House of Darkness

by K. R. Alexander

  The trouble with no longer feeling numb when you’re going through a tragedy—any huge loss and upheaval—happens if everything comes back into sharp focus, color-wheel emotions and blistering sensations, in a bang rather than a whisper.

  By the time I was dressed, face done, contact lenses in place, and out of the bathroom to find Olive waiting, I felt as mixed up as a twister. Noise downstairs told me someone had either woken up, returned here, or otherwise taken initiative. This made the choice simple. I didn’t go back to check on Vel. The perfect cure for this relationship was disengagement.

  Had I actually hurt him? Yes. Totally. Not cool. Did that make him any less a creepy son of a bitch whom I should avoid? No. Absolutely not. Also not cool.

  I let Olive into the shower, where she drank the puddles, and headed briskly downstairs.

  Look after the cats first, then some wings. I was—again—starving. Turn on the oven. Cats, wings, practice a clearing circle if I could find Mom’s notes on the subject. Sounded like a day.

  Only … what was that smell? Like cinnamon and vanilla and butter melting into hot homemade waffles and smoky bacon and apple orchards and sunshine and holy-crap-get-ready-to-be-pampered-because-we’re-on-vacation-and-breakfast-is-served.

  Blue greeted me at the foot of the stairs. I hardly paused to stroke his sleek, black panther form in miniature, heading for the kitchen as if being reeled in. If Wade was cooking, making this euphoria fill the house, that was it. He could pick the date, I’d pick the cake, and we’d both sign on the dotted line. Hallelujah and take me to church—as my grandmother would have said.

  Adam, in jeans and shirtless, was next to greet me, coming down the hall and almost running into me by the stairs.

  “Morning.” He grinned like he was “the one” on the morning after.

  “What is that smell?” I asked, trying to brush past him. God, they had broad shoulders, but I managed. “Is that Wade cooking?”

  Adam turned to follow me. “Nah, we pitched him out.”

  “What?” I glanced back.

  Adam was laughing. “He took off in that convertible.”

  “Why?”

  “How? When?” Adam asked, still laughing.

  I burst into the kitchen, waves of sweet, warm odors washing over me like clouds of brown sugar on a mustard sort of day.

  Gideon, hands healed, in cutoffs and nothing else, barefoot, was carrying on a conversation with Pickles on the counter while he waited on a batch of pancakes on the cast iron griddle. The tabby cat kept trying to get into the batter bowl, which Gideon held out of range in one hand, spatula in the other.

  That wasn’t the only part of the kitchen transformed. Bags on the counters and floor, drawers and cabinets open, a bowl of fruit on the kitchen island, cutting board, and all manner of ingredients from a bag of flour to sliced peaches sitting out, and an empty box of sausages from the freezer section on the floor.

  None of this food had been in the house last night. Not even the flour.

  Gideon looked up from his chat with Pickles. He turned and bowed, holding up his full hands to each side. “Good afternoon, kaulra. How is your appetite?”

  While I stood with my mouth open, wondering what he’d just called me, of all the stupid things to wonder, Pickles seized the moment to reach a paw over the edge of the bowl and dab out pancake batter to lick off his fuzzy little hand.

  Gideon lifted the bowl over his own head. “Did you know you had no food stores, Ripley? No pantry? Nothing in the freezer?”

  “Ice cream and vodka in there. And there’s bourbon in the pantry.” Pretty sure there was a new jar of peanut butter also, although I wouldn’t swear to it.

  Gideon smiled indulgently—how one might look at a toddler insisting she could fit the square block into the round hole. “I’m sure those made dishes worthy of a barn dance for you. Now, Moon has blessed you with abundance through troubled times.”

  “Moon provides,” Adam said solemnly. He shoved a long strip of paper at me from the island. “Here’s the receipt. Cash or check are fine. Also, the skinny albino wanted to know when he’d get paid for his services last night.”

  I gagged on my tongue and started coughing. “What did you say?”

  “Last night being a trial and all, it dawned on us that you might not be aiming to pay.”

  “Oh. The vampire house… Yeah. No, I’m not paying you for that. And I’m not paying for this,” I added, holding up the foot-long paper. “I didn’t ask you to go shopping.”

  Both appeared taken aback.

  “Someone had to,” Gideon pointed out—not unreasonably.

  “There’s a difference between needing to go to the store for a loaf of bread and…” Waving around. I turned to Adam. “He’s not an albino. Are you colorblind? He has blue eyes, not pink.”

  “Never seen a fellow so pale—’specially out here. Gideon says now we know who folks are talking about when they say, ‘white man.’”

  They snorted with laughter.

  I was still trying to decide if that was just plain racist or actually kind of funny when Pickles yowled, waving his paw to invite more pancake batter.

  “I need to feed the cats,” I said decisively. Something to do.

  Yeah, maybe it was funny. I’d class myself and Gideon and Adam as “white” but they were dark-complexioned, while I was lighter skinned but darker haired. Wade actually was bordering more on a literal take on that label than anyone I’d ever known. Maybe it was some sort of abnormal gene, now that they mentioned it.

  “He did it,” Adam said.

  “Who did what?” I asked.

  Adam blew out his cheeks. “You’ve more questions than a dog’s got fleas. The albino fellow fed the cats. Went around and scooped out their sand pans and put down that reeking fish food trash before he left.”

  “He did? Why? He didn’t have to do that.”

  Adam shook his head, giving up on me. “You talk to her. Asking one fellow why another fellow does what he does? Be asking next why a coon climbs a tree.”

  “No idea why,” Gideon said to me. “He likes cats? Or you? You like cats and he likes you? Hard speculating on folk we don’t know.”

  “Gideon’s damn good with singles,” Adam informed me. “He spends so much time at the diner he gets where they’re coming from and their lingo and all that. Half the wolves back home wouldn’t know how to speak to a worm if you wrote them a sign and pasted it to a deer’s ass.”

  “You work in a diner?” I looked quickly around at the kitchen situation and pancakes.

  “Our family owns a local service station and a diner where we’re from,” Gideon said. “I’ve worked in the diner since I was a pup. Adam takes odd jobs at both, as well as outside, and he’s all right with singles too.”

  “Single people?”

  “Single shapes. Humans.”

  “Sure… So where did Wade go? You didn’t actually pitch him out?”

  Adam shook his head, looking down as if aggrieved and tapping his toe. He heaved a sigh.

  “Well, Christ,” I snapped. “How do we figure stuff out if we don’t take action or ask?”

  “How about backgammon?” Adam asked.

  “Backgammon?”

  “Found a board. Cupboard under the stairs. Fine cache of games you’ve got. Lunch and a game and you ask all the questions you want.”

  “You’ve been rummaging through the closets?”

  “Only way to find them.”

  “We could’ve asked first…” Gideon glanced around the kitchen, which looked like a hurricane had struck.

  “You didn’t need to ask about this,” I said. “Unless you seriously thought I’d pay for it. Anyone who wants to cook for me can totally pillage the place. While you’re at it, if you feel like painting or stripping wallpaper, or replacing windows or fixtures … I won’t stand in your way. My house is your house.”

  “Flapjacks are done,” Gideon said. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Uh…?�
��

  “You bring whatever, Gid. Want to eat outside?”

  “It’s too hot,” I said.

  Pickles yowled, slapping at the bowl.

  “Game on the coffee table then,” Adam said, taking my elbow.

  I let him pull me down the hall.

  He had half a dozen games from my childhood—and others from my parents’ childhoods—spread on the floor and coffee table in the family room where they’d bunked. The TV was on the Cooking Channel.

  Adam slapped the backgammon board on the coffee table, telling me to have a seat on the couch like I was the guest. Mouse was already curled by the arm. I hoped Chester and Casper, the scaredy foster cat, were all right and had crept out to eat while the guys had been grocery shopping.

  Adam set up the board while talking to me about other games.

  No way I was getting an answer about Wade out of him. I remembered the devoured index card Wade had left me—had to trust all was well.

  37

  The two shifters flopped on the floor while I sat on the couch with Mouse. Blue was suspicious of the wolfish smell but ventured to join me. Pickles has no inhibitions—to the point that Dad used to say he was dropped on his head as a kitten.

  Pickles rubbed and climbed all over them on the floor because they had plates of food and were right there. Gideon had seemed companionable enough with the cat in the kitchen. Once he had his own meal in his hands he growled, both the guys stiff and glaring like they considered the tabby a real rival to their food. Pickles remained clueless, rubbing along their bare abs and backs, purring and occasionally yowling into their faces when no one offered a sausage.

  I shut him in the laundry room with another snack before anything unfortunate happened.

  Back in the family room, we set to—or I did. They were done. I’d never seen anyone eat that fast in my life. And I mean anyone: people, cats, dogs, hummingbirds.

  They went back for seconds, Gideon sweetly asking if I would like more flapjacks or bacon, although I had yet to start.

  My brunch consisted of generous portions—a fraction of what they served to themselves—of pancakes with cinnamon butter and real maple syrup, bacon, turkey sausage, a frittata with asparagus, mushrooms, spinach, and multiple cheeses, and a range of fresh fruit and berries, including cantaloupe, grapes, and strawberries. I ate until I wanted to go back to bed, losing three games in a row to Adam. Then I still couldn’t stop eating the juicy, sweet slices of peach that were the highlight of the fruit bowl.

  Gideon pushed food at me while Adam focused on the board, or talked about food, games, or their diner when it was my turn and I was struggling to make up my mind on how to use a roll.

  He was deliberately distracting me each time I rolled. I can get awfully competitive on a normal day. This morning… Who cared? I’d survived last night: winner. More help coming tonight: winner. Then the company last night after actually going to bed: winner. Leading to a couple of hunks buying me groceries and fixing me a lavish meal and making this deeply depressing house feel like home for the first time: mega 3D winner.

  So I wasn’t getting worked up over losing like I normally would have. Adam could distract me all he wanted. Actually, it was interesting hearing how their “pack” owned these normal little businesses in a small town in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. How many other wolf packs walk among us? If they looked like these two, they’d be hard to miss. But there were other shifters out there. Foxes and bears and big cats, weren’t there? In the Rockies and Canada?

  If Gideon worked in a diner here, I’d be in every day—speaking of hard to miss. Sitting with them to eat and play the game, feeling weird and disembodied, I kept looking and not looking at them. I didn’t question them being shirtless anymore than my own sleeveless blouse. It was always hot in here, all summer, until it was freezing all winter. The old house had nonexistent insulation, an ancient AC system, and horrible old windows.

  Not questioning their choice of attire—or lack—didn’t explain how the sight of their chests, biceps, abs, and shoulders kept leaping out like Halloween pranks. Munch on fruit—boo! Roll the dice—boo! Pet the cat—boo!

  After the third game, I returned to the kitchen to add a shot or two of vodka to the apple juice they’d given me. I’d have preferred orange. They hadn’t bought anything citrus. Also no hot sauce in the frittata.

  Adam set up the next game, calling after me that he’d teach me some tricks. He’d apparently decided I was a hopeless player.

  Gideon was back in the kitchen, eating the last of the bacon from the oven and now troubling to put a few of the groceries away. He’d been saving back that bacon so he could keep offering more. He did it again as I walked into the room with my glass.

  I firmly shook my head. Gideon gulped it and asked what else he could get me.

  Ruby slippers?

  “Why?” I asked. “No offense, if you’re just being nice or whatever. But I already said I’m not paying you. And you’ll notice I didn’t sleep with you last night, not likely to change tonight. What else do you want? What’s all this for?” I pulled the vodka from the freezer and looked at him while Gideon faced me beside the island. He wiped his greasy fingers on a dishtowel, head tipped, apparently giving that some thought.

  “Why wouldn’t we? As long as we’re working together, we’re a pack. Packs take care of one another. That’s what makes us strong.” He wasn’t having to think it over. I’d confused him with the question, which he found obvious.

  I nodded, trying to pretend I understood what he meant when really we were nothing of the sort. We’d just met. I wasn’t anyone’s pack. And I wondered why I’d said that sleeping with him tonight was “not likely.” Upon instant hindsight, it felt like going out of my way to mention the fact that it could happen rather than either saying it couldn’t or making it a non-issue by leaving a blank space.

  It also seemed that Gideon had noticed this. By the time I’d splashed clear liquid into the apple juice and tried a sip, he was standing awfully close. Boo!

  With an effort, I looked up enough to meet his gaze.

  “Last night, when we were in that room…” Gideon watched my eyes, clear with my contacts in place. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. Vampires can alter our sense of reality. I should have caught the signs and seen through the manipulation.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I sipped. Now that was apple juice. “It took me a minute to figure out what was going on—and I’m also supposed to know a thing or two about vampires. I hadn’t realized they could mess with a person so much when they don’t have eye contact.”

  “They can’t.” What was up with these shifters and their intense eyes? Predatory gaze?

  I loved having to look up at him—imagining my shoe size a six in his shadow, rather than the nine that it was. Boo! I longed to give ridges of his abs a press, just to see if they would move. Of course they wouldn’t. But a little field experiment never hurt anyone. Well … almost.

  What had he said? What were we talking about? When had I become so easy to distract?

  “Can’t…?”

  “Vampires can’t make a big impression on you when they can’t see your eyes,” Gideon said. “You’re right. He was able to distract us so successfully because what we were feeling was already in us, only suppressed.”

  Just what Vel had said. Also lined up with what I already knew about vampires.

  I nodded.

  We looked at each other.

  “I kind of…” I swallowed. So hot in the kitchen after the oven and stove had been on. “I might be off the market. I’m involved with Wade, I think…”

  Gideon smiled, gentle creases to the corners of his eyes, soft amusement. An understated, deeply kind smile like a therapist. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not the jealous sort. I’ve never held with folk who piss on what they own to exclude their own pack. Another pack? Sure, that’s different. We sing family songs. But inside the pack? Run together, not apart.”

  I look
ed around chaos of the kitchen, pushed scarlet hair behind my ear, wrapped my sweaty palm around the cool glass, and again tried to meet his gaze. I cleared my throat. “I don’t understand what you just said, or how it relates to what I said, I guess, but working with a team is good so … yeah.”

  “You may favor his lighter approach,” Gideon said. “Some humans do. All I was trying to say was I wouldn’t normally have come on so strong where a woman is concerned.”

  “As apposed to a man?”

  “As apposed to a wolf.”

  “Right… You call yourselves wolves. Just plain wolves? Not shifters or werewolves or men or women? And wild, running across the tundra wolves…?”

  “Total wolves.”

  I nodded, rubbing my thumb up and down the sweaty glass. “If you were dealing with another wolf, you’d maybe have been how you were last night without any vampire influence?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But because I’m a single, a woman, you suppose I like to stay a little coy? Oh!” I looked up from the glass. “That’s what the handshake was about. Your females must be strapping. That’s nice of you to … be so nice.” I gulped, face burning even beyond the heat of the room and closeness of the wolf.

  “Could be I’m on a stale scent?” He cocked his head. “You’d do me a courtesy by saying plain what you favor or disfavor in a male. Then we’d know if we hunted matched trails.”

  “Sure, I’m totally for being clear with expectations. But I just told you I’m off the market. Wade. So … it doesn’t matter?” Wimping out, getting more confused than embarrassed.

  “Your preference doesn’t matter? Know it when you see it?” He nodded sagely.

  I felt even more that he was missing some of what I was saying, and I wasn’t grasping some of what he was saying.

  “I guess I do, yeah. If I’m attracted to a guy… Isn’t that sort of the same for everyone? You’re into them or you’re not? You might have ideals but everyone is individual. I don’t think I’m old enough to have a guy checklist.”

  “Sounds like a test to me.” Adam’s voice cut in from behind me as he reached the kitchen.