by Amanda Milo
Then it’s yesterday’s routine on replay—breakfast, visit with Deek and kids, shower, dress, rush out—until I reach work.
“Sue, a word?” calls Finn all of two seconds after I punch in.
I shut my purse in my locker and put my back to it. I find Finn in the doorway of the staff room, hand gripping the frame, weight braced forward, making his impressive chest look broader, more cut. His t-shirt hides no secrets, and he’s a man who stays fit. Very fit. I ignore the handsomeness of his face and meet his lively green eyes, really looking at them today. “What do you need?”
He strolls over to me and leans a shoulder into the locker units, crossing his arms, displaying so much lovely male wrist and forearm real estate. “What’s your weekend look like?”
My gaze freezes on his. Dread rolls slowly over me, like honey: sweet, but I feel like I’m in a jam.
I guess I don’t hide my reaction well. Or at all. Finn’s gaze shutters, and he holds up a hand. “I’m not coming on to ya. I mean for bringing Ginny by the dens.” He raises a shoulder. “I figure she’ll be more comfortable if you come along.”
I cross my arms over my chest too. “Sure,” I reply. “Saturday would probably be best if Deek is planning to do church again on Sunday?”
Finn’s lips curve up in a smile, but his eyes look a little sad. “Oh, he will. And all right then. I’ll see you and the fam on Saturday. Say when, and Deek will tell you where to go.”
I frown as something occurs to me. “If he’s never been out before, how does he know where to go?”
Finn’s eyes study me for a moment. “He may never have been shopping before, but he’s been out plenty. He runs as a wolf in the wee hours. Running in town is nice when there’s no people. And it’s dead as hags at three in the morning. Have a great shift, Sue.”
He’s ambling for the door when he casually calls over. “Hey?”
Slipping my phone, which I’d peeked at for last messages—none—back into my pocket, I ask, “Yeah?”
“Did the bloke you divorced have the last name of Bennet?”
I frown. “Yeah. Why?”
“Eh. No reason.”
With that, Finn leaves.
***
The week passes by blessedly easy, with Deek taking Maggie to the park faithfully every day (he simply goes as a wolf now, and stays in wolf form for the duration of the trip) and Charlotte and Ginny’s time being swallowed up by school and academic activities. Every night, I come home to a sink that has no dishes piled in it. The floors have been mopped. On Wednesday morning when I trot down to the basement to start a load of laundry, I find it’s already been done, and not only that, everything’s stone dry in the quiet dryer.
Someone did the laundry yesterday and didn’t say a thing.
The smoothness of it all makes the weekend feel like it comes up fast. On Saturday morning, Ginny is a ball of nerves as we load into the car. I drive, since it would be cruel to stuff Deek into the backseat with two girls and a car seat. So by default, he lands in the passenger seat beside me, giving me directions to the Pack dens.
It turns out the long, long driveway to the Pack headquarters is just past the tree-lined driveway that leads to the Pack church.
I was, of course, half expecting these dens to be caves. My imagination ran with all sorts of questions about what a werewolf headquarters might look like.
I was way off.
A rambling two-story stone house, old but well kept, fills our view when we drive around a curve. The stone is a mix of white, greys, and dark reds, and the roof has clearly been updated: it’s an unusual evergreen-shaded metal.
The house is humongous.
“That’s the place,” Deek says, and his voice holds a dreamy sort of relief. Like just seeing home makes him unbelievably happy.
He’s been like this all morning; his excitement to see home actually went a long way toward easing Ginny’s nerves about visiting here at all.
We pull up in front of the manor, where I idle in the circular gravel driveway, seeing no other cars. “Can I park here?” I glance around, trying not to gawk. In the middle of the driveway’s circle, where I’d expect a stately fountain to match the grandeur of the house, there looks to be a low-sided circular pool formed by massive round river-smooth rocks. There’s a bronze otter statue at the edge of it, with a wooden sign propped against the animal which reads “Madra Uisce Lochán,” and beneath that, “Water Dog Pond.”
“Yep. Everyone usually parks in the back in the garages, but you can stay right here. No one will care,” Deek assures me.
“I’m coming in with Deek,” Maggie announces as we all stare up at the rough stone exterior of the house. I note that the window trim is evergreen-colored to match the roof. It looks nice.
“We’re all going in,” I murmur, and from the rearview mirror, I watch Ginny, who is in the middle seat, relax another fraction.
“The Tíódéls are here,” Deek murmurs thoughtfully, inhaling at his still-cracked open window. “I bet all of them have come to see Ginny.”
“Tíó...?” she asks. “What are…”
Deek seems unworried as he unbuckles and exits the car. He leans back in to say, “Tíódéls. They're the highest-ranking wolves in the territory, and they act as enforcers over the rest of us, settling disputes and keeping the peace. They’ll want to have a staredown with you since you’re new to the Pack, but it’s only for ceremony’s sake.”
When I glance into the backseat, Ginny is tense again, eyes like saucers, hands clutching themselves in her lap, and Charlotte is almost the same.
Maggie is oblivious, working the fastenings on her car seat. “Deek, wait for me! I want to see the werewolves!”
At the sound of her distinctively loud voice, dark shapes rise up on the covered porch of the—
mansion
—house.
Alarmed, I tense—but then one of the forms makes a “WHARF!” noise and blasts off the porch like a dock diving dog, wagging its tail wildly and making a beeline for Deek.
Deek crouches and catches the creature as it launches itself into his arms, licking his face and wriggling wildly.
It’s a half-grown werewolf.
Or less than half-grown, possibly, because it’s maybe the size of a border collie.
Clutching the clearly thrilled member of his pack, letting the animal (person) wriggle against his chest where it’s playfully rolling, whining, and nipping at him, Deek moves to Maggie’s door and helps her out. He hitches the young werewolf over his shoulder, it’s wagging tail slapping his face as he holds out his hand for Maggie to take.
With more enthusiasm, Charlotte and Ginny spill out of the other side and crowd around him to pet the madly excited werewolf.
I debate locking my purse in the car, but with a crew of three kids, you never know if you’ll need gum, Kleenex, Band-Aids, or a granola bar, all of which I have tucked away, just waiting to be used. I shoulder my bag and lock up our vehicle.
I’m smiling at Deek and the kids as he sets the werewolf on the ground and it bows playfully and woofs at them. But my gaze moves back to the porch, where the other shapes are standing sentry.
Black, brown, red—the werewolves stare back at me.
I’m about to move closer to Deek when one wags its tail—and then they all start wagging their tail and they spill down the steps and trot up to me in a friendly manner. Soon they’re circling Deek and the kids, and one of them pounces on the small happy werewolf, eliciting a wrestling match that has us all laughing.
“Come on,” Deek says. “Leave these idiots and let’s go to the house.”
“That’s ‘eejits!’” Finn hollers, the porch door slamming after him. “Wolves from Ireland think you’re complimenting us if you use words as gentle as idiot.”
“DON’T SLAM THE DOOR, EEJIT!” someone yells from inside.
Finn turns back and bellows, “WELL DONE!” He grins before adding, “AND SORRY!”
Deek is carrying Maggie
now, and he’s feigning a frown as he moves up the porch steps, stepping politely over a pair of jeans but otherwise paying the stray clothing here and there no mind. “I used idiot because of our greeters. You’ll notice only Colin is from Ireland.” He hooks his thumb at the red wolf currently raising his leg to the tire of our car.
Finn makes a sympathetic face and slaps Deek on the back. “We don’t hold it against the rest of you.” Then he hollers with feeling, “Colin! Don’t piss in front of the girls, you daft weasel!”
The wolf comes skittering up the porch—and flops over my feet. “Oh,” I say in surprise, holding still.
Finn rolls his eyes, leans down, and seizes the wolf up by his ruff, holding the massive beast in his arms like it weighs nothing. “Don’t be a lickarse,” he chides it, and bops foreheads with it affectionately. At us, he jerks his chin, indicating the manor’s arched doorway. “Get inside, all of ye.”
We file in, with Finn murmuring, “Howaya, Sue.”
“Hi, Finn,” I murmur back, smiling despite myself since he’s still carrying the giant werewolf flopped in his arms—and when I look at it, it turns and looks right back, panting at me with its tongue lolling out, looking like it’s smiling.
I barely get an impression of the house—massive ship timbers half-encased by stone support the walls from wood floor to ceiling, coat hooks on the walls hold all sorts of clothes, not just coats, portraits of wolves and men alike decorate the foyer—when a thunderous pounding begins inside the house, sounding like the ceiling is going to come crashing down. Several pairs of bare feet round the landing of the stairs and bang down to the first story. Voices shout, “DEEK’S BACK!”
And then Deek and Maggie are engulfed with human male bodies and there’s hugs and shouting and absolute chaos until a woman enters the room from a swinging doorway and yells, “Lunch is ready, and PUT DEEK DOWN! He’s holding a baby!”
The red wolf Finn is holding, Colin, has kicked its elbow back so that it hangs over Finn’s arm, and with its relaxed pose, rear paws in the air and body slouched against Finn’s chest, it looks like that So, do you come here often? meme as it all but smiles at me.
Finn’s hand, which is wrapped around the chest of the animal, curls a big thumb and middle finger together—and then he flicks his middle finger out, thwacking the wolf he’s gripping in its fur-padded ribs, making the animal chuff with lupine laughter. “Quit making eyes at my mutt,” Finn mutters.
“Did he just call her a mutt?” Charlotte whispers to Ginny. But if I can hear the question, surely everyone present can since werewolf ears have the acuity of bats.
“Remember,” Ginny murmurs back, staring around the room with all the wonder of the girl from Princess Diaries who learns she’s not in fact your average human but is in actuality a princess who stands to inherit a whole kingdom she never knew anything about, “Deek made the comment that back home, the wolves call each other mutts affectionately.”
“Ohh, that’s right,” Charlotte says, voice much relaxed.
“That was ‘mot,’ not mutt,” Finn corrects. He’s watching Ginny, but sensing my attention, he focuses on me. “How’s she doing?” he mouths.
I shrug. “Fine,” I whisper, aware that even in this supernatural mayhem, he’ll hear me perfectly. He’s proven it at the pub every day. “She’s been a little nervous the closer we got to being here, but for her, nothing has changed yet, you know?”
He nods thoughtfully. Then he sets his werewolf friend down. The animal stretches hugely, it’s body lengthening, showing off its muscle and grace—and then it lopes up to Deek and nips him on the leg.
In the middle of conversing with the woman who announced lunch, Deek yelps, turns to the werewolf—and supporting Maggie in one arm, he hauls his packmate off the ground by its ruff. He gives it a one-armed bear hug of a squeeze—then he tosses the unbelievably large beast like it weighs nothing, harmlessly sending it flying onto a nearby couch.
The wolf—Colin—bounces off of the furniture like a ferret, bounding back over, fur rising playfully, if the low-swaying tail is any indication.
“All right, quit screwing around,” the lunch announcer calls. “Hello, guests. Hello, Ginny. Welcome back, Deek! Are you hungry?”
Deek, to my surprise, looks over his shoulder at me.
Finn nudges me. “Say yes. Come in and eat with us. It’ll be good for Ginny.”
“We just had breakfast like three hours ago,” I murmur.
“So? We’ll have you all walking it off. Besides, Deek’ll probably want to go up to the big house to get a few more of his things.”
I turn to him fully. “‘The big house?’”
Finn is unconcerned at the way I’m cocking my head at him like I’m not sure I heard him right. “Well, yeah. Why do you think we call it the dens? There’s no way the whole pack could fit together in one place, so we’ve split everyone up into houses. This is Half Moon House, and Deek lives at Night Howl.” He turns to the woman. “They’re joining us for lunch!”
Around us, werewolves—human and wolf form—send up deafening howls of delight.
CHAPTER 19
LUCAN
Our sweeping beam-style trestle table seats forty in the kitchen, and we have to pull three beat-up dining room chairs from the pantry in order to fit the lunch crowd in the Half Moon House.
Maggie is sitting next to me, Charlotte is on my other side, then Ginny, then Susan, then Finn. Next to Finn are Josh, Logan, Colin, and Harper—the wolves who greeted us when we arrived. We went down the line introducing everyone, but it was clear the humans were a bit overwhelmed at the sheer amount of people (and the submissives in the room, who are sensitive to the state of being overwhelmed, were sympathetic), and Ginny was wide-eyed trying to memorize all of us.
Finn had gently clapped her on the back. “Don’t worry. You’ll get to meet us again and again. Soon, you’ll know everyone here. You’re Pack.”
Ginny had sat up a little straighter. I’m not sure if she was eased by Finn’s pronouncement though, or if she looked more like she was readying herself to take a very important test.
Perhaps in deference to her obvious nerves, the Tíódéls present haven’t done anything more than nod a hello to Ginny. Everyone is treading around her gently, not wanting to scare her. If she were an adult, I think they’d feel more pressed to establish dominance. Being that she’s as young as she is, everyone is content to simply have her settle in.
“When’s the corned beef going to be ready?” Rory spews around a mouthful of food.
Jennifer, Rhyannon, and Gail all groan in unison.
Finn smacks him upside the head affectionately before his mother can reach him to do it. “Chew with your trap closed.”
“You and the friggin’ corned beef,” Rhyannon says, pointing at Rory but keeping her eyes lowered—because, even young, Rory is an alpha to her submissive. “We’ve told you it takes a week in the brine and if ye ask again, you are getting dunked in the pickling barrel.” Then she scowls. “Sit down, Jenn.”
Jennifer, an Aardwolf shifter mated to a werewolf, checks her watch. “We need to get that stew going, or we’re not going to have anything for dinner.”
“It’ll take us all of twenty minutes to eat,” Gail points out. “We’ll get it going in time. If it’s late, the worst that happens is we send everybody out to hunt rabbits ‘til it’s done.”
At this sound logic, Jennifer sends a good thinking tap to the side of her head and takes her seat. “Liam, eat your Brussels sprouts.”
Liam pouts. “I don’t like them.”
“Then finish your peas at least.”
“I hate peas!”
“Liam,” Finn cuts in, “it’s beginning to sound like you dislike vegetables.”
“I do,” Liam confirms, expression mulish.
Finn rocks back on the bench. “Well, now. A proper werewolf loves vegetables.”
Liam’s expression is torn. Because a werewolf wants to be a proper werewolf when he can
.
Finn leans his elbow on the table until Gail hisses, “Elbows, Finn! What kind of manners are you trying to teach the lads? You hawkshite.”
Finn sits up for her but keeps his attention trained on Liam. “Vegetables don’t get enough credit. They aren’t the easy prey a wolf might mistake them for. Do you know what the hardest part of eating a vegetable is?”
Liam shakes his head.
Finn grins wickedly. “The wheelchair.”
Gasps issue from every throat—even mine, and as Finn’s best friend, I know his twisted sense of humor practically better than anyone.
Finn takes all of us in and sighs. “That one was wrong, and I apologize.” He leans forward.
Everyone proceeds to send reprimanding swats to his head. Sputtering under the barrage of slaps that are suddenly coming at him from every direction, clearly more than he bargained for, Finn protests, “Hey now! Oi! I don't know any better—I was raised by wolves!”
“I'm telling your mam you said that too,” Gail threatens, plunking back down in her seat.
I shake my head, eyeing the scarred up table, not him. I’m smiling at his antics thinking, not for the first time, that the Irish wolves are all nuts.
“Where’s my mom?” Ginny asks, and the din at the table immediately goes hushed.
Finn, unbothered by the question, certainly expecting it before now, easily replies, “In the basement of the London House.”
Ginny drops her chicken wing. “She’s in London?”
Good-natured chuffs break out all around us.
“No sweetheart, we call the big house the London House,” Finn explains.
I lean in and whisper, “We’re in Half Moon. This is practically where I grew up since I was always with Finn,” I add, feeling proud and glad to have Susan’s family essentially meeting mine. Sure, my parents have moved to Ireland now (like an embassy, wolves and shifters from all over the globe settle together onto Pack territories. To represent themselves, to mingle and find mates, and for protection. Not all shifters are werewolves, and not all shifters can defend themselves with strength, thus werewolves in particular are a fixture on every continent), but everyone else who’s here—they’re my people, by blood and by choice, and I think they’ll really hit it off well with Susan’s clan. Maggie in particular is going to love playing with pups her own age. She’s already met Liam, Noah, and Emma, who are three, six, and seven. They’re seated beside her, and they’ve already hit it off nicely.