It could have been because Peter was older. Lukas understood that there were some things he wasn’t able to do because of his size and age. Then again, he’d heard the talks his brother had with his father—he wasn’t eavesdropping, not exactly—and Peter had been doing a lot more at Lukas’ age than Lukas was doing.
His stomach rumbled, making him flush with anger. His father knew he could fish—he’d seen Lukas catch lots of fish in this very lake. To blame him for one day’s bad luck was unfair. Peter had been willing to share his catch. Lukas wondered if Peter had been the one to come back with nothing would his father still have applied the same rules. He scowled. Not likely. His father probably would have ordered Lukas to share rather than send Peter back to the lake or have him go hungry.
Lukas stood, threading bait on his hook. He arced his line out into the middle of the lake and waited. What would happen tomorrow when they went hunting for deer? Would his father insist that all three of them shoot their own deer? The likelihood of that happening was slim. And it was wasteful. They wouldn’t be able to eat or carry all of that meat. Surely his father had to realize that.
A nibble on the line, then it pulled taut. Lukas reeled it in, not really hungry anymore. Still, he wanted to prove that he could catch fish just as well or better than Peter. He dropped the fish in his bucket, then rebaited his hook, casting it out once more into the lake. As he waited for another bite on the end of his line, Lukas vowed that tomorrow it would be him, and not Peter, that would bring down a deer.
* * * * *
Lukas heard footsteps crunching against the shoreline and sat up quickly, wiping sleep from his eyes. He always slept better outside. His fire was down to embers; he’d built one after he’d caught more fish than his father and brother combined, so he could cook his dinner. He still had more than enough left over for breakfast, even if he never wanted to see another fish for about a billion years.
Peter crouched down next to him, stirring the glowing coals with a stick. “I can’t believe you stayed out here all night.”
Lukas rubbed his head, yawning. “Did Pop send you to find me?”
Peter shook his head. “I came to find you.”
Lukas looked away. Why had his father invited him on this trip anyway when it was obvious he’d have preferred it to be just him and Peter? Had Mom said something? “Oh.”
“Good catch,” his brother said, taking a look at all of the fish stacked in the bucket, cleaned and ready for cooking.
“Yeah.” Lukas didn’t feel much like talking.
“Here, let me help you bring it back to camp.”
Lukas surged up from the ground, not bothering to brush dirt from his jacket and trousers. “I can do it!” He practically yanked the bucket out of Peter’s hand.
Peter let go, raising both hands. “Alright, alright, geez!”
“Why’d you come looking for me anyway?” Lukas kicked dirt over the embers, tamping down on them with his feet to smother them.
Peter didn’t look at him. “Because I was worried about you.”
Lukas started to stomp back toward the cabin. “Not worried to come looking for me last night, I notice.”
Peter’s voice was exasperated when he answered. “I didn’t think you’d spend all night out here like a nimrod.”
Lukas didn’t say anything, anger rising in him. He didn’t need his older brother looking after him like he was a baby. “I’m just as good as you are in the woods,” he snapped. “I don’t need you to check on me.” Especially not in the morning after spending a whole night outside by myself with no tent or sleeping bag. I did just fine without your help.
“I know that, okay?” Peter practically yelled. “I’m not trying to fight with you!”
“What are you trying to do then?” Lukas challenged, swinging around to face his brother, the fish-filled bucket held in both hands.
Peter stopped, staring at Lukas with a strange look on his face. Lukas didn’t understand what it meant. He thought his brother looked sad, but it was also something more, something he couldn’t’ identify. It was several minutes before he spoke. “Nothing, Luke. Nothing.”
He passed Lukas and led the way back to the cabin. Lukas followed, feeling ashamed somehow. He wanted to apologize to Peter, but his brother didn’t look back or say another word.
So it was with a profound sense of relief that Lukas slogged into the front door of his house and headed directly up to his room. The weekend had been a disaster; that was evident in the fact that they were home a day early. He wasn’t speaking to his brother, his father was so furious he could barely look at Lukas without snarling, and they had absolutely nothing to show for their hunt.
Lukas shucked off his clothes, dropping them into the laundry hamper reserved for hunting gear. Since they hadn’t caught anything, the clothes didn’t reek as badly as usual. He could hear his mother’s voice demanding he get into the bathtub immediately. She was busy handling his father and the gear from the trip, so she wouldn’t be checking on him for awhile. For once he was grateful for the uproar of the household. He didn’t want to talk about the nightmare of a hunting trip.
He ran the bathwater as hot as he could stand it, stepping in when it was only half full. He soaped up quickly, ducking his head under the faucet as he washed his hair. While under the water he thought about the deer hunt. It had started out normally enough—they had taken their places in the forest in the early morning, their scents as camouflaged as possible. Lukas lay behind a fallen log, rifle braced on top of it. He made sure he was comfortable; he’d be in this position for a long time.
His father was nearby, between Lukas and Peter. No words had been spoken about the fishing, and Lukas was glad to have something else to focus on besides his father’s words from last night. His father used hand signals to communicate with both boys. Lukas signaled back that he was ready.
They’d been out for perhaps two hours when Lukas heard it: the faint crunch of a deer coming through the brush. Lukas froze, locking muscles into place. He looked in the direction of the sound and saw the buck. Eight point. Nice size. It was in his line of fire, so he took a deep breath and sighted through the rifle’s scope.
Movement from out of the corner of his eyes caused him to pause. He flicked his gaze over to his father, who was signaling that Peter had the shot. Lukas shook his head once. The shot was his, he had the better angle. His father gestured again, more emphatically. Peter would take the buck.
Lukas felt anger flow through him, burning his insides. He’d shaken his head again, but saw that Peter was already up on one knee, in firing position. Lukas changed his grip on the rifle, pointing it straight up in the air and fired. The buck jerked its head up and bounded out of sight. Let’s see Peter bring it down now.
His father had yanked the rifle out of Lukas’ hands, his face red with fury. For a moment, Lukas thought his father had lost the ability to speak through his anger; the man’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged, and his eyes bugged out of his head. Lukas felt afraid—he’d never witnessed his father so angry—so he flinched when the man brought the rifle around and threw it to the ground.
“What did you think you were doing just now?” It was a shout that echoed throughout the forest.
Lukas looked to his brother for help, but Peter looked down, not meeting Lukas’ eyes. So that was the way it was going to be. With no help coming from that quarter, he forced his eyes to meet his father’s. Lukas spoke in a calm voice, the fear somehow miraculously gone. “It was my shot to take.”
Lukas hadn’t thought it possible for his father to get any redder, but he was wrong. He stiffened, face flushing even more. “It’s whoever’s shot I say it is,” he ground out, his voice sounding harsh and flat.
“I had the better angle. It was MY shot.” Lukas was right; he knew he was right. Why couldn’t his father see that?
“When you’re in the woods, boy, you’ll listen to me!”
“Why?” Lukas hadn’t meant it as a smart re
mark. He honestly wanted to know. As far as he could tell, his father had taught both him and Peter everything he knew already. Was there another acorn of wisdom his father had left to impart? “Are you the boss of the forest?” Okay, that one might have been a smart remark.
The thrashing he received for that comment was the worst he’d ever had. It took Peter pulling his father off of him to stop it. For a few minutes he just lay there, everything hurting. Then he raised himself up and saw his father staring at him with cold, cold eyes. Lukas shivered. “We’re leaving,” was all his father said after a few moments of staring into nothing. “Pack your things.”
Peter offered him a hand up, but Lukas didn’t take it. Instead he waited until both his father and his brother had begun their hike back to the cabin before pulling himself up off of the ground. Then he dried the tears he hadn’t realized he’d shed and headed after them.
He pulled his head up out of the bath water and turned off the faucet. He was too big for a bath, but that worked the best to scour off the dirt so he folded himself smaller and began to scrub his body with a brush. A faint knock sounded at the door just as he was starting on his feet. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” came the reply in his mother’s soft voice.
At the sound, Lukas felt his eyes fill with unwanted tears. He cleared his throat. “Come in.” He pulled the curtain halfway closed to cover his nakedness. Even though his mother had seen him the day he was born, he was self-conscious now.
She stepped inside, a thin woman with a heart-shaped face framed in a halo of white-blonde hair. Lukas took his coloring from her—his hair and skin color were of a piece with hers. Only their eyes differed. Hers were a soft brown. Peter had gotten those. Lukas’ eyes were a sharp and cutting blue. She was a small and delicate woman, dwarfed by the men in her life.
She took a seat on the toilet’s lid, moving his towel before she did so. She folded it in her lap. “I heard about the hunt,” she began, then stopped, waiting for him to take up the tale.
“What did Pop tell you?” Lukas could hear the sulk in his voice and hated it.
His mother shook her head. “I’m not interested in what he said just now. I want to hear from you.”
Lukas felt hot tears flood his eyes and he ducked under the water to wash them away under the pretense of rinsing his hair. He popped back up, face streaming water. He had to wait until he could speak without sobbing. “It started out okay. I guess.”
“What happened to make it not okay?” Her voice was a soothing balm to sore feelings.
“I didn’t catch any fish.” His mother would know what that meant. When she nodded for him to go on, understanding in her eyes, he continued. “But he knows I’ve caught tons of fish there—he’s seen me do it. And Peter had a bunch and didn’t mind sharing.” Lukas was alarmed at the whine that had crept into his voice and stopped until he could get it under control.
His mother waited, patience personified. Lukas splashed some water on the brush and attacked his feet with it. The mindless scrubbing gave him something to do with his hands. “So I went back to the lake until I caught a fish—a bunch of fish. I slept there.”
“Okay.” Her voice didn’t judge or measure. It just was. Lukas was grateful for it.
“Peter came and got me.” He looked up at her, his blue eyes ringed with water-dewed lashes. “I probably wasn’t very nice to him.”
She smiled but said nothing. He soaped the brush again. “Then we went on the hunt for deer. We picked our spots—or Pop picked them out for us.” He felt his lip twisting up. “I had the shot. A beauty too, an eight-pointer. But then Pop signaled that Peter should take the shot.” He scrubbed harder at his feet, the unfairness of it rushing back to him. “I was in line with it—a perfect shot, Mom. But he didn’t want me to have it!”
His mother reached over and pulled the brush from his grip. “You’re going to bleed if you keep scrubbing yourself raw.” She brushed a gentle hand over his face, wiping away droplets of water.
“Why does he like Peter more than me?” He lowered his head so she wouldn’t see the tears. His voice broke. “Why does he hate me?”
He felt a towel wrap around his head. His mother dried off his upper half, then gathered him up in her arms, half in and half out of the tub. “He doesn’t hate you,” she whispered, kissing the top of his head. “No matter what it feels like right now.” She pushed him back so she could look in his eyes. “Go get dried off now and into bed. I’ll come read to you.”
Part of him wanted to tell his mother that he wasn’t a baby, that being tucked in and read to wasn’t going to solve the problem of why his father preferred Peter. But he was tired and hurting and angry; he wanted nothing more than to be reminded that he was loved by someone. So he didn’t say anything, just nodded and wrapped the towel more firmly about himself. She smiled at him fondly and left him.
“All is ready,” Zamiel said at Lukas’ shoulder, the demon’s voice jolting the hunter out of his memories.
Lukas didn’t turn his eyes away from the waves crashing below him. “Tonight we hunt,” he murmured, but made no move to leave the window.
Chapter Five
Finn swam. It helped clear his head or at least gave him something else to think about other than how bored he was and how much he missed Laila. She was the most irritating, stubborn, and inconsiderate person he’d ever met—outside of his family, that is—and he was completely crazy about her. And it had only gotten worse with her absences. Finn had expected absence to make the heart grow forgetful—that nonsense about growing fonder was pretty much a load of crap as far as he was concerned. He was gobsmacked when he found himself actually missing her. A lot.
It didn’t help that he was usually the one to call her, and not the other way around. Laila always seemed to have something going on. Finn knew part of his problem was boredom; he’d missed the cut-off date to transfer schools for the fall semester and now had to wait until spring to start. He tried to fill his time the best he could, but he wasn’t used to being without female companionship and Kess certainly didn’t count.
He had to find some way to fill his time and keep his mind off of Laila. Maybe he could go along with Kess to her sparring sessions with Mebis? Finn nixed that idea before it was even fully formed and functional. Mebis still kind of scared the crap out of him. He had watched Laila’s brother blow a hyena’s head off WHILE it had its jaws wrapped around his hand. The guy was tough as nails. And he didn’t seem too jazzed that Finn was dating his little sister. Finn probably should give him a wide berth, especially in situations where Mebis could legitimately kick his ass.
He dove beneath the water once more, pushing off from the side of the pool to cover half its length before surfacing. Finn loved the fact that it was fall and he could still swim. Up in the mountains where he’d lived all his life it was already crisp during the afternoons and getting towards cold at night. The leaves were falling from the trees. Here it was perpetual summer. He liked it a lot more than he expected.
Popping up for a breath of air, Finn saw Rafe sitting on a chair, a worried look on his face. Finn swam over to the side of the pool closest to the young werehyena and leaned his arms on the side of the pool. “What’s with the furrowed brow? You look like a pug dog.”
Rafe threw him a look of annoyance, then dropped backwards onto the lounge chair. “I just got a call from one of the hyenas back home.”
“Yeah?” Finn ducked back under to slick his hair back, then hopped out of the water.
“Yeah. Something weird is going on up there,” Rafe said as Finn dried off and plopped into the chair beside him.
“Define weird. It’s hard to tell with you guys.” He grinned at Rafe.
“You suck.”
“So did your mom.”
Rafe pretended to gag. “Dude! Enough with the sex comments about my mom!”
“Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that your mom was a sucky pack leader. You’re the one who went all pervta
stic with that comment.” Finn waggled his eyebrows, meaning exactly what Rafe had thought but liking nothing better than messing with the kid. “Paging Oedipus, party of one.”
“You’re hopeless. I’m going to talk to Kess.” Rafe pushed himself up.
“Hold up, hold up,” Finn said, putting up a hand to stop him. “I’ll be serious.” He waited until Rafe sat back down, looking at him dubiously. “So what’s going on at the ol’ homestead?”
Rafe squinted against the bright sun, finally closing his eyes against the glare. Finn passed him his shades. “Thanks.” He paused, then began. “Some strange stuff has been happening out by the lake—you know, where Kess and you guys fought my mom and the pack.”
Finn nodded. He remembered the area that Rafe was referring to. Not much out there but scrub land and a lake that probably held no appeal even for fish. But it was fine for weres to run around in animal form, although the animals that had once been there were all hunted out now. Not much traffic outside of weres visited the place.
“Yeah, I know where you’re talking about. What kind of strange stuff?”
Rafe shrugged. “The guy who I was talking to couldn’t give me too much. Strange people in town, but they didn’t stay long. And then a hyena went missing. Some weird prints and signs found out by the lake.” Rafe shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it, but the guy who called me is pretty reliable. He’s not one to just make up stories or get spooked easy.”
“Can you trust him?” Finn knew that Rafe wasn’t what anyone would call well-liked after his betrayal of his mother, and the surviving hyenas were wary of the kid. It didn’t matter that Samara had gotten most of her pack killed off; what mattered is that Rafe had betrayed his pack leader. Most of them refused to even acknowledge Rafe’s existence.
Hunter Moon (The Moon Series) Page 3