Janelle explained the rest, finishing up lamely about how touching his wrist suddenly triggered an onslaught of images.
Jake shook his head. “I don’t get it. You said that you receive visions of the future. But you’re seeing my past. You’re seeing things no one else knows.” There was an edge in his voice now that put Janelle ill at ease.
The coffee machine had long since beeped but no one moved to get the coffee. Now that Janelle’s secret was laid bare, her stomach was twisted in a knot, afraid to drink or eat anything. Jake looked upset over something and hadn’t moved an inch. They merely stared at one another uneasily.
“What was that artifact? On the second floor of your room?” She asked curiously. “I’ve never had an item trigger memories like that before.”
Jake turned away from her and poured her a cup of coffee. He added cream and sugar, handing it to her. She didn’t want to say no and took it silently as he turned back to pour himself a cup.
“I’ll show you.” He finally replied although his body was stiff and he kept his distance from her.
Janelle trailed after him once again, towards the center staircase. The house felt freezing cold even though she was wearing a warm sweater. A wind had kicked up outside, tearing through the woods and striking the house.
Jake stopped a few steps up, looking down at her. Behind him, a light glowed, making him look as though he was wearing a halo.
“Are you cold? My temperature runs warmer than most so my house is almost always freezing.”
“I’m fine.” She lied, not wanting to be a bother.
He turned back around, going up to the second floor, to the landing that Janelle saw the last time she was here. The strange mask was still on display along with a few other old looking trinkets. She moved towards it slowly, afraid of another onslaught of imagery.
“These are artifacts from our history. I collected them over time. They would come on the market and no one would know their true meaning but me. I made sure to own them, to preserve them.”
“May I?” Janelle asked, her hand outstretched.
Jake nodded. She moved closer to the mask. Hesitating for just a moment, Janelle gently pressed her fingertips against it. Nothing happened. Her shielding was down but no images came.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” She confirmed and then turned around and reached for him.
Jake flinched, yanking his arm away from her. She blinked in surprise, her face flooding with color. She hadn’t thought he would have minded…
“I don’t feel comfortable with you seeing more of me. What you saw are things I consider personal.”
She thought back to the images and tilted her head to the side. “You were changing without warning, weren’t you? Is that not normal?”
His lips pursed together and Janelle wondered if she had taken things too far. “I was changing out of the blue, yes. Sometimes that can happen if you are too far from a pack. Werewolves belong in a pack. It keeps things in order. Or you get things like packs breaking off, or starting pack battles, which brings on the fog –”
“Werewolves were behind the fog?” She spluttered, shocked. “Are you serious?”
“That’s what Liam told me when I joined the pack. I wasn’t here for it.” He shrugged.
Janelle leaned against the wall. Her mind spun as she filed this bit of information away. All this time…and the fog was tied to the werewolves. What else could be tied to them?
“But once I became part of a pack, the random shifts stopped. That’s why I’ve stayed here. Liam was the only pack that would have me.”
“How come?”
“I don’t play well with others. You saw it in Blue Moon. I just want to live here quietly, with a small group of friends. I am not interested in pack politics or what they are fighting about now. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about our people. I do.”
“Is that why you’re buying up the land around St. Neuri? You’re going to do something for them, aren’t you?”
He gestured to the artifacts. “I’m collecting these and buying the land. I want a sanctuary for our people. For too long have we misunderstood the changes inside of us and turned to crime to figure out what these strange urges are. My father and grandfather were werewolves but did nothing with their money. They had no pack. They suffered their wild changes by living as hermits and staying secluded. That isn’t what I want.”
“Did you tell your pack this?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.” Jake ran his fingers through his hair, exhaling slowly. “Most of the pack doesn’t trust me. They just see me as a spoiled rich asshole. And maybe I am. I think, in a lot of ways I am. But I want to make a difference too. I want to help out the pack.”
“You should tell them that. Because Tate and his thugs at Blue Moon didn’t seem to think too highly of you.”
“I didn’t want to announce anything until everything is in place. That still will take a bit.”
“I don’t know much about werewolf politics but it sounds like everyone is in the dark from each other.” Janelle replied.
“Don’t worry about it. If you aren’t part of the pack, then it doesn’t concern you.”
“How could I have never noticed werewolves here before? All this time and I never once picked up on someone I couldn’t read.”
“The pack doesn’t stray far from a certain area of St. Neuri. It’s possible you just never were around one. Or you have grown more sensitive to things and finally picked up on it. Either way, I wouldn’t be too concerned about it.”
“I guess so…” She trailed off, looking back at the mask. “Strange to think there is so much about my hometown I still don’t know.”
Jake moved towards her, drawing her attention. She turned to look at him, marveling at his height. He exuded a power that he seemed to have been keeping hidden before. His body was so warm that Janelle could feel it at this range. A realization hit her: the heat in the Blue Moon. It was because werewolves were so hot all the time. Just another small detail Janelle missed.
She exhaled slowly, their eyes meeting. Every nerve in her body was singing, reaching out – for what? Janelle didn’t know, didn’t quite understand what was happening with her around him. His eyes were deep green and beautiful. No longer closed off but open to her as if she was truly seeing him for the first time.
“What about you? There seems to be many things you don’t know about yourself.” Jake remarked, carefully shifting the conversation off him and the pack.
She noticed but his attention had flustered her and she couldn’t bring herself to change the topic. “I thought I did. But running into werewolves has changed what I know. What I see. The past and then nothing at all…unless I touch you, I guess.”
Janelle blushed and felt like a schoolgirl. Jake was so close now that it was almost impossible not to reach out and touch his bare skin. Would she see his future? Or more of his past? Maybe nothing at all. Janelle didn’t understand how the connection worked with werewolves. All of it was new and enticing. She wanted to explore him.
Carefully, Janelle grabbed his arm, lifting it up and rolling the sleeve up just enough to expose skin. Jake didn’t move. She took that as a sign to continue. Slowly, she placed her fingertips against his wrist –
Images scrambled. Coming in like a flood. Jake as a child, listening to his father locked up in the basement, having turned at dinner, a dirty secret. His grandfather, on his death bed, telling him that the family line was cursed. Jake, in his dad’s office, struggling to learn the business but something inside of him was calling out, making it difficult to think. Running away at eighteen with loads of cash. His dad tracking him down, furious with him. Traveling the world, clubs every night, getting drunk, blacking out, waking up somewhere else, naked from shifting. Meeting Liam, wanting to become part of the pack but the pack not wanting a spoiled rich kid. Keeping to himself, knowing he should try to open up to the pack but they didn’t want him – no one did. Tate, leering at
Janelle. Jake knowing that he would have to go against the pack to protect her –
She was shoved out of his mind, her head spinning, her legs buckling. Jake reached for her, mumbling her name but Janelle couldn’t hear him. She was dizzy from the sheer force of all the imagery. It all arrived so quickly that it felt impossible to focus on it all. Her skin was clammy and she held onto Jake.
“Are you okay?” He was asking. She could hear him now. “Janelle? Are you alright?”
She mumbled something, still awash in the feelings from the visions, feeling Jake’s loneliness as a child and the numbing of the pain once he got older. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes.
It was Jake that looked away this time, afraid of what she saw. Her heart pounded in her chest as her fingers trailed across his cheek and down to his jawline. Their eyes locked. She could feel his grip on her tighten. She wanted him to –
Janelle pushed him away, breathless. The moment shattered. Leaning against the wall, sitting on the floor, she tried to understand why she had wanted Jake to kiss her. She was obviously losing her mind. Exhaling slowly, she stood up, her hands flat against the wall behind her.
The moment of personal closeness had ended and Jake looked at her coldly. Had she angered him? Impossible. It wasn’t as if he had wanted to kiss her. That would be ridiculous.
In any case, Janelle knew it was time to leave. She cleared her throat. “I should go. It’s late. I came here without calling or anything. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You didn’t.” He said although his voice was now neutral, his old self settling in.
Jake led her to the front door, opening it wide. The moon had broken out from behind the clouds, covering the front yard in soft light. The breeze ripped through the trees, causing them to sway. Janelle stopped in front of her car, turning to look at him.
“Will I talk to you later?”
“Sure.” Jake replied but his words held no promise.
She nodded, unsure what she had done to make him close down. Getting in her car, she pulled out of the driveway, heading back down the path towards the gate house.
Janelle wanted to look back but she didn’t.
Chapter Six
Janelle didn’t hear from Jake for almost two weeks.
Some part of her was surprised although she didn’t know why. She thought that he would have wanted to talk to her at some point after their last conversation. Things had been going so well until the very end. It somehow felt like her fault but she wasn’t sure why.
Life fell back into its monotonous pace. Working, Cheryl announcing that she was moving to the city, helping her pack, the holidays creeping up. At night, Janelle would research legends of St. Neuri, trying to learn more about the place she lived her whole life in.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about Jake. She wanted to talk to him again, to be around him. For the first time in her life, someone knew all about her. They knew about her visions. And now they just weren’t around.
She didn’t feel comfortable going back to his house and seeing if he would talk to her. Somehow, Janelle knew he was avoiding her.
That left her on her own. With Cheryl getting ready to move, Janelle felt lonely. It hit her just how alone she was due to her visions. She kept people away, had secrets that lay buried underneath her surface. Now that someone knew her secrets, it put just how alone she was into perspective.
“Can’t believe you’re moving already.” Janelle said after work as she helped Cheryl move a box into her car.
Cheryl closed the trunk and smiled. “Yeah, right after Christmas. I know it is fast. But it’ll be worth it, I think. A nice change of pace.”
Janelle had been mostly silent on her friend moving away because she hadn’t wanted to make it all about her. She wanted Cheryl to be happy, not worrying about someone else adjusting to her move.
But her strength faltered a little as she remarked, “I’m gonna miss you.”
Cheryl looked surprised at this. “Really? No offense, J, but you have seemed to be totally checked out recently. You’re a walking space cadet. I didn’t think you would care too much.”
The guilt ate at her. Janelle knew that she could be a better friend but her need to keep secrets left a gap in between Cheryl and herself.
“I guess I have been pretty bad lately, huh?” She replied. “I’m sorry. I want to be better. Life just feels…out of sorts lately.”
“Hey, I get it. I just wish…I don’t know.” Cheryl chewed on her bottom lip. “Sometimes I get the feeling that even though I know you, I don’t actually at all. You keep to yourself. But listen, I get it. Everyone has their own life shit going on.” She pulled her car keys from her purse, signaling the end of the conversation.
Janelle wished she could say more, explain exactly what was going on. But Cheryl wouldn’t believe her. The only reason Jake did was because he also lived in that world.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Cheryl said with a wave.
Janelle stood alone in the parking lot, watching the car leave. Snow flurries had begun to fall, dropping the temperature even more. The office was closed for the day; only Janelle remained. She thought again of Jake and what he could be doing right now. She thought of Cheryl, how soon she would be in the city and Janelle would remain here.
With a sigh, she turned around and walked to her car, rummaging through her purse to find her keys. A wind kicked up, making her shiver. Janelle regretted not wearing gloves because her fingers felt like frozen twigs. As she found her keys, she looked up –
And came to a sudden stop. Just outside her car, Tate and his thugs from Blue Moon were standing. Janelle froze in her spot. The sun was setting behind them, the tree line gobbling the sun up, casting a soft orange hue across the darkening sky.
Fear spiked in her chest as she saw the men. Taking a step backwards, Janelle tried to turn around. But there were two men already behind her, blocking her exit. She was rattled, forced to turn back around to look at Tate.
The newspaper wasn’t in a populated section of St. Neuri, meaning no one was around to notice the situation Janelle stumbled into.
“What do you want?” She said angrily. “Move out of the way.”
“Jake’s bitch has a bite.” Tate replied haughtily, not budging.
“Excuse me?” She snapped.
“You still owe me for my jacket.”
Janelle gripped her keys in her hand so they stuck out in between her fingers. It wasn’t a real weapon but it was better than nothing. Tate shoved his hands in his pockets, starting to pace in front of her car.
“That jacket was so disgusting you couldn’t even tell there was a stain on it.” Janelle retorted, unable to help herself – she just couldn’t back down to being bullied.
“Rude. That’s what you are. Very rude. See, I was going to let you go. Forget it. Just another dumb ass in a club. But that was when I saw Jake, of all people, come to your aid.”
Her grip tightened on her keys. She was acutely aware of how outnumbered she was and unsure what to do.
Tate kept talking, “Jake, king of the assholes. He struts into St. Neuri like he owns the fucking place. Joins our group. Thinks that means he has a place in it, I guess.”
She opted for playing dumb. “You’re saying Jake is in a gang? He doesn’t strike me as the type. Especially not with someone like you. He seems a bit too intelligent for someone like you and your friends.”
Tate made a barking noise, his lips curling into a sneer. “He’s buying up land and things that don’t belong to him. They belong to us. He thinks having money means he can do whatever the hell he wants.”
She wanted to defend Jake, to try to explain that he was buying up the land and artifacts for the pack but hadn’t talked to them about it yet. But that would mean admitting she knew about werewolves and that felt like the quickest way to a death sentence.
“Listen, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I barely know Jake. We wrote about him in the paper and �
�”
“We read it. All it did was confirm what we already know. That Jake is trouble.” Tate took a step towards her, looking down. “So, why don’t you come with me?”
Of course Cheryl’s damned article caused more trouble than it was worth. Tate was about to reach for her. The circle had grown tighter. Janelle tried to catch her breath as she went to strike him with her keys –
A screeching sound of a car shattered the growing silence of the moment. Tate flinched in surprise and she pushed past him, breaking free of the circle, to see a pick-up truck slamming to a stop in front of her.
The doors opened and a large man came out of the driver’s side, storming over. From the passenger side out came a woman, slight of figure, with slightly messy brown hair. She looked vaguely familiar – it hit Janelle at once. It was Millie, the head of Artemis Blossom, and someone Janelle knew back in high school.
She was puzzled why Millie was here. But the reaction of the man was instant. Tate and the rest of the group backed away from Janelle. The man was glowering, looking furious. Millie hung back by the car although she also looked a bit surprised at seeing Janelle.
“Are you out of your mind?” The man asked Tate, looking furious.
“She knows about Jake, Liam.” He protested.
The name clicked. With a jolt, Janelle realized this was the pack leader. She glanced at Millie. Was she dating the pack leader of St. Neuri? That would be crazy. Yet it wasn’t as if there wasn’t a ton of craziness going on.
“Knows what, Tate? Jake is one of us. You can’t go around harassing strangers based on a grudge.” Liam glanced at Janelle for the first time. “I’m sorry, miss. Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She said quickly, curious about the turn of events.
“Go home.” Liam directed this to Tate. “Take your goons with you. Drop the issue with Jake.”
Tate took a step towards Liam; he was taller and looked down at the pack leader as if he was going to fight him on the spot. “You let that rich boy buy up our things, our land. Do nothing to stop him.”
The Billionaire Werewolf (Werewolves of St. Neuri Book 3) Page 6