Moonlight Journey: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 6)

by K. R. Alexander

  I was, however, frustrated. He was supposed to be working, not stalking me. What bothered me far, far more was the same disturbance—almost a grief—I was feeling for him.

  Go, Jed, run. Be a wolf. You’re in Colorado, for Moon’s sake. Enjoy it while you can. Please.

  I said none of this as he walked up, panting. I only reached to stroke one of his soft ears.

  “Have you been able to find water?” I let the bottle drizzle into my cupped hand and Jed lapped it from my skin. It didn’t seem like a big deal as I offered. Then … when it was happening, Jed’s hot tongue across my hand, Isaac on his knees nearby, watching us … so many things.

  Here was a guy who’d tried to ask me out on a date several hours previously. Who was now licking my hand. Only he was a wolf. But his being any more a wolf now than he had been then was all in my head. Like the illusion of twelve vampires when there were only two in the foyer at the manor. Only an illusion.

  Except in my mind. The thing was, in this case, that was enough. More than enough. What were relationships, after all—particularly romantic ones—but our own perception of another person and their perception of us?

  To Jed, his feelings were a constant. The divide, what I realized in that instant, was that he didn’t understand my perception. As far as Jed was concerned I’d slept curled against him in The New Forest, I’d stroked and hugged him, played games with him and even kissed him. Now I was giving him my hand to lick. Whereas, as far as I was concerned, those were things for fur Jed. They were different feelings. Vastly different.

  A communication gap again. And what to say?

  Not unlike the divide I’d had with Kage over his already being in a relationship.

  I could say to Jed, I don’t feel that way about you in fur. In fact, that’s kind of freaky weird for me.

  And he would say, What’s the difference?

  He wouldn’t even be able to grasp that any romantic feelings I may have for him in skin—any sort of that particular kind of love—couldn’t translate for me into fur. Nor, I was afraid, could I explain in a way that didn’t come across as insulting.

  Of course they could be fluid in their relationships with other wolves. Which returned to him needing someone like himself. Which returned to him having no one. And asking me.

  Why had he brought me flowers in Cornwall? Had that really been Jed? Andrew had said so but that didn’t make it true. What did he see in me?

  More importantly, what could I do to help us both to a better relationship out here? And free of chains labeled Mundanes Everywhere and Sable Pack Laws? Now Jed was tethered by another marked Witch.

  I thought of asking him to trade with Isaac, giving Jed and I the evening to talk while we hiked. But there didn’t seem to be much point in this since I essentially couldn’t talk at all if I was going to make this climb. Perhaps he would stay with me tonight. Along with his brother. Nice, open space for Jed to talk about his feelings…

  I let out a breath as I turned the bottle upright and wiped my wet, slimy hand on Jed’s ruff.

  “Okay, back off. Bug stuff’s coming out.”

  Jed flattened his ears and retreated, casting a hurt look at me.

  I knew it.

  He’d thought we were having some intimate moment—him drinking from my hand. I suspected Isaac was reading the same as well. I was the one with the vision problem. A problem that wasn’t going anywhere. If he wanted a serious relationship with me—which we had no business in considering anyway given so many issues, from his being a stranger to my current lively relationship status—he was going to have to face that challenge in skin.

  All the deterrent needed, right? Try my best to spell that out to him and he’d give up on me: not meant to be. And if he didn’t?

  What if—the idea made me shudder—he started spending this whole trip in the Rocky Mountains in skin?

  No, no, no. My breaths quickened with the idea, horrified, as I rubbed more of the waxy natural mosquito shield around my neck and ears.

  Solution?

  Tell him I would accept any date he proposed that I was physically capable of as long as he spent the next days totally in fur, running wild and keeping away from me?

  I rubbed my temples, wishing I had more coffee. Then again, I’d have to go pee before long. Another delight to look forward to.

  Something crawling up my arm, a tickle. I leapt sideways, yelled, slapping my arm, and spun around.

  Andrew, the skinny red wolf, jumped back, watching me.

  “Was that you?” Gasping, I looked at my skin and all around. No spider.

  Andrew cocked his head like he couldn’t understand what I’d said.

  “I felt a tickle. Like a spider running up my—” I glared at him. “How was it you managed to appear right beside me and then have no idea what I’m talking about?”

  Andrew studied the trees over us. He looked like he was about to howl, or checking the wind.

  “You snuck up on me and used your whiskers against me, didn’t you? You did that on purpose.”

  Andrew took a step to nose at my water bottle.

  He had some nerve asking but I gave him a drink anyway. In thanks, he gave me an unnecessarily sloppy and verbose lick across nose and mouth while I recoiled and spluttered.

  Zar joined us after we’d had a snack and needed to move on. He bit at the Malamute sack on his side, which I removed for him. Grasping the bulky thing in his teeth, he dragged it away, changed and dressed with the contents, then tried to give Andrew the sack.

  Funny thing: both Andrew and Jed had vanished.

  Isaac changed and Zar rolled up his clothes into the sack and fit it to Isaac, then took over the human backpack.

  The white wolf accompanied us to the trail before melting away into the forest.

  I asked Zar for a report of any findings and he eagerly launched into a description of the dazzling array of aromas the Rocky Mountains had to offer. No shifters that he’d detected, though apparently everything else one could imagine finding in the wilderness. It took him about twenty minutes to stall as the altitude got the best of him. I knew he was taken aback by how much of a challenge it was to hike up a steep incline with only two feet, a heavy pack on his back, and 9,000 feet above sea level. He did not, however, offer a single word of complaint—only asking how I was doing.

  Another six hours, or nearly, and I was dismayed to feel blisters starting in addition to the killer ache of my shoulders and back, the crushed condition of my lungs, and the overall feeling that I’d been trampled by a hippopotamus.

  At the end of this time we’d been descending several hundred feet and came out into a valley hosting another mountain pond with a stream tumbling down the next rise, clear space to see, and probably a mile from the nearest hiking trail—untold miles from any human habitation, or even campsite.

  Zar and I choose a spot, then collapsed beside the stream, gasping and spent. I peeled off shoes and socks and plunged my feet into the icy water. Zar followed.

  Bliss. My burning, swollen feet were soon nearly numb, cooling the rest of me to a welcome respite.

  Zar was too tired and hot even to nuzzle up against me and we both lay on our backs, listening to birds and the water, catching our breaths, for many minutes before Jed, then Isaac, found us.

  I sat up to remove the Malamute sack for Isaac. The two wolves lapped from the stream. Isaac then rolled in the golden grass and dirt, making me smile.

  “I’m sorry you have to carry those things. I’d have switched Kage’s but I’ve hardly seen him all day. Is everything all right?”

  Isaac wagged his tail.

  It was another half hour before Andrew arrived, in which time Zar set up my tent and I prepared dinner. This meant a cold, freeze-dried stir fry of sorts, along with snacks like an apple. We had no food for the wolves. They were on their own and, after breakfast, probably wouldn’t be eating anything today. I passed out chunks of my dinner to the three in fur and shared with Zar anyway. I just wasn�
��t hungry enough yet for that salty, freeze-dried stuff to taste good cold. They seemed to enjoy it.

  I washed my utensils, started a garbage bag, and sorted out what I needed in the tent—like a flashlight—versus what could remain packed.

  Zar went back to soaking his feet and Isaac joined him, walking out into the pond itself so all four limbs were submerged. Andrew, however, was supervising my activities, along with Jed, and he came forward to sniff the red disk as I set stuff out of my backpack.

  I stuffed it into the bag before Andrew could grab it. “Kage picked that out. If he shows up before it gets dark I’ll throw it for you all. It’s not fair to start without him. But aren’t you exhausted? You’re staying out to keep up the search tonight, right?”

  He nosed into my trash bag instead, removing the apple core.

  “Andrew, I don’t think—”

  He crunched and gulped it down.

  I sighed. “My dad used to say apple seeds were toxic to dogs. And I notice you all don’t eat chocolate or onions so…” I arched an eyebrow at him.

  Andrew ignored me, licking his lips as he plunged his head back into the plastic bag, tail lashing.

  When he started to drag out my dinner wrapper I shoved him away and snatched it. I tied up the bag, addressing him sternly. “Do we need to find something for you to do? Find the trail of a shifter, for example? Did you not get enough exercise today?”

  Andrew licked my face. Then, quick as a snake, while I was sputtering and wiping my mouth, he seized the flying disk from my bag.

  “Andrew!”

  He dashed away like a greyhound, all heads turning to watch him go.

  Nice explaining that to Kage. Although, Kage and Jason had scarcely presented themselves all day. If Kage wanted that disk so much I supposed he could have showed up sooner. In fact, no matter what Isaac might imply, I was beginning to worry about him.

  Jed walked over now that everyone else had cleared away, also coming to study my things as I rested on my knees by the tent mouth. The sun was setting and I couldn’t wait to be in that tent. Trying not to think of how sore I would be in the morning.

  “Do you need something also?”

  Jed cocked his head.

  “Here.” I gave him a slice of the sourdough bread that I had double-sealed in bags. Even with this precaution, I knew how quickly my little loaf would go dry in this environment.

  Jed snarfed this as fast as Andrew had gulped the apple core, then watched with greater interest as I settled my things.

  “Do you want your ball?”

  Jed’s wool ball was in the Malamute sack Isaac had been wearing, along with Jed’s other things. He ignored this, however, interested in something in my bag.

  “This?” I showed him the rope toy from the pet store.

  Only a quick sniff. No, that wasn’t the desired object.

  “This?”

  When I held up the sealed bag of beef jerky Jed’s ears pricked and his eyes lit up.

  “I’m not going to open this tonight. Everything that’s open will dry out up here. I’ll give you a piece tomorrow once I’m eating it myself. But you’re all going to find something to eat on your own, aren’t you?”

  He craned his neck but I stuffed the jerky back in my bag and gave him another slice of bread.

  “What about this? You’re very handsome. I suppose your coat stays fresh from changing back and forth, but have you ever had it brushed?”

  Jed sniffed the wire slicker brush that I offered, then lost interest since it wasn’t eatable.

  “That’s all right.” I started to put it away, having remembered my earlier realizations as Jed had been drinking from my hand. Best not to start a grooming session that he saw in a totally different context from myself.

  Jed lifted a massive forelimb to catch my hand with his left paw, tugging the brush back toward himself.

  “Want to try it?”

  He stood stiffly, waiting, as if expecting the procedure to be very exact and possibly painful. Perhaps he thought he was humoring me: that I had some burning desire to brush a wolf. That was fine. I liked the idea of offering him something to do for me since I could not, in good conscience, accept breakfast dates.

  I started below his ears and brushed down his neck with slow, strong strokes to get into his undercoat. In seconds the wire brush was full of soft fur the color of milk chocolate. Interesting because he didn’t look that pale on the surface. His coat was mottled, ranging from black to this soft brown, so downy in the undercoat it made me think of Martha again—spinning wool every time I talked to her.

  As I brushed down his throat to chest, then around the other side of his neck, Jed slowly sat. His ears eased down. He blinked drowsily.

  I started a pile of the reddish brown fuzz and worked across his shoulder, side, and back.

  “Turn around.”

  Jed blinked and looked at me.

  “Dozing off? You need to turn if you want me to reach your other side.”

  He did, sitting so close against me I had to shift back several inches on the dry ground.

  “Why don’t you do things like this for each other if you like it? Zar would throw your ball for you if you asked him. Don’t you have an orataj who would brush you? It’s healthy for your coat to get out some of this extra. I suppose total wolves don’t have the luxury of being brushed either but, as long as you can, why not?”

  As I again worked around to the back of his neck Jed yawned and sank slowly onto his elbows, eyes shut.

  I remembered my one, failed effort to lead Kage in meditation. This was how to do it. I almost started Jed off, telling him to find a path to follow in a quiet place.

  Should I be worried about Kage and Jason?

  We were still on singing restrictions here until we were either in total wolf ranges or so far removed from civilization that it didn’t matter how many miles the sound carried. But, if they had to, they could communicate with a howl, letting Kage and Jason, in this case, know where we were.

  Twilight was settling. Once it got to be flashlight time I would ask Isaac about finding them.

  I pulled a final fistful of fur from the brush to add to the rabbit-sized pile.

  “There you are. I’m glad you like it.”

  Jed looked around, startled I’d stopped. He nosed my hand.

  “I need to get ready for bed. You need to do your job.”

  Jed glared suddenly past me, ears pricking. He growled.

  I glanced around. Andrew sat ten feet behind me, disk abandoned, flanking the tent, my pink hairbrush now in his mouth. How had he crept up and snatched that from my things without either of us hearing him?

  “Andrew, really. You already have the disk.”

  He wagged his tail on the ground, stirring up dust.

  I sighed. “Keep it if you want it. I don’t need it until morning.”

  Jed scrambled to his feet. Andrew whipped his head around.

  Fifty yards from us in the pond, Isaac turned. Zar sat up, feet still in the stream.

  I looked around also, just as the wolves went into action and half a dozen bighorn sheep thundered through camp.

  Chapter 10

  When they’d assured me we needn’t pack any food for them, I’d known what that meant. I’d just been doing my best to operate in denial. They would kill some unsuspecting Bambi in the night, far from camp, and we’d all hike on for another day. No witnesses, no discussion, no interruption to my rose-colored glasses that viewed a world of carnivores in terms of either wildlife documentaries or shrink-wrapped packages in the meat aisle.

  Besides all this, I had enough practical world knowledge of the environment and ecosystems to understand that top predators like wolves were vital to the health of our planet and other species. I’d been pro-wolf in a vague, “Let’s not kill off every animal and destroy our world,” kind of way long before I’d ever met a shifter. All while knowing perfectly well that wolves hunted and killed other animals. Rather like humans, who also
lived in families and killed other animals to eat them. Except humans don’t usually have to do it with their teeth. And people like me don’t usually have to see it.

  I hate it when denial lets me down.

  Kage and Jason were the cause of the mini stampede, chasing the family of bighorn sheep down from the slope at our backs, out into the open around us and the pond. The three wolves in fur responded instantly, bounding for them as the sheep galloped toward our pond. Zar whipped his remaining clothes off and was changing even as they were still just descending upon us.

  The tawny sheep veered from the water, trying to skirt right, up toward Zar and over the stream. The sight of him spooked them even more and they plunged instead straight into the pond, bounding across like racehorses.

  I think they hadn’t been able to see Isaac because of the still lit sky shining off the water. Or simple terror blindness coupled with them never having seen a wolf before—much less a huge, solid white predator of any sort standing in a pond. If their frightened brains had registered the sight, they’d probably thought he was a mountain goat—the only large white animal in the area as far as I knew.

  One way or another, blindness, light, or poor choices, the bighorns ran straight into him. The fleet young ewes at the front blazed past while Isaac sprang for a half-grown lamb with long legs and horns already growing. This little animal crashed right into his shoulder and bounded on through water up to its chest when Isaac missed a hold. Then an old ewe, weaker in the hindquarters, saw him snapping for the lamb, tried to veer away, and Isaac jumped for her instead.

  He seemed to be going for a throat hold, but caught the side of her neck just below the ear and long, curving horn. Thrown off her stride, she ran on, plunging through the water while Isaac clung to her neck with his teeth.

  Jason and Andrew were next into the water on the bighorns’ heels. As the rest of the sheep charged past, sending up vast sprays of white water, the two wolves dove for hind legs, trying to hamstring her. The ewe rushed on, tearing free or yanking them with her, surging for the next bank ahead and to her right.

  Kage, Jed, and Zar reached her just about the time she kicked free of the others and burst away on dry land. There was an instant when it seemed she would escape, despite the whole pack nearly surrounding her. Then Andrew caught her hock in his teeth. She kicked out, sending him spinning and yelping, but not fast enough that the others couldn’t also reach her.