Omega Moon Rising (Toke Lobo & The Pack)

by MJ Compton

  “I never said she was stupid. I said I don’t understand all of her abilities.”

  Luke stretched out beside Abby. He brushed strands of her golden hair off her wet cheeks.

  “How bad was it?” Abby’s voice cracked.

  “I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with you,” Luke repeated.

  Tears welled in her eyes again. “It was all for nothing. Everything I did—pointless.”

  “Not pointless. And you got out. And you got her out. And we’re going to get him. Nail his pelt to the side of the lodge.”

  “Is she going to need counseling?”

  “I don’t know.” He didn’t want to think about some of the things Libby had shared. “Do you want counseling?”

  Abby shook her head. She was so pretty. So vulnerable.

  He cupped her cheek with a hand that felt too big and brutal for her delicate skin. Things inside his dress pants stirred. His human blood wouldn’t behave now that it had gotten a taste of her. He was less than vampire piss.

  Abby watched him with dark eyes as she fumbled for the comforter. She must have figured out he was aroused.

  He wanted her so much. If it wouldn’t have freaked her out, he would have shifted and howled at the remnant of moon hanging in the sky with wanting her. “I need you, Abby.”

  “I’m only temporary,” she reminded him. “That changes a lot of things. Including our sex life. I can’t . . . let you use me to ease your guilty conscience. I can’t let myself be a convenience for you.”

  “We’re married.”

  “For the time being. Until you feel like ending it. Well, I’ve spent too much of my life being jerked around by idiot men. It ends here.”

  Why was she denying him? They were great together. “I’m trying to be honest with you. There are things here in Loup Garou that you don’t understand. Things I can’t tell you. Somewhere, there’s a person I’m supposed to live with forever. It’s our way of life here. And I got stupid with wanting you that day at the picnic. You were so pretty, in your pink dress and the sun turning your hair into a rainbow version of Medusa. All I could think about was kissing you. Touching you. Tasting you. And I’m still stupid with wanting you. I ache with wanting you.”

  Outside, a wolf howled.

  Luke raised his head. Listened. Then he shook his head and focused on Abby again.

  “I want to be with you,” he continued. “I want to be your husband. I want to be Rosie Dawn’s daddy.”

  He hadn’t been near her since he’d learned the truth about her stepfather. She’d been innocent the night of the picnic. Untouched. His. He had to believe Gary had stopped with photos.

  Another howl, this one closer, penetrated the lusty fog clouding his brain. He leapt from the bed and ran to the window.

  “What?” Abby asked.

  “Hush,” Luke snapped. His mother, relaying a message on behalf of his father, who could only shift and sing on the full moon. “Someone tried to snatch Libby.”

  Luke whirled and ran toward the door, not thinking about witnesses, not thinking about Abby’s ignorance, not thinking about anything except protecting Libby.

  It wasn’t until he heard Abby scream that he realized he’d shifted.

  Chapter 16

  One minute Luke was standing at the bedroom window, bathed in golden moonlight and the next he—

  The air in the room flashed hot and heavy, sending a bolt of pain through her sinuses. Her ears popped. Her eyes saw things that were impossible.

  Abby tried to make herself smaller on the bed as a wolf—an enormous wolf—stared at her with Luke’s eyes. The beast growled, then bounded from the room.

  “What’s going on?” Granny asked from the doorway. The wolf brushed past her, and Granny didn’t even blink.

  “Oh, my God.” Abby’s fisted hand covered her mouth. She looked at the woman who had been nothing but kind to her and wondered what other breeds of monsters lurked in Loup Garou. “Luke. He . . . he turned . . .”

  “Yes?” Granny sounded calm, as if her grandson morphing into an animal was the most normal of occurrences. “Calm down before you hurt that baby.”

  “Calm down?” Abby shrieked. “I can’t calm down. Luke—”

  “Is a werewolf,” Granny said. “I thought you said he’d talked to you.”

  “About being an undercover FBI agent!” Every muscle in Abby’s body trembled. “Oh, my God.”

  “God made Luke the way he is.” Granny sounded serene. “And you need to calm down and relax. Really, Abigail. Luke was wrong not to tell you, but don’t you think you’re overreacting? I know it’s a shock—it was a shock to me the first time, too, screaming and crying never changes a thing.”

  “No.” No wonder she heard wolves howling all the time since she’d been in Loup Garou.

  Granny sat on the edge of the mattress and tried to take Abby’s hand in hers. Abby shrank from the contact. Was Granny a werewolf, too?

  “He didn’t tell you anything, did he?” Granny sighed.

  Abby tried to crawl around the old woman. “Are you—?”

  Granny shook her head. “Nope. I’m one hundred percent homo sapien, like you are. But Gramps, he’s a full-blooded lycan. Homo lupus. Marcus and Macy are half-and-half. Luke is three quarters, thanks to Marcus mating with Colette.”

  Mating. Luke used that word all the time.

  “That’s why Luke wants you to stay here, instead of with his folks. Because on the full moon, I don’t shift I can’t shift.” The old woman sounded wistful. “I always wanted to, you know. Shift and run with Gramps through a moonlit meadow.”

  Abby tried to scramble even further away, but there was no place to go. “Will I turn into a werewolf now? And what about my baby?” Her sobs came harder. “Oh, dear heavens, what about my baby?”

  “What about her?” Granny asked. “She’ll be part human and part lycan, like Luke, like Marcus and Macy, like little Daniel Garnier. And if you’re talking about the whole bitten or born myth, it’s just that. A myth. Either you’re born lycan or you’re not.”

  Granny shook her head again. “Why don’t you get dressed and come out to the kitchen. I’ll make you a cup of tea and see if I can explain it to you.”

  It would be easier to run away if she was dressed and in the kitchen, so Abby nodded. Oh, dear God, she’d left Libby in the keeping of werewolves. Monsters.

  She couldn’t button her jeans, but her oversized sweater hid that fact. The kitchen smelled of the nasty tea Granny kept forcing on her. Some sort of wolf’s bane or something. Like in the movie Rosemary’s Baby. Devil’s baby, werewolf’s baby . . . was there a difference?

  Granny also put out a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “It’s nice to be able to share my love of chocolate with someone,” Granny said. “Everyone else is allergic to it.”

  Abby hesitated. If everyone else was allergic, the baby could be, too. Best not tempt fate.

  “You know about the French Revolution, back when all the French noblemen had their heads cut off?”

  Abby nodded, only half listening as she measured the distance from the chair in which she sat to the back door of Granny’s snug cabin.

  “Well, the same thing was happening to werewolves, so the head of this pack went to the U.S. ambassador to France and offered services in exchange for sanctuary. It took some doing, but the new country was open to ideas, and having spies who could shift into wolf form, who could hear a mosquito pass gas, see things invisible to the human eye, smell truth from lies, and run as fast as the wind was appealing. So the werewolves came to America and built a life for themselves. Periodically, the federal government calls on them—more in the past year than any other time I can remember.”

  Granny bit into her cookie. Crumbs studded her lips. “There are oth
er packs in America, and sometimes we intermingle, but not often. I don’t know what their deal is—whether they moved here on their own, sneaking their true identities in or what, but this pack is the oldest pack in America.”

  “In Colorado?” Even Abby knew enough history to know Colorado wasn’t part of the original thirteen colonies.

  “They came west like other groups. And they kept separate from the sapiens. Until Lucien met me.” Granny’s grin was broad. “Lucien Thibodaux. Oh my, he was a handsome, virile man. Like your Luke. All those lovely blond curls.”

  “Thibodaux? I thought the family name was Omega.” Only to convince Granny she was listening, lull her into complacency.

  Granny’s expression grew sorrowful. “Homo sapiens aren’t the only ones with prejudices. When Lucien brought me home, the pack . . . flipped. It was terrifying, let me tell you. Old Bernard Garnier—Tokarz’s grandfather—was the pack alpha back then, and he was as biased as any individual I’ve ever met.”

  There was such sadness in Granny’s voice that Abby couldn't help but reach for the wrinkled hands.

  “Bernard declared that Lucien would lose his status in the pack. Status means a lot to werewolves. The Thibodaux’s went from delta—fairly high up—to omega. The last. The end. And for seven generations. Old Bernard even took away the surname, leaving us to be simply Omega. The least of all the pack.”

  Granny squeezed Abby’s fingers. “A mate is a mate, you see. It’s physically impossible for a male werewolf to be with any woman other than his mate. Or so they say. Something to do with the Ancient Ones, who are kind of like their version of God.”

  Abby knew some of these phrases, words she’d heard Luke utter. “Then Luke—”

  “We don’t know,” Granny said. “He’s one quarter human. His father was fortunate enough to find his mate in a lycan female, so his human blood has never been put to the test.”

  She’d been a test?

  “He says he took one of those sex pills before he . . . took you to the lake that night. The problem with that story is a werewolf has a faster metabolism than a human, so the lifestyle drug would have gone through his system in only an hour or so.”

  “Unless he’s still taking them,” Abby said. Wait. Why was she even thinking along those lines? He was a werewolf, for God’s sake. She needed to get away from him, needed to get Libby away from his parents. Needed to figure out what to do about—

  Oh. That’s why he wanted custody of the baby. Because it would be part werewolf and should grow up in their world.

  Abby started shaking, inside at first, but the quaking soon spread to her fingers, hands, arms, legs.

  “Luke is in denial,” Granny continued, her gaze focused inward and not on Abby. “I think you are his mate. His mother thinks so, too.”

  An hour ago, Abby might have rejoiced. Now she shook her head. “He wants me, but he doesn’t love me. And that’s okay.” Especially now that she knew the truth about him.

  Granny finally noticed when Abby’s teeth began to chatter. “Are you all right?”

  Abby shook her head. Tears gathered in her eyes. “He’s a werewolf,” she whispered. “My baby is a werewolf baby.”

  “I had two werewolf babies,” Granny matter-of-factly replied as she patted Abby’s hand. “They’re no different than any other kind of baby. It’s when the hormones kick in that all sorts of chaos breaks out.”

  “And you play midwife to pregnant werewolves?”

  “All the time,” Granny said. “Babies are babies. Your pregnancy might be a little shorter, but not by much.”

  “That’s why Luke doesn’t want me to have amniocentesis. Or didn’t demand DNA testing to prove the baby is his.”

  Granny nodded. “Lycans love babies. Unfortunately, werewolf pregnancies are hard to come by. Most couples achieve only zero population growth—if that. Every child is considered a gift from the Ancient Ones. Maybe that’s why the pack is more accepting of mixed breed babies than they used to be.”

  Abby didn’t want to hear about blessings and acceptance. She wanted gone. She’d never signed on for interspecies breeding. “So why did Luke take off?”

  “Someone tried to break into Marcus’s house. They fear someone was after Libby.”

  “But how did Luke know this?”

  “His mother is full-blooded lycan. She can shift at will, except on the night of the new moon. When everyone needs to know something, it’s most expedient to shift and sing at the moon, so everyone hears at once. Marcus used the phone to let me know.”

  Abby recalled the mournful howling that had distracted Luke. How many nights had she lain awake while in Loup Garou and listened to the sorrowful music of the night?

  “I think you need some more tea,” Granny said.

  If Abby had to swallow another drop of that swill, she would hurl.

  Fortunately, Granny’s plans were disrupted by Luke’s return. He strode into the kitchen as a man. A very naked man.

  Abby’s cheeks burned, but Granny didn’t blink. Maybe seeing men dashing about naked was a regular occurrence in Loup Garou, but Abby didn’t think she’d ever find it normal. Especially when Luke reacted to her presence.

  “Looks like you’re mated to me,” Granny muttered. “What’s going on?”

  “The guards Tokarz put on Mom and Dad’s house scared off someone. We shouldn’t have all gone to Gary’s funeral. Someone figured if Libby wasn’t with me, she might be with my folks.”

  “Were they able to track the intruder?”

  Luke shook his head. “Only as far as to where they’d parked their vehicle. Even Stoker couldn’t pick up a scent after that. All we know is the make and model of what they were driving. I guess Stoker’s made a study of the scent of most vehicles, so we know they were driving a Lexus SUV, Stoker thinks black, but that doesn’t narrow it down much.”

  Luke plopped into a chair next to Abby, as nonchalant as if he’d been wearing clothes. He reached for Abby’s hand, but she moved it off the table. “Don’t worry. Libby’s safe.”

  How could he be so matter-of-fact? The man was a naked werewolf sitting in his grandmother’s kitchen acting as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Tokarz relocated her. The feds aren’t going to like not knowing where she is, but pissing off the feds is one of Tokarz’s favorite past times.”

  “You’re a werewolf,” was all Abby could manage. It was more of a squeak than a sentence.

  Luke had the grace to look . . . embarrassed, but not really. More like a little boy with his hand caught in a cookie jar. “Mostly, yeah. I take it Granny—”

  “Did what you were told to do two weeks ago,” Granny snapped.

  “I didn’t think it was going to matter,” Luke muttered.

  “Not matter? She’s pregnant, Luke. With your baby. Don’t you think she’d wonder when the kid turns thirteen and starts shifting on the full moon?”

  Luke’s expression turned sullen.

  “Or didn’t you think she’d notice?”

  “I thought she’d give me sole custody,” he admitted.

  Granny snorted. “And what would you do with a baby while you’re on tour?”

  “You jerk.” Abby tossed her cooling tea at him and pushed away from the table.

  Luke beat her to the back door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Home. To Oak Moon. I’ve had it with you. On every level. You married me under false pretenses. You’re not even human.”

  “So?” he sneered. “Your human stepfather was a real nice guy to you.”

  Luke might as well have slapped her.

  “And whoever killed him is human, too. You know—the one who tried to snatch your sister tonight? And you want to go back to them, when you are safer here in the pack than you’ve ever been in your lif
e? What kind of stupid are you?”

  Granny gasped, but Luke’s words plunged Abby’s insides into deep freeze.

  The shivering that had beset her earlier was nothing compared to her reaction to Luke. She slumped to the floor, her legs useless.

  He shook his head and tossed Abby over his shoulder as if she were one of the placemats on Granny’s table. “Stay out of this, Granny,” he said as he carried Abby toward the bedroom.

  He was hot, even though he’d been out in the cool October night. Naked. His skin was hot. And smooth. Luke had a lot of muscles she’d never noticed before. He was strong. She’d never before realized how physically strong he was. How sleek. How he moved with purpose. Padding. Stalking.

  A whimper escaped her.

  “What?” Luke asked.

  “Don’t hurt me,” she said, her face not far from his bare buttocks.

  He dropped her on the bed. “Have I ever hurt you? Physically?” He loomed over her in the dark, his eyes glinting in the ambient moonlight seeping around the closed blind.

  She couldn’t answer. Her throat must have sealed itself. He hadn’t hurt her. He’d tried to protect her from Gary’s abuse, threatened to kill Gary for hitting her.

  But Luke was a werewolf. She’d seen it herself, had felt the heat of hellfire as his body morphed from man to beast.

  “I’m trying to protect you,” he said. “And not only because of the baby.”

  She knew that. Intellectually she knew he was doing everything he could, demanding that his pack—his werewolf pack—protect not only her, but also her sister.

  But he was an animal. How could an animal . . .?

  She whimpered again.