SHIFT (Mackenzie Grey #1)

by Karina Espinosa

  “Where are you going?” he said and it was muffled since his face was stuffed in my back, his grip around my waist tightening.

  “I have to go upstairs and say Merry Christmas,” I said and turned to him. “By the way, Merry Christmas, Jonah.” He didn’t open his eyes but that one dimple on his cheek peeked out and I smiled.

  “Merry Christmas, Mackenzie,” he said and I leaned over and planted a soft kiss on top of his nose. “Kenz,” he started and my smile slipped. His tone had gone serious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry, I just don’t want to push you like I did the other day and I think that if we get too close like this, I won’t give you the appropriate amount of space you need. The next time we’re together, like that—and when you’re ready—I want it to be because you want me. Not your wolf.”

  I smiled at him, it was exactly the right thing to say. With Jonah, I didn’t need to tell him what I needed—he already knew.

  “Listen, my mom makes a huge breakfast, so hurry up before my brother and I eat it all. If you have the same appetite as I do, then you need to haul ass,” I said and headed upstairs.

  When I opened the door from the basement, I had to squint and let my eyes adjust to the brightness of the room. It was morning but I’d been stuck in the dark since yesterday and hadn’t seen the light in what felt like ages.

  With my hand raised to cover my sensitive eyes, I dragged my tired body through the TV room into the kitchen where all the noise was coming from. I walked in to see my parents, my brother, and Amy already eating. Damn it.

  “Don’t worry, Mackenzie, I made a whole batch just for you,” my mother said.

  I kissed her on the cheek. “You know me so well,” I said and wished her and everyone else a Merry Christmas.

  “Where were you, honey? James came looking for you yesterday,” my dad asked with a mouth full of biscuit and sausage gravy.

  “Dad, we broke up.” All eyes were on me now. “Mom, don’t burn the gravy!” I yelled at her because she wasn’t paying attention to the stove anymore. She shook her head clear and fumbled back to the pan.

  “It’s about damn time!” Ollie said and slammed his fist on the dining table.

  “Oliver!” my mother scolded and he mumbled an apology, but not before he winked at me.

  “That’s okay, honey. Things happen for a reason,” my mom said with a tight smile and I wasn’t sure if she was happy or disappointed. My parents never voiced their thoughts on my relationship with James, but they liked him enough.

  I nodded, not wanting to open up a can of worms this early in the morning, and sat next to my best friend.

  “Good Morning,” Jonah said as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. Ollie took the lead and made the official introductions to my parents who hadn’t formally met him yet. Jonah hugged my mom and I was surprised to see her smile go from ear to ear at the sight of him. Oh good lord. He came over and patted my brother and dad on the back. It was odd seeing Jonah here and blending in with my family like he’d known us for years. Amy was watching me and I could see the wheels in her head spinning and connecting the dots. Once I saw her grin, I knew she’d put things together, but her version was probably dirty, while ours was at least PG-13.

  After breakfast, we went into the living room and opened our gifts. Jonah excused himself, most likely to call Sebastian and give him an update on things. It made me wonder if the wolves celebrated Christmas.

  Once everyone was showered and dressed, we went down to Main Street for the small parade. While my parents volunteered during the festivities, the rest of us enjoyed the festival and showed Jonah what small town living was all about.

  Without knowing he’s a werewolf, it was easy to tell the kind of person he was. He liked to joke around but his body language said the complete opposite. His shoulders were always tense and his eyes were on constant alert. He talked like he was relaxed, but it was for show. It made me wonder what these wolves did for a living that made them so paranoid.

  “Let’s go on the merry-go-round!” Amy exclaimed as she latched on to Ollie and dragged him toward the ride. Watching those two was always entertaining. They sometimes acted more like siblings than Ollie and I.

  “Do they have a thing for each other?” Jonah asked as we followed a little ways behind them.

  I almost choked on the hot chocolate I’d bought. “What? No way,” I spluttered and he looked at me perplexed. “I know it may look that way but Ollie is almost like a brother to Amy. She was raised as an only child, with shitty parents who barely paid her any attention. She just enjoys being part of an actual family.”

  Jonah’s arm came around my neck, and he pulled me into a hug. “You’re a good friend, Kenzie,” he whispered. His lips brushed my cheek. It sent shivers down my spine.

  “I try.”

  We caught up to Amy and my brother and got on one of the two-seaters’ on the carrousel. Amy climbed onto an elephant and Ollie was on a horse, yelling “yah” and slapping its behind like it was real. Those two, I swear, were just plain ridiculous. Not a mature bone in their bodies.

  I chuckled as I watched Amy make a trumpet sound from the elephant’s trunk, and felt a rumble from Jonah beside me. I turned to look at him and he was fighting to keep a straight face.

  “Just laugh. It’ll happen sooner or later if we keep hanging out with these dummies,” I said and the flood gates opened. Jonah heaved over laughing, wiping tears from the corner of his eyes.

  “What is wrong with those two?” he said between bouts of laughter.

  “We’re children in grown up bodies, that’s what’s wrong.”

  “You know that’s what irritates Sebastian,” Jonah said and I looked at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. “It bothers him that you don’t seem to take a lot of things seriously. I, for one, find it endearing,” he said and his one dimple peeked out.

  I turned away and to the crowd waiting to get on the merry-go-round. The spins made me dizzy. I needed to distract myself because I didn’t know why hearing this made me upset. It angered me. I might not be the most mature adult and I sometimes said silly things, but…that’s just the way I was. I didn’t want to live out the rest of my days in constant misery. Even when times are rough, I need to joke about it to make myself feel better—if not the wolf takes over. Why dwell? I guess not everyone got it and I needed to learn to be okay with that. I needed to learn that Sebastian just didn’t like me.

  “Why are you mad?” I looked back to Jonah and saw the confusion in his eyes. He was listening to my heart beat.

  “I’m not mad…just maybe a little miffed? I don’t know, I guess I never thought I’d annoy someone so much like I do Bash.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that, Kenz. Sebastian has to be serious because he’s the Alpha. The lives of all Pack members rely on him. He doesn’t have the option to be carefree.”

  “Why is he Alpha?”

  He cleared his throat. “Because I don’t want to be.” There was a long pause as I soaked in what Jonah said. What the heck did that mean? Was he stronger than Sebastian? Did he give him the position? Wolf politics sucked.

  “I’m going to need you to explain that one,” I said and he laughed.

  “Well, my father is The Alpha. Sebastian only runs the Brooklyn Pack, but he reports to my father who runs all of the Northeast. Which makes him one of the council members of the American Summit. Since I’m his son, I was offered the title of Alpha. Unfortunately for my father, it’s not something I desire to be.” He sighed. “I saw how hard it was for my dad and now I see it with Bash. That’s not the life I want for myself and the future family I plan to have.”

  The ride came to a stop and it was like the world had been shut out and we were returning to reality. The noise of the festival filtered in and I had to shake my head from the daze. Jonah came from werewolf royalty. Okay, yeah, that sounded silly but eh, it was sort of true.

 
; We climbed off the carousel and speed walked to catch up to Amy and Ollie who were racing to the cotton candy machine.

  “What about Jackson?”

  “Jackson wants to be Alpha, but my dad is holding out hopes that I’ll change my mind. Both of us can’t be Alphas with my father sitting on the council. It’d be a conflict of interest and the wolves might think we were trying to take over. Wolves are very sensitive and territorial, it’s a slippery slope,” he said as we reached the other half of our group.

  “Omigod, I so want to take a picture with Santa!” Amy gushed as she grabbed onto both of the guys and pulled them toward the Winter Wonderland set up where the pictures were being taken. I slowly followed just a few steps behind and thought about what I’d learned. The wolves were a lot more organized than I thought.

  After we took pictures with Santa Claus and his elves, Amy was coming down from her sugar high when we ran into James at the festival with his four sisters—who were glaring. He was about to approach me, probably to curse me out or whatever, but Jonah came to stand by my side and James jerked to a stop. His sisters were behind him, arms crossed and shooting daggers my way. They probably egged him on but he changed his mind once he saw Jonah. I didn’t know what he told them, but I didn’t think I was welcomed at the Carson’s anymore—or at least not for a very long time.

  “Can we go on the Ferris Wheel?” Amy suggested and we swerved in the opposite direction from the Carson’s.

  Ollie and Amy raced to get to the front of the line, almost trampling over some kids. I swore, this was the reason we never went to Dave and Busters—they had no shame.

  We didn’t have to wait long before Jonah and I were paired up on the two-seater. I was surprised Ollie didn’t want to drive a wedge between the wolf and I. Made me wonder what was going on in his head.

  “So tell me about yourself, Mackenzie,” Jonah said as the Ferris Wheel started to turn.

  “There’s not much to say. I’ll be graduating with my Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice next year and I want to be a cop. I’m currently interning at 1PP,” I said as I looked over the small town of Cold Springs.

  “That’s pretty cool. So what do you do? Buy donuts for the officers?” he chuckled and I rolled my eyes.

  “Not like I haven’t heard that before. But no, I actually shadow one of the detectives assigned to Major Cases.”

  “Whoa, how’d you get that?”

  I laughed as I thought about my first day as an intern. “I actually cheated. I used my senses on a case that was meeting a dead end and impressed the captain. So I went from filing papers to going out on the field.”

  “What did you do?”

  I shifted in our seat. “I sniffed out a meth lab.”

  “Tsk, tsk, Mackenzie. What else do you cheat on?” he joked.

  I bit my lower lip to hold back a giggle. “Well as you probably already know, I’m also a bouncer at a bar on the weekends.”

  Jonah hunched over the bar that strapped us in our seat. He was laughing so hard I think he snorted.

  “You are definitely special, Mackenzie,” he said once he calmed down.

  “Like special, short bus, or special cute?”

  His milk chocolate eyes sparkled against the sunlight and I couldn’t hold back a smile.

  “Like special cute.”

  It was late in the afternoon when we got back home, my parents were still helping out with the festival, but we were wiped from all the games and food we had. The four of us plopped down in the TV room and Amy finally addressed the elephant in the room.

  “Okay, what the hell happened yesterday?”

  After I went into the whole spiel on the argument with James, Jonah officially became part of the family as he shared his mutual hatred for James. Amy seemed like she was forgetting he’d compelled her and I hope he didn’t get too comfortable. She forgets sometimes, but when you tick her off, everything comes back to her in boat loads and she’ll lay it on you thick. What they hadn’t questioned were my whereabouts yesterday and I thanked my lucky stars that Amy didn’t make any suggestions. Even though Jonah and I didn’t do anything, I didn’t think my brother would be okay with it.

  “When are you heading back, Ollie?” I asked once I was no longer the center of attention.

  “In two days,” he said and I slumped against the sofa.

  “What? You just got here!”

  “I know, Kenz. But I can’t stay long. I had to choose between Christmas and New Year’s, I couldn’t have both holidays.”

  “Well let’s not mope around, k?” Amy said as she checked out our DVD collection. “Let’s watch a movie and chill.”

  While she called out movie titles, the doorbell rang. I stiffened for a moment, thinking it might have been James or someone from his family. I wasn’t afraid of them—I mean seriously, what could they do to me—but I didn’t want any drama. Coming home was supposed to be relaxing and we’d seen them not too long ago. He could have changed his mind about approaching me.

  “I’ll get it,” Ollie said and got up to go to the living room.

  Jonah was sharing the sofa with me and leaned in to whisper. “You okay?”

  I nodded and smiled but it wasn’t completely sincere. He put his arm around me and pulled me into him, kissing the side of my head. Oddly enough, I felt at home cuddled up with him. It was a pleasant feeling.

  “Uh…Kenz…they’re some guys asking for you,” Ollie came back into the room, with a very tense and pissed off Sebastian.

  “Sebastian?” Jonah and I both said at the same time. We were still snuggled close together on the sofa and the Alpha’s face tightened as he took in our state.

  “Kenz, who is this?” my brother asked and his protective side was unleashed.

  “Who are you?” Sebastian countered and the two of them looked like they were about to face off. What the hell was going on?

  “Hey!” I said and got up, shaking off my state of shock. “Stop it, Bash. This is my brother.” I needed to get that out there to break up the dominance competition because while Ollie is a total Army badass, I didn’t know how he’d fare against an Alpha werewolf. And I didn’t want to find out.

  Sebastian relaxed a bit but his face was still grim. His eyes traveled across the room until they landed on Jonah, who was now standing guard next to me.

  “What’s going on, boss?” Jonah asked and I could see the confusion in his beautiful face. Ugh, I sounded like a girl with a crush and I needed to get over it. I couldn’t be getting all lovey dovey with Jonah and then having inappropriate thoughts about Sebastian. I was turning into a hussy.

  I peered up at Jonah who looked a little perplexed. I knew he had been keeping Bash updated since we arrived, so he must not have known he was coming here. After spending the past two days together, I think he would have told me.

  “We need to talk. You, me, and Mackenzie. Now,” Sebastian demanded and he left the room. Jonah followed him without hesitation and I wished I could say the same. I stalled for a moment and I felt Amy and Ollie’s eyes on me, waiting for me to explain. Jonah stopped at the doorframe that separated the living and TV room.

  “Come on,” he jerked his head to the front door and left.

  “Kenzie, what’s going on?” Amy asked and I wished I could tell her but I didn’t know. I think it had something to do with the summit and if so, then I needed to figure out my next move.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled and followed the two werewolves out the door.

  Outside my house was the same black SUV that had pulled up in front of Pete’s when they had taken me, and two (I’m assuming) werewolves were standing guard. Jonah and Sebastian were on the porch waiting for me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked in a quiet voice. It must be bad news if he had to come all the way over to little ol’ Cold Spring to break the news.

  “We have a problem,” Sebastian said but his back was to me. I didn’t know if he was talking to me or Jonah, or both of us.

  “The Su
mmit?” Jonah questioned and Bash shook his head.

  “I have news about the summit, but that will have to take a backseat for the time being,” he said and turned to look at us. “Jackson’s been kidnapped.”

  I held my breath. Had I heard him correctly? Jonah’s body didn’t move. I was scared to look at him, so I diverted my eyes and got a glimpse of his shaking hand.

  “What. Happened.” he gritted out.

  I peered up at Sebastian who was watching me. “We don’t know.”

  “What the hell do you mean you don’t know?!” Jonah yelled and was about to pounce on Sebastian. I gripped his arm with a reflex I didn’t know I had—but I shouldn’t have been surprised—and stopped him before he did anything stupid.

  “Jonah,” I said sternly and he tensed.

  Sebastian’s jaw dropped a fraction and he picked it up quickly, hoping I hadn’t seen, but I did. He gazed at me for a while longer and then looked to his Beta. “I’m sorry, brother. I wish I had more to tell you, but this wasn’t something that was appropriate for me to say over the phone. I didn’t want anyone else to tell you beside me.”

  There was a long pause before Jonah nodded stiffly. “I understand,” he said and I released my hold on him.

  “Because of this, you need to come home. We need to figure out what happened.”

  “What about Kenzie?” Jonah asked and Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. He caught the nickname.

  He watched me for a moment. “I was going to make her come back with us, but I think she’ll be fine if she wants to stay,” he said and waited for my response.

  He was giving me a choice, which should have been easy for me and I should have said I was staying, but something in my gut was telling me I needed to go with them. Jackson wasn’t the president of my fan club, and I’m not his biggest fan either, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone—not even Diana Stone. No matter how much of a douchebag he was, Jackson was Jonah’s brother and I was stunned when I thought how much that weighed in on my decision. What if it had been Ollie? If it was important to him, it was important to me. I’m turning into such a chick.