Then, “So I never went. Kage was gone. Gabe was gone. Dad was murdered. But Mum and Zar wanted me to stay and be their pack without the others. When I could be back in fur again, I started roaming farther and farther, pretending I was going to Scotland, to the Steppe, or the Northwest and Yukon Territories…
“When I met the Beeches… It was a long way, a hard distance, swamped in worm obstacles to get there. I went back and forth for a few weeks. She wanted me to stay. So did I. I was sure I’d found my pack. It wasn’t the Yukon, but I … I thought it would be enough. I was so—”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes downcast, out of focus.
“You were happy with her?” I whispered.
He nodded. After another pause, he went on. “I told Zar I was going to live with the Beeches, that they’d invited me. I didn’t want him to tell anyone for a couple days, make sure no one thought about coming after me. They didn’t even know where the Beech Pack lived. I set out in the other direction that night, just in case they did want to track me. I waited until the tide was as low as it could be, then ran east all the way to Brighton. I went down to the beach in the dark, ran another couple of kilometers east, then came back with my claws in the water, hours running west with the beach so they would never find a trail that way, the tide coming in and covering everything.
“I stayed most of a year, until I saw what was happening. How the way they lived hurt their pups, how they … would just go on like that. Like there was nothing wrong with it. I tried to stay anyway but I…” He paused once more. “I knew then I didn’t have a pack. I could never forgive the Sables for what they did. I could never forgive the Beeches for what they were doing. I didn’t have anyone. I should have just gone, after all, like Gabriel. But I went back to the territory. I didn’t have the balls to go off alone like he had. I only knew how to get by in fur, and that meant going no farther than England, Wales, or Scotland. If I’d had someone to go with … to fly with and run with over here… But I didn’t. So it didn’t matter. I went home and back to work.
“Then … even though I started thinking about it more, getting away from the memories of the Sables, the Beeches, everything … I was still only thinking of taking off, not doing anything about it, when wolves started dying. Mum was scared and … I couldn’t leave. Again. Until you showed up.
“Kage wanted to bring you in. He’s gone all ambitious lately. Wants Diana and Peter to notice him. They’d tried talking to glow worms before—”
“What?” I’d tried not to interrupt, but that one got me. “I’m sorry, glow worms?”
“Magic users,” he grunted. “You know.”
“Right … glow worms… I suppose I’ve missed that one. Sorry, Jed. Go on. You’d tried talking with casters before and it didn’t work, so Kage wanted to try?” I’d heard this story already, yet found it striking how different versions would surface of the same story among them.
“Yeah … he insisted. Asked her a special favor about it, the whole granny thing, like that makes a difference in her book. He claimed he’d bring you right to the meeting she’d called. That you’d talk to the pack. She didn’t need Peter or Hannah or Isaac to bumble around—that he’d bet his pelt he could get you up there. She let him go with a partner and told him to take me because she’d been getting like that the past months, asking me to participate, help in kitchens, help with pups—asking personally. Coming to the workshop before I was done for the day, asking me to do this or that as if there weren’t a dozen core and mums around who’d help out with whatever.
“No one likes a stranger. Taking matters into her own paws, though… I think Diana was afraid I was becoming my father. I’d come back but was more of a stranger, more verge than ever before. I could go a week without a word to anyone. Then wolves were being murdered and there were plenty of reasons to be scared. So it was a proper assignment for me. Something with real responsibility. I was going to help my cousin—who she knew full well I loathed—bring in a glow worm who could save our lives if she decided to.
“Kage told me he was going back into the city to get you and I had to help. Told me what we were going to do. I said he was barking—that our cataja would skin him if he did that sort of thing to a worm. Kage is an arrogant stura. I told him he had shit for brains, but I had to go along and do my bit for my pack—so I could get it over with and come back and change and go on about my life. By then … you saw how much Diana was getting into the idea of Kage and me contributing more. He was acting core anyway, low as a toadstool, not contributing anything, and I needed to ‘get out more’ and work on my ‘human skills.’
“Zar was whimpering to go along. She probably thought it’d be good for us to spend time together also. Anyway, at least he knew something about druids and … sterk. And Isaac for good measure. He had a proper important job, but she had to get someone in that pack with you who had half a twig of sense and could speak to worms.
“So that’s why … I’m still there. And here. And haven’t been before. I … I wouldn’t have … on my own … done anything like this. I’ve come to be as much of a coward as Zar since that night … since they killed him and I never even stood up to Zacharias, never told Diana … anything.”
I waited, shivering but trying not to.
At last, I kissed him, very light, redirecting him to look at me.
“I’m so grateful she asked you to come with us,” I said.
Jed watched my face. He lifted his closed hand only enough to touch my chin, then changing his mind and, perhaps stealing himself, leaned in to kiss my lips.
“Jed?” I slide my fingers through his cold hair. “What would you have done? About your father? I know it was horrible. I can only imagine how horrible for you. I don’t agree with capital punishment. At the same time, your situation with the pack is exceptional. What would you have had them do about your father after he bit a human?”
Jed’s eyes on mine flickered and dropped before he whispered, “He never bit a human. I did.”
Chapter 27
A coyote screamed.
Jed sat up.
I caught his arm. “Jed—” I stopped as another yelping call sounded close by. Very close. “Wait—”
“I have to change.” He was pulling away.
“Just come back to the tent. It’s probably total anyway. The others will be tracking—”
I didn’t give a damn about that coyote. As far as I was concerned a whole den of shamans could walk up to us and ask what they could do to help and I’d tell them to take a raincheck.
“Jed!”
Too late.
I lost him like water. His form contorted, his body rippled with sprouting black fur, and I looked away before I could see more in the darkness, swearing under my breath.
Jed staggered, shook himself, and I looked back to him as I tugged my coat on.
“I’m sure it’s no big deal. It’s just a normal coyote.”
More yapping and cackling. A dog barked in camp, farther off then the coyote pair, each in a slightly different direction.
Jed growled, looking around to the sounds, trying to stand between us.
“Jed, please.” I resisted a sigh. “They’re coyotes. Not rabid hyenas. You didn’t have to do that.”
The yapping and yowling carried on. Another dog barked.
I stood, feeling for my flashlight at his rucksack. “Come back to the tent with me.”
I grabbed his bag and light just as something darted down through the trees past us, no more than twenty feet away, out onto the trail for camp and clearly visible by moonlight in this open space.
Jed and I both whipped around to follow its progress: him bristling, moving between us, my heart pounding.
I stood motionless with a strap of Jed’s bag dangling in one hand and the flashlight, not lit, in the other.
The coyote, which had seemed set on loping down that trail to the campground stopped as if it had hit a leash and whipped around. I’m not sure if it smelled us on the t
rail in the shifting air, or if it had heard Jed move against me. Either way, something caught its interest and it stared straight into the forest at us.
I swallowed and took a step.
Jed blocked me.
Why was he scared of a coyote? It was a quarter of his size. Either very overprotective, or there was something off about the smell of the animal.
A second, larger coyote—a male it seemed—trotted from the forest to join the first. He came from a different direction, farther off to our left, alerting to us as he followed the smaller female’s line of sight.
Even the two of them couldn’t possibly be a match for a witch and a wolf. After growing so accustomed to my pack, these two looked no bigger than spaniels.
They watched us, frozen, their batwing ears pricked, motionless for many breaths.
Shifters or not shifters, this was silly.
I stepped around Jed’s head and shoulders to move into view. “Good evening. We’re—”
They were gone, dashing so fast into the forest, it seemed they simply vanished—beamed out of there.
Only a faint sound of fleeing steps lingered, then the forest was quiet. Some rodent rustled. An owl made an ooo-ooo-ooo sound in the distance.
Jed trotted to investigate the spot previously occupied by the pair. I could tell his fur was standing up down his back as he looked fluffed out, stalking around the patch, sniffing in what I would consider an aggressive—not to mention excessive—manner.
He lifted his leg on a tree at the trailside beside where they’d been, then scratched up trail dirt with his hind paws and sniffed around again.
Still holding bag and dark light, I rested my hands on my hips.
“Those were total coyotes, weren’t they? Coyotes aren’t dangerous to people. And we’re in their territory, not the other way around. You’re getting carried away.”
Jed sniffed and scraped a bit more. You’d have thought those two barged in on us and started raiding larders.
I walked past him, careful in the dark, but not wanting to use the flashlight unless absolutely necessary since I didn’t want to call attention to myself near camp.
Jed did not follow me that way, however.
I was just looking around for him when a howl shattered the night. Not a coyote. A long, pure, beautiful note rising up the scale, then falling away in a musical, wild fluidity that made me shiver.
“That’s Zar.” My words were not even out when Jed was bounding away, up the trail, vanishing into the forest in a second.
A summons. Zar was calling his brother to join him for some reason. A shifter? A hunt? Danger? I had no idea, but it was important enough that Jed decided in a flash to leave me to take my chances with witch-slaying wild coyotes.
I returned his bag to the others, hoping they’d found some good news.
Still, of all the times for Jed to take off and enjoy the forest…
I walked to the camp restrooms, where I lost my head and decided I didn’t want anyone knowing about this thing with Jed—not yet. But that meant drastic action. Wet paper towels were not going to cut it.
Half an hour later, well past midnight, I returned to my sleeping bag still slightly damp from my shower, even though I’d done my best to keep my hair dry—knotted up at the back of my head in a ponytail tie. The only thing I could come up with for the long underwear and panties was washing them in the shower, then dumping my other dirty laundry out of the plastic grocery bag I had smashed into my bag and tying these two wet articles up very securely in that. The rest of the clothes then packed around it. Short of someone sticking their muzzle in my backpack, that should be all right.
Might have to throw a Frisbee and dash into the next possible laundry room while everyone was distracted…
Showered in the cold in the dead of night, laundry as hidden as I could make it, I felt pretty okay about no one knowing what we’d done. Jed had changed right away. He would smell like me, but I hoped not to the extent of a giveaway. No one was going to run up and sniff his crotch the moment he rejoined the pack.
My problem was now being damp, the temperature finally having dropped, my long underwear bottoms gone, and freezing as I tried to warm up in the sleeping bag.
I lay awake for an hour, shivering and listening. The wolves sang in the far distance, reassuring. It sounded lively, excited, like good news. Not trouble that they’d called Jed for.
In another hour, still cold, wadded up in my bag, thinking of what Jed had said and trying to warm myself with magic that wouldn’t set anything on fire, I heard steps.
A quick trot, a rustle, then someone nosing at the tent flap.
Please be Jed.
In a talking mood, I added as I scrambled to get the zipper.
It wasn’t Jed. I knew even in the dark in an instant who it was as I opened the flap. The white wolf showed up alarmingly clearly in moonlight and I ushered him in.
He also filled the space, bringing a bag with him in his teeth. It was too cold for him to be able to sleep in skin, yet he’d thought ahead enough to change in the morning and dress in here with me. No chance of a camper seeing an Arctic wolf trotting out of my tent at dawn.
I kissed his soft, small ear since it was in my face anyway.
“You okay?” I smelled blood as I re-zipped the tent. “You were hunting?”
Isaac wagged his tail against the nylon and I settled the bag for him.
“I’m glad you’re here. But please don’t put your face on me, okay?”
I remembered Jason and Kage grooming each other for a solid hour after the bloody bighorn sheep feast. The most Isaac would have done would be to dip his muzzle in a stream.
He settled on his side with his back to me so I could cuddle up against him, face in the fur at the back of his neck, warm and smelling of pine sap, blood, damp earth, and wolf. They didn’t smell the same in fur. Did they to each other? Probably. Something subtle that a human nose couldn’t pick up.
I stroked down his side and laughed a little, running my hand across his stomach and feeling the mass there. “All good for a few days now?”
Isaac thumped his tail against my feet.
“I hope you’ve all found something more than a deer to report by morning. If not … I might be forced to the conclusion that we’re being maliciously avoided.”
Isaac sighed and stretched, arching his back against me, then relaxed.
“Moon bless.”
Even warming up, though, even with Isaac passed out, I still couldn’t sleep. Still thinking of all Jed had said—and all he hadn’t said.
Chapter 28
The night’s cold gave way to morning fog. I woke to the sound of eager, whispering voices. Not my pack, but campers a stone’s throw away. Something had caught the attention of the early risers, making me uneasy.
Isaac was already sitting up.
I fumbled to rub my eyes and get the bag open for him to pull out clothes so he could change and dress as quickly as possible in the cramped and cold space. The air was also wet, the morning beyond the tent a stark, colorless glow, clueing me in about fog before I opened the tent flap.
The campground backed to a forest on the north and east sides. On the south was parking, restrooms, an office, and the road in and out. To the west opened up a treeless valley before sprawling to the mighty peaks of the Grand Tetons.
At least, that was how it had looked in daylight.
Now, a thick mist made only the fellow tents visible vanishing into a line of fading colors, then a few RVs before everything south was blotted out. West, beyond the picnic tables and fire pits, was a rise of clear ground that overlooked the valley and mountains, now with nothing but a white background. On this rise, gazing into the hidden valley, kingly as he took in the smoky world, stood Kage.
I caught my breath. I wasn’t the only one.
“Larry, Larry, quick—” Whispering from two tents down. “Get the camera. Quick.”
Someone was outside an RV already taking pictures w
ith an SLR camera on a strap around his neck, slowly stepping closer.
A young woman leaned from another tent trying to get a picture on her phone.
Beyond me, Isaac changed and I rustled around my sleeping bag and tent walls to cover the noise. No one awake was paying any attention.
Larry also gasped. “Holy mother…” His wife grabbed the camera from him, leaning from her tent.
“Rachel, psst. Wake up.” Another zipper.
“Oh, my God.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I didn’t think they’d come anywhere near a campsite.”
“Maybe someone’s fed it.”
“Did you hear them last night? There’s a pack near here.”
All whispers.
The whole camp seemed to hold its breath as fog drifted and the beautiful wolf came into clear view for many cameras.
He stuck his nose in the air to sniff, turning into the breeze, making him appear even more regal and haughty.
Cameras and phones clicked. Some people were trying to get closer.
Isaac, shivering, shirt on and doing up his trousers, joined me at the tent flap. He put his arm around me and I leaned into him, biting my tongue so my teeth wouldn’t rattle.
“Idiot,” I whispered. “What is he doing?”
“Just what you told him.”
I glanced at Isaac, who arched an eyebrow as he watched Kage basking. “Told him?”
“That it would be okay to be seen here? I bet he’s been waiting for this day since his transition.”
I opened my mouth, then … almost laughed. “They are like paparazzi, aren’t they? But he needs to get his ass moving. If he wants to be admired he could at least act normal, which doesn’t include wandering around human campsites.”
“Perhaps you should have mentioned that?”
“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes.
Isaac kissed my ear and we watched in silence, breath making steam, as Kage turned away.
It seemed he was through. Basked, sniffed, walking offstage.
No, he’d only turned to a sleek, raven-black wolf trotting from the trees and fog to greet him on the ridge.
Moonlight Journey: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 6) Page 19