I let go of Anton and rolled toward Jarret. My hand seemed to burn. I didn’t even give it any thought. Instead, I just had to hold Jarret for a second.
“Sshh,” I whispered in his ear while I stroked his back. “You’re okay.”
He settled and didn’t wake. The burning sensation in my hands lessened, and I let out a breath. That was weird and concerning. I didn’t know what was happening but…
Anton scooted closer to me, pressing into me from behind like he was the outside spoon.
“That… I’m not sure what just happened,” I spoke low to Anton.
He rubbed his nose against the back of my hair. It was comforting. I might have been reading this wrong, but it was like he didn’t want me to worry about it.
Footsteps entered the room and soon a pair of legs came into my view. I lifted my head to look up at Preston. He smiled down at me and crooked his finger at me. “Anton, let go of the beautiful brunette so I can speak to her for a minute.”
He rubbed his nose against me again but let go. Anton stumbled to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. Preston shot him a look for a second before looking back at me. He squatted down. “He’s really out of it. Is he okay?”
I let go of Jarret. “I think so. Something weird just happened.”
“Weird?”
Anton shook his head several times, and Preston looked between us. “He clearly doesn’t want you to tell me.”
That much I’d garnered. The question was why. I got to my feet, slowly. Jarret sighed, and his eyes opened. He sat up, his eyes still not clear, but he smiled at me like I was the best thing he’d ever seen. “Hey, Kenzie.”
“Hey, Jarret.” I smiled back at him. “Um, Preston. Did you need something? Or want something? Or… how can I help?” The last one was the one I wanted. It was like I couldn’t make my mouth work.
He put his arm around me. “Well, I’m going to get you some coffee. And then you and I are going to figure some things out. You don’t have a phone so I’m going to leave you mine. You need clothes. You can’t keep staying in those that Gus found so you should go into my room, it’s the one with the balcony, and take whatever you want out of my closet. You’re tall but thin so it’ll be huge on you. Still, it’ll do for now.”
He handed me his cell phone. I tried to keep up. Yes, coffee sounded wonderful.
Preston kept talking. “I have a work cell phone that you can reach me on. When Rainer and the boys leave…”
“I’m not leaving.” Rainer entered the room. “But please go on giving instructions to the poor girl who shifted yesterday and hasn’t had any food since whatever time someone fed her bacon.”
We hadn’t cleaned up after ourselves, and the pan Anton had used was in the sink. I scurried over to it. “Sorry, wasn’t thinking about cleaning up last night.”
Anton beat me to the sink, coming from behind me to get to the dishes.
I nudged him. “You cooked. I’ll clean.”
“He cooked?” Rainer and Preston asked at the same time.
I looked between them. “Is that weird?”
“Yes,” they answered together with Preston adding, “unless something has changed.”
Rainer shook his head. “I’ve never seen him cook anything.”
“Well, maybe he just knew I was really, really starved.” I nudged Anton away. “Let me do that, please.”
He shook his head and didn’t budge. I growled at him, but I wasn’t angry, more like I wanted to play with him. Every eye in the room turned to gaze at me. My cheeks heated up. Yep, I’d just growled.
“Sorry.” I looked down. All of the gains I’d made fled. I didn’t want to make eye contact with any of them. “I was being hurt. It’s hard for me to remember; it’s more like impressions. Someone took me and they hurt me. I can remember being a wolf, drinking blood, tearing skin. And Gus arriving. But other than that I can’t really seem to focus on what happened.”
Preston rubbed my back, a long stroke down my spine with the tips of his fingertips. I shivered. He spoke in a low soothing voice, his ordering tone from moments earlier now gone. “You are just over twenty-four hours from the shift. I barely functioned for days. Sure, your memory is coming back, but what happened to you wherever Gus found you will come back differently. The wolf plays with memory. It changes everything. Makes you growl if you’re not careful, even playfully, which is all that growl was, boys.” He eyed his two younger brothers. “In case you can’t hear the difference in the tone. That’s why when we go through the shifts—usually sometime between fifteen and twenty-five—we have to hide away a bit. Because sometimes we growl.”
Rainer nodded. “You won’t shift again, and it’ll fade fast. One turn? It shouldn’t mean you have to hold back for too long. This time next week? You’ll feel back to normal.”
Speaking of that. I had no idea if Gus had called my parents or not. “Can I please use your phone to call my parents? When I get back to work, I can pay you back for the cellular data or…”
Preston waved his hand. “I have unlimited calling. This isn’t the boonies.”
Jarret snorted before he handed me a cup of coffee. I hadn’t realized he was making it. So far, I’d seen this happen twice. Preston would start an idea, and Jarret would finish it. “Thanks.”
Anton turned off the sink water and relaxed against the counter, seeming to watch us all. Jarret touched my shoulder. “You’re welcome.”
The scent of anger from the night before was nowhere to be found. They all seemed to be in better moods. I took a sip of the coffee. It was a little sweeter than I liked it, but I was grateful to have it.
Preston stopped rubbing my back, and I immediately missed the sensation. Yep, I was needy. That was for sure.
“Call your parents. I might not tell them where you are. That’s up to you. Gus said to keep you hidden and since you got taken at home…”
I nodded. “Right. That makes sense. I won’t tell them where I am or who I’m with. Just that I’m safe.” And that I missed them, and the sound the wind made this time of year passing by my window of my bedroom. I’d thought about moving out, but standing here now, thinking about that wind, I wanted to hear it one more time before I did.
“Come outside when you’re done.” Rainer smiled at me. “I’m going to sit on the dock. Sunshine helps a lot of things. It’ll make the wolf lie down for a bit.”
“The dock?”
Rainer pointed to the back of the house. “Go out that door. You can’t miss it.”
“Oh, all right.” I guessed I hadn’t thought about the back of the house at all. This place was old and about to crumble. “Thanks for the phone, Preston. Are you… late for work? Will you get in trouble?”
“Naw.” He gave me a grin that I supposed would be charming if I didn’t notice right away that it was fake. His real smiles were different. “I won’t.”
Jarret followed Rainer through the door. “He owns the place. Swamp tours. Maybe fifty boats now. Lots of different sizes. A crew of about thirty. My big brother has really done something pretty extraordinary. He might be the richest guy in town.”
Preston’s cheeks reddened, and I looked up at him through the tops of my lashes. “That’s incredible. Own your own place. Wow.”
He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Jarret. I didn’t know you knew that much about it.”
“Of course I do. I’m really proud of you.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt like an intruder on someone’s private moments. Anytime a friend’s parents would fight in front of me, or I’d watch them get dressed down for doing something that might have been better handled in private, I’d felt like a voyeur on humanity. This was different. They had taken me, and I was getting to witness the Lejeunes on display in a way I imagined few did.
I wouldn’t talk about them, and watching them now, I wasn’t sure what the fascination with them was. They just seemed like a normal family with problems like the rest of us. All of the Louisiana famili
es were held in high regard as though they were werewolf royalty. And none of that made any sense since we were trying to kill the wolf sides of ourselves. Shouldn’t that have meant we let this all go?
I took the phone and stepped into the other room. Anton watched me go. I wasn’t sure how to read his expression, but I smiled at him, and he did the same for me.
The blanket Anton had discarded the night before lay on the floor by the wall, and I sunk down on it before I dialed my mother’s number. It went to voicemail, and I waited for the beep to record it. “Hi, Mom, it’s me. I’m okay. Maybe you know already? You can reach me at this number. Gus Lejeune rescued me. I’m not really clear yet on what happened. I shifted.” A tear leaked from my eye, and I pushed it away. I had to be strong. “I’m sorry. It was… unavoidable. I know you said never, ever. But… I couldn’t control it. Please call me. I miss you. I love you.”
I tried each of my dads and got nowhere. It was weird that none of them were home. My mom worked mornings, and she had to turn off her phone when she was in with patients’ families at the nursing home. But the rest of them? Bernie should have been there. He worked nights, and I didn’t remember him ever not answering.
I tried each of my brothers and got the same response.
As I got to my feet, Anton appeared in the doorway. He extended his hand, and I was glad to take it.
“I couldn’t reach them. That’s… off putting.” He put his hand on the small of my back and led me forward. I stopped moving. “Anton, when you touch me, it feels… it feels too good. I don’t know if you’re feeling that, too, but it scares me a little bit because my wolf is so close to the surface, and it has to go away. Do you feel it too or are you just being nice to me and feel nothing? I have to acknowledge this because I don’t want to accidentally stumble into something here or find myself… feeling something alone. If we’re both feeling like this, we have to be careful and somehow… not.”
He took my hand and placed it on his heart again. I sighed. “You do that and I think that it means you have feelings. And I realize that, for whatever reason, you don’t like using that tablet. I appreciate that you used it last night. Am I reading this correctly or are you just being nice?”
Anton didn’t respond so much as hold my gaze until I had to drop mine. He drew me to him, pressing my ear against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat. Maybe this was too complicated for yes or no. He knew what I did… we were treading on dangerous waters.
I stepped back. If I wanted to be careful, I couldn’t be stupid. “Or maybe you do this with all the girls and I’m overthinking it.”
This time he shook his head no.
We walked outside together. The sun was bright in the sky, and although I hated the humidity, the heat felt nice on my skin. I’d completely misunderstood this house. I’d had no idea it sat so close to the swamp. A short walk down to a dock and we were actually on the swamp.
I grinned, unable to keep the smile away at the surreality of this moment. “My mother will freak out when I tell her this. I’m on the bayou with the Lejeunes. You guys are kind of famous.”
Jarret groaned. “Only because we never left. Families like yours, they’d packed up and left even before the Accords. They made a life. We’ve been stuck in a constant reminder of what we lost. The farthest we venture is three hours away to New Orleans.”
“I think it’s lovely here.”
Anton waved at his head like he needed to fan himself. “Yes,” I told him. “I bet it does get really hot.”
I sunk down on the edge of the dock in between Jarret and Rainer. It seemed like they’d left that spot open for me. Anton plopped down behind us. The speech I’d given him? I could give to all of them, and I’d hardly spoken to Rainer. These men were dangerous to my well-being and conversely, I needed them to keep me away from whoever had gotten me. I was just going to have to tell this newly awakened sexual side of me to go back to sleep. I couldn’t allow her out with male werewolves. There was too much on the line.
“Do you think my mom heard from Gus that I shifted and that’s why no one is speaking to me?” I spoke aloud.
Rainer side-eyed me. “I doubt Gus told them anything more than Got Her. He’s not big on sharing. He’d not have told them you shifted because he’d consider it your business and not there’s. Gus still shifts. I think. I don’t know for sure.”
Now that was interesting. “Really? I didn’t see him that way. He picked me up in his human form. Literally by the scruff of my neck.”
Rainer laughed, throwing back his head. “I know that feeling. He just kind of swings you along like you’re not a creature that could take out his eyes like that.”
“Sounds weird,” Jarret threw a stick into the swamp.
The water was green tinged and still. The trees above our heads held moss, and it was all surrounded by what looked like twigs growing out of the water toward the bigger trees. Logs floated in the water but not much else. I stared at those moving logs. “Are those…”
“Gator.” Rainer knocked his leg into mine. “Don’t worry. I won’t let them take your limbs off.”
I shuddered. “Wow. In real life.”
“You’re a werewolf and you’re wowing a gator.”
Behind me, Anton made that laugh noise I’d heard before. He must have liked Jarret’s joke. “So I know what Jarret and Preston do. How about you two? What do you do when you’re not hiding me?”
I turned to look at Anton, and he winked at me. Clearly, the man was totally unconcerned with the staying away we were supposed to do.
Jarret pointed at him. “He’s actually a writer. Published since he was eighteen. Fake name. Science fiction.”
“Oh, that’s really cool.”
Anton nodded. Well, he was clearly in agreement about it. “I’ve never read science fiction, but I’m going to have to now. To read you.”
“He’s good. All of my brothers are really talented people.” Jarret threw another stick.
“Hey, you’re going to law school. That’s hard. You’re clearly very bright, too.”
Jarret shrugged.
Rainer stared straight ahead. “I used to own a bunch of food trucks. But I haven’t been doing that lately. That’s partially why I was surprised Anton cooked. I’m usually the go-to for all things feeding.”
“Used to?”
He sighed. “You might as well know. I spent a year in jail. It kind of… fucked up my life. Well, I should put that differently. The wolf fucked up my life, and now I have to figure out what to do next. I’ve been working as a handyman for the last few months. I like working with my hands. Maybe I’ll ask Preston to let me fix this place up.”
“Technically, we all own it.”
Rainer laughed. “He’d say possession is nine tenths of the law. You’ll have to tell me if that’s true when you learn it. Louisiana has different laws than the rest of the country. Who knows if that’s right?”
He’d dangled a huge piece of information out there, and I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t hear it. “What happened?”
“I refused to not shift. Even after the Accords. I kept doing it. First rule of shifting? Don’t do it alone. Preston and I used to do it together. I’m not sure what happened. But I woke up in a car that had crashed. I must have shifted because I had that haze in my head. Everyone else was dead. They were all human except one other werewolf. The madness took me. What they warned us happens with no Omegas, it happened to me. People died. We had to cover it up but there had to be… there had to be accountability. It was made to look like a terrible car crash, and I was charged with vehicular manslaughter. Lots of strings were pulled. I did a year, and I got off easy.”
I wasn’t even sure what to say to that. “Wow, Rainer, I…”
“You know we don’t know what happened,” Jarret spoke through clenched teeth. “And I never thought you did that. We saw you. Preston saw you. You didn’t have the madness. You never did. It doesn’t just come out of nowhere and rise up like
that. There are warnings. You took the fall for something and you didn’t even do it.”
Rainer visibly swallowed. “I’m afraid that… the thing is I knew I shouldn’t be shifting. Whatever happened. Ultimately it’s my fault.”
“Bullshit.”
Anton pounded his fist on the dock. I could smell the anger again. It was at Rainer and also not…
Once again, I was watching their family. All sorts of layers unpeeling in front of me…
Chapter 4
My hand shook, but I raised it to place it flat on Rainer’s back. He’d told me something very personal but touching him made it more that way. Still, I could practically taste his pain on my tongue. I could certainly smell it and the other guys’ anger had everything to do with what Rainer had told me. Whether he’d done what he thought he did or not, they believed in him and even hearing him talk about it made them mad. What would it be like if people outside of the family did?
I eyed Jarret for a second before I looked down. Some of what Rainer said to Preston earlier made sense. Jarret was carrying a lot of stuff.
I half expected Rainer to either move away or shoot me a look telling me that he didn’t want my hand on him. Or he’d straight out tell me to let go.
Instead, he turned his head to look at me. I couldn’t see his eyes, wouldn’t let myself check, but I did feel his body sag a little bit. My hand felt warm like it had earlier with Jarret. The sensation was so startling I almost let go, but I didn’t want to disrupt the peace that seemed to overcome the moment.
“Um.” I cleared my throat. “How long should I expect to feel weird things until it stops and things return to normal?”
Rainer shook his head. “I spent a year in prison feeling like I had to detox the whole time. Like I was one second from going on a bender and that drug was becoming a wolf. Of course, I had been doing it for years and you’ve had one shift. So, I’m going to hold to what I said before and say a week. I think it’ll be okay in a week.”
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