Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel)

by Catherine Lundoff

  That was it. For a moment, they just stared at each other while Becca felt her stomach slowly revolve. What was she supposed to do now? It was like a challenge of some kind, but she didn’t understand how she was supposed to respond.

  Everything that had happened in the last few months roiled up inside her and prepared to explode out of her mouth. It had all started just like this, on her porch with this woman, and maybe this was where it would end. Erin would walk away and they’d be stiff and awkward with each other until the Nesters took the whole Pack out.

  Becca took one step forward, then another. The words were at her lips but she realized that she didn’t want the worst-case scenario to happen. Not this way, not now. There had to be a simple way to make all this right, to get it back to where things were before. She would look Erin right in the eye and say the right words to do that.

  Instead, something clicked in her head. She wanted something new, Like she was watching from another dimension or something, she could feel herself reach out at wolf speed, faster than any woman of her vintage and condition should have been able to move. She caught Erin’s face between her hands. They froze there for a moment, just looking at each other.

  Then Becca kissed her. The contact of their lips sent a jolt through her, running like a current from her lips to her toes. To Becca, it felt like she was waking up from a long sleep.

  That was before the accompanying feeling of sheer terror swept through her in its wake. What am I doing? What if Erin doesn’t want this? True, Erin’s hands were resting very lightly on her hips, their touch reminding her of butterfly wings, but that didn’t mean she’d be okay when this stopped. That, of course, also begged the question: did she really want this or was it just the crazy emotions of the last few weeks twisting her around?

  There was no way to find out except to see what happened when they stopped kissing. Becca made herself let go of Erin and step back, breaking off the kiss. This time, she shut her own eyes so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact. A cool shivery feeling was working its way from Erin’s fingers on her hips inward as she stood there, breathing Erin’s scent in through wolf-augmented senses.

  There was a pause, then Erin let go of her and stepped back herself. They stood there a moment in silence. “Okay. Wow.” Erin sighed a little, then, “Becca? Are you okay?”

  Becca forced her eyes open. Stop being such a coward. Erin looked concerned, nervous even, but not disgusted or anything like that. But even so, she was frozen to the spot and not a single word would come to her mind. Instead she made an incoherent noise and that broke the spell.

  Her instincts took over, telling her to run for it. So she grabbed the folder from the swing and bolted into the house. The last vestige of her good manners made her mutter, “I’m sorry! I don’t know what I’m doing right now,” as she dashed past Erin and slammed the door.

  Once safely inside, she collapsed against the door, holding the folder to her chest. It felt like her heart was pounding blood out through her ears. She realized how much she’d underestimated menopause; this was far, far worse than being a teenager. What was she going to do now?

  Chapter 17

  ~

  When the next day dawned, Becca still didn’t know what to do. She’d spent the afternoon in a blur and the night in troubled dreams about Erin and wolves and Oya. Everything was blood and sex and explosions, like one of those bad movies down at the multiplex. Except she kept waking up at all the good parts, usually right before anything that might turn into sex. The fact that that part also seemed to feature Erin didn’t help calm her thoughts much.

  The phone rang several times and she turned the ringer off rather than answer it. She thought about burying her head under the pillows again, but gave up and took the hottest shower she could stand instead. Then she made herself get dressed and go down the hall to the kitchen, only to be greeted by a persistent knocking at her front door.

  It had to be Erin. Who else would come by at eight am on a Tuesday? She was so not ready for this. The knocking continued. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore and peeked out around the edge of the side window blind. Pete was peering back in at her, making her jerk her head away. Flushed and hanging her head, she opened the door slowly.

  “You calling in sick today, Becca? I’ve been trying to call but you didn’t answer.” Pete looked concerned, if a tad irritated. “When you didn’t show up to close yesterday afternoon, we got worried.”

  Yesterday afternoon? Becca pressed her hands to her cheeks and stared at her boss in horror. How had she lost the entire afternoon? Oh wait, it was coming back to her. “Omigosh, Pete, I’m so sorry. Come in, come in, please. I was just getting ready. Let me get you some coffee.”

  He followed her down the hall into the kitchen. “How are you feeling, Becca? Shelly said that you were on the mend. Since you’ve been back at work the last few days, I thought everything was okay.”

  Becca smacked the coffeepot into the faucet in her hurry to get it filled up. Then she nearly dropped the mugs pulling them out of the drain. After that, she spilled some coffee on the countertop.

  Then she snuck a guilty look at Pete and found herself giggling and babbling uncontrollably. “Oh, I’m just at sixes and sevens! I’m sorry, Pete, I really am. Yes, I’m feeling better, apart from having a few screws loose. And I completely forgot about yesterday. I don’t know where my head was at but there’s no excuse for it.” She remembered to turn the coffeemaker on and tried to force herself to relax into its familiar burble.

  Pete gave her a calm half-smile. “That fool of an ex-husband of yours got anything to do with whatever’s going on?” Becca nodded. “You want to talk about it?” Becca shook her head for an answer. “All right then. But feel free to bend my ear whenever you’re ready.”

  She nodded and opened the fridge to yank some bread out of it. “Toast?” He nodded and she popped it into the toaster without further comment.

  She and Pete ate breakfast in companionable silence before they walked downtown. It was odd how soothing and ordinary his presence was. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel like crawling out of her own skin to escape from the rest of her life. No weird urges to kiss him, either, so that was all right.

  The feeling of general goodwill and amiability faded a bit when Shelly turned up at the store but it didn’t completely die out. After all, she really couldn’t blame her pack alpha for sending people to watch her. No one made her run amuck in the woods, then have a tantrum and kiss her neighbor, after all. All things considered, she’d have set babysitters to watch her if she’d been in Shelly’s paws…shoes.

  The moment that thought sank in, it brought a wave of pure depression with it. This Pack stuff was all well and good but she was going to have her house sold out from under her unless she did something about it soon. And she’d just made a very public pass at someone she thought of as a good friend. Not that after being married to Ed, many women wouldn’t consider becoming lesbians if it was an option. But what if she was just lonely? She still wasn’t sure what she really wanted and that wasn’t fair to Erin.

  While her thoughts bounced around like she was stuck in a pinball machine, more trouble came calling in the form of Oya and one of the guys from the Nest. They didn’t come strolling into the store though; apparently, that was too daring even for them. Instead, they waited outside and down the block a bit until Becca went out to pick up her lunch.

  “What the hell do we have to do to get you people out of this town?” Becca snarled when she got close enough to them to speak quietly.

  The guy at Oya’s side snorted and she gave him a long, slow glare. He was big and pale-skinned and blond with a widow’s peak that came down his forehead to form a triangle over his nearly white eyebrows. He also had silvery-gray eyes like a Husky and one of his hands was bandaged.

  But it wasn’t the way he looked that made her blood race and her wolf-self howl its way into wakefulness inside her head, but rather the way he smelled. She
sucked in his scent, recognizing a strange and new, but not-right, not-Pack wolf smell. He smelled like magic gone bad.

  Oya smiled, her eyes gleaming. “That’s right. Scott was like you once, but he’s been cured.” She reached out and clutched Becca’s arm. “Just like we can do for you. We can put all this behind us. You could be human again, normal, just like you used to be.”

  Becca shook Oya loose and stared harder at Scott. He stared back and she tried to read what he was thinking. Was he really cured? Did he miss being a wolf? He gave her a doggy grin in response, only just steering clear of panting. His eyes held something that seemed like anger or maybe even jealousy, belying his puppy-friendly smile. It certainly didn’t look like he was ready to put anything behind him. “So where did she find you?”

  Scott bared his teeth in something that wasn’t a smile. “Does it matter? I can smell your fear and your questions, elder sister. Trust her: it can be better.” He glanced sidelong at Oya, as if for approval.

  “Elder sister?” Becca thought about biting him. With any luck, her magic would be contagious and he’d go back to being a wolf. That probably wasn’t the best idea though. He smelled like a big city and she guessed that he was that other kind of wolf she’d read about. If they fought, who knew what their bites might do to each other? She shifted her attention to Oya instead.

  That strangely familiar quality about the other woman was back and this time it seemed like more than was justified by their few meetings. Oya looked a bit like Lizzie in broad daylight but that wasn’t the only resemblance. Now that Becca was paying attention, she could smell another whiff of wolf in the air and it wasn’t coming from Scott. Her eyes narrowed. “You were one too, weren’t you? How come I couldn’t tell before?”

  Oya laughed, the sound tinny and insincere in Becca’s ears. She did notice that Oya didn’t move her head back when she laughed, keeping her throat covered. Disturbed that she’d even noticed that detail, she looked away for an instant.

  Oya’s voice called her back. “Not talking about me in the intro sessions, I guess. Yes, I was one of them once, years ago, running around like an animal every month. Fighting ordinary, normal people I had nothing against. Then I recognized that it was wrong. Being a wolf is a disease, not a gift. Why would anyone want to turn into an animal possessed by the moon’s phases? It’s disgusting and wrong.” Oya stepped closer. “You feel it too, don’t you? You’re not a killer. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Becca remembered watching her neighbors and longing to be normal again. It wasn’t a memory she was proud of right now, but she could hardly forget something she’d wished for that very morning. Life had been so much simpler before all of this started; she missed that more than anything. To her horror, she could feel her eyes start to tear up and she shook her head angrily to clear it. Whatever Oya was offering had to be snake oil. How could she even begin to trust anything this woman had to say?

  Oya stepped back, but not before she slipped something in the breast pocket of Becca’s shirt. “That’s my card. My cell number’s on it. I suspect you’ll want to get in touch with me. Call me when you’re ready. Come on, Scott.”

  Becca snarled, “I’ll never be ready for anything you have to offer!” Oya and Scott turned without another word and started walking toward the white van while she glared after them. She noticed that Scott sent a glare of his own back her way. Apparently, the cure didn’t make anyone mellower.

  But she didn’t take Oya’s card from her pocket and rip it up either. And from the set of Oya’s back, the other woman knew it. Becca could feel her fists ball up, the wolf’s howl echo through her head like her body. The question she’d been asking all morning was back: what was she supposed to do now?

  Chapter 18

  ~

  When she got back to the store, she was still shaking. She’d made herself go get a sandwich and eat some of it in hopes that it would calm her down, but it didn’t help much. The whole situation felt twisted and wrong. Oya couldn’t be trusted, yet something in Becca wanted the cure to be real.

  Shelly was at the counter when she came in, looking her over with an odd expression on her face. Becca wondered if she’d seen her talking to Oya. That had to be it. She took the wolf by its tail, or at least that’s how she tried to think about it. “Oya was waiting for me when I went outside. She says the Nesters are leaving town,” she said, without introduction.

  Shelly’s eyebrows rose. “Who’s Oya? The Nester bitch, Sara?”

  “She goes by Oya now. Was Sara her name before she joined the Nesters?” For the first time, Becca wondered what the Nester’s new name meant. She’d said something about a storm that brought change back at Millie’s, what seemed like a decade ago. At the time, it hadn’t seemed that important. Now she wished she had paid more attention.

  “Oya?” Shelly snorted. “Well, I knew her as Sara Hunter. You know she’s our cousin, right? And that she used to live here?”

  “So she mentioned. And I know that she’s a wolf. Or at least she used to be one so she had to have been in the Pack.” Becca faltered a little.

  Shelly’s face froze like one of the mountain lakes and something raged below the surface. “That was when Margaret was alpha, back when I first started to change. Sara was the Pack beta back then but she wanted something more. Her parents died in an accident, but she blamed Margaret and the Pack for it. Used it as an excuse to attack Margaret.” Shelly’s shoulder twitched like she was trying to shake off a bad memory.

  “I don’t think I’ve met a Margaret,” Becca began, feeling her way cautiously.

  “That’s because Margaret’s dead. We think Sara k–” Shelly stopped abruptly as a customer walked in. When Becca was done helping him, Shelly was off helping someone else. Frustrated curiosity was clawing its way through her until she very nearly called Pete up from the stockroom to take over. But that, after missing Monday afternoon, would have felt like professional suicide, so she made herself restock while she waited for the rest of the story.

  And waited. The afternoon went by in a flood of customers. Just as well, Becca thought, for my job security if not for my mental health. She spent the whole time she was answering questions about paint and plumbing supplies wondering about Oya/Sara and Shelly and Margaret.

  If Sara/Oya killed Margaret in some kind of sneaky way, that probably got her kicked out of the Pack. That made the most sense, given Shelly’s reaction to her question. But if Sara had killed the old alpha, why wasn’t she in charge now? Wasn’t that how it worked? Just the thought made her stomach hurt; did that mean that Erin and Shelly might fight to the death someday? She never wanted to see that.

  It didn’t look like she was going to get any answers, at least not today. Shelly’s sister called just as Erin strolled in the store’s front door. Becca went beet-red and couldn’t stop herself from making a halfhearted attempt to duck behind the counter. She scrambled around in the supply box on the top shelf to try and make it less obvious while she muttered a less than enthusiastic, “Hi there.”

  “Hi. I noticed that your phone seemed to be turned off so I’d thought I’d stop by to make sure everything was okay.” Erin leaned against the counter, corded muscles standing out under the light tan and freckled skin of her arms.

  “You must about ready to strangle me,” Shelly got off the phone and groaned. “But I’ve got to help out with my mom again. I’ll try and finish our conversation tomorrow, okay?” She patted Becca’s shoulder as she shot past. “Hey, Erin. Keep an eye on things, will you?”

  Erin gave her a wry half-smile. “I’ll try.”

  Becca watched Shelly disappear and felt like she was drowning. All of a sudden, the only people in the store were her and Erin. There would be no interruption to save her now. She stared down at Erin’s long fingers, almost without realizing that she was avoiding eye contact. After a minute, Erin’s hands began to sway slowly back and forth on the worn surface, like she was playing with a cat.

  Becca looked up whe
n she realized that she was following them through a second pass across the counter. One corner of Erin’s mouth quirked up in amusement. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You think you’re about ready to talk now?”

  “Here?” Becca stared frantically at the front door as if all of Wolf’s Point was about to stampede through the doors looking for remodeling supplies.

  “Well, it is fifteen minutes before closing time. I can certainly wait that long. I need some stuff for my house anyway.” Erin walked away and down the nearest aisle and began picking up things, looking at them as if she wasn’t quite seeing them.

  Becca thought about smacking her head against the counter a few times. It might help. Instead, she watched Erin. The silence went on long enough to feel her guts get all churny as well as to develop a distinct impression that she was being out of line. If she wasn’t going to think about Erin that way, then she shouldn’t be ogling her, right?

  Except…when had she decided what she was going to think about Erin at all? She had a brief flash of running with her neighbor through the streets as humans, then around the mountain as wolves. The memory of the hours that they’d spent together since she’d started to change were, for the most part, pleasant. And she knew she liked Erin. Was that enough to want something more?

  Fifteen minutes took an eternity, but finally, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, Becca went over and locked the door and flipped the sign to “Closed.” Now she just had to find the words to say whatever it was that she needed to say. When she turned around, Erin was back at the counter. “Look…” they both said at once before dropping into a tense silence.