by Carol Davis
His kiss was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She’d been kissed passionately, of course—one of her college boyfriends had been a particularly talented kisser—but this was entirely different. There was always enough raw emotion in it to take her breath away. Beyond that, it made her understand how deeply she and Aaron were connected. How much they were meant to be together. His presence alone made every nerve in her body cry out with need.
“I want that too,” she told him.
“Even now? After what you’ve seen?”
Remembering the rage on Daniel’s face made her shiver. “I don’t really understand what I saw.”
“Sara will explain it to you.”
Abby nodded, wondering what Sara could possibly say that would make any of this seem reasonable. Her thoughts seemed to be at war with themselves—telling her to run away from this place, and telling her she couldn’t possibly leave. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said in a small voice. “But I can’t let you go.”
He held her for a minute, then eased back a little. “You must,” he said quietly. “For now.”
“You’ll come back?”
“I will always come back.”
“Then go,” she forced herself to say. “You—you need to help your brother. Find out who did this. I’ll be all right.”
Aaron cupped her head in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. “Be safe,” he urged her. “I’ll come to see you as soon as I can.”
He was gone so quickly she thought he might have actually vanished in front of her eyes.
She lifted a hand to her lips, puffy from the intensity of his kiss. She wanted to call him back, to beg him to stay with her, but told herself that that was the “bond” talking, that she could stay here without him for a while without falling to pieces. After all, she’d spent the last twenty-four years without him.
Would they take Luca to the mainland? she wondered. Surely, if he was that badly hurt, he needed a hospital.
The back door creaked as Sara came back in. The woman glanced around her cabin, but she didn’t seem surprised that Aaron was no longer there. She’d heard the other door open and close, Abby supposed, or maybe she’d seen Aaron walking away.
“Is there a hospital here?” Abby asked her. “Is there—what happens when someone’s hurt?”
“The healer does what she can,” Sara said. “Beyond that, it’s largely out of our hands.”
“That’s all?”
Sara smiled, but it seemed more rueful than anything else. Then she shuddered a little and wrapped her arms around herself, which shook Abby’s notion that she was going to be safe here, no matter how welcoming and determined this woman seemed.
This woman Aaron had described by saying, She’s a human.
“Come,” Sara said, gesturing to the pair of comfortable-looking chairs in front of the fireplace. “Let’s sit for a little while. You can catch your breath, and then we’ll talk about the wolves.”
Three
Aaron moved swiftly down the path through the center of the settlement, his shoes kicking up small puffs of dust from the dry, well-beaten ground, entirely focused on his destination. He ignored the looks of suspicion and fear he got along the way, thinking only about his brother.
Nothing like this had happened for decades. An attack? One wolf leaving another bleeding, near death? It should not be happening now.
Halfway home, he became aware that he was being watched not only by his neighbors, but by Daniel—that Daniel had been watching him ever since he had left the house with Abby. The wolf inside him wanted badly to confront Daniel for scaring Abby so badly, but there’d been too much confrontation already, and what Aaron really needed to do right now was to see to his brother.
Stabbed with a poisoned blade?
Such a thing had never happened here, not in all the time the pack had been on this island. That was the way of humans, not wolves.
His parents were still together in the main room of the house, holding each other, murmuring to each other, both of them even more distraught than they’d been when he left. Aaron looked past them into the bedroom and could see no movement on his brother’s bed. It might be that Luca was simply asleep, but his injuries said otherwise. He was covered to the waist with a blanket; his upper body was bare. He was deathly pale, and looked to be wounded in at least half a dozen places. Aaron could smell blood from where he was standing, pungent and coppery and full of stress hormones.
“Do we have any idea?” he asked his father. “No one saw anything? Where did this happen?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “He was found out in the woods, in a place where the brush is thick.” He hesitated, glancing at his wife, then said, “One of the places where you young ones go to be alone.”
That took Aaron by surprise. “A mating glen?”
“The one near the white birches.”
Images spilled through Aaron’s head. He knew the place his father was talking about, had been there any number of times. He’d even made some use of it in the past: chasing a female through the trees, nipping at her, growling and howling, shifting back to human form to lie on the fallen leaves and explore with fingers and lips and tongue.
Luca had been attacked there? Maybe… Had he been seen with someone? Had he been interrupted in the middle of…
“Is there a female?” he asked his father.
Jeremiah seemed confused. He’d been staring into Luca’s room, his shoulders slumped with pain and exhaustion, as if only by holding on to his own mate could he manage to stand upright.
“No,” he said finally. “Not that I know of. He’s expressed no interest in anyone lately, that I can remember.”
“But was he–” Aaron sighed and shook his head. “You don’t need to be ‘interested’ to be in the glen.”
He turned his attention to his mother, thinking she might know something that Jeremiah did not, that Luca might have confided something in her. Aaron had done that any number of times himself; his mother was a good listener, less judgmental than her husband.
“He spoke about a quest,” she murmured.
“A quest?” Jeremiah and Aaron said that together.
Rachel shook her head. “He couldn’t find the right attraction to anyone here among the pack. He wasn’t going to leave soon. It was just something he was thinking about. He wasn’t interested in any of the girls here. He wouldn’t mate with one, even to amuse himself.”
“Mother,” Aaron said gently.
“I know,” she told him. “Trust me, I know exactly what young wolves are like, both male and female. I was young once.” Casting a chiding look at her husband that Aaron wasn’t sure how to interpret, she said, “I know where the glens are. Which ones are the most sunny, or private. Where the moss is the softest.”
That was something Aaron didn’t much care to pursue. “Has it been searched?” he asked with a squeak in his voice.
Jeremiah nodded. “There are wolves there now.”
“But they haven’t found anything.”
“I don’t know that they’re likely to. The glen? The place is full of scents. Footprints. Paw prints. Hair and fur, possibly some blood. Whoever did this could not possibly have picked a better place.” Jeremiah’s voice caught, and he pressed a hand to his mouth. “Luca is covered with scents, too. The ones who found him. The ones who carried him back here.”
“And no one heard anything.”
“They may have thought they were hearing something else.”
“Do you think this was deliberate? That it wasn’t… Passions are high out there, Father.”
“Wolves do not attack other wolves,” Jeremiah said sharply, and again, his voice broke—this time in a way that sent a blade of pain through Aaron’s heart.
Aaron began to pace the room, pulling at his hair, searching his memory for some explanation—something someone had done or said that would indicate that they harbored some deep anger or loathing toward Luca. The wolf within him
began to surge against its walls, desperate to get out, to pursue the one who had done this, to do to that wolf what had been done to Luca.
“You argued,” said his father.
That brought Aaron up short. “Yes. We did. This morning. But no worse than we’ve argued in the past.”
“About that human girl.”
Aaron shook his head. “He told me I was being stupid, that I shouldn’t have become involved with her. That I should have sent her away immediately. I’m sure he was speaking for most of the pack. But, Father, I tell you again—you can’t honestly believe for a moment that I did this. That I’d attack my own brother? You know me better than that.”
Jeremiah looked more lost than Aaron had ever seen him. For the first time, he looked defeated and old, and his gaze strayed again and again to the bed where Luca was lying so still and silent.
“We’ll find them,” Aaron said quietly. “Whoever it is.”
Jeremiah nodded without enthusiasm. Then he wandered to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace and sat down heavily, leaving Rachel to be comforted by her younger son. Aaron did that quickly and willingly, wrapping an arm tightly around his mother and tucking her head against his shoulder. She had stopped crying, mostly, but she was still trembling in anguish.
“You should rest,” Aaron told her. “Why don’t you lie down for a while?”
She looked over at Jeremiah but didn’t argue the suggestion. “Will you sit with your brother?” was all she asked.
“Of course.”
He hated seeing Luca that way, but he forced himself to do it, to not look away as he pulled a chair up beside Luca’s bed and sat down. His mother had already gone into her own bedroom, and he could hear his father join her and then close the door. With any luck, they’d both rest for a while.
He wanted very much to rest himself. It had been a long day, even though part of it had been very pleasant—splashing in the pool with Abby, enjoying her reaction to one of his favorite places on the island. Mating with her among the rocks. Drinking in her scent, caressing her soft skin.
“I know you disagree,” he said softly to his brother. “But I brought her here to meet everyone. To be one of us. I can’t let her go, Luca.”
As if he was responding, Luca struggled to take in a breath, then lay still again. Aaron grimaced at the extent of his wounds. There were half a dozen, two of which were covered with poultices, but he could tell how severe they were. Whoever had attacked Luca had meant for him to die, had pushed him well past the point where his ability to heal—much more powerful than that of a human—would ensure that he would wake and become whole again.
Maybe, past the point where he could heal at all.
“I want you to get to know her,” Aaron went on. “I’d like the two of you to become friends.”
Friends…
Luca had a fair number of those. He was quick-tempered and stubborn, but also loyal and supportive. He worked as hard as anyone in the pack to build new structures and repair old ones, bring in the crops, tend the animals. He was quick to laugh when he was amused, and compassionate when someone had suffered a loss. A good man, Aaron thought. To his knowledge, no one in the pack thought otherwise.
Though clearly, someone did.
Unless someone other than Abby had come here from somewhere else. Another human? A wolf from another pack?
Aaron’s own wolf strained against the walls that held him, needing to break free, to run through the woods in search of whoever had done this, anxiously sniffing the ground and the foliage for clues. There had to be clues; only a ghost could have attacked Luca and left no sign.
Be still, Aaron told the beast. Let me think. We can’t go out there without a plan.
The wolf, of course, disagreed. It wanted revenge, swift and bloody. Then it wanted Abby. Wanted Aaron to claim her yet again.
I want her too. But we have to wait.
He’d told her this was a good place, a safe place. And he could not possibly have picked a worse day to bring her here.
Whoever had attacked Luca had stabbed him in the chest, probably aiming for his heart. Luca must have tried to evade the attack, because the other wounds were in his shoulders and arms. That seemed to indicate that the attacker had been frantic, driven by emotion, rather than someone who was accustomed to killing and could do it swiftly and easily.
With a trembling hand Aaron lifted the blanket away from his brother’s body and saw still another wound, this one in his belly. Luca must have been on the ground then, perhaps already felled by the poison.
The thought of that made Aaron’s stomach roll over—the image of his brother brought to the ground by a sudden, undeserved attack. Luca was young, strong, vital. He didn’t lie on a bed like this, his flesh ghastly pale, his chest shuddering with each captured breath.
I’m going to find you, Aaron promised whoever had done this. I will find you, and I will make you pay for what you’ve done.
He didn’t allow himself to think that Luca might not survive, might not be able to seek revenge himself.
Four
“The wolves have been here as far back as anyone can remember,” Granny Sara said with a small, pensive smile. “Whether there was just one in the beginning, or a whole community, no one knows. There aren’t any records. No stories. And no one honestly knows how shifters came to be. One day, they simply were.”
She’d made cups of tea for herself and Abby, and looked somewhat wistful as she sipped hers. Abby was silent for a minute, drinking her tea, letting her host lead the conversation as she took in as much of the little house as she could from where she was sitting. There was more bright, vibrant color here than in Aaron’s parents’ house: the quilt on the bed, a knitted blanket folded up on the hearth, a framed picture on the wall over the fireplace, several pots of flowers. The blooms made the place very fragrant.
A woman’s house, Abby thought. She saw no sign of a husband.
“How did you come here?” Abby ventured finally.
“From the mainland.” Something passed through Sara’s eyes, but it was gone too quickly for Abby to put a name to it. “We were out ‘adventuring’ and came across this place.”
“We?”
“My sister and I, and her boyfriend.”
“Are they here?”
“No,” Sara said with a sigh. “We camped here for a few days and had a grand old time. We saw no sign of anyone; we thought the place was deserted. There weren’t many people living on these islands at that point, so we thought nothing of it. We had our fun and we went home. But there was something…”
She paused, turning her teacup around in her hands. “Something that kept me awake at night. The feeling that there was something here, something important. Something I needed to find out about. So, a few weeks later, I took the boat and came out here alone. Again, I didn’t find anyone, but I couldn’t shake that feeling. I made camp, and the next day he showed up.”
Abby remembered her first glimpse of Aaron, standing outside his cabin, watching her in silence.
“Your… soulmate,” she whispered.
Sara nodded. “His name was Paul. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I told myself I ought to be afraid, out here all alone, but I wasn’t. I knew he’d been watching me while I was out here with my sister, even though we’d seen absolutely no sign of him, and I… Well.” Light twinkled in her pale blue eyes, and she seemed to come close to laughing. “Within a couple of hours we’d done things I’d never even imagined. And I promised never to leave him.”
Paul was gone now, Abby guessed. He’d been the one to leave. No; he was the one who’d died. Without asking the question, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“We had a long life together.”
“Did you go back? Tell your family what you were going to do?”
“Briefly.”
More than asking to be polite, or simply to get to know this woman who had taken her in, Abby wanted a blueprint for what she should do. Sara too
had had a life and a family on the mainland, one she’d left behind. Abby thought about her father, her brothers, her job. The apartment she’d been so proud to make her own. None of that seemed to matter now, not when it was stacked up against staying with Aaron.
Even though Aaron wasn’t… human.
“I never—” she said abruptly, then cut herself off for a moment. “I never believed in any of this. In shifters. I’ve heard about them. All my life, I guess. But I never thought it was real.”
Sara asked pointedly, “Didn’t you?”
The question stopped Abby in her tracks. Her first instinct was to say, No, of course not, but there was an intensity in Granny Sara’s eyes that made her reconsider. She thought of Sera’s websites, of the stories they contained. Most of them seemed to have been written by people who were outright crazy, or like they’d been posted as a joke, but there were others that sounded genuine. Heartfelt.
Then there were those eyes. Those golden eyes that seemed so familiar.
A distant memory prodded at her, something from a long time ago. She tried to tell herself that she couldn’t get hold of it, that it was too elusive, just a wisp of a thought, but the more she looked at Sara, the closer it came.
“I had dreams,” she said. “When I was little. Before my mother died.”
“About—?” Sara prompted.
“Someone watching me. Not in a creepy way. More like… they were watching over me.”
“Maybe they were.”
The teacup quivered in Abby’s grasp. “I think—there was a night when we were out camping. I got up to go to the bathroom. There seemed to be a lot of light. The moon, you know?” Sara nodded, so Abby stammered ahead. “I felt like someone was watching me, but I couldn’t find anyone. I didn’t want to tell my parents, because I was afraid they’d say we had to go home. So I went back to bed. I’m not even sure it actually happened.”