Along with the plate of snails smothered in garlic parsley butter the waiter brought us two tiny tongs and two tiny forks with which to grasp the shells, access the meat, and pry it loose. So this was how to teach a wolf to eat slowly. But Isaac didn’t need it. That only made me think of Kage and Jed and the difference in the dynamic without them. Not that there wasn’t a difference anyway. Our group dynamic was shot to hell right now. But if it hadn’t been, if everything else had been all right but we’d had to leave them behind…
Only it wasn’t.
We didn’t bring up anything besides the place and the food and me ordering for us until we had the salad and snails. Then Isaac sorted out the mini tools to handle the spiral shells and extract the body within. He tried pulling but quickly found a little twist brought the meat out.
I had just picked up my fork with my right hand, sling unbuckled and lying in my lap, arm covered by a sleeve, when Isaac held the first morsel on that silver utensil out to me. He hadn’t even tasted anything yet. He didn’t say anything either.
So, naturally, I wanted to cry. It was becoming my thing lately, so why not?
Instead, I swallowed, set down my own fork and took the tiny one from him. I gave Isaac my snail fork in return so he could go on. I didn’t want that snail. I could die happily without ever having tasted snail.
It’s just one bite, think of it as a scallop.
It was buttery and garlicky like the frog leg, dense, but not like a rubber band as one might expect. Really, it wasn’t that different from a scallop, although not meltingly tender like a good, lightly cooked one.
“Thank you,” I said while Isaac was starting the task of extracting one for himself. “I can almost taste my French accent improving.”
Isaac smiled at his plate as he performed another little twist. “It sounds perfect to me already—though I can’t pretend to be a harsh critic there. Marci and bonjour are about all I know.”
“You’d be surprised how far those two can get you in this country.” I started on the salad with Camembert and figs. “A little more simplicity in our lives would be welcome right now.”
Isaac looked up after chewing his snail for longer than needed. “It would. It would be a blessing.” He looked into my eyes while I saw sushi plates and an Austrian dinner between us instead; the way he smiled with those green eyes; the way his humor was a sort of inside joke that you could miss if you weren’t watching for it; the way his skin felt on mine—weeks of memories with him that seemed like flashing back on years.
“I’m sorry, Cassia,” he finished.
“Me too,” I almost whispered the words—not having meant to speak so softly. Finally, an apology: a start at salvaging something that went far beyond the relationship I had with this one person across a tiny table.
“Why is that? You haven’t done anything.” Isaac’s face was serious. His usually close-trimmed beard was a bit longer, a bit scruffy. His eyes were not smiling, but tormented.
What about them? I was hurting and numb, shaken and numb. How much were they suffering? So scared of the unknown that they would betray a friend? So scared of losing love that they would lash out? So scared of being found out with the truth that they would turn their lives into lies? Who was who in this unhappy family? Why was that? What had they done? And what had I done to each of them to get us here?
Not that I was quite arrogant enough to blame myself for all the bad that we’d been dealing with lately. This was a joint effort. A whole pack crumbling took a whole pack’s actions and reactions. What mattered now were the reactions.
I didn’t know I was sorry about how I was coping with everything with Isaac until I said that and he asked and I was forced for the first time to think about it.
The fact was, I didn’t know how I felt about everything going on. I wanted to stay numb. The more numb the better.
I knew I was upset about Isaac. I knew I was crushed by the idea that he—of all people—had spun me a web of lies. I knew I didn’t want to be upset with Isaac. He needed me now, for the first time more than I needed him. Yet I could not stand up and be strong for him while I was upset about the lying. Which wasn’t about lying at all.
These were not world-shattering lies. I hadn’t found out, say, that he had three wives and twenty-seven children in multiple homes already. That wasn’t it. I’d been trapped under lies my whole life and that burning desire to get away from them had made me intolerant of them in others. But that also wasn’t the biggest thing. The biggest thing hit me only when Isaac asked. It was the simplest, yet the hardest to explain: “of all people.”
I swallowed again, nothing in my mouth, and took a shaky breath before I answered. “I’m sorry because I’m so hard on you.”
A line creased his brows. “I’m still not following.”
“It’s more fairness issues, isn’t it?” All at once I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’ve held you up to a higher standard since we met. When something goes wrong, the result is … myself being harsher than I should be. I’m sorry.” I looked up and Isaac’s expression had cleared as he understood what I meant.
“On the contrary, I would be sincerely offended if you did not hold me to a higher standard than you might other males. You honor me by showing you have grander expectations of me than you do others. What could be a greater compliment?”
“What could be a crueler judge? It’s not a good thing, Isaac. It’s harmful. It’s like looking up to unattainable goals we see on TV. Unfair and unrealistic, leading to letdown, hurt, failings, unjustified condemnations.”
“What did you base your standards on?” Isaac held the little tools at the sides of his plate, focused on me. “A superhero movie, or me when you met me? I don’t think you’re being unfair. I mean what I said. If Kage, say, dropped a snail on the table and smashed it with his fist instead of messing about with titchy instruments for the little blighters you would be exasperated. You would request that he change tactics. If I did such a thing you would be appalled. You would probably leave the table. How does that make me feel?”
I looked up from the spiral shells again.
“Honored, Cassia,” he went on. “Privileged to be set apart in your eyes. I do not crave a ‘fair’ playing field. There is no such thing. I do not want you to take it easy on me because I am a mere mortal and you expect me to let you down. If you expected failure from me, it would mean I had been failing you. Can such things be taken too far? TV models? Superhero standards? Of course. But I know you better than that. Your compassion allows you to second guess even your harshest judgements, while your empathy allows you to see another’s failings, or triumphs, from their eyes. Please do not ask my pardon simply because you respect me enough to expect I am worthy of that respect.”
I watched my own left forefinger nervously tapping the table beside my plate. Inactive fork in my right hand. It was considered ill-manners to keep either hand below the table during a meal in France. I couldn’t remember where I’d read that, or who might have told me, or even if it was true. Yet I wanted to abide by the standards of any new place I visited for politeness and customs whenever possible. Of course, if I really wanted to follow the customs here, we’d have ordered wine. But Isaac didn’t drink. And I was pregnant. Which he didn’t know. Which had also changed things, been a part of all this pain and all this self-defense numbing.
And what he said … it was so … rich. Layered like a fine dinner, as if…
I met his eyes. “You’ve understood this all along. I didn’t even see what I was doing to you. But you did. I was so upset with you after you nearly strangled Andrew, no matter that everyone was fighting, that Kage had just broken Jason’s elbow, and Jed fought him. Even so, I wasn’t nearly as upset as you were. You would hardly look at me for a few days. Because you knew all this. You’re holding yourself to that standard also and you’d let me down and Andrew had threatened you and … maybe you were scared about the things I could find out about you one day. That I’d learn things y
ou didn’t want me to know and that would be it, because it would be such a cataclysmic failing of living up to my standards—or your own. All the time you’ve understood this.”
“Yes. So does everyone else.”
“Since when?”
“Since you gave me the keys to the Jeep several hundred yards from home on our first day together. Although I think the sushi lunch in London solidified the situation.”
“That’s why they tried to kill you in Germany. It probably wasn’t some conscious thing. Favored outsider, always a foreigner, fight started and everyone went for you. I thought it was only normal jealousy—me having been on the bike with you and whatever… I don’t know. I was getting the impression they were all just violent people even though you explained to me it was an unnatural pack. And still is.
“There’s been so much more going on all this time and I’ve been the blind one. The only blind one. Kage was in love at first sight. Andrew is tormented by grief he deliberately conceals. Jed’s feelings about being in skin amount to almost suicidal. Zar is a religious zealot. Jason is a dark star. Every one of you knew all of this about each other from the word go.
“This has all been such a process for me. Yet, for them … it’s only a day out with the family. Complicated only by me. And by you. Now you’re the other outsider, a fresh foreigner all over again. None of us knew about the lies you’ve told. We just knew you had secrets. Even I knew that. To me … it’s like the honeymoon is over. Time to face reality. To them … it’s just another argument but otherwise, ‘What’s for dinner?’
“It’s weird how sometimes you find out the kind of person you’ve been all along. Like you’re leaving a job and only then do you get a heartfelt letter from a colleague about all the good you’ve done. In my case, taking weeks and weeks to gradually open my eyes and see all of you, having been bumping along with no idea how much I didn’t know.”
“You did,” Isaac said. “You knew that from the start. Don’t you remember Andrew leading you on with offers of information because you were hungry to know us better? You didn’t want to get involved because you had to leave, but you’ve been curious since we met you, Cassia. Another part of who you are. You must remember asking me, that same night in Germany, what were my secrets? That’s not leading to the rude awakening of someone who didn’t know she needed an education. It’s the normal process of study. Asking, watching, learning.”
“You didn’t answer me,” I said, a little back to eating but mostly only looking at him. “You couldn’t at the time, but hardly as if you’ve forgotten I asked.”
“No, I didn’t feel I could. I came to the south coast specifically for a chance to meet wolves who didn’t know what I was. Who wouldn’t shun and drive me out. To have a pack for the first time. Because I lived with humans for so long anyway, they couldn’t tell by scent that I was a hybrid. Then they got used to me and it wasn’t as if they had a frame of reference. As far as the Sables are concerned, there’s no such thing as a wolf with one human parent. A mix means a human child. So, after that first hurdle and Diana inviting me to join as a verge member from Brighton, I was free. I had people.
“It’s not that it didn’t cross my mind to tell you the truth—tell you everything; about Madison, about my family, how I really came to Brighton. But I would be placing you in the dreadful position of joining me in a secret that I would then rely upon you to keep. You would become a sharer in the stress of my life when you did not have to be. The story had to remain the same for you. I was so used to my own background—coming from the Mountain Pack, dead mate, and so on—it was no trouble. Easier to lie than tell the truth.
“I should have paused to think. Should have opened my mind to the reality that being honest with you was more important than maintaining my unity with the Sables in the first place. I knew that early on. I knew … how important you were.”
“Because of Atarah.”
He looked at me for a moment in silence. “In part from what she had told me about the time when I would meet you. In part only because of you—who you are. Atarah knew that Madison had not died and that I’d created the story to spare myself. You see, they did not know she was human at all. I could never admit what I had done—revealing our world to a mundane. Atarah didn’t believe the lie about the death. To get help from her I had to admit that Madison had left me. She never asked for an explanation. She could see the turmoil in Madison’s chart, the transition and change. Even Atarah doesn’t know she’s human. A Mountain Pack wolf who had maintained connections back home and didn’t want to run with a new pack. That was my story.
“When I met you, I was concerned for how the other males would treat you. I was used to relationships with humans of all sorts from classmates and teachers to clients and romantic partnerships. Many Sables worked with humans, had human friends, but bringing them around wasn’t welcome and dating was frowned on. Based on how I felt about you so quickly I shouldn’t have been surprised that they felt a pull to you as well. Yet I was struck by the hypocrisy. It did make me begin to wonder if I could tell you the truth, if it might even be a possibility to tell the pack the truth.”
“Why? If the Mountain Pack treated you that way because you’re half human, why would the Sables be any better?”
Isaac returned to working on his snails, shaking his head a little. “Wishful thinking. Seeing how they began to love and respect you, that they could be far more than ‘tolerant’ of humans—when I’d never have expected even that much from many. I knew better, really. That’s why I never said anything. The Mountain Pack were unfriendly, but the Sables are more devout and far more old-fashioned than them. I’ve grown to appreciate their faith, though it still gives me plenty of reason to expect reactions exactly like the one I got from Jed and Zar.”
“Wait…” I swallowed a bite of fig and greens. “What do you mean you’ve grown to appreciate it? You don’t follow Moon as your goddess?”
There was that gentle smile finally, though he looked sad. “I consider myself agnostic. Although I find the faith fascinating and I certainly embrace the idea that there is more than merely what we see and touch here; that there is a spiritual existence, a greater power than us. I enjoy the practice of the faith as a form of community and respect for nature and our beautiful lunar cycles. It is a teaching that spreads light. I also enjoy that very much. However, there are a few things—such as teachings Sables have taken to heart that there is an order to the universe which includes a set of rules for how wolves exist—that are a problem. If your faith and upbringing and values tell you one thing and the world shows up with another, it is not a simple matter for a closed, traditional society like the Sables to cope. Under the current circumstances of our lives, having lost my home with the Sables is not a massive concern. It is, however, almost certainly going to be a reality upon any effort to return there.”
“Even with Diana? You think she would throw you out because of what you are?”
“Diana… No, I don’t. But it doesn’t matter. If Diana and a handful of others were broadminded enough to tolerate me, it would not solve my problem. I would still have to leave.”
“What if they don’t know?”
That same sad smile. “They’ll know. Zar and Jed’s mother, Keziah, probably knows already. They’ll all know very soon, one way or another.”
“Maybe not. They won’t do that again. What Jed did… They won’t tell the whole pack.”
He only ate in silence for a moment.
“So … add spiritual beliefs to the list,” I said quietly, also eating and looking at my plate.
“Of lies?” he asked.
“Yes. You’re half human, had a human fiancée, she didn’t die, you revealed what you are to a mundane human, you weren’t from the Mountain Pack… What else?”
We ate and he seemed to be thinking.
“I didn’t come to Brighton for a job at all,” he said at last. “My relationship with fox shifters was not at all the casual background I
suggested. And … I believe that covers most of it … though perhaps not.”
“That’s … practically everything I know about you aside from basic personality traits, you like a clean house, and you don’t cook. You really are an architect, aren’t you?”
“I am. Though … not lately.”
“No, I’m sorry about your job.”
He looked up. “Thank you for being here. I’m sorry for all of this. For lying to you, about hurting you. But I’m grateful for this… For you being willing to sit down with me even after … certain failings have become apparent.”
“I’m glad we have the chance,” I said. “I wish we could start over. I keep feeling that with so many people lately. I wish you didn’t feel you had to lie in the first place.”
“Shall we go back? Back to wherever you like—whatever you need to ask.”
We met each other’s eyes again.
Right back to the beginning? First dates all over again?
So I asked, “What are you afraid of?”
Isaac shut his eyes for a couple of deep breaths. He looked at me. “Being alone. My father abandoned me, my mother died just as I was starting university, wolves drove me away, I’ve never fit in properly with humans, and my mate left me three days before the wedding because she was understandably terrified of me.”
“Then you have every reason to be the most insecure wolf in the world. Yet you are the opposite. How is that?”
Isaac smiled. “I’m not. Sorry… I suppose … that’s one more lie. I have feared losing you almost from the day I met you. Being afraid—which is all insecurity is—and showing fear are two different things. And, I must admit, I am a bloody good liar.”
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 18
