Grave Origins

by Lori Drake

  “They say that’s what finding ‘the one’ is like. I’ll weigh in once I have.”

  She cast him a sideways smile and nudged him with her shoulder. “You will. You know, it just so happens that I know a few single she-wolves I could introduce you to if you want to come across the mountains for a visit. Granted, one is practically jailbait. You might like Lucy, though.”

  He chuckled. “Thanks. I might come visit, but I’m not really ready to settle down. That’s part of why I left home, after all.”

  “Only part?”

  “I may have been caught in an indelicate situation with the Alpha’s daughter.”

  Joey laughed. “Is that it?”

  “And his son.”

  That brought a sudden end to Joey’s laughter, but she didn’t know what to say about that. “Uhhh…”

  Max smirked, eyes lingering on Ben and Maria. “Not at the same time. Jeez.”

  This time Joey was positive he was checking out Ben’s ass. She couldn’t help herself. “If you take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

  He cleared his throat and shifted his eyes elsewhere, a faint blush staining his cheeks.

  Joey snickered. “Oh, man, I’m so going to enjoy this.”

  Max held his tongue, perhaps wisely. They trailed behind Maria and Ben for the next twenty minutes, occasionally getting roped into some contest of skill or another. Proving Ben absolutely right, Maria cleaned up at the shooting gallery after some initial grumbling about the sights on the pellet gun being off. She won herself a giant purple teddy bear that was practically as big as Joey, and Ben’s dinosaur was all but forgotten. While Maria carted the big bear around under one arm, Joey ended up with the dinosaur.

  “Anyone ready for something to eat?” Max asked as they left the shooting gallery behind.

  “I could go for one of those giant pretzels,” Ben said. “Ladies?”

  Joey piped up quickly, before Maria could get a word in edgewise. “We’re fine. You two go ahead.”

  Fortunately, Maria was already distracted by the next booth, where a carnie beckoned, offering a “one-time offer” for a pretty lady to get an extra ring to toss at no extra charge.

  “You sure?” Ben asked.

  Max frowned at Joey like he knew what she was up to.

  Joey smiled. “Yeah, she’s on a roll. Bring me some nachos or something.”

  “Nachos. Right.” Ben eyed her with well-warranted skepticism and snorted.

  “Well, if they’ve got salad on a stick, I’ll take some of that too. Give me a break, what do you expect me to eat at a carnival? It’s all garbage. Go forth. Hunt and gather. You men are supposed to be good at that.”

  Ben and Max exchanged a glance along with a mutual shrug, then turned to go. While Maria tossed rings, Joey hung back and let her eyes roam her surroundings. For all that she hadn’t wanted to stay another day, she had to admit the carnival was proving to be a fun outing. Only, she reminded herself, it wasn’t supposed to be just for fun. She was supposed to be asking around about Maria’s mother, but at the moment Lewis’s people were nowhere to be found.

  A hand touched her arm. Joey jumped and spun, fists coming up automatically. Her eyes met Heidi’s wide, startled eyes for a fraction of a second before Heidi lowered them.

  Joey dropped her hands to her sides and tried to soften her scowl. “Be careful, sneaking up on people like that.”

  “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I need to talk to you. Can we talk?”

  “Yeah, sure. I wanted to talk to you too, actually. But you go first.”

  Heidi twisted her fingers together at her waist, all but wringing her hands. She looked up again, not quite meeting Joey’s eyes, anxiety carving furrows in her forehead. “You need to leave.”

  Joey blinked slowly. If Lewis wanted to run her out of town, he’d surely do it himself. Maybe Heidi meant the carnival. “Is something wrong?”

  Heidi’s hands stilled, but her knuckles turned white from gripping her fingers so tightly. “Yes. N-no. Not yet. But you’re not safe here. She’s not safe here.” Her eyes darted past Joey in a meaningful fashion.

  Joey glanced over her shoulder at Maria, who still tossed rings some ten feet away, completely oblivious. Then Joey grabbed Heidi’s arm and pulled her between two of the game stands. “Why isn’t she safe here?”

  Heidi shook her head sharply, lips firmly pressed together.

  “Does the name Meghan Rochester mean anything to you?”

  Her eyes widened, and she darted a glance around as if for fear they might be overheard. “Don’t speak that name!”

  “Why not?”

  Heidi shook her head back and forth. “I need to go.” She turned.

  Joey grabbed her arm and spun her back around, then grabbed her other arm for good measure. “Tell me, dammit! What’s going on?”

  A throat being cleared nearby drew Joey’s attention away. Lewis stood at the mouth of the aisle between the booths.

  A growl rumbled from the big Alpha’s chest. “Unhand my mate. Now.”

  16

  Chris rolled back from his desk and stretched his arms high over his head. He’d spent the better part of the morning scouring the database for whatever he could find on Maria’s branch of the Rochester family. Now his stomach rumbled, his neck and shoulders were stiff, and he needed a break.

  As he pushed to his feet and stretched a bit more, his mind continued to churn. Maria’s grandfather had died within a year of his daughter, but Corinne Rochester was still alive as of five or so years ago. He’d sent an email to her last known address, but it’d bounced. Her phone number was “disconnected or no longer in service,” so no help there. Maybe Max would know how to reach her.

  His eyes slid past the rows of journals on his bookcase as he moved past it en route to the kitchen, reminding him of the Trubnikova journal and the fact that he’d been so preoccupied he hadn’t read Justin’s latest chunk of translation. The passage that’d mentioned Jeanette Lawson hadn’t been super enlightening, other than it probably confirmed that Chris’s astral walking ability had been no accident. Chris wondered if his father had known. Was it a secret Jeanette had kept from her mate? If so, why?

  He was so lost in thought he didn’t even notice Lucy on the couch in the living room until she cleared her throat as he walked past.

  Halting, Chris looked over at her. “Hm?”

  “I said, good morning!”

  Chuckling, Chris shook his head. “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere. You’re up early.” It was almost noon, but Lucy worked nights most of the time. Gentlemen’s clubs tended to do more business in the evening than during the day.

  Lucy, who lay on the couch with her denim-clad legs draped over the arm, shrugged and set the romance novel she’d been reading facedown on her stomach. “Up late, actually. I’m off tonight, and I’m meeting Adam in town for lunch in a little bit.”

  “Then I won’t offer to make you a sandwich. I was just on my way to the kitchen.”

  “Appreciate the thought. Everything okay? You looked like you were a thousand miles away.”

  Chris shrugged. “I was, but that’s hardly unusual. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Whatever you say.” She picked up her book and stuck her nose in it.

  Chris lingered, watching her for a moment as thoughts of secrets spun in his head. “Hey, Luce, can I ask you something personal?”

  She sat up, swinging her legs back to the front and discarding the book on the cushion beside her. “Hell yeah. The personal ones are the best.”

  Chris paced closer, half sitting on the arm of the couch. “Why haven’t you told Adam you’re an alpha?”

  Lucy’s face screwed up in a grimace. “Oh, that.” She blew a stray lock of powder-blue hair out of her eyes and sighed. “Well, our dad’s kind of a dick. He was real proud that he sired twins, but the fact that his son wasn’t an alpha really bothered him. Misogyny at its finest.” She stuck her tongue out and made an unladylike noise. />
  Chris chuckled, but quickly sobered as he recalled Adam’s recounting of his family life back in Alaska. “Yeah, he told me about that. Apparently there was some abuse?”

  She looked away, but nodded. “Yeah. Dad was pretty hard on him. Convinced he could beat a spine into him, you know? Anyway, it was the opposite with me. He had some old school notions of ladylike behavior and a girl’s place, and if I ever stepped out of the box he wanted me in…”

  Chris frowned. “He beat you too?”

  Lucy shook her head, glancing up with a faint smile. “No. No, he found out early that wouldn’t do him any good.” Her smile faded as she looked away again. “So he took it out on Adam.”

  “That’s awful. I’m sorry. That’d certainly explain why you kept that part of yourself from your father… but Adam? You two seem really close.”

  “We are.” Lucy nodded, then reached up and tucked that errant strand of hair behind her ear. “And because of that, I knew how much he wanted to be stronger. To be an alpha. How much our asshole caveman father’s approval meant to him. I didn’t want him to feel any more inferior—lesser—than he already did. So I pushed it down. I think I even managed to convince myself it wasn’t true for a while.”

  Chris put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You can’t keep it from him forever. You know that, right?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, probably not. It’s getting harder as we get older. Especially now that Jess is riding with the Gray River pack.”

  “What does Jess have to do with it?”

  “Well, for one, you keep leaving me in charge when you need to run off.” She smiled up at him.

  “I can’t rely on Itsuo. The way he comes and goes—”

  “I know. That’s not what I meant. Well, not entirely what I meant. I mean—”

  The ringing doorbell followed by a knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

  “I hate it when people ring and knock before you have a chance to answer,” Lucy muttered as she climbed to her feet.

  Chris caught her arm, then her eyes as she turned back. “We’ll finish this later, okay?”

  She nodded and headed off to answer the door. Chris lingered where he was, perched on the arm of the couch. As such, he couldn’t see who or what it was on the other side of the door that made Lucy do such an obvious double take. He did, however, hear the words spoken by the woman on the doorstep.

  “Hi, is Colt home?”

  Lucy’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound issued forth. A speechless Lucy was an occasion worth noting. Chris stood and wandered over to stand behind her, looking out over the top of her head. The woman on the porch was tall and slim, with nutty-brown skin, dark eyes, and a strong jaw not softened in the slightest by her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her resemblance to Kate was uncanny. Even the way she stood, with her thumbs hooked in her belt loops, reminded Chris of the dead woman—and he’d barely met her before she died.

  “You must be Leta,” Chris said, gently steering the gaping Lucy out of the way by her shoulders. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Leta narrowed her eyes. “Are you Colt?”

  “No, I’m Chris. Colt’s at work. Do you want to come in?”

  She looked past him into the house, lips pressed together in a line, wariness in her eyes, as if there might be a trapdoor on the other side of the threshold waiting to swallow her up.

  “Can you tell me where my mother is?” she asked.

  Chris had a fraction of a second to decide. In the end, it came down to: would he want to know, if he were in her shoes?

  “Yes.” He opened the door wider and stepped back. “Come on in.”

  Leta eyed him warily but crossed the threshold. He led her to his office, leaving the still wide-eyed Lucy behind in the living room. He left the door open and motioned to the chair facing his desk. Leta sat, stiffly, while he leaned against the desk with his hands resting along the edge of it.

  “I’m glad you came by,” he said. “I wanted to reach out to you once I heard you were looking to reconnect with your mother, but I didn’t have your contact info.”

  “I’m here now.” Impatience flashed in her eyes. “Where is she?”

  Chris drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. There really was no easy way of doing this. “I’m sorry, Leta. But your mother passed away.”

  She snorted and folded her arms. “I wasn’t born yesterday. There’s no record of her death anywhere.”

  “That’s because she was killed by a vengeful spirit.”

  That threw her for a loop. Leta stared at him for a long moment, her dark brows drawing together. “You’re serious.”

  Chris nodded gravely. “I’m afraid I am. You see… your mother’s previous Alpha wasn’t a good man. He killed a member of his own pack and used a human as a scapegoat, claiming he was a hunter. The pack hunted and killed this human, who came back as a ghost and took revenge on the pack. Your mother was one of the casualties.”

  She looked off toward the window, steady and silent. Chris gave her time to process the information, waiting patiently for her to circle back around to him. When she did, her near-black eyes were sharp.

  “You expect me to believe that my mother was murdered by a ghost?”

  Chris spread his hands. He was walking the line, giving her the literal truth without the gory details—he owed it to Colt to keep his role in the killing out of the conversation. “It’s the truth. I wish it were otherwise. I had barely met Kate when it happened, so I’m afraid I didn’t know her well. But she seemed like a very nice woman who didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  Leta’s eyes glistened, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She dashed it impatiently away with the back of one hand. “And what happened to this so-called Alpha of hers?”

  “I challenged him that night, when his crimes came to light. He’s gone.” Chris didn’t feel a need to tell her that whole story either.

  “And the spirit?” She glanced around warily again, nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air. As if she could smell a spirit. Then again, maybe she could. His mother had been able to smell magic sometimes, or so she’d claimed.

  “At peace,” Chris assured her. “I’m so sorry, Leta. I’m sorry I couldn’t save your mother. I know there’s nothing I can say or do that’ll bring her back. But I do have a few things of hers that you might want. Did you know she had a copy of your birth certificate hanging on her wall? She obviously loved you very much.”

  “Not enough to stay,” Leta said softly, but not softly enough that Chris couldn’t pick up her words. “She chose that redneck over her own flesh and blood.”

  “I can’t speak to that,” Chris said. “It was well before my time. But I’m given to understand that her decision to leave the reservation had more to do with wanting to escape a bad situation.”

  “She always was a coward,” Leta said, but there was little malice in it. Another fat tear escaped her control, and this time she didn’t wipe it away. It rolled down her cheek and clung to her chin. “She sent me letters. Every week, like clockwork. I never wrote back. Still, when they stopped, I knew something was wrong. But I did nothing. Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. What’s done is done.” Chris leaned over and grabbed a tissue from the holder on Joey’s desk, then offered it to Leta.

  She took the tissue and dabbed at her eyes, then took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. Her eyes lifted, and she met Chris’s eyes easily once more, holding his gaze. Leta’s apple had fallen a little farther from the tree than she gave herself credit for. Her wolf rose behind her eyes, and Chris let his own rise in answer, alpha to alpha. Seconds passed before Leta nodded, as if he’d passed some sort of test. Her next words all but stopped his heart.

  “Where is she? I’d like to pay my respects.”

  Joey released Heidi’s arms and stepped back with her hands held up in a non-threatening manner. Heidi sca
mpered over to Lewis and attached herself to his side. He put an arm around her, but his eyes remained on Joey.

  “Explain yourself.” His tone was gruff, but Joey considered it a good sign that his wolf wasn’t riled up as much as it had been when Ben had playfully put the moves on Heidi. Apparently manhandling her was less offensive, somehow. Or maybe it was because Joey was a woman. For once, a double standard worked in her favor.

  Joey met Lewis’s eyes briefly. “I’m sorry. I got carried away when…” She glanced at Heidi, who was giving her a pleading look. Whatever it was Heidi was worried about, she didn’t want her mate to know. Or maybe… Lewis was the danger? “I got carried away. Again, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine, love. I’m fine. Really, it was just a misunderstanding.” Heidi tipped her head back to look up at Lewis, resting a hand on his stomach.

  Lewis looked down at her, his features softening. “Are you sure?”

  Heidi smiled. “Yes, completely. You know me—if I don’t keep my mouth shut, I inevitably put my foot in it.”

  The Alpha chuckled and bent to press a kiss into his mate’s hair. “Fair enough.” He met Joey’s eyes over Heidi’s head, though. It was a warning look if Joey had ever seen one.

  Joey hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans, trying to make sense of the whole encounter. “We should probably get back to the others.”

  Lewis nodded and turned to go with Heidi at his side. The beta shot Joey a grateful look over her shoulder. Joey sighed and followed them out from between the stalls. Maria wasn’t where Joey had left her at the ring toss stall, so she ambled down to the next stall.

  Maria wasn’t there either. Frowning, Joey turned in a slow circle and scanned the crowd. The carnival was fairly busy for a weekday, probably on account of all the tourists from the festival. Had the crowd been this thick all along? Joey craned her neck and peered around but found neither Maria nor her big purple friend.

  Joey swallowed and wet her lips as familiar anxiety ate at her insides. The crowd pressed in around her. Someone jostled her from behind, and she spun to answer a hastily murmured apology with a glare.