say I wanted to eat her. Just kill her, for what she did to you.” Her eyes lowered, a flicker of grief appearing on her face. “To all of us.”
It was Chris’s turn to reach out and cover her hand with his. “It’s over now.”
Dawn bit her lip and met his eyes again. “About that…”
13
“What do you mean?” Joey asked, scrambling for a good excuse in the wake of Lewis’s pointed question.
Lewis snorted and put his fork down, then retrieved his napkin from his lap to wipe his mouth. “Your mother was a master of subterfuge, and I doubt the apple fell far from the tree. I don’t think you came here just to make nice with the locals. So, what are you really here for?”
Joey couldn’t decide if she was offended or flattered by the comparison to her mother, but in light of Adelaide’s recent passing, she settled on flattered. Besides, getting offended wouldn’t get her anywhere right then, and she’d need to keep the wits her mother gave her together to get out of this one.
Drawing on her stage training, she grimaced and looked at Maria. “Guess the jig is up.”
Maria had that deer-in-headlights look as she stared across the table at Joey.
“We’re going to have to tell them,” Joey said. “About the database.”
Maria blinked slowly, then nodded gravely.
“Database?” Owen said, no doubt echoing the thoughts of the rest of his pack.
“Yeah,” Joey said, resuming eating as if it were no big deal. Now that she’d decided on her new cover story, she was committed. She let them all wonder while she chewed a bite of ham, then went on, “One of the things I inherited from my mom was a database of all the wolves she knew of or came into contact with. When I found out there was a pack here that wasn’t in the database, I decided I should come out and gather information so I could update our records.”
The reaction around the table was varied. Some nodded in understanding while other expressions were mixed. Lewis smirked and shook his head. “Typical Adelaide Grant,” he said, and not kindly.
Joey itched to ask him what that meant, but decided it was better to placate him than stir up more dissent. “Yeah, I suppose so. But I have to admit, it’s already come in handy when we found ourselves in need of help in unfamiliar territory. I was able to locate the nearest pack and make contact with the Alpha.”
“My dad has something like that too,” Max said.
Grateful for his support, Joey flashed him a smile before turning that smile out over the table as a whole. “Anyway, I don’t want to put any information on the record that you don’t want me to. I don’t want to be intrusive. I just thought… I mean, there are so few of us, and there’s safety in numbers. Keeping in touch costs us nothing but could mean everything one day. Before I go, I’d like to make sure all of you have my contact info, and if you ever need me, I’m just a phone call away.”
Joey glanced at Lewis over a sip of her water, hoping that he was buying her revised story. The Alpha leaned back in his chair, his eyes steady on her. Silence stretched for five seconds, then ten. It seemed like everyone was waiting to see what their Alpha did.
In the end, Lewis nodded. “I appreciate your candor, and you can put whatever information in your database that my people are comfortable with sharing.”
Joey smiled broadly. “Thank you, Lewis. I appreciate it. Maybe I can chat with folks individually after dinner? I mean, I’d like to get to know you better, too. We’re practically neighbors, you know?”
“Are you two going to be in town long?” Owen asked, still tearing his roll into increasingly smaller pieces.
Joey glanced at Maria. “Probably not. We hadn’t planned on staying more than a couple of days. Why?”
“Oh, I was just thinking, there’s a carnival in town,” Owen said. “Part of the festival. It might be fun to have a little group outing tomorrow.”
“I don’t know… We have to move the cattle to the northeast pasture tomorrow,” Lewis said.
“I haven’t been to a carnival since I was a kid,” Maria said, finally piping up again. “Can we go, Joey?”
Joey tilted her head, surprised by the sudden brightness in Maria’s eyes. She was like an eager child, longing to play. How could Joey say no to that? “Sure, I guess we can stay another day.”
“We can get our chores out of the way early to free up the afternoon,” Owen said, working on Lewis.
“Come on, boss,” Max said, seemingly on board with the plan as well. “All work and no play makes us all dull like Gerald.”
There was no reaction from Gerald, though Caroline laid her hand over his and gave it a pat.
Lewis scratched his jaw and looked around the table. It wasn’t just Max and Owen looking at him hopefully, though Heidi was eyeing Owen with a slight frown. “Alright, I think we can swing it. But only if the work is done first.”
Max scraped the last bite of food from his plate and pushed back his chair. “I’ll get started now. Lights work in the garage just fine.” He took his plate with him when he went, pausing to lean down and kiss Heidi’s cheek with an exaggerated smack of lips. “Great spread, boss lady.”
Heidi swatted at him, and Joey watched him go with amusement. He hadn’t changed a bit.
“I agree about the spread,” Joey said. “But I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”
Lewis pushed back his empty plate. “Let’s adjourn to the living room.”
“I’ll help clean up,” Joey said, rising and beginning to collect plates.
A mortified Amanda rose swiftly to intercept her, trying to take the plates from her hands. Joey was once more struck by how much Amanda reminded her of Sara. It was hard to imagine either of them riding with Abby Walker’s rough-and-tumble group.
“We’ll take care of it,” Heidi said. “No trouble.”
“Maria and I can help. In fact, we insist.”
Maria rose and began collecting dishes as well, and there was only so much the local ladies c
ould do to dissuade them without being rude. Joey counted on it, and though she didn’t particularly want to do the dishes, she did want to get the women away from the influence of their men to ask a few questions.
Chris stared at Dawn for a long moment in the wake of her announcement, his stomach suddenly in knots.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. Did you just say you were going back?”
She nodded, as solemn and serious as the grave. “To Eastgate.”
“But why? There’s nothing for you to go back to. Madrigal is dead.”
“That’s why I have to go back. Don’t you get it?”
Chris shook his head emphatically. “No. I don’t get it. Help me understand.”
“Do you know what it’s like to believe the sun rises and sets on one person and to have that taken away from you suddenly? I broke Marcus’s spell—figuratively speaking, anyway—on my own, years ago, while I still had the chance. But for those who were still under it when he died… they’re going through hell. Not everyone there is a bad person. Some of them were just under the sway of his influence, if not his magical manipulations.”
Chris knew about those magical manipulations all too well. Madrigal had done a real number on him, magically brainwashing him into calling him Master. “Go on.”
“There are a few things that can happen when a cult leader falls. One… he takes his flock down with him. You know, like those groups that drink poison and commit mass suicide. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I’m willing to bet some of them did commit suicide after he died. Two… they grieve, but they find a way to move on. That’s harder than you’d think. And three—this is the scary one—someone else steps into the void.”
“So, you’re worried that someone might pick up where Madrigal left off.”
“Among other things, yeah.”
Chris studied his friend thoughtfully. Her expression was somber, eyes serious. A far cry from the irreverent jokes and light banter she’d shown until that point. He wondered how deep her scars still went. This time, when he reached for her hand, it was not only as a friend but also as a fellow survivor.