Glory Reborn

by Sherry L. Brown

  My mother. Left. When she still had responsibilities.

  Rage forces me to let go of Justice. I don’t want her to feel it. To be a victim to it.

  I force my hand to gently tuck a strand of Justice’s chestnut hair behind her ear. The gesture breathes much needed tenderness into me. I love my sisters. If we can’t live together, it doesn’t mean I won’t do everything in my power to protect them. Give them lives of happiness.

  “I’ll always do everything I can to protect you and Indy. You know that, right?”

  “Of course.” Justice pats my hand. For a moment our roles are switched, and she’s the elder sister, taking care of me. Soothing me.

  “C’mon. Let’s go home and make the most of the few days we’ve been given. Maybe we can fit in an ‘ole fashioned girls’ night.”

  Chapter 9

  Thirteen years after that…

  I’d built my garden as my mother had. Medicinal plants and herbs - nothing more - with one exception. One corner. One patch of earth totally devoted to La Lune.

  A casual glance at the daylilies, evening primrose and four o’clocks would make one think it’s just another ordinary section of an extraordinary garden. A section of flowering plants mixed with helpful herbs. But, there’s something special here among the commons. Moonflower and Nottingham catchfly.

  My personal favorites. Two plants made to bloom specifically at night. My mother had never mentioned them, I had found out about them in my own garden planning and research.

  Next to this square corner of the garden is where I’ve made my personal spot for respite. Tucked away, on a flagstaff square, a freestanding base that holds my macramé hammock chair. I studied the moon many a night from that chair.

  Selenology. That’s what they call the scientific study of the moon.

  Selene. That’s what I would’ve named her. My baby.

  Grayson had given me a telescope a year after the miscarriage. It was an oddly thoughtful gift from the man I share a somewhat tenuous marriage contract with. I keep it in my sitting room. I’d only toted it down here to the garden twice.

  Marc has offered to do it; thinking the equipment is too cumbersome for me. I laugh a little at that.

  I miss him. Hard to believe he’s a man grown at twenty. In college for two years now. The house is quiet without him. A certain amount of pride mixing with sadness fills my chest, my heart.

  I’d done right by him. Filled at least that part of the bargain. I’d raised Gray’s son, our son now, from a boy to a man. And he’s a good man.

  Of course, I can’t take all the credit. He’s the miniature of Gray. From his serious demeanor to his protective instincts. But I think there’s a part of me in there. A part he rarely lets out, but still - it’s there. I see it when he gives a hearty laugh, a belly laugh. Or a small sigh of incredulity when he deals with his father.

  And he loves the earth. Has a passion for growing things. He’s in school for Ecology and evolutionary biology. I have no idea what that is - but it sounds terribly smart.

  I pluck a weed out by the root. Toss it in my bucket. I’ll deposit the whole thing on the compost pile once I’m done.

  The garden is my sanctuary. I rock back on my heels and wipe a little bit of sweat from my brow with my sleeve. I stretch, attempting to alleviate that low back spot that always seems to ache.

  Too many hours bent over a bed. Or hauling dirt, pushing a wheelbarrow, repotting. The hours I’ve toiled here. So many.

  I hear voices. Indistinct. Masculine. Mere mumblings really. The guys must have finished their meeting. I imagine Gray will be looking for me. I don’t have to cook dinner, or even serve it, but he does want me to be there, by his side when he’s entertaining.

  And just who is it this week? Other pack alphas or the council?

  Another weed, a spiky grass. From the earth, to the bucket, back to the earth.

  I wonder if Justice will come with me to the herbalist fair? I’d gotten permission from Gray. It’s well within our territory. A moment of want feels my belly. More plants. I’d probably need to ask Gray soon for another greenhouse. Actually, what I desired beyond all else? A conservatory.

  A place I could live among my plants. Eating, sleeping, and yes, watching the moon.

  “Glory?” His voice floats from the patio.

  “Yes, Grayson. I’m here.” I stand and grab my half-filled bucket, stepping out of the flowerbed and into the grass path.

  “We’ve finished our meeting. I was thinking we could have dinner served in an hour or so? If that suits you?” He asks when I join him on the patio. Whomever he was talking to has disappeared.

  Pulling my gloves off, I drape them over the edge of the bucket so I can pick up where I left off tomorrow. “Perfect. I’ll go get cleaned up.”

  “Just a couple of things, Glory.” His words are spoken quietly. Seriously.

  I lift my eyes to his.

  “Things with the council are...tense. There’s a couple new faces here tonight.”

  Ah. So this week it’s the seven werewolves that comprise our judicial governing body. Four bitten, three born. I’d heard at one time that it’d been the other way around, three bitten, four born, but at some point it became obvious who the majority of wolves were.

  “I hadn’t heard of any new council members.”

  Not that I ever pay attention. Politics bores me. Business bores me. I’m of the mindset: live and let live. And besides the marriage contract to Grayson, I’d lived without any interference from them.

  “It’s an experimental addition. Lone wolves.”

  I suck back a gasp. “Lone wolves?”

  Feared at all costs my mother had taught me. Rapists, murderers, thieves...owing no allegiance to any pack, they live life dangerously. Hard. Often hunted, seldom living past middle age.

  Gray gives a short nod in the affirmative.

  “Here?” I ask. In our home?

  Another short nod in the affirmative. We’ve mastered quick and efficient communication. From the outside, observers would say it’s because we are close. They’d assume we understand each other in ways that supersede the need for words. If only they knew.

  Grayson’s eyes tell me I have no cause for worry. He’ll uphold his vow to protect me as always.

  I dip my chin in my own nod of affirmative. “Ok.”

  I take the door into the kitchen.

  “Gretchen. Everything all right?” I ask our chef and one of three of our female pack members on my way to the back stairs. Married and childless, a member of the pack for near a hundred years. She loves cooking, has a penchant for flavors and understands wolves near insatiable hunger. She’s a staple in our kitchen, a familiar face and her heart knows only love and tenderness. A direct contrast to her other half. She was bitten when she was near forty. She may be the only female I know to have survived the transition.

  “Yes, ma’am. Appetizers will be ready to serve in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Good. Go ahead and serve them if I’m not back down in time.”

  Appetizers and cocktails in the living room. Dinner served promptly at seven p.m. Dessert either on the patio (summer days) or back in the living room. Once or twice a month for the past fourteen years. And not to mention the pack dinners. They followed almost exactly the same pattern. Maybe less informal, but still: cocktails, dinner, dessert.

  Sure, there’d been interruptions every now and then. A year or two of peace and quiet. But then, something would happen. Some dispute that’d require Gray to step in. Open his house, become the mediator.

  I couldn’t fathom such a role. How he did it was beyond me.

  At the top of the stairs, I enter my bathroom and shut the door behind me. Contemplate the always-present dirt beneath my nails.

  Sighing with resignation, I reach for the small nail brush kept beside the faucet for just for this purpose.

  Once clean, I pull off my jeans and tee, draping them over the tub edge. Still clean enough to wear for anothe
r day in the garden. I eye my braid in the mirror. It’ll do.

  Through the bathroom en suite door, through my bedroom and to the closet. I find my favorite emerald green dress. Cotton, with the perfect amount of ruching to give me a hint of much needed curviness. It’s sleeveless though, and despite it being a beautiful, warm spring day, I know the chill will return to the air soon. I grab my favorite knit sweater from it’s hanger.

  Slipping it over my shoulders, goose bumps rise along my arms.

  I know all too well the dangers of spring chills. Unexpected spring storms. Cold snowmelt. I shiver within the warmth of my sweater.

  Should I put on something warmer? I shake my head, knowing it might just be the memories chilling me from the inside. There’s no sweater that’ll warm the memory of being swept down a cold river.

  I slip on my favorite pair of sandals, as I eye my thick socks lying next to them. I had worn them to bed last night, and discarded them here at the edge of my closet this morning.

  Later. I can get comfy later. After dessert.

  Chapter 10

  Gray’s waiting for me at the bottom of our spiral staircase. This house has many statement pieces. The staircase is one of them. Wide pine planks, sweeping curves. It greets guests with a flourish, yet warmth. Or perhaps that’s the natural stone floor combined with wood accents. For a mansion, this house’s five bedrooms is modest. But it fits the Colorado landscape perfectly. Wood and stone accents throughout.

  “Everything ok?” I ask him when my foot hits the bottom.

  “Yes. Just thought I’d walk you in to greet our guests.” His elbow juts out.

  Unusual. But it’s an unusual day. Lone wolves in pack territory. In a pack’s den.

  I take his arm. Side by side we take the ten or so steps into the formal living room.

  The murmur of chatter stops. Starts back up.

  “Locke. So good to see you.” I hug one of Gray’s closest friends. He’d been a fixture of my life for as long as I have been married to Gray. Coming and going. Staying for long and short periods seemingly one of the pack - yet not. Handsome. Chestnut hair, light green eyes and wide shoulders. Not that I noticed. But even though I try to deny it, I still have a female’s discerning eye.

  “Glory. You look beautiful tonight, as always.”

  “Erik is in town, staying in the guest bedroom. You’ll be staying a while too?” Just as I ask him the question, an awareness skitters up my spine. That scent. What is it? Something out of my memory. I don’t hear Locke’s answer. My eyes are sweeping the room, and when they hit upon the back of a man I’m not familiar with they stop. His back is turned towards us as he stands at the bar in conversation with Erik - Locke’s brother. He’s wearing Colorado mountain man standard clothes, albeit a nice version - fancy boots, new jeans, button up cotton shirt.

  I know two things at once. This is the lone wolf. And I know him.

  “Let me introduce you to our new guests.” Gray has taken note of my where my attention is.

  The man turns as if he hears Gray’s declaration and in an instant recognition fires across all my synapses. Nikolaj.

  Gretchen enters then, a tray laden with three type of appetizers in one hand. She hands me the glass of wine in her other hand with a conspiratorial wink. I take the glass from her with robot movements.

  I simultaneously want to hurl the wine across the room at him and run into his arms. The duality of emotions freezes me.

  “Glory?” Grayson asks from beside me.

  My eyes pull away from Nikolaj. Crash with my husband’s.

  “Yes.” I don’t make it a question, but rather an affirmation that everything’s all right. Gray’s hand at the small of my back. Guiding me to the bar.

  The unusual touch is noted. Gray’s claiming me as his; a protection I could never get as a single woman in a room full of werewolves.

  “Glory Faoláin, this is Nickolaj Sutton. Nick grew up down in Colorado Springs, but is currently living in Montana. He’s a petitioning the council to become a member. Representation for free wolves.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I don’t scream the words, and I don’t put my hand out to shake. It’d be an affront to Gray.

  I’m calm. I’m cool. I’m nothing but the forgotten. A symbol, a marker, a stand-in. Wife. In name only.

  “Welcome to our house.” I tack on in the ensuing silence.

  You don’t know me. You don’t know me. You don’t know me.

  “Thank you.” His words come out at the last possible second before our conversation would have been in awkward land. He’s going to go along with it. Pretend like we don’t know each other.

  In truth we don’t. We just happened to be two strangers that shared something one night fourteen years ago. That’s all. Plummeted together into a freezing cold, fast-flowing spring snowmelt raging river. Swept along to our almost near deaths. I suck in a breath remembering. Was that the last time I was alive?

  His eyes, they are blue. Calm. It irritates me. He could at least show...something. I want to slap the coolness off his face and yell the truth at him.

  Do you know what happened, you bastard? Huh? Do you? She died! YOU DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING KNOW ABOUT HER AND SHE DIED!

  Anger I haven’t felt in a long time bubbles and burns in my gut. It took me a long time to wake up after she left. And when I did, I felt a rage at life...it was pure hate for the unfairness of it all. And as quickly as my fuse lit, it was snuffed out by straight depression. That’d been my state for thirteen years. Just putting one foot in front of the other, not really seeing a point to living.

  Marc had been my one glimmer of purpose.

  “Shall we go into the dining room for dinner?” Gray’s voice cuts through my flashing emotions.

  She was my daughter. Never his. Never.

  All through dinner I am aware. Aware of his presence. Aware of our shared past. Aware of the awkwardness. The one man that I slept with at the table with one man I’m married to.

  Questions. Curiosity. How has he become a lone wolf? When did he turn? What about his family?

  The pressure to not slip up. Act normal. This has always been a conundrum for me. The role of wife. Have I played it well? The role of alpha female that’d been easy enough to slip into. I simply cared for the pack as if they were my children. Listened to their confessions of happiness and woes, given advice when needed, a safe place to vent. Maybe more of a counselor than a mother. But, the thirty or so wolves in our pack, most of them come through the doors of my greenhouse or the kitchen of our house at least once a week. They fill a hole, give me purpose.

  He’s seated three down from me. He could be a mile away and I’d still have a laser focus on him. There’s a bit of gray in his blonde hair now, but it adds to his mystique. Gives him an air of authority. It’s shorter than what it used to be. Near shaved on the sides and longer on top. Fashionable.

  His hands are square - as I remember. Close cropped beard, sprinkle of gray in it too. Nose with that silly bump in the middle. Lines on his forehead. Faint lines at his mouth too. Had he laughed much in the past years?

  He reaches for the glass in front of his plate. Lifts it to his lips, and over the top of it, his eyes meet mine. The blue, a mix of darkness and brilliance. Not the blue of lust I remember. I drop my own eyes to my plate.

  It’d seem there was a tenuous connection in that moment our eyes met.

  I remember you. His eyes had seemed to say.

  Not here. My own had said back to him.

  You’re a wolf? Married? His own questions. His own curiosity.

  You’re a wolf, too? What happened to your human wife, kids? I parry back telepathically.

  “Glory. I’d been meaning to ask you: do you have anymore of that wonderful soap you make? The oatmeal and tea tree?”

  I turn my attention to the council member sitting directly across from me. “Yes. I’ll make sure you get some before you leave.”

  We can be nothing to each other. Nick is a lone wolf.
I am married.

  Don’t lie to yourself, girl. His eyes seem to say as my own stray back to his face.

  I turn my attention down to my plate and push around the potatoes there. A tiny niggle of hope. We’d been doomed before. A human and a wolf. Absolutely not. A married man and single girl? Absolutely not. But.

  We are both wolves now.

  That single thought. Dangerous and exciting. Thrilling and anguish. Impossible.

  “Gray, I think I’m going to skip dessert tonight.” I make the excuse as early as possible.

  The men stand when I leave the table, but sit back down to linger over their drinks and discussion.

  Chapter 11

  I don’t go to bed. No. I snag my bottle of wine from the kitchen counter top and shove out the back door, suddenly furious with the fates.

  Why had I crashed that day? Why had Nick been on the road? Why did I get pregnant the very first time I had sex? And finally, why did I have to miscarry?

  I find my moon garden. Collapse my legs down right there in the grass in front of it. Lift the bottle to my lips and chug a healthy swallow. I tuck the bottle between the cross of my legs.

  Life is so futile.

  The evening primrose is blooming. I touch a small yellow blossom disgusted with myself for a minute. Any other night I would have noticed it first. The beauty of the delicate golden flower. It’s one of the last buds to open this late in its season. Opening after sunset, closing before mid-morning.

  I inhale deeply, drawing the fragrance deep into my lungs. Earth. Grass. Rock.

  I chug another bit of the wine. Hundred dollar cabernet doesn’t taste so bad straight. I laugh a little at how wine snobs would sneer at my treatment of a prized Napa label. The third time it hits my lips, I empty the bottle. Hell, even Gray would scold me for such a mistreatment of his wine.

  I fall back into the grass, discarding the bottle to the side. I’m waiting for the buzz, the spin, the black-out-don’t-care feeling to hit me. I don’t want to remember and I sure as hell don’t want to feel. The grass is cold, the air getting there. A warm spring day dying into coldness. I ask: Earth - will you swallow me up? Turn this body into your detritus?