Chapter 63
Before I could do anything to mitigate the situation, though, my already precarious hold on reality weakened as pinpricks of light spun in front of my eyes. Starlight, rainbows, sunshine, muttered my wolf inanely. In response, I gulped down bile and attempted to recover my stability before I fell flat on my face.
Instantly, Lupe was forgotten as Hunter’s gaze zeroed in on my face. “Are you okay?” he demanded.
I fingered the back of my head, certain there’d be blood trickling out of my scalp and creating a matted mess of tangled hair. But, no, my skull was just the way I’d left it. Clearly I was overreacting to what had really only been a very minor trauma.
“I’m fine,” I lied. Then, with more enthusiasm: “And, look, the sun is setting.”
Fifteen minutes earlier, the observation would have set off howls of joy from the antsy bloodlings who’d been waiting for this moment all day long. But now the young wolves continued to lie passively around the room, eyes intent upon Hunter’s every move as they waited for a sign of their alpha’s further displeasure.
The joyful shifters who had competed at Hunter’s games earlier in the afternoon had fled without a trace and I found myself clenching my fists in frustration. This wasn’t the way I’d intended to inaugurate our new era as a semi-official shifter pack. This wasn’t the memory I wanted any of us to hold of what I hoped would be a very important day that would change the course of our lives forever.
So I straightened my bowed shoulders, forcing myself not to wince as a sharp spasm attempted to wrench my back in two different directions at once. My vision dimmed yet further as an ominous ringing took up residence in my ears, sending my wolf whimpering into a hidden fold of my small intestine. Whatever was going on with me wasn’t limited to my human half, and neither one of us appreciated the unexpected infirmity one bit.
Hunter’s nostrils flared as he assessed my quivering body and squinty eyes. Even without slipping down the tether that connected us via the mate bond, he could tell that I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t even pretty good.
But my mate was also far more of an alpha than I could ever hope to become. So he accepted the fact that we weren’t just a pair of footloose and fancy-free wolves any longer. Instead, we’d donned the mantle of pack leaders for a score of young and needy wolves.
Every single one of whom now ached to run.
“You’ll be okay here by yourself?” Hunter asked quietly. As usual, he didn’t bother with the preceding questions—whether I wanted to stay home and whether I wanted anybody to remain behind and coddle me. Hunter and I both knew I’d end up face-planting on the lawn if I tried to shift, so joining the pack tonight was out of the question.
Postponing the hunt would be a terrible idea as well. I wasn’t willing to let my cracked head ruin the clan’s bonding moment and I also couldn’t afford for any bloodling to catch a hint of my current weakness. Not now, when Lupe had already shaken up the precarious status quo.
So I just smiled widely, hoping my grin wouldn’t resemble the rictus of a death mask. “Sure, go,” I said, ushering bloodlings and other pack mates alike out the French doors that overlooked our ever-darkening valley. The sooner they were gone, the sooner I could rest.
Most of our companions were taken in by my half-assed attempt at subterfuge, but Ginger raised one eyebrow as she brushed past. I shook my head subtly by way of reply. No, I didn’t need her to circle back around and pick me up when I fell down. Whatever was going on with my ruptured equilibrium, I could handle the issue on my own.
Well, I could handle the issue as long as the pack got a move on with their evacuation. Because by the time Lupe crept out the door in lupine form, tail tucked between her legs and ruff very faintly raised, the ringing in my ears had become so loud I couldn’t even hear the straggler’s footsteps padding across the tiled floor.
Unfortunately, my eyes worked well enough to tell me that the youngster’s forced inclusion was worse than if I’d just let the sullen teenager stay home alone in the first place. Because when Lupe had arrived half an hour earlier, she’d thought herself too cool for school. Now the bloodling flicked her eyes from side to side frantically as she carefully placed one paw in front of the other. The once-cocky youngster expected an attack and wasn’t at all confident that she could hold her own against two dozen angry wolves.
Still, the juice turned out to be worth the squeeze in the end. Because even as I clung to the door frame to hold myself erect, I saw the young female sidle up beside the gentlest bloodling and give Calla an ever-so-subtle nudge of camaraderie. Instantly, willingly, Calla reciprocated and soon both Hunter’s bloodlings and mine were capering together into the gloaming.
“Be careful,” Hunter admonished at last, his warm hand resting for an instant against my shoulder blade. Usually, even such a feather-light touch from my mate would have given me the strength I needed to carry on. But now, the contact was just one more pound of weight to bear up underneath and I found myself releasing a pent-up sigh of relief when even he was gone.
Another string of garbled words surged up from my wolf’s den deep within my belly and the stars above my receding pack mates’ heads whirled into a confusing mass of spirals. Choking down vomit, I barely managed to prevent my knees from giving out in plain sight of my playful pack. Instead, I backed slowly into the darkness of the community house, glad no one had bothered to switch on so much as a table lamp as evening dimmed into night.
There was no way I could have made it back to the cabin Hunter and I shared up on the mountainside. No way I could even drag myself thirty feet to the soft bed we kept ready in the walled-off room tucked behind the kitchen for the sake of overnight guests.
Instead, I merely managed twenty faltering steps to bring my aching body from door to sofa before sagging to my knees. Then I allowed darkness to claim me.
***
“Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry....”
The soothing drone spurred long-forgotten memories of a mother not yet spooked by my inner beast. But awakening nostrils informed me that my head wasn’t cradled in Celia’s well-padded lap. Instead, it rested upon Lupe’s bony thighs.
That’s unexpected, I thought vaguely. I was far too comfortable to move or even to open my eyes, though. Instead, I drifted in that half-waking state where dream and reality merged and melded, allowing the warm happiness of altered memories to fill my mind’s eye.
In my fantasy, I was back with my birth pack, Wolfie patting me on the head with a profound expression of fatherly pride spread across his face. The alpha shifted to lupine form and led me on a joyous romp through a flower-filled woodland while bloodlings frolicked around both of our feet. Dreamlike, I didn’t have to give up the new to make peace with the old either, and Hunter’s solid presence at my side made me smile in my sleep.
Maybe I should just cave and ask Wolfie for his advice? I thought drowsily. Track him down. See if he has any ideas for making peace with my wolf and my pack in the next nine days before All-Pack begins.
Before I could continue that line of reasoning, though, Lupe’s next stanza woke me right up. The teenager’s subsequent verse maintained the tune of the lullaby but contained words better suited to her usual abrasive demeanor. “Close the door, you pesky bloodlings,” she crooned.
Immediately, floorboards creaked and a latch clicked shut as a lupine member of the pack did the two-legger’s bidding. Meanwhile, my rusty brain kicked back into gear, assessing and analyzing.
We’re in the community house’s bedroom after all, I realized. Which meant that the panting breaths all around me emanated from post-hunt bloodlings relaxing in the communal space after a long night’s run.
Meanwhile, the voices drifting in from my left originated on the building’s front stoop. “...to bother you,” the sugary southern words broke into my musings. This wasn’t a member of my pack, and my scattered brain took a moment to place the familiar tone and cadence.
Amanda Sellers, I remembered at last. Mayor of Arborville and Celia’s sometime friend.
“It’s good to see you,” my mother replied, her words growing softer as she drew the visitor deeper into the heart of the community house. And even though humans visited Wolf Landing from time to time, something about the scent trail creeping in under the door made me think this was more than a mere social visit.
Time to stop playing opossum and to remember I’m a wolf.
Rising, I ignored the way Lupe flinched back as soon as she realized I was awake. We’d deal with our own issues at a later date. In the meantime, my gut told me that the conversation between Amanda and Celia was one I needed to overhear.
To that end, I stalked through a transient sunbeam, the warmth on my skin proving that I’d slept through the entire night and half of the next morning too. In the interim, my body had recovered from whatever ailed it. Now my skull was only subtly sore and my limbs felt loose and ready for action as I tiptoed through the adjoining bathroom to press my ear against the door separating private and public areas of clan central.
Behind me, every bloodling came alert in an instant. Without looking, I could feel them fall into step behind me, youthful antics forgotten in the face of an alpha on the hunt. Soon, a dozen furry bodies pressed up against my legs as wolf-form adolescents plus Lupe all came to stand by the door in absolute silence.
While we’d been scurrying across the room, Celia and Amanda had dispensed with pleasantries. Now the latter got right down to business. “I’ve come to talk to you about your rescue dogs,” the mayor said, and I could almost see the middle-aged woman’s painted lips pursing unhappily at the subject matter.
“Yes?” Celia prodded gently, as if she wasn’t at all concerned that the human residents of the nearby town might eventually clue in to the fact that she lived with a werewolf pack and didn’t—as she’d originally claimed—run a dog-rehab operation.
“You know there are leash laws in Arborville for a reason,” Amanda began pedantically, and I couldn’t resist glancing down at the wolves who hadn’t been restrained in months. Jerry the joker lolled out his tongue as he gazed back, the topic of conversation amusing him no end. But some of the meeker bloodlings were instead falling all over themselves to see how many wolves would fit behind a shower curtain.
In case you’re curious, the answer is five.
Outside our bathroom, Celia was fielding the issue as best she could. “In Arborville,” my mother answered carefully, “we would be very careful to keep our pets on leashes.”
“Well, that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?” Amanda broke in. “You may not be located within town limits, but your dogs don’t seem to understand that fact. A farmer came to me this morning very upset because his prize ram had been killed and...and mangled by some beast.”
“And so you thought of me? How sweet.”
Celia was holding her own very well. Still, I couldn’t resist twisting the knob and nudging the door ever so slightly open in order to peer outside.
As expected, Amanda was visibly bristling at Celia’s refusal to take livestock mayhem seriously. “You city slickers may not think it’s any big deal,” the mayor rebutted. “But a prime Katahdin ram could be worth over a thousand dollars at auction. And what if your dogs had injured a child instead? My grandbaby is staying with me this week and I’m afraid to even let her out of my sight now that...”
“Amanda.” My mother stopped the flow of words by placing one hand atop the other woman’s clenched fist. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” Yet even as she spoke, Celia was meeting my gaze above the mayor’s head and raising her eyebrows. Did they do it? she was asking.
I shook my head in instant negation. Okay, so I’d been out for the count last night and had no way of providing our bloodlings with an alibi. Still, Hunter would never have allowed livestock mayhem to happen on his watch.
Who’s the farmer? I mouthed in lieu of entertaining the notion that one of the bloodlings currently pushing up against my legs had gone rogue.
Luckily, my mother was a pro at lip reading and she parroted my words right back at the unwitting visitor sitting between us. “Who’s the farmer?” she asked.
“Silas Lerner.” The mayor jumped back to business as easily as she’d descended into grandparently concern. “You know the place. Go down past the old country store the Grahams used to own, then take a right alongside the river....”
The long-winded country directions could have gone on for hours, but I didn’t bother to listen further. Because the hairs on the back of my neck were abruptly standing on end.
Amanda’s description made Mr. Lerner’s property sound distant and unrelated to Wolf Landing. But I’d spent the last few months running over the nearby hills in fur form, so I knew exactly which farm the mayor was talking about.
As the crow flies, the slaughtered ram wasn’t far away at all. Instead, the scene of the crime was located directly on the opposite side of our very own mountain.