Moon Promise (The Wild Pack Book 1)

by Carmen Fox

  Drake took a hold of my hand again, except this time he wrapped his fingers all the way around it. “For what it’s worth, I agree with your father.”

  “You do? Why?”

  He tilted my face toward him with his hand and fixed his eyes on mine. “Because of who your mother was. You’ve confirmed what I suspected about her, and what the books hinted at.”

  “Hit me.” I shuttered my face against any emotional leakage. “Whatever the truth, I can take it.”

  He caressed my cheek, before tapping the tip of my nose. “First, let’s go talk to the police.”

  He slid off the counter, arranged himself back between my legs, and lifted me off before placing me on the ground.

  Putting weight on my leg lit the flame in my knee again, and I strode across the hard floor so he wouldn’t see my pain. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Drake was well enough to drive. We rescued my tote and laptop from Leo’s wrecked car and, an hour later, I gave my statement in a drab room that smelled of vomit and bleach.

  The station chief was a fan. I’d made a point of praising the police in bringing the Socialite Strangler to justice, and he eventually let me off with a strong reprimand for not reporting finding Raven’s body. Drake had a tougher time ahead of him.

  I could be patient if I had no choice, and by eight o’clock, Drake was free. As he left the station and walked toward me, my chest tightened in a good way.

  “Hi.” I placed my arms around his neck and didn’t wait for his reply.

  My kiss was a confession of sorts. Words, tone of voice, they expressed my thoughts well enough, but only my lips could do justice to my feelings, and I didn’t hold back. In his arms, I melted.

  Dad warned me the heart made decisions more quickly and resolutely than the brain, but then he was biased, of course. My parents had been together mere days before they took the Moon Promise, when their love was fresh and at its peak. In the years following their decision, the magic of the ritual made sure their feelings for each other never waned.

  I’d witnessed the aftermath, though, and made sure to stay clear of emotional entanglements. Until now. Today, my brain lay defeated, quiet, accepting, but was my heart reliable?

  Drake tightened his embrace. “Ready to go? If I ever see a police officer again, it’ll be too soon.”

  We walked to his pickup and got in.

  “How come you didn’t tell me you dated Raven?” The words tumbled from my chest and lightened a load. “Sable told me.”

  “Sable must have misread the situation.” He chuckled. “We didn’t date. But Raven and I had been close, and once I realized she was getting attached, I retreated. God, I had no idea how to handle the situation. Maybe I pushed her toward Cody, toward her death. I’ll never know.”

  “If you look hard enough, you can find guilt in everyone, but don’t forget to lay blame only where it belongs.”

  “Still...”

  “Witnesses saw you with her before her death.”

  His face ran the gamut of expressions and settled on a forlorn look. “We ran into each other and I could tell immediately something was troubling her. Maybe the prospect of leaving her parents for Cody. She refused to say, didn’t mention Cody, and maybe I pushed a little too hard.”

  “She was a grown woman,” I said. “Young, but entitled to make her own decisions.”

  “Yeah.”

  We passed the next few minutes of our drive with a series of pointed looks and fleeting touches. Every now and then, his lips twitched into something akin to a smile.

  “So. What have you found out about my mother?” I opened the glovebox lid and took out a bottle he kept stored there. “Give me at least an idea of what to expect.”

  “You’re impatient.”

  “I’m totally patient. I just don’t like waiting.”

  “Remember the text on the boulder?”

  I swigged water and nodded at the same time.

  “I found the same line in a book about werewolf origins.”

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Meaning what?”

  Drake turned into a small lane I recognized as the one that took us to his cottage. “We’re home.”

  I crossed my arms with enough force that the water sloshed inside the bottle. “You think you’re so mysterious, but really, you’re nothing but a tease.”

  He laughed.

  As we entered the dirt circle in front of Drake’s house, the moon was already on the rise, plump but not yet round, as it geared up for the coming full moon.

  Drake parked up, and we got out. While he went up on the porch to unlock the door, I lingered.

  Tall, slim trees rose from the long grass, nothing like the dense undergrowth where Leo had hidden Raven’s body.

  “If I die, I want to be buried in a place like this.” I gestured around me.

  He skipped back down the steps. “Before you consider the afterlife, how about you enjoy the present?” He placed his hand on the back of my neck and gathered me against his chest.

  Here I remained for a few minutes, until he led me into the house. Tonight wasn’t going to be about control, or about dominance. All I wanted was what I’d wanted all along: to be me.

  Twenty-six

  On Drake’s suggestion, I changed into something more comfortable, although he’d probably hoped for more than my washed-out pajama pants and a cami. Five minutes later, I joined him in his living room, which unlike me was dressed to impress. He’d lit a candle at one end of the table, and its light flickered over a bowl of chocolates, a bottle of wine, and the accompanying glasses. An old stereo, only a generation removed from a Bakelite wireless, whispered songs of romance and love.

  The snide comment on my tongue, ready for deployment, didn’t roll off it. He’d turned the room into a cliché, and my heart gave a double beat.

  He dragged his gaze across my baggy bottoms and the graying strappy top.

  The silk PJs would have made a more attractive picture. Certainly more enticing than an outfit that looked like last week’s dirty laundry. What had I been thinking?

  Either way, the evening was going to end in sex. The certainty of it was woven into the atmosphere, like an inevitable law of nature, and neither of us had the inclination to stop it. But we were no longer two passing ships. We’d weathered storms and sought refuge in each other. That meant something.

  If only I knew what.

  I grabbed my left elbow with my right hand and pivoted toward the sofa. “Trying to keep your eyes on the prize.”

  His nostrils flared and his hungry stare burrowed into me. “Oh, I am.”

  I slumped into the upholstery and quickly crossed my legs, because the familiar pucker in the area between them was already four steps ahead of us. “I meant I’m doing whatever I can to keep your mind on your news about the travelers.”

  He joined me on the sofa, a healthy three inches of space between us.

  “It’s not an easy story to digest. Read?” He gently slapped my thigh as if gearing up for a day’s work, but left it there, warming my flesh, his fingers tantalizingly close to my apex.

  I picked up the book from the table and wriggled in my seat, suddenly aware of my clammy back. With the curtains drawn tight, the room’s heat had nowhere to go but into my head.

  Drake angled his body toward me and pulled his knee up to place it between us. “This is a theory, and in many ways absurd, but it fits. It explains why your father asked you not to reveal what you’re doing here, why your mother’s departure caused uproar in her pack, and why you can’t shift. Yet.”

  “Go on.”

  “I believe your mother’s pack was the last of the original werewolves, the ones that started it all.”

  “The First Ones?” I curled my fingers so the edge of the book cut deep into my flesh. “How is that possible?”

  “The First Ones left, at least in part, for Europe many centuries ago. We know that your mother’s pack returned from Europe. Then there’s th
e proverb, which basically means ‘A real wolf will never be domesticated.’ The travelers believed in this motto and kept their distance from humans—even from second-generation werewolves like your father.”

  “That’s why my grandfather didn’t approve of Marlon or my dad.” My stomach rattled like a washing machine on steroids. All this time I’d thought my mother’s line was more human than wolf.

  Drake caressed my arm using tender strokes of his thumb. “Like Marlon, the travelers wanted to keep their bloodline clean. Your mother and father’s romance put the future of their tribe at risk. According to eyewitness accounts from that time, only six or seven grown females belonged to the pack, and out of these, only two were unmated.”

  I watched the comforting strokes he made with his hand. “Hardly enough to sustain a population.”

  “Exactly. Every female werewolf was precious. They ran from Europe to the woods of Colorado, but civilization found them anyway. Once your mother left, their survival became dire, and I suspect they moved further into the mountains. Away from humans and other werewolves.”

  “Liza came back.” I closed his opening mouth with my fingers. “Jonah’s Liza and my mother’s cousin. She came back to guide me on some personal quest the women in her pack undertook. Something to do with their old rituals and customs. Sadly, she left without giving me details.”

  “All First women have to go on a journey to discover their wolf.”

  “Can’t say I’ve had much luck yet.” I leaned my shoulder against the back of the sofa. “Assuming I buy this, how does that explain why I can’t shift? If my mother was genetically close to the First Ones, shouldn’t I take to being a wolf like kids take to dirt?”

  He leaned in and kissed me. The kind of kiss that was made up of a fleeting contact between our lips, but would stay in my mind for years to come.

  “Much about the First Ones hasn’t made it into the books, but we do know that it was the Moon Promise that forced the first shift.” He curled a lock of my hair around his finger, his mouth only an inch away. “Even now, that pact has power. Especially on you.”

  I stiffened, at once entranced by his gaze and paralyzed by his words.

  His hand gripped the back of my neck. “You won’t shift until you promise your future to a wolf under the full moon.”

  My vision zoomed in on his lips, then pivoted, blurred, turned upside down. I tore myself away from his face and took a deep swig of wine. “The Moon Promise is archaic and evil. It’s why Dad can’t move on with his life even after all these years.”

  “I assume your parents had little choice. Without the Moon Promise, your mother wouldn’t have been able to shift and display dominance, but she needed both to rule by your father’s side.”

  There it was. My mother’s life explained. The mystery gone. This was what Dad wanted me to understand.

  All the while I’d been consumed by the possibility I might be too human. At one point, I’d assumed there might be a psychological defect. Not once had I considered...this.

  Shit, this was insane.

  I opened the book and let the pages cascade through my fingers, an oddly calming sensation. “My mother never got a chance to stand on her own two feet. The minute she got out from under her father’s control, she had to bind herself to my dad. That sucks.”

  Drake tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “She entered into the Moon Promise because she loved your dad. If she hadn’t, the ritual wouldn’t have worked.”

  The sparse candlelight softened Drake’s features. Most times, he was sexy, or annoying, or both. Right now, he was beautiful.

  “What is it?” His lips twitched.

  “Your eyes.”

  “I have two. They’re gray.”

  I rewarded his attempt to cheer me up with a weak smile. “Sometimes they look like mercury. Right now, they’re storm clouds.”

  “I don’t speak female. Is that good or bad?”

  “I like the way they run through all the shades of the spectrum. It’s definitely hot.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Through all fifty shades of gray, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” My smile quickly waned. “So I have to take a Moon Promise before I...”

  “Yes.”

  The chocolates stood untouched on the table, a travesty, yet amid the twirling and wrenching inside my stomach, they wouldn’t stay long.

  My dreams of being the single ruling alpha of my pack—shattered.

  Ten minutes ago, my attitude verged on the line between what-the-heck and who-cares? Wine, chocolates—I was allowed to enjoy romance without appearing weak or dependent. But in my case, romance might lead to commitment, and then to much worse.

  Drake’s revelation, if true, meant I was strong by genes, but weak by birth. No one saw my DNA, but my shortcomings were all too plain.

  “It isn’t fair.” My tone wavered. “I always hoped I’d one day run free, as I’m meant to, but no one warned me the trade-off would be to give up my freedom and submit to a male.”

  “Loving someone doesn’t mean you submit to them.” Drake pressed the heel of his hand against his temple. “The Moon Promise isn’t about conflict between men and women, but about a compromise. The First Woman gave up some of her human freedoms, like the First Man gave up some of his. Each gained from the other. Voluntary submission, not enforced subjugation. What’s a little compromise compared to eternal love?”

  “Eternal love is dangerous. When one dies—”

  “The love remains. Your father still mourns your mother, but does he regret committing his future to her?”

  I blinked down the heat behind my eyes. “No.”

  Drake lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. “Don’t you want to feel the wind rushing through your fur, to run free, or put idiots in their place through your dominance? Don’t you want to be the alpha you were born to be?”

  “More than anything.”

  “Then...” He shrugged as if the solution was so obvious an idiot would grasp it.

  The problem wasn’t “getting it.” The problem was accepting it.

  “Have you met alpha-capable males?” I scoffed. “They’re idiots. Interested in power and intrigue and putting women in their place. Submission, subjugation—they don’t care about semantics.”

  “No offense taken.”

  I shot him a lop-sided grin. “Sorry, I didn’t mean you. Or, you know what, actually I do. From the minute we met, you were in my face.”

  “It’s a pretty face.”

  “You know what I mean.” But heat flooded my cheeks regardless.

  He stroked my arm. “We found a balance, didn’t we? We haven’t argued in, what, at least twenty minutes. Maybe that means something. And next week is the full moon.”

  I tilted my head, emboldened by his transparent hint. “Oh really? What, are you applying for the position?”

  “Of being your mate? I don’t know. Do you offer medical?”

  “If you mean bruises when you piss me off and pull your alpha crap on me, then sure.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I grinned, but under his unchanging look, my smile faltered. “Hang on, are we really talking about this?”

  “You know I’ve fallen for you, don’t you?”

  Christ almighty, my heart skipped. A right old lurch into my throat with enough force to jiggle my brain. Worse, a rush of giddiness shot straight into my head to join the quake.

  We’d been flirting for a while, sure, and he had saved my life, and I his, but was that love? Hardly. My need to remain close by his side, was that love? Or the way his dominance had filled and protected me. Was that love?

  He massaged my hand, keeping his gaze level, waiting, expecting.

  I opened my mouth, inhaled sharply. “I didn’t know.”

  “How could you not? I’m a simple, straight-forward guy.”

  He was certainly that. And his confession wasn’t a total shock. Many times, I’d wondered, hoped...

  “I’m
not good with this.” I wiggled my free hand from me to him. “Relationships. Feelings.”

  “Considering you grew up having to find new ways to prove yourself every day, I’m not surprised. But you don’t have to prove yourself to me.” He curled his hand around my neck and drew me close. “And I’m not trying to make you do anything. I merely wanted to get it out there.”

  He blew against my ear, his scent filled my nose and mouth, and somehow his presence even affected my breathing, which became fast and shallow.

  “My mate will one day rule the German pack alongside me.” I rested my head against his to soak him into me. “You’d have to move. Leave Jonah.”

  I really said that. As if this were real, as if Drake and I would actually—

  “My German needs polishing, but I’ll go wherever you go. I’ll do anything if it means you’ll finally be mine.” He claimed my mouth in one swift, passionate move.

  His kiss nearly snatched all thought from my head, but I found the strength to turn away. The striped throw pillow I picked up would have made a useful temporary wall, but instead of shoving it between us, I pressed it into my lap and clung to it. Could I be happy belonging to someone?

  My whole life, I’d fought for my independence. Giving it up felt like...giving up.

  I glanced up at the glistening lips of the man who’d won me with his strength and slayed me with his compassion. Could I abandon this important part of myself for him? The part that had kept me fighting for my rightful place in my pack?

  “Where’s your head, princess?”

  My heart seemed an ill-equipped organ to make such a life-changing decision.

  His lips stretched into a wide smile. “It’s because I said you were going to be mine, isn’t it?”

  I closed my eyes and leaned into him again, wrapping myself in his scent. “How did you know?”

  He playfully bit my earlobe. “I might not be able to predict what you’re going to do at any given minute, but you’re not as mysterious as you think.”

  “I don’t know if I should be insulted.”

  “I’m saying I want to spend the rest of my life with you, feeling the way I do now. You know, head over heels, pounding heart...”