Moonlight Lovers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 7)

by K. R. Alexander

  I wished the elder German she-wolf were here now. I wished I’d talked to her more about Andrew. She’d pointed out we were supposed to be kindred spirits, the complete triad of air signs: Andrew, Jason, and myself.

  Sun blessed you with your own understanding, your own connection. You three can work together for powerful effect with unique thinking and strong communication. Or you can scatter like dandelion fluff and find nothing but confusion and storms.

  I sat watching the moon, sure I heard them sing in the far distance, casting little spells in my mind of love and protection, until I was so cold, and so tired from the magic work I’d done earlier, I had to retire to the van.

  Before long, my pack began returning anyway. Respectful of the hour and that we all needed at least a nap before the airport, even Jed followed on their heels.

  We made the drive home amid many tales of the scents and woods and animals here, and stories from Zar about blue moon legends. I was grateful as they kept me awake.

  Reaching the city, I had to stop and fuel up the van pre-return to the rental place at the airport in the morning. The service station was open twenty-four hours, which, in the spirit of the celebration evening, I mentioned to the passengers.

  I think they thought I was going to object to them all going in. Or maybe they were just hungry. They exploded out of the van so fast there was a brief fight, crashing, cursing, and the whole lot, minus Isaac, rushed the store.

  He smiled at me. “Care for anything? Travel snacks?”

  “I have some already. But take this. They shouldn’t be running debit cards in these places with foreign transaction fees.” I passed over all the cash I could find.

  By the time we left the gas station they had multiple bags to return to the hostel—including ice cream, beef jerky, juice, candy, and potato chips. Most of it “for the flight.” As if. But it was Andrew who’d struck gold.

  “They had boxes and nuggets, darling. Pup-sized and normal.” Andrew held up a white and orange box of king-sized PayDay bars, plus a canister of PayDay “snack bites” above the console.

  In the ten more minutes to their hostel, a sizable dent was made in the provisions for the flight.

  Isaac kissed me goodnight before getting out. Zar leaned around the back of my seat to offer me white chocolate Kit Kat bars and pepperoni sticks—lest I grow faint on the drive home—then also kissed and thanked me. Kage, eating out of a pint of strawberry cheesecake Ben and Jerry’s with a plastic spoon, walked around to my window.

  “Don’t suppose we could flip a coin again?” he asked, gaze on his pint by the yellow glow of a streetlight.

  I smiled, enjoying the cool air from outside as well as in the van as I left the engine running. “Sorry about the rooms, Kage. At least we’re all on one flight tomorrow. That’s something.”

  “He’s not even sleeping with you.” He glanced at me.

  “So what?” I was sure they’d all sniffed out my bed earlier to make sure of this.

  “So … wouldn’t make any difference if we did—Jay and me.”

  “You’re crazy.” I laughed a little. “It’s a full-sized bed. Preeda may already be home. Sorry. Once we’re back home and heading north maybe we’ll get a chance for lessons again. I was hoping to be learning Lucannis all this time. Remember?”

  “Min polaan.” He glanced up, finally catching my eye in the gloom as doors slammed behind me.

  I frowned, pretty sure I remembered what that meant. Literally “my regrets.” But it was used another way.

  “What for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Andrew hopped into the passenger seat and shut the door, munching away on those peanut caramel bites.

  “Earlier,” Kage said.

  I looked back into his eyes for a second. “Don’t worry about it.” I leaned through the window to kiss him also, tasting cheesecake. “Are you taking that book home?”

  I didn’t see it now but Kage had left my apartment earlier with my old book. I’d had to gently liberate my pillow from Zar or he’d have walked out with that as well. Jed had traded the rubber band on his own fur tuft for a hair tie of mine from the bathroom. It seemed they’d felt they were on a scavenger hunt at my place. I’d traded Zar a red stone—really adobe—from New Mexico for the pillow.

  Kage nodded. “You mind?”

  “You’re asking now?” I cocked my head. “You can have it.”

  He leaned into the door.

  “Okay.” I returned but also broke the kiss. “Good night. We’ll be back to get you all at half past three in the morning. Got it? Be out here.”

  Kage nodded. “Lunae benekset.”

  “Moon bless. It’s been an incredible blue moon month with you. All of you.”

  I accepted a bite from Andrew on the way home and, by the time we were walking down the hall for my front door, was laughing at him being close to finishing off a second canister full.

  “If we were going to be in this country longer, I’d say you need an intervention—” I paused, ear to the door.

  “Need to crack the code, Cassiopeia?” He shook the last chunk and crumbs into his mouth.

  “Shhh. If Preeda’s already home we have to be quiet.” I gently unlocked and opened the door. Light switch. “No … we’re good. No shoes on the wrack. We always take our shoes off. And have designated places for our own.”

  “None of my concern, darling, but I don’t know why you don’t marry her.” He tossed the empty canister on the counter. Right beside the lidded, stainless steel trash can that he couldn’t be bothered with. “She’s obviously your type.”

  “I’m not that bad.” I snorted, pulling off my shoes for the wrack. “You have no idea. The shoe thing is her doing. And the mail sorting. And the whole arrangement of this place to be ‘efficient.’ If she sees me trying to sneak a soft green blouse into a dark load of laundry she sighs and rolls her eyes. She doesn’t just separate lights and darks in the laundry. It’s at least three categories for her.”

  “Uh-huh.” He slung his food bag on the couch and rummaged. “And that doesn’t remind you of anyone? Not even the tiniest bit?”

  “Give me a break. I don’t do that. Preeda makes me look like a laid-back slob.”

  “I suppose someone had to do it.”

  “Are you serious?” Horrified to see him withdraw a king-sized bar from the box of them. “You just ate two jars full of that stuff.”

  “You know what I love most about you, Belle?” He peeled down the wrapper as he turned to me, leaning a hip into the corner of the couch while I stood by the kitchen counter. “How laid-back you are. You know? You’re just the sort that a bloke wants to chill with on the weekend with a couple joints.”

  “Doesn’t it make you sick to eat all that at once?”

  “So this is for my good that you’re concerned?” He chewed and jabbed the bar in my direction. “Always someone else’s problem, right?”

  I held up my hands. “I’m trying not to judge, but this is still the best I can do.”

  “At least your trying, darling. Can’t take that from you.”

  “Speaking of which—” I continued on down the hall to my room. “Was it just me, or was that weird that certain people were walking out of here with my stuff? I mean, I wouldn’t expect any less from you. Everyone else?” I crossed to my bedside reading lamp and turned it on. “Oh … damn. Would you do me a favor? Bring the fans back in here?”

  He’d followed to the doorway, munching, but turned around. “Don’t know why you cared. If lady-hair wanted that pillow, why not? You won’t be using it after tonight.”

  “He has one carry-on bag. He couldn’t take it home.”

  “Sure he could. Bang it in a tote, in a paper bag, under a coat…”

  “You think I should have let him take my pillow?” I put away the last odds and ends and checked my bags—ready to head out to the airport in a matter of hours—while Andrew brought the fans and set them up for me.

  They’d cleared out
the van after the warding. I now had an elk antler and large slicker brush on my desk among other peculiarities. Jason had tried to insist he would be fine carrying that antler onto the plane. Which made me realize now he must have the prong collar packed to go. It wasn’t here. So he thought they’d let him carry that on as well? Maybe if he had a tiny one, but a huge, steel, spiky thing made for a mastiff?

  “Totally up to you, darling.” Andrew answered about the pillow. “Personally, I think it was good for him to take it away. He’s just the sort who thrives on a quick kick now and then to keep his nose scraping the cobbles when he bows down.”

  “Andrew—”

  “But you know what I wondered?” He switched on the first fan and dropped the empty PayDay wrapper on the floor. “What did corpse-nose want with your magic book?”

  “Oh…” I blew out a breath and bent to pick up the wrapper. “I don’t know. He’s interested in my things also?” Though not exactly sure why, I knew Kage didn’t want his ambitions toward learning magic to be common knowledge. “Did you want something of mine?” I looked around the room.

  “Taken care of.”

  I faced him. “What did you take?”

  Andrew chuckled as he turned on the fan on the desk. “What difference does it make if you don’t miss it?”

  Again, I looked around. My glass frogs were there. Everything seemed in place. Dreamcatcher back on the wall. Isaac had eyed that one but not tried to steal anything from me. There was my travel notebook poking out of my bag.

  I frowned. “It wasn’t underwear, was it?”

  “Where do you come up with such fancies?” Andrew left.

  I pulled clothes from my closet and set everything out for my 2:30 a.m. shower, as ready to go as I could be in order to set the latest alarm possible. Phone on to charge, alarm set, and heading for the bathroom to get ready for bed when I passed Andrew coming back to my room. Eating another PayDay bar.

  I pretended to gag and went on to brush my teeth.

  When I returned a few minutes later in my tank top for bed, Andrew was picking through my underwear drawer. The latest PayDay wrapper lay on the floor at his bare feet.

  I stopped in the doorway. “There’s a maniac in my bedroom.”

  “Blame the sugar high.” Andrew mused over a pink bikini pair. “Do you wear that around to look like you’ve nothing on, darling?”

  “Ever see people out in shirts like that?” I asked. “Where you have to take a second look because the shirt is almost their skin tone? It’s terrible.”

  “Trousers are worse.”

  “As in … white people wearing skin-tone trousers? There shouldn’t even be such a pant color…”

  “You need to get out more, Belle. Oh, topping…” He pulled out a blue pair. “Favorite color.” And pushed the drawer shut.

  “You’re not seriously keeping those?”

  “Of course not. Thought I’d make amends with lady-hair for you.”

  He was starting past me and I snatched them out of his hand. “You’re kidding me. Will you please take your garbage—rubbish, whatever—out of here?”

  “You all right, darling?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Am I embarrassing you? You’re awfully flushed.”

  “Because it’s seven hundred degrees in here. The question is, how are you not sweating and flushed?”

  “A superior constitution.” He swept past me to the hall. “Ice water?”

  “Please. Then we both need to try to get—Andrew—” I stuffed the panties back in the drawer, shut it, and grabbed the wrapper from the floor.

  I threw this away in the kitchen and remembered to grab my ginger and elderberry from Willow’s to cram in my backpack. Other than the internal oven, which I was pretty sure was not from any sickness, I felt fine. It had just been an isolated thing. Still, water, sleep, even for a few hours, and make sure to drink enough tomorrow.

  Andrew followed to my room with a glass of mostly ice, popping a cube in his mouth before handing the glass to me.

  I grabbed my notebook, tossed back the sheet and bedspread, and flopped to sit up against the two pillows. Final checks for today and a new list for the morning. I’d ended up packing a small extra messenger bag with papers, plus a few books I hadn’t had time to go through. Mostly, though, I was pretty sure we’d tackled the scry issue as much as we would be able to.

  While I crossed things off, Andrew removed the blue panties from the drawer and folded them into a thigh pocket of the cargo pants. I tapped my pen on the notebook, lips pursed, and didn’t say anything.

  “All your boxes ticked, darling?”

  “I think so. Anything to add?” I offered the glass and Andrew took another ice cube. I popped one into my mouth as well.

  He sat on the foot of my bed.

  The open window, two fans, and ice were heavenly, all adding up to make the room seem more “hot” rather than “deadly.”

  Andrew being here was pretty nice also. No questions, no wondering or second-guessing. Just being together.

  Was that the answer to the conundrum of Andrew? What he needed from me was exactly this? Someone to work with him toward this common goal of finding killers, but, just as much, simply a friend?

  Yes, there’d been that constant pushing early on. He’d downright harassed me from our first day in Cornwall. Then the comments about me preferring everyone else, not taking him seriously, and his bending over backward for that beautiful picnic—culminating in the best kiss ever. After which? Walking away. Again and again he’d pulled back.

  Push until he had my attention, then gone. Maybe the flirting and the pushing was Andrew’s comfort zone. As I’d wondered before—his normal. But the moment he got a rise out of me he chuckled to himself and walked away like the player he so enjoyed being.

  It had been less than a year since Sarah had been murdered. Andrew was going through his own battles. My simply being here … maybe that wasn’t “all” I could do for him. Maybe that was exactly how to help. Did that mean it was time to let go of my own feelings for him? In light of understanding that a new lover had never been what he was after with me anyway? I wasn’t sure I could do that quiet so easily.

  “Will they have PayDays at the airport?” he asked thoughtfully around his ice. “Cleared them out just now or I’d have got more.”

  “Oh, Goddess.” I crossed off, then added to my list. “Okay. I’m going to be in the shower at half past two. Will you set your own alarm? Please be quiet in the morning. Preeda should be in at any time.”

  “Did you leave her your check?”

  “Yes.”

  “Coffee maker ready for in the morning?”

  “I’ll get it at the airport. Thank you.”

  “Fine to go then.”

  “Wait … so you really already took something of mine before?”

  He held out his hand. I sat forward to offer the glass and he took another ice cube.

  “Want to guess?” he asked.

  “I’d rather you just tell me.”

  “Fortunately, though, you’re the sort of laid-back lady who doesn’t mind guessing—leaving things to chance, winging it, being spontaneous. Just makes life more fun, doesn’t it?” He smiled sweetly.

  “I could scry it.”

  “No you can’t.” Chuckling again. “You just protected us from scrying.”

  I opened my mouth and hesitated. Hmm. Was that true? Even though I would be looking for something of mine? And I was the one who’d done the warding of him? I wasn’t sure.

  “An interesting paradox,” I admitted.

  “You’re welcome.” His eyes had become hooded—familiar, sly look, like he’d already seen all the cards on the table and was hanging around only for the spectacle.

  I laughed. “All right.” Sitting forward again, tucking my knees back, I set the notebook on the bedside table with the phone. One more check to make sure the alarm was good.

  Yes, this was correct after all. This was ho
w things always should have been with Andrew. He’d pushed and I’d been right there with him. But he’d never really meant it. In fact, I felt sure he’d pulled back in these past couple weeks, ever since the picnic, precisely because he’d discovered he’d come to care too much. He wasn’t ready for another lover. Not for real. Flirt, maybe date, have some fun, put on his stage face—all how he relaxed, perhaps. But a serious relationship? Not yet. Which was fine. Had to be fine. Up to me to respect that now. No talking about it required.

  “Okay.” I sighed. “We can still get … three hours of sleep? Good luck with that sugar high.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, darling. You’ve come so far.” He shifted on the bed, about to stand, but looking at me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “You want those back?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But you don’t even know what ‘they’ are.” Those amber eyes … odd yet alluring, smooth and vivid—like Andrew himself.

  “Wait … what? Don’t you mean the underwear?”

  Andrew shrugged. He stood, still close beside me on the bed as he placed the blue panties on the bedside table. “Have those, anyway. Don’t want you fretting.”

  “Now you’re going to have to tell me what you really took.”

  “Why?”

  “Why…?” The question baffled me. More than it should have. Must be the heat. I shook my head. “Keep it. I’m fine with not knowing.”

  “Liar.”

  “If it’s important … you’ll tell me.”

  Just right? Just how we should be? Why didn’t it feel more like that?

  Why was I the one struggling all of a sudden to pretend this was a perfectly healthy, platonic friendship and working partnership?

  I hadn’t fallen for Andrew because of passage of time, or some instant connection. I’d fallen for him because of things he had actively done—for me, for the pack, proving himself, whether deliberately to impress or circumstantially to help us get our mission accomplished.

  Still, here I was—guessing. The right thing would be to talk about it. Call him out about the endless pushing until the picnic, then suddenly backing away.