When the Dead Come Home

by B. L. Brunnemer

  Jessica smiled. “Thank you.”

  He went back around the counter and into the back of the store.

  Jessica turned back to me. “What happened?”

  I looked up at her and said it. “My mom cheated on my dad. He’s not my father.”

  Lexie

  “The shifters called, they took the longer trails today,” Asher announced as I put my bag in the back of my Blazer. “They can cover them twice as fast.”

  I nodded. Good, that would help.

  “We’re not going to be able to take a trail today.” Isaac cringed.

  I came back around the truck. “What? Why?”

  “Today’s that dinner with our grandparents.” Ethan began to spin his rings.

  My eyebrows shot up. “That’s today?”

  The twins nodded.

  Miles pushed his glasses up his nose. “Your father is getting out?”

  The twins nodded. Everyone pretended not to notice the people sneaking glances at our group as they walked through the parking lot to their cars.

  “Tomorrow. They’re refusing to see him, which is why the dinner is tonight,” Asher answered for them.

  Isaac shook his head at Asher. “We’ve got to make some rules for your hearing, man.”

  Asher shrugged. “I can’t help it.”

  “Noise. Canceling. Headphones,” Ethan stated slowly.

  Asher chuckled.

  “I also have to go down to Missoula. My lawyer has some more information.” Miles turned to me.

  I took a deep breath and let it out. We had the shifters out today as well as the vamps at night. We could miss one trail. I hoped.

  “Okay.” I turned to Asher. “Well, it’s me and you today and we gotta get two done.”

  Asher gestured over his shoulder. “Let’s take my truck. I know where the trail we need to hit next is.”

  Everyone got into their cars and took off.

  * * *

  An hour later, we were on the trail with Hades. The large dog’s tail was swishing back and forth. We had been quiet most of the hike. I was too far in my head and Asher seemed to be dealing with something too.

  Eventually I broke the silence. “How are you doing? With the whole wolf thing?”

  He huffed. “It’s hard to sleep when you can hear your next-door neighbor with sleep apnea snoring.”

  I snorted. “That bad?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, there is no privacy around me at this point.”

  “Ash.” I stopped walking and looked up at him. “How are you really doing?”

  Hades ran back to us with a thick stick between his jaws. Asher took it and threw it for him. “I’m running a lot. Doing everything I’m supposed to. And I miss being human.”

  “What do you miss about it?” Hades came back and gave me the stick. I threw it as far as I could ahead of us. The black mass of wrinkles ran after it happily.

  “Less hearing,” he muttered. “I can hear everything. I’ve been using ear plugs at night to get me to sleep. It eventually works.”

  “Those headphones might help.” I didn’t know what else could work.

  “I’ll be picking up the headphones on the way home,” he said.

  His fingers twined with mine. As we talked about nothing important, he began to relax. It was nice. Almost as if we were two normal teenagers just out for a hike.

  When we were halfway back, I finally got the nerve to ask. “So, what did I do when I kissed you?”

  He looked down at me confused. “Huh?”

  “During lunch, what did I do?”

  The corner of his lips lifted into a grin before he pressed his lips together trying to hide it. “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that.” I smiled while he looked oddly pleased with himself. It made me curious. “What was that about?”

  We moved through the thicket. “It’s a wolf thing.”

  “Spill, mister.” I grinned.

  He took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “So, do you know about mates for wolves?”

  I nodded. “Astrid mentioned it.” I looked up at him, my heart sinking a little. “She also said since you were bitten…”

  “That I won’t have one.” He pulled me to a stop and stepped in close. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t bond to someone.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked softly, my pulse pounding in my throat.

  He stepped even closer, leaning down to bring his face within inches of mine. “If you have a mate, you don’t get to choose. That is your mate, your partner. But bonds…”

  “They’re different?” I asked, my lower stomach flipping.

  He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “You and your wolf agree on one person to…”

  I stopped breathing. Was he saying? “To?”

  He ran his fingertips along the line of my jaw. “To bond with. To be our partner. Our wife.”

  My heart slammed hard against my ribs. “Wife?”

  He smiled. “Breathe. I’m not proposing.”

  “Oh, thank God.” I let out a relieved chuckle.

  He laughed at the look on my face. “It’s a choice.”

  I looked up at him, scared to ask. “What does that have to do with what I did at lunch?”

  He grinned. “It wasn’t kissing me. It’s what you said. You said I was yours.”

  I nodded. Yeah, I remembered that.

  “That’s one of the things you say to start the bond,” he explained.

  My stomach dropped. No, no, no… “Ash, did I just take your choice from you?”

  “No, honey,” he promised. “You just made the urge to mark you a lot stronger.”

  I groaned. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  He smiled. “That’s okay. I just… I need to talk to Astrid about it.” He smiled again before brushing a small kiss over the corner of my lips.

  Asher’s head snapped up. His eyes shifted to silver blue. His wolf eyes. “Come on.” He looked around the small grove and pulled me closer. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. Hades dropped the stick and came back to stand on my other side.

  My heart pounded. “Ash?”

  He snagged my upper arm a heartbeat before he was dragging me further into the trees.

  “Ash.” I fought his steel grip, but his fingers only grew tighter. “What’s going on?”

  He stopped at a large tree. “Get in the tree.”

  When I hesitated, he turned to me. “Now!”

  “What is going on?” I bit out between my teeth. Hades began to growl.

  “Three shifters are heading this way and I don’t recognize their smell.” His hands went to my hips and he lifted me as if I weighed nothing.

  I grabbed the tree limbs and climbed into the lower branches. “Shouldn’t we be running?”

  Asher looked up at me. His eyes were even lighter this time, the silver thicker than ever. “Not with three of them.”

  My heart pounded. “Ash…”

  “I’ll be fine, Ally,” he promised as he dropped his pack at the base of the tree before backing away. “Get as high as you can and let the wind hit you. It’ll bring them right to me. Hades, guard Lexie.”

  Hades immediately began pacing in front of the tree.

  What was he going to do? My throat grew dry as I focused on climbing higher in the tree. Bark bit into my palms, leaves snagging in my hair as I got higher. When I reached halfway and I couldn’t go any higher, I turned and looked down at Asher in the clearing.

  He had taken his shirt off, the lines of his shoulders and back defined as he stood in the center and waited. His head was down and cocked to the side as if listening to something. Something about him changed. It wasn’t his posture. The line of his neck? It was something I couldn’t explain. It was like a hum of energy. You could only feel it along your skin and down your spine, like sunshine.

  Two people walked out of the tree line and into the clearing. One a large man, with a scar through a now useless eye. another stocky but tall man w
ith an arrogant chin. A woman stepped out beside them, lithe and beautiful.

  The stocky man’s head raised. His eyes found me in the branches. He grinned. “If you want your friend to survive, you’ll need to come down and go with us.”

  Asher shook his head slowly. “Walk away now and you’ll leave the woods with all your limbs attached.”

  Arrogant man’s gaze went back to Asher. “You’re new, so I’m not going to remind you of the protocol of meeting your alpha.”

  “I don’t belong to a pack. And you sure as hell aren’t my alpha,” Asher said, his voice a deep thrum from his chest.

  Arrogant man grinned. “Do you really think you can protect her from three of us?”

  Asher’s hands began to change. Blood dripped to the rich dirt as he held his hands out to his sides. Sharp talons emerged from his fingertips.

  The smirk was gone from the other shifters’ faces as they shared a look, the women stepping back, away from the clearing.

  The woman glanced up at me then back to Asher. “Are you so sure of your control that you’d risk her by shifting?”

  “There are worse things than being a wolf,” I shot out across the grove. “Like being a lackey to another wolf.”

  She growled up at me. I flipped her off.

  She ran toward my tree. Hades snarled and growled. Asher was suddenly there, knocking her back across the clearing with a swing of his arm. She flew back and rolled into the grass.

  Growls and snarls erupted from the two men. Asher moved into a fighting stance, his body taut and ready.

  The large scarred man charged him first. The clearing turned into a chaos of growls, snarls, blood and rising dust.

  My pulse beat in my ears as I tried to follow the fight, but it was simply too fast. Eventually, the larger man staggered back away from Asher, clutching his stomach.

  Arrogant man smiled. “You might be worth taking as well.”

  Asher moved lower to the ground. A hot blast of energy swept through the clearing from him. My hair flew back; the taste of pine and cinnamon coated my tongue. A long, deep growl emanated from him, changing his voice. “Ally. Run.”

  It took barely a heartbeat for it to sink in before I was climbing down the tree limbs. I dropped to the grass just in time to watch Asher’s jaw break and reform. Holy fuck! He was shifting. Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. I ran the other way.

  Heart pounding, arms pumping, I burst through the underbrush and all but tripped onto the trail. Not wasting time, I pumped my legs harder than ever, running faster than I ever had in my life with Hades at my side.

  A howl went up through the woods spurring me to go keep going. If Asher was a wolf, he didn’t know me. He wouldn’t have control. Move it, Lexie!

  When my lungs burned, I had to slow to a walk. Hades stayed pressed to my hip, his touch comforting.

  Gasping, I kept moving. Asher, be okay. Please be okay. Another howl went up. This time it was closer. When I could, I started jogging down the trail, hoping to make it to the truck before someone found me.

  I felt it before I saw the wolf. A flash of movement through the woods up the hill. I veered downhill and through the woods. My foot slipped on the loose rocks. I hit the ground with a solid grunt and toppled down the hill until I reached the bottom. Hades followed me at a more controlled pace. Groaning at the bumps, bruises, and scrapes, I hauled myself up and kept moving.

  A rustle in the brush above me told me we weren’t alone. Heart in my throat, adrenaline pumped through me as I splashed through a creek, soaking my jeans and shoes only to slip on the rocks on the other side. Hades grabbed me by the back of my shirt and dragged me off the slippery, slime covered rocks. Cursing, I pushed to my feet and kept moving.

  Suddenly, something darted out of the trees in front of me. Hades appeared between me and a dark streak. The streak hit Hades, knocking him back into me. Snarls, growls, a heavy weight crushing the breath from me for several terrifying heartbeats. Suddenly the weight was gone as the fighting canines rolled off me. I scrambled away from them to a tree and put my back to it. The two animals went at it, slamming into each other, biting and snarling. Was it Asher? Or was it one of the others? I needed to go, but Hades…

  The black and brown wolf threw Hades back toward me. He rolled to his paws and moved in front of me again. Something wet matted his fur in several places as he growled at the wolf, warning it away.

  It was enormous. I tried to keep my breathing even, but I began to take short gasping breaths as he came closer. It was going to kill us both. We were going to die.

  My rage boiled up through me. No. No. No! A pressure built in my chest that I had only felt once before. This time it was sharp and burning.

  Everything that I had been holding back crashed over me. Ethan, Miles, Asher, Isaac, Zeke… All of it. It all rushed over me like a wave breaking over the top of a dam. I held it all until I could barely breathe. The wolf snarled at Hades as it took another step closer, towering over both of us. Hades backed up to me, still growling, still standing, still protecting.

  “Fuck off!” I shouted, letting it fly. The silent blast of gold light rushed past Hades and slammed into the wolf like a missile, throwing it back into a tree trunk. There was a sickening crunch. My head exploded and my stomach lurched. I crumpled to the dirt as the world drifted in and out of focus with my pulse pounding in my ears. Something warm dripped onto my upper lip. The world went black.

  * * *

  I was being moved. It barely brought me to the surface. Opening my eyes wasn’t even an option.

  A heavily calloused hand brushed my hair from my face. “You used too much, Stellina,” a voice whispered. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep doing that.” I tried to come to the surface, but my body wasn’t listening.

  The ground disappeared and I was against a warm body. “Rest.” I sank back into the darkness.

  Isaac

  * * *

  Grandma and Grandpa Turner were what you’d expect. Lynn was shorter than us with stylish glasses and white hair, while Paul was taller with wide shoulders and salt and pepper hair. Both had warm smiles.

  “You two have gotten so big,” Lynn said as she patted my back.

  “That’s what happens when they grow up, honey,” Paul teased as he beamed down at us. Ethan started to spin his rings as we sat in the diner.

  “So, the last time we saw you was around Sophie’s fourth birthday?” Lynn asked turning to Paul.

  “That’s right.” Lynn turned back to us. “That’s when we moved to Austin.”

  Gladys arrived with her notepad. “What can I get you?” She sent Ethan a warning glance before jotting down Lynn’s order.

  After Gladys left, awkward silence was all that remained.

  “So, do either of you play sports?” Paul tried hopefully.

  I shared a look with Ethan and started talking about MMA fighting. That at least bought us time until dinner came.

  We were halfway through dinner when Lynn set her fork down. She pressed her lips together before turning to us. “Boys, what was he like before the restraining order?”

  “We know he was in the wrong, we don’t doubt that,” Paul added quickly. “But we’ve only heard bits and pieces.”

  “Why?” It slipped out before I knew it.

  Paul sighed. “It’ll determine exactly how much assistance our son will receive from us.”

  We shared a look. Ethan raised an eyebrow. I shrugged. We turned back to our grandparents.

  “In the house, it was all verbal,” Ethan explained. “He’d tear into Ma, try to make her feel like she was the shit beneath his shoe.”

  Memories came forward that I had forgotten. “It wasn’t always when he was drinking. He’d make snide little remarks about everything. He found any excuse to tear down Ma, from trying to get her teaching degree to the choice of clothes she wore that day.”

  Ethan nodded. “And if Ma wasn’t home, he’d have a run at us.”

  I snorted. “He made
the mistake of trying that in front of Ma once, and she threatened to kill him.”

  “I’d never seen her so pissed in my life.” Ethan shook his head. It had been a frightening sight. Ma running out of the kitchen with the cast iron frying pan, tearing into Dad. A memory I was sure neither of us would ever forget.

  “You said in the house?” Lynn pointed out.

  We nodded in unison.

  “Outside, he was normal.” I started poking at my potatoes.

  “Until he knocked her down while she was pregnant with Sophie.” Ethan shifted in his seat. “That’s when Ma shot him.”

  Lynn’s eyes were wider than before. A vein was bulging in Paul’s forehead. We simply sat and waited for their reaction.

  “We got an extremely watered-down version of the story,” she said in a calm voice, the lines on her face deepening.

  “You don’t need to worry about your mom,” Paul said, getting our attention. “We’ve arranged for him to have his parole in Billings. His probation includes restrictions, such as not contacting your mother in any way. Though, you boys may hear from him.”

  I was already shaking my head before they even finished the sentence. “Not interested.”

  Paul nodded as if he expected that.

  “We can stop him from calling, but he may email you boys,” Lynn pointed out.

  “He’d be wasting his time.” Ethan took a bite of meatloaf.

  “He’s always been down on himself since he was your age,” Paul explained. “Of course, the alcoholism didn’t help.”

  “What?” I lifted my gaze to Paul. “He’s an alcoholic?”

  Lynn nodded. “Oh yes, he realized he had been one for years. He’s recently been attending the meetings they hold for inmates. He already earned his first sobriety chip.”

  “It’s a little easier to do that in jail,” Paul muttered.

  Ethan snorted.

  Lynn sent him a look before changing the subject to what Ethan wanted to do after high school.

  Our dad was an alcoholic. It had never occurred to me. It probably should have. He almost always had a stash of something somewhere in the house. Hell, even my room. At least until I had my first drink at ten.