I swallowed. “I … think I could drink the tea.”
“It just boiled,” Isaac said. “Give it a minute. I’ll put soup on for you.”
I didn’t want soup, didn’t feel hungry. Only shaky, tired, hot, weak as a wet tissue. Refusing dinner would have been a nice topper on my babbling reassurances.
I nodded.
Instead of leaving us again, Isaac stepped forward to rest his fingers on my forehead.
“I don’t have a fever,” I said, pulling away. “It’s residual energy. Once I sleep I’ll be fine.” Nice way to backtrack after saying I was fine. I looked at Kage.
Jason’s head was bowed over him, stroking his face again and again.
Isaac only watched me, didn’t argue. He was slow to go back downstairs.
“Cass—?”
But again Zar was interrupted as Jason was looking around at the same time. “Will he make it now? Whatever … you did…?”
I rubbed my eyes, breathing slowly through my mouth. “I don’t know, Jay. Has … um … Madison said anything else?”
“She doesn’t know what to make of him,” Zar said.
“He’s not a total wolf,” Jason said. “He’s stronger than that.”
“I know he is,” I said. “I need…” I rubbed my eyes again. “I need to talk to Isaac.”
“He’ll be back in a minute—” Andrew started.
“Alone. Maybe I could sit downstairs … at a table? To eat?”
There was another weird silence. Did they already understand what was going on here? Who Madison was? Or was everyone still in the dark and they didn’t ask questions? Andrew had been away with me, yet I didn’t know how much he might have texted or talked with Isaac on the phone while I was out of it.
The thing was … I didn’t want a word about Madison from any of them. I just needed to understand from Isaac. Be that a few words or a long story. Or even from the woman herself. The mundane woman who had been terrified by the sight of him and was now accommodating us all in her little home. With her cats.
I swallowed again. Zar handed me the water. I used both hands but still couldn’t stop the trembling. My bones seemed made of straws, muscles so weak, whole body so drained of energy, I felt translucent, hardly clinging to existence in the room with them. It wasn’t painful. It was more like being half asleep, but knowing you had to get up and function in the waking world.
“I just … need to talk to him,” I repeated, letting Zar take the glass back. “Just a minute downstairs. Sitting down. Then…” I looked at Kage. “I need to stay with him. And … where is everyone sleeping?”
“In here,” Zar said. “I only recently put my skin back on—”
“I forgot. Are you okay?” I looked at his arm but couldn’t see a mark. If the IV had left a bruise it would have healed with his change.
“Fine, Cass. We’ve just all been in here. Jed and me in fur, Jason there, Andrew with you, Isaac back and forth. I’m not sure what we’re doing tonight. The caravan is—”
“No, if we can all stay in here, we should. Maybe … a couple people downstairs for room, on the couch, whatever there is. If she’ll have us… It’s not safe for a couple of you just to go off and sleep in the caravan.”
He nodded, his face drawn, eyes on my hand where he squeezed mine. “As to having us … we barged in. I haven’t talked to her about it. We brought Kage here with her instructions and she had to work all day. Isaac talked to her just a bit. I’ve hardly seen her.”
So they didn’t know—or that was what it sounded like. No idea who she was, what we were doing here. Only waiting for me to come back to them and for Kage to wake up—to survive. On a need-to-know basis around here. Mostly, what I needed to know was that Kage was going to be okay. Second…
“Zar?” I squeezed his hand. “Will you help me downstairs? I’m really tired, but I’m okay and I want to talk to Isaac. And to Madison. Then we’ll sort out our … curling up arrangements.”
Zar’s gaze flashed to Andrew. It was a question, a hesitation, a second opinion. A gesture that made a lump come to my throat. A tiny thing that two weeks ago, maybe even days ago, they would not have shared.
Andrew sighed. “Stand up on your own, darling, and we’ll indulge you.”
I smiled, but it was weak, like the rest of me. “You set punishing tests.”
Zar first stood so I could. Jed stepped back and the three of them watched while I slid my legs from under the blanket, then slowly stood, holding the rail at the foot of the daybed for support. My head spun, still hurting, and my knees nearly gave out on me, but I could stand. Zar wrapped his arm around me before I had to prove anymore points and I held his shoulder. I sipped from the tea, then Zar brought that as well.
We made a slow, gentle descent to the downstairs hall, saying nothing, though Zar kissed my hair and breathed through it.
At the bottom, I didn’t have to wonder which way to turn. Madison ran into us and invited us to sit down.
Chapter 15
She was obviously worried for me—had been coming to check when she heard us creeping down the stairs.
“What did the doctor tell you? Here, sit. There’s no concussion?” She was peering into my eyes in the front sitting room. A family room with couch, chairs, an empty fireplace, a TV on BBC Four, and a massive, gray cat lying in the middle of the couch beside where Madison had just been. Wasn’t the cat scared of the smell of them?
“Nothing too serious,” I tried to reassure her. “They let me go with a warning.” But my smile was feeble. I would have fallen into the chair without Zar’s help.
I finally introduced myself. He gave me the mug, which I clasped in both hands at the chair arm. Then, after hesitating and me saying I was fine, he left us.
“Thank you,” I said to Madison as she was saying, “I think Isaac is getting you tea.”
She did not mean “tea” when she said tea. She meant dinner. I knew because, though I’d never actually thought about it, Isaac had sometimes said tea when what he meant was dinner. It must be a northern thing. Her accent was stronger, more rolling and distinct, whereas Isaac’s speech was very correct. For the first time it crossed my mind that Isaac may have deliberately tried to lose his northern accent.
I nodded and she sat back beside her cat, though still on the edge of the couch, watching me. She turned the volume way down on the documentary about World War One.
“How’s your friend?”
“I don’t know. Without you, though… Thank you for all you’ve done. He wouldn’t have had a chance without you.”
“I thought of giving him a stimulant. I’m only … scared since I don’t know the body chemistry. It’s good to rest, sleep, heal—since that’s what sleep does. It’s not good, though, if…”
“If he’s in a coma. If he doesn’t wake up at all.”
She nodded slowly. “It hasn’t been that long. If he had a stronger pulse I’d feel better about leaving him, at least for another twenty-four hours. I’m just not sure…”
“Jason said his heartbeat was stronger.”
“Did he?” Her hazel eyes behind delicate glasses flicked up to mine. “I’ll check him again before bed. That’s a good sign.”
I also nodded. But I finally wasn’t thinking of Kage. I was thinking of her having had her gaze fixed on my throat while she spoke to me. On the golden pendant below my collarbone. And of her kindness, even in the face of intense stress. Of Isaac saying, Also, you’re empathic, quite early on, smiling at me. Clearly being empathetic and compassionate were important traits to Isaac.
“You lived with Isaac in Brighton,” I said softly, having to lean into the arm and back of the chair with my mug. “So you’re not actually dead…”
“Dead? Is that what he told people?” With a faint smile, clasping her fingers together at her knees. “Well … I had to tell a few stories too. Calling it off with three days to go and running home to my parents… This is their house. I was living in it, paying it off, right b
y the practice, when I met Isaac. They let it out when I went to Brighton. I had to live with them in Keswick for six months after I came back, commuting here, until the lease was up. So, yes, there were some stories told on my part as well.”
“Called off a wedding, you mean?”
“Here in Ambleside, at Saint Mary’s.” She was looking at the necklace again but pulled her gaze back to mine. “Better before than after, of course. At least he did bother to tell me.” With another little smile and taking a breath through her mouth. “Not getting me involved with—I’m sorry.” Glancing at the TV. “I don’t mean offense—”
“Oh, I’m not a werewolf,” I said. “I’m human, like you.”
She looked at me, uncertain, at the necklace, back to my face. “But … they’re…”
“They’re all shifters. I’m the only one. I had an advantage when I met Isaac, though. I was already part of that community.”
“I see…” She spoke slowly, like she did not. “Well … as long as you know what you’re getting into.”
“I’m sorry. If Isaac told you out of the blue… Honestly, I’ve never heard of anyone from what we call the ‘mundane’ community knowing shifters for what they are. The fact that he told you at all…” I stopped, dropping my gaze.
“He didn’t want to. It came on slow or he’d have bothered sooner.”
The cat, feeling neglected by her remaining at arm’s reach, or perhaps understanding that she was upset, stood and stepped over to rub across her arm and climb into her lap. Madison untangled her hands to massage his shoulders while he purred and drooled.
“What happened?” I asked, also looking at the cat.
She hesitated. “He took me out to dinner after work in Brighton one night when we should have been talking about packing lists and last-minute preparations. Instead, he was agitated. I’d never seen him like that. He said he had to tell me something before we went through with this. Frightening thing to hear at a time like that, isn’t it? If someone has something that big to tell, before leaving a great surgery and home and moving across the country would be nice. But I didn’t take him that seriously. I thought I knew Isaac. His moral integrity, straightforward honesty, and work ethic were, I thought, some of the high points of his character. He couldn’t be about to tell me anything that bad.
“He talked about some sort of community: that was where he went some evenings, that it wasn’t about dinner meetings with clients or working late. How he had friends around Brighton who were like him and I didn’t have to be involved with them, but I needed to know about him before he could let me go through with the wedding. I thought he was part of a new age movement or something and still wasn’t worried. This was Isaac, after all. He was my best friend, the best man I ever knew. Of course I wasn’t worried.
“We got home and he was still talking about these magical people. He was all out of sorts about it, wouldn’t settle down. That was when I started to get concerned. Then he told me he was a ‘shifter.’ That he could turn into a wolf.
“Well … I couldn’t laugh. This was no joke to him. His sense of humor is silent. You probably know that.” She looked at the necklace. “It’s understated—so subtile, you have to be listening close even to notice he’s joking. I loved that. Boorish men who roar at their own wit and find the sound of their own voices so top rate … ugh… I was sick of it.
“I'd met him at an EMT training course. Isaac had wanted a grounding in medical basics after he’d taken a first aid class because of working around construction sites. I was taking it because I’d never totally committed myself to all out vetting since I’d gone into school still unsure if I wanted to be a human or animal surgeon. I was already working full time by then, but it was just one of those things. Know all your medicine, right? Just down in Kendal, a weekend with a fresh mix of people.
“We laughed about it—had lunch together right off. A veterinary surgeon and an architect meet training to be EMTs? It was silly. Both just out of university and both unwilling to be trapped in one interest. And I think … we got something extra from each other because we each recognized that the other was not a silly person. Yet we could be silly together. That’s a match, you know? That’s someone you don’t let go.
“It was a couple years later when we were living in Brighton and about to have the wedding and this man who I thought I knew as well as myself, who was my best friend and I was his, told me he was not human and he could change his shape. So…” She held up both furry hands from the cat, looking down at him. “What do you do? Of course I didn’t believe him, but I was scared. What was he playing at? Was there something wrong with him just now manifesting? Schizophrenic? Manic? Was he on drugs and I didn’t know it?
“Then he backed off, said he wanted me to think about it, to know, that we could talk about it more tomorrow. Was it really some sort of joke? Was he going to let a big dog loose in our flat the next day? It was so … not his style.”
She stroked the cat while he flexed his claws into her knee, drooling, rumbling, his yellow eyes almost shut, a smile on his long-whiskered face.
“It was a mad day at work. Just mad—dogs hit by cars, a cat having seizures, a cockatoo out of her cage and flying through reception. Mad. So I wasn’t even thinking about it when I got home. Isaac was already in. He had carryout for us—so many brilliant qualities, but he would not cook. At all. He had a shocking appetite. Sometimes he’d eat on the way home and still bring carryout for both. He was always perfectly fit. I’d never seen a man like him. Not as if he had a gym membership. But … I got so used to him. It’s daft in retrospect. Just plain blind. But that was how he was … my beautiful Isaac, far more than a cut above any other man.
“Then I got home from that day and ate and changed clothes and told him all about it. He’s a brilliant listener. Once I’d got through all that … he said I needed to understand. We’d leave for Ambleside in two days. He wanted me to be sure about this. Said he loved me and he had to tell me the truth or he couldn’t go through with it. He was scaring me again, but I was so tired…
“He said I shouldn’t see it, that it was disturbing to see. ‘To see it happen when you change into a wolf?’ I asked him. ‘Of course it is. Why don’t you step into the bedroom?’ So he did. He told me not to be scared. He kept saying he loved me. He used to call me pet because I would say I wanted to have the life of my cat—that I wanted to be someone’s pet, it was such a brilliant job description. If I’d had a rough day, I’d come in saying I wanted to be the pet today and he’d take me out or buy us a picnic for the beach. We could walk there. It was a lovely flat.
“So he kept saying, ‘I love you, pet. I don’t want you to be scared. We can talk about this. You just need to believe me first. You need to see for yourself.’ And on and on like that, undressing in the hall while I sat at the table. No clue how to feel anymore about the whole thing.
“He walked off and I sipped my wine and thought about the dog surgeries that day. He never drank. Maybe just a taste. And there was this … noise. Like breaking bones. Not really loud, but right enough… Sounded … I don’t know what it sounded like. Something … tearing up. I called out to him. I started for the hall. And this big—huge—pure white wolf stepped into our bedroom doorway. A white wolf with his eyes. Wolf eyes, but they were green as emeralds.
“It was like a movie. It was so … unreal. Was I the one who’d taken something? I didn’t know what was happening or what to think. I panicked. I screamed and he tried to come up to me, crouched down on his belly, wagging his tail. I threw a soup ladle and thermos at him and he hid behind the sofa. It wasn’t about the wolf. I’d never been afraid of animals. He was breathtaking. It was everything else. That this couldn’t be, that I couldn’t understand. I called his name again. I ran to the bedroom to look in, to find him hiding, the joke, the madness of it. But I knew he wasn’t in there. I knew he was the wolf because of this guy.”
She wrapped both hands around the big cat’s chest, liftin
g him half up so he blinked lazily at me, still purring, his forepaws tucked up.
“Storm was on the sofa when the wolf came out. His fur puffed and he started to get snarky about it, just for a second. What was that huge beast doing in his flat? But he had a sniff when the wolf darted past him and he settled right back down. Just sat there, watching me because I was coming apart. He knew. Cats and dogs don’t live on sight like we do. They live on smell. When Storm got a sniff of Isaac, it didn’t matter that he looked like a wolf. Storm was just… ‘Oh, hey, it’s you. You have on a funny suit this evening.’ That was it.
“Storm’s that sort of cat. Nothing phases him. Goes up to anyone, people, big dogs, other cats. He’s just a great, chill guy. When he’d first met Isaac, though, he was spooked. There was something about his smell that Storm kept away from for a few days and had to warm up to him. I’d never seen him like that. But he got over it. Isaac was really quiet and gentle with him and Storm couldn’t resist making a new friend. I didn’t think any more of it. And Caterwaul—he’s upstairs under my bed right now and not likely to come out—was just the opposite of Storm: terrified of everyone new, so I didn’t worry about that either. He never did warm up to Isaac. He’d slink past him, come over to me. Tolerated him being around, but no more than that.
“So many warnings, so much weird about him in hindsight. His body, his eating, his sometimes odd hours, and my own two cats who tried to tell me. Finally, Storm did tell me. He told me my fiancé had turned into a wolf.
“I grabbed my purse, pulled Caterwaul out from under the bed, stuffed both cats in carriers, and ran for the door. I only stopped … to take off that necklace and leave it on the counter.” She looked up from my neck to my eyes. “He’d given it to me a couple days before. One of the steps in the chain of working himself up to telling me what he was. He had a thing about the moon. He always seemed to be able to see really well in low light and he liked to go out walking at night. I thought the necklace was beautiful, but odd. I wasn’t the one with the moon hobby. Turned out … it was just wishful thinking on his part. When I took it off, I said, ‘Give that to one of your own kind.’ Then I drove all night, Brighton to Keswick, with the cats, to my parents’ place.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 8
