Of course, there was a bittersweet irony to the fact that for as long as she’d been running, our father had pretty much been institutionalized. Early onset Alzheimer’s had taken him hard, and as cruel as it was, as evil…I was glad.
He wasn’t a good man. He was cruel and wicked, and capable of… I blew out a breath. Funny how thinking of him when I hadn’t thought of him since the funeral, when closure had enabled me to move on, and hearing Sabina’s voice was enough to calm me down, to stop me from hyperventilating.
Just the reminder he was dead and couldn’t hurt me, and knowing that Sabina was alive, were better than any meds I could get from the doctor.
I grabbed my phone, which I’d dropped when the beast had started slamming into my door, and then I whispered, “I-I think the animal stopped.”
“It did?” I could hear Sabina’s relief, and I hummed under my breath before I did what I hadn’t dared do before—unbarricade myself from the living room where I’d holed up.
I pushed aside the dresser I’d hauled in, and then moved a lounger chair that I’d used as well to cushion the blow if the hyena got inside.
I wasn’t sure why the animal hadn’t just shifted back to human form, why they’d insisted on attacking me in that skin—surely it was easier to break into someone’s home when you had opposable thumbs?—but I wasn’t going to complain that the person attacking me was a dumbass.
When I peered out into the small hall that lined the center of the cabin, which led to a kitchen, living room, and bathroom on one side, then on the other, two small bedrooms, I saw nothing and no one aside from a buckled door.
Kali Sara, the force behind that movement was phenomenal. Absolutely incredible.
I gaped at the sight of the thick logs that had warped with the crushing force of the hyena hurling himself into it, and I sucked in a breath, prayed that this wasn’t a trap, but I just, well, my gut told me it wasn’t.
My gut told me I was safe.
Which, in all honesty, wasn’t great. For years, that same gut had been trying to convince me that I was nuts, but I figured in for a penny in for a pound.
When I opened the door, which walked out onto a tiny kind of covered porch, I saw it.
I knew it was a he from when he’d shifted the first time in front of me, but the sight of him, so massive, so…
“Shit, I think I’m going to be sick,” I whispered to Sabina, who made cooing noises, like she was trying to calm me down.
What bewildered me was that it worked.
The sound stopped me from wanting to puke, and when I registered the noises she was making, I almost shook my head in despair because it was a lullaby our momma had sung to us once upon a time.
Dropping to my knees, I stared at the corpse, wondering what on Earth had happened. For a second, my gaze was glued to it, to its wounds, then I looked around, trying to see if I was still in danger, because someone had to have fired the arrow that had pierced the creature’s chest.
The shot was so beyond a bullseye that I’d never seen anything like it, and my dad had always loved darts, even though they were boring. He’d watched it on the TV, had watched it at bars, and had played with his friends all the time.
I’d seen some fantastic bullseyes in my time, but nothing beat this. Nothing even compared.
When I saw no one in the woods, no one walking out, waving a bow and arrow and saying, “I managed to kill that huge hyena who is totally not native to Montana for you, do you think you could see it in your heart to make me a coffee for the road?” I shook my head.
But I peered at the corpse, grossed out as I saw there was also some kind of bite mark on it. A few, even.
Something or someone had mauled the animal.
All while it was ripping into my door.
“Sabina?” I rasped.
“Yes, sweetness,” she replied, just like she always did. I was the baby of the family, and she’d always coddled me.
“I-I think I’m going to pass out.”
“No!” Her harsh bark had me jerking, but it was enough to wake me up, to stop the need to pass out from overtaking me. If I was unconscious, then it didn’t matter if none of this made sense, did it? It didn’t matter worth a damn.
I’d wake up and probably learn that this was all a dream. That there wasn’t a hyena on my front stoop, and that Sabina was still dead.
Only, this was real. I knew it. And that was why it was even more tempting to just drift out of this world and into the Sandman’s.
“We’re sending enforcers to get you, Lara. You must stay awake for them to come and pick you up.”
My eyes flared wide at that. “Huh? Why? What’s happening?”
“I need you to come to my home, sweetness. I need you here. I need your help.”
I blinked at that, feeling a little dazed because I’d expected to be dead by now, not to have to travel a few thousand miles to wherever she was.
“I’m confused,” I rumbled. “What kind of help?”
She gulped. “Do you still see spirits?”
I tensed, totally taken aback by that question. In all honesty, I’d only ever told her once, and I’d thought she’d forgotten. Everyone else just thought I saw and felt other people’s feelings, and while that wasn’t a lie, it was only a fragment of the truth too.
I saw so much more.
“I thought you forgot about that.”
“You wished I had. I never forgot, I just did my best to try to make things better.”
“Until you died.”
The bitterness surprised me, but it didn’t surprise her. She sighed. “I’m sorry about that, sweetness.”
“I missed you,” I whispered, miserable to the last. Like thirteen years hadn’t passed, as if it was yesterday.
“I missed you too,” she replied, her voice a soft hush. “Every day. But I was in danger, Lara. You know that.”
I did. I had.
My jaw still tensed. “We all were in danger. You couldn’t have called? Told me you weren’t dead?”
Before I could say another word, the phone was snatched from her. I heard a little tussle, and then there was a sharp voice in my ear, one that had me jerking upright with irritation. “I understand this is a family reunion that’s long in the making, but for whatever reason, you were being attacked by a…”
When the man’s voice wore off, like he had no idea what had attacked me, I plunked in, “A hyena.”
When the guy muttered, “A hyena?” I heard it trigger a short burst of conversation on the other side.
My brow furrowed though, because there were three distinct voices on the end of the line, and my sister was there too. It was, I registered, nearly two AM, so what was she doing with three guys at this time of the night?
Before I could get bogged down with questions, Sabina muttered, “It was a shifter.”
“How did you know that?”
“I told her,” I muttered.
But Sabina replied, “I saw it in my dreams.”
My mouth gaped at that, because whatever I expected her to say, it wasn’t that. I gawped at nothing, at the body on my stoop, and whispered, “Did you inherit Great-Nanny’s gift?”
She gulped. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Lara. I have no idea what’s going on, I just know that I need you here.”
“Why?”
“There’s a boy. He’s, well, strange.”
I didn’t need to look at her to know she’d be frowning, her mouth working as she stared at nothing. I knew her well. Okay, I’d known her well. So well. We’d been best friends, and it hadn’t been because we had no choice either.
We’d always been close, in a way that I never had been with Jana.
But then, Jana had been like our father—cruel and hard. I had to think that was because she spent a lot of time with him, working on bets to sustain his habit. Sabina and I had taken after our mother, and that was why we had targets painted on our foreheads where our father was concerned. Of course, the weirdest thi
ng of all was I knew Sabina was his favorite because she looked like Mom, but that hadn’t stopped him hurting her.
I rubbed my bottom lip, aware that my fingers were grubby from how badly my hands had been sweating. But that was the least of my problems. The absolute least.
Sighing, shoulders slouching as I slumped against the nearest wall and kept my eyes on the hyena lest the damn thing wake up, I muttered, “What kind of strange?”
“I-I just think he needs your help.”
I wasn’t about to cut her any slack though. “Don’t bullshit me, Sabina. What makes you think that?”
“I can sense something inside him. I didn’t know what it was, still don’t, to be honest, and I could be totally wrong, but I just—” She sighed. “You know about these other creatures now, Lara.”
“I know something, that’s for sure,” I agreed gruffly. “Saw a man turn into a damn hyena, have been hunted by that same creature for almost a week!”
“Why?” Another voice. Softer, serious. Studious. “Hyenas aren’t likely to attack without due cause. They’re rare, and they stick to their own for safety.”
I heaved a sigh, because that just made me feel even guiltier. Even if this beast was a monster, there were two fewer of the supposedly rare species.
“I was driving home after doing the groceries, and I thought it was a cat, but it darted out in front of me. I tried to swerve out of the way, but I didn’t. Not in time. I drove over it,” I whispered, a sob in my voice. “When I got out, it was there, this hideous creature—” My mouth worked because it had been hideous. This one was too. It was so beyond grotesque that it made the Lion King version look pretty. I whispered, “When I saw the dead animal, I heard a howl, a scream, and I twisted around and saw this man turning into the same animal. I ran into the car, and drove off—”
“Must have been his mate,” that same studious voice said. “They’ll only kill to protect them. You know how rabid they are when it comes to protecting their mates.”
More guilt hit me, before Sabina hesitantly explained, “My men, Lara, can turn into animals too. But they’re wolves. Not hyenas.”
“You mean they’re werewolves?”
“I guess.”
“We prefer the term ‘shifter.’”
That was a different voice. Not the studious one or the bossy one, but a lighter one.
I rubbed my forehead with the back of my sleeve. “Look, who the hell am I talking to?”
I couldn’t carry on calling them Studious, Bossy, and Lighter now, could I? This wasn’t the start of Snow White.
“And when you say ‘your men,’ what are you talking about, Sabina?”
She heaved a sigh. “I know it might sound a little unorthodox, but Austin, he’s the one who just spoke. Eli’s the one who snatched the phone away from me, and then Ethan is the one who explained about hyenas and mates.” She heaved another sigh. “We’re all mated.”
“Like, married? You can’t be married to three men.” My eyes flared wide. “Are you a Fundamentalist Mormon?”
She heaved an impatient sigh. “No, they do things the other way around. I don’t have sister wives.”
“You just have brother husbands,” the lighter voice, Austin, teased, making her laugh.
Sabina’s laugh had my brows soaring though, because it was jovial and joyful. I knew it sounded weird to put it like that, but I could hear her happiness in that laugh. It wasn’t at all strained or constrained, just jubilant. Bubbly.
In a way I’d never heard her before.
In a way that made my heart happy.
“Even if I was a Fundamentalist, it’s my life,” she grumbled, “but I’m not. I’m just a…well, I’m one of them now. I’m a wolf child.”
A wolf child?
There was so much wrong with that statement, but I had no idea where to start.
So instead, I just gaped at the corpse until I felt something shift around me.
Feelings. Emotions. Thoughts.
They started to bombard me.
No change there.
I reached up and rubbed my temple, because the sudden intrusion was strong after the silence of the last week, where the only thing that had been hitting me on all sides was the hyena’s cackle.
“People are coming,” I whispered.
“Good, they should be there soon. I had the Kinsdale pack send an enforcer over, Lara. They’re to help you pack your things and bring you to us.”
“Bring me to you?” I argued. “This is my home.”
“We need you here,” Eli, the bossy one, countered, and I felt no shift in his resolve. Absolutely no doubt or lack of certainty that I would do as I was told.
For a second, it reminded me of my father, then Sabina snorted. “Don’t be so bossy, Eli. You’re going to scare her away. We want her help, remember?”
He heaved an impatient sigh, but it wasn’t angry, wasn’t even moody. More like he was used to getting his own way and didn’t want to waste time.
Well, that wasn’t like our father.
Father would have backhanded her. He’d have slapped her silly for daring to speak out, but Eli just grumbled, “You say that, but she’s dithering. We need to get her out of there anyway. The hyenas will sense they’ve lost not just one, but two members of their clan, and they’ll be on the hunt for them. They don’t let their dead lay fallow.”
I blinked at that. “Huh? What does that mean?”
“It means,” Ethan imparted, “that they have a burial ceremony for each lost member of their collective. They’ll be on the hunt for the bodies to bring them to the soil, and if they think you were involved in two members’ deaths, they won’t be happy with you.”
“They’ll hurt her?” Sabina shrieked, before she blurted out, “Lara, you get your butt moving. I won’t be losing you just when I’ve found you, missy!”
Though I wanted to grit my teeth at her bossiness, I was used to it, too used to it to get mad, and in all honesty, it felt good.
I was used to her telling me what to do. It wasn’t that I always obeyed, more often than not, I actually didn’t, but damn, it felt good to have someone care for me again.
It felt more than good. It felt wonderful.
Mother had long since left the building, because she spent all her time with our father, trying to fix him, make him better so he’d remember her. She’d never seemed to understand that it was a losing battle, and once the war had been lost, she didn’t have much of a will to live anymore.
The few times I talked to her a year, I was always glad to get off the phone and relieved that I wouldn’t have to talk to her for another few months.
And Cyrilo? Well, his absence in my life came as no loss. I’d left not long after I was eighteen and hadn’t looked back. A pocket of freedom that had only been opened up to me with my father’s illness letting me loose.
I bit my lip as I whispered, “I might not be able to help the boy. Are you sure you want me there?”
“Of course I do!” she groused. “Kali Sara, why wouldn’t I? Now that I’m safe, I have no reason to stay away from you. I thought you’d be—”
“Married? To a Lindowicz?” I huffed. “Yeah, guess again.”
She gulped. “I’m sorry, Lara.”
I could hold it against her for life, keep a grudge between us to shove distance in our way so that we’d never have a close-knit relationship ever again… Or, I could forget about things we’d done when we were both young and stupid, and we could have another chance at being sisters…
She’d called me at the exact moment when I was pretty sure I was going to die. She’d called me and stayed on the line, and apparently, her men—did she really have three of them?—were trying to help me, had sent people after me to protect me.
Sure, they were late, but they’d tried.
That was more than anyone else had done.
I’d been alone for so long that the prospect of having someone again was a little overwhelming, but this was Sabina. She
wasn’t just someone.
She was my sister.
And if anyone could understand the powers we had, if anyone could share the burden, it was her.
So even though I was probably crazy, because I was leaping from the frying pan into the fire by leaving my home, all I’d known for years, and a hyena corpse that revealed an entirely new world to me, I whispered, “Okay. I’ll come.”
And when Sabina burst into tears, her relief poured down the line in a way that made my own eyes prickle.
She loved me.
That much was clear.
All those years ago, I’d loved her enough to help her escape. I could well remember the night when everything had gone wrong. It had just been a regular family meal in our trailer, until it hadn’t been. When father had told her he’d picked her a husband, and she’d told him she was pregnant with another man’s child… I’d seen him in a killing rage before, but something had stopped him. Something had merely made him lock her in her room.
Later on, I’d helped her escape. I’d called her boyfriend, told him she was in danger, then I’d broken into her bedroom while father was fucking mother loud enough for us all to hear.
That had been the last time I’d heard from her.
The last time I’d heard a lot of things in my left ear—father had hit me so hard, he’d perforated my ear drum.
I’d been glad she’d been free, yet after she’d gone missing, after father had told the family she was dead, and I knew it was irrational, but I’d been so mad at her for leaving me forever. Now, looking back, I knew it was founded in the same emotion—love.
I loved her too.
I loved her enough to forgive her abandonment, and I loved her enough to want to know this new her, to be grateful that she was alive, that she was here to piss me off and to cry over me.
Today might have started off as the worst day of my life, as the day I almost died, but it wasn’t going to end that way, was it? I couldn’t be anything other than happy about that.
Even if I was still pretty sure I was going loop-de-loop.
Four
Eli
Moon Child: A PNR Shifter Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 2) Page 6