“Good night. Or … whatever time. And … Cassia? Good luck.”
Then I called Melanie to tell her I wasn’t dead.
She mostly cried through the interview, while I was still parched and shaking, mind spinning like a hamster wheel.
I couldn’t not go see her then. She was so stressed. I was so stressed. I’d already warded this place, particularly this room. Gabriel could take me around to the safe houses. Then we would be going north and … I might not be talking to Melanie again for a long time.
So we went.
Zar begged to come, to see Atarah, his aunt, friends and family whom he obviously needed. I was scared to let him. Not only was he so distressed but he could hardly handle getting around London on a good day. Jason was in no condition to go. And none of us wanted to draw attention with a big group.
Finally, with Gabriel’s support that he could come and it wasn’t that bad riding the Tube in the middle of the day rather than rush hour, we settled on Zar and Andrew coming with us, Isaac and Jason staying in. Isaac had already called to talk to Atarah at length.
Jason lay on the bed for a nap while we went out and I made a final check to be sure he didn’t need medical attention. Everyone had been noticing his fingers and it was hard not to stare at them and focus on his tired eyes. They didn’t even know about his ears yet. Jason assured me he was fine. I was also glad to see that his eyes seemed to be dilating like normal. Terrifying as those seizures had been, there didn’t seem to be obvious lasting impact.
“Okay.” I touched his face. “Water? Ah, you have it. Rest. We’ll be at least a few hours. So don’t worry. Then we’ll check in with Jed and Kage when we’re back. You can talk to Kage, even if he can’t answer much yet.”
It was a hard trip, despite Gabriel doing all the work and all the navigating. Each time we had the slightest break—a Tube ride, a stand on an escalator—I hugged Zar and he pressed his face to my shoulder. Andrew kept us with Gabriel like a sheepdog keeping sheep with the shepherd.
We had very brief visits with wolves in houses and flats almost all south of the Thames. One visit took us deep into the East End and we saw chalked signs for pie and mash and jellied eels. I had to stop and get Jason a few orders of the eels, despite having to carry a fishy, greasy paper bag the rest of the time.
The whole thing was surreal. Not the eels, but the visits. Wolves in London. Here we were. We’d spent how many days and nights just trying to find a wolf in London? Now they were helping us: saving the handful of remaining Sable wolves by sheltering them, putting their own lives at risk by taking in a people they did not want to have anything to do with, but still were connected.
So important. Yet a total blur.
Fear and grief were masked by numbness of shock. I was here to ward every place, focus on the magic, do my job while the guys said a quick hello and love to family and friends. I wasn’t along to socialize with these wolves that lived human or find out their stories.
But there was so much off about it all. So much … absurd. Surreal.
Even seeing Melanie. I couldn’t think what to say besides apologize and hug her. And get on with my work. What could I do for her? She was a target now also. She had to stay with these people for her own safety, or what? Leave?
I tried to propose she go home. Maybe stay with our father, who lived in Kansas City and whom she was closer to than me—which still wasn’t exactly a phone call a day. This whole thing was meant to be temporary and now… What could I tell her? How long? What was she supposed to do? To think?
But Melanie was upset, not wanting to leave, and I was reeling, numb, trying to talk to her and get my casting done. Neither of us were in a place to start picking out plane tickets.
“Just a while longer, Mel. But I’m not going to be in touch for a bit.”
“Like that’s news?” She was almost hyperventilating.
“You should look into getting back to the States—”
“Cass, I thought you were dead for like five days! More out of touch than that?”
A good point.
I wanted to talk to her about how she was doing, what had happened, the fires—was she okay?
In the end she did promise to look up flights, but we spent longer just hugging than talking. While Atarah sat with Zar, talking with him and Gabriel about Keziah.
Seeing the pack, hearing more about what had happened, who was gone, was overwhelming enough. But it didn’t end there. We had the hosts as well. Of five places we went to, three were completely unknown. The fourth, a Battersea flat with many guest wolves crammed into a couple of rooms like the refugees they were, played host to a familiar name.
Omri. I couldn’t place it, couldn’t think who that was, even when Gabriel stopped us outside, taking Andrew aside, and told him.
“You should know … this is Omri’s place.”
And it just didn’t click.
Andrew looked at him. Totally impassive. Then shrugged a little, almost as if he didn’t know who that was either, and we went up after being buzzed in at the door.
Andrew’s biological father, I remembered on the second flight of stairs.
There was no fanfare. No excitement as there had been when we’d found Gabriel. Omri wasn’t even home. He was at work and it was Hannah who let us in.
I warded, they visited, Andrew remained flat as he looked around the place.
Back outside, I tried asking Gabriel, “So you know Omri here?” Glancing at Andrew, who walked slightly ahead of Zar and myself on the sidewalk.
Andrew ignored me.
“In passing. I’d thought of telling you, Andrew. But … when these people come here…”
“It’s not because they want to be found,” I said.
Andrew still didn’t seem prepared to say anything, but he looked at me, perhaps noticing my tension, and forced a smile. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a git. Not as if I was wanting to see him, darling.”
“No … I… Sorry, Andrew. It’s only one more… There’s … a lot going on these days.”
“You should walk between raindrops,” Gabriel said.
Zar looked at him quickly, then dropped his gaze to the sidewalk.
“Sorry?” I said.
Gabriel hesitated, glancing around at Zar. He stopped for us to walk up to him, meeting my eyes instead. “Our mother used to say life’s greatest hardships come in floods, not puddles. She would say, ‘Some days we all have as many struggles as there are raindrops falling from a March sky. If you ever learn how to walk between them, show me how.’”
“I want to walk between them,” I said without meaning to as I looked back into his eyes—feeling my face flush for the shame of the admission.
But Gabriel nodded. “So do we all.”
We went on north, back into Central London, and finally to a place we had been before.
The she-wolf’s name was Leah. We’d “met” her—Zar, Jason, and me—many weeks ago and given up on the search for urban wolves because of her terror at us in her building.
She’d married a man, adopted two human children, never wanted to go back or have anything to do with that world again. She’d originally come from the Mountain Pack many years ago. Despite all this, when Gabriel had called, she’d also agreed to house what were now two single moms, and their three combined pups, having told her husband it was a family emergency.
I apologized for having frightened her that day, and struggled with my warding, hardly able to think at all by then.
I’d have been so interested in all of this not long ago. Leah and Omri and knowing that Gabriel knew these people. Now … I just wanted to curl up while the rain beat down.
Instead, I got my casting done, took up my fishy bag waiting in the hall corridor, and we said our goodbyes.
One of these pups, though, was Noah. Before we could go, he asked us if we’d seen Helah, coming to me specifically, so I knelt and took his hand.
“I can’t say I did, Noah. But it’s certainly good to
see you. Want me to tell Jason and Kage you said hi?”
Noah nodded but frowned. “I haven’t sniffed her. She wasn’t in the four-wheel with us.”
I caught the look on his mother’s face, back at the edge of the tiny living room. I felt those raindrops—the cold, hard beat of them everywhere…
The fear, the crushing force, all trying to stop me from answering. “We’ll keep looking for her, Noah. Okay? We’ll ask around. In the meantime, you stay safe here with your new friends.”
Then the trek back home to the hotel, picking up Thai carryout, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat or tell Jason, though I knew I needed to. I only warmed up the jellied eels for him in Gabriel’s kitchen while Isaac and Jason came to sit down, asking about the pack.
Andrew focused on good news. Who was recovering in the hospital, how Hannah wanted the pups out, how Thomas had been bitten but was doing fine. Their home, right at the back of the property, had also been spared. Gabriel told about the food we had to offer, passing around plates. But I didn’t mention Helah.
I was glad for the omission when I handed Jason the fishy bowl of eels in gelatinized gravy and he smiled. Truly smiled for the first time in … I couldn’t think how long.
Another small mercy: I was so exhausted from all the casting that no one pressured me about not eating.
Chapter 48
After only being able to leave voicemails for Jed, both Jason and I having tried at different times, we suspected he was in the garden in fur. Madison being such an animal lover, perhaps he had her feeding him and Kage both dinner like that. Although I preferred to think Jed was being helpful and pulling his weight around the place—like providing her with dinner after a long day and cleaning the kitchen—I also hoped fur was how he was spending most of his time. Surely she would have a better impression of him that way.
In another twenty-four hours we would be there to see for ourselves. We were more or less ready to leave in the morning but there was a lot we needed to talk about.
Zar also skipped dinner and tried to leave again for the hotel room. It seemed to me all three of the brothers had been lonely all their adult lives, no matter their pack, no matter their communal living that should have been an antidote. If Zar had ever had a best friend besides his mother and myself, I’d never heard of them.
I stopped him at the front door. “I want to talk with you all about something Stefan said. While we’re somewhere safe like this. Not on the road. I understand if you want to be alone. You can go. But you’re welcome to come sit with me, or stay all night. You don’t have to say anything.”
He put the key card in his pocket but followed me back to the living room while I held his hand. Andrew was finishing cleaning the kitchen and Gabriel fixed us tea. Jason, fretting about the lack of a phone response, flitted through TV channels seeking a cooking program at Isaac’s suggestion. Isaac packed his bag in the guest bedroom. We all had clean clothes, mostly put away now. Even my blood-soaked jeans were only lightly stained.
I sat on the couch beside Jason so Zar could be on my other side, pressing his hand between both of mine.
Jason’s face was haggard as the TV brought fresh disappointment. He sighed and said he was going to bed.
“Can I have a word? Then we’ll all go. We need an early night…” I looked around as someone knocked heavily on the front door.
“Did you order something?” Andrew asked Gabriel in the kitchen.
Considering what we’d been about to discuss, and the late hour, it gave me a chill. Someone wouldn’t just … show up here?
Unless they were really sure of themselves. Unless they were that determined to get me, and they knew… The room was warded. Not the whole hotel.
I left them on the couch, hurrying to go with Gabriel as he walked to answer the door.
“Something wrong?” he asked me.
Andrew grabbed my arm when he saw the look on my face.
Gabriel glanced at us, frowning.
I’d already drawn up the magic, the energy shield, without thinking about it, ready. “Gabriel, let us—”
He applied his eye to the peephole.
I waited breathlessly. Andrew glanced from me to the door.
Gabriel was a long time about it.
Another impatient knock.
Isaac came up behind us.
“Who—?” I started.
Gabriel opened the door, stepping back.
It wasn’t room service. It wasn’t someone here to kill us. It was Kage.
In torn jeans, graphic T-shirt, watch, and motorcycle boots, looking a little thin, tired, but perfectly well, he stood on his two feet in the middle of the threshold. Behind, at his shoulder, was Jed, also on two feet.
Kage’s gaze went past Gabriel and the door to fix on me, grinning while I simply gasped.
So did Andrew. “What the hell, mate? How long has it been?”
Then I was moving, running to him.
Kage shrugged modestly as he stepped in. “Not so flimsy as you all seem to think. It’d been long enough.”
I threw my arms around him. He lifted me off the floor with a quick spin and bear hug.
“Kage—” gasping as he crushed my ribs. “What are you doing here? How did you get to London?”
Kage laughed as he set me down. “Why Moon made paws, right? Nah, Madison gave us a lift to the rail station in Windermere. Nearly a direct train to Euston Station.”
“You two—” I looked past him to Jed, still in the doorway, myself shaking, tears in my eyes, horrified that he’d risked changing so soon and they’d done all that alone, but here he was: safe. I didn’t finish. I only moved back because I sensed Jason there.
He’d heard Kage’s voice and he passed me, hugged him, slamming into him so Kage staggered. Kage grabbed him in return, kissing his head since Jason ducked his face into his collarbone.
Kage was still grinning. “Missed you, princess…” Kissing him again. But his expression sobered as he held on. “Jay? It’s all right. Knew I was right enough when you heard from Jed, didn’t you?” Rubbing his shoulders, one hand up to the back of his head, fingers in his hair, Kage had to take another step so his own back hit the doorframe with Jason pressing all his weight into him.
“I’m all right,” Kage murmured again, concerned. “I’m good, princess.” Speaking in his black hair. “Wasn’t too soon to change…”
But Jason—who had never shed a single tear in France, never asked any mercy of the mages, hardly so much as whimpered in that torture room—cried against his chest and said nothing, shaking, crushing Kage back until Kage finally slid down the wall to sit with him on the floor.
“It’s all right, princess,” Kage whispered, holding on tight. He looked alarmed now, glancing up to me, still offering Jason reassurances.
“It’s not you,” I said softly, but my voice broke and I only shook my head.
I hugged Jed, who didn’t seem to have been expecting it, then moved with them all back to the living room, Gabriel locking up, leaving Kage and Jason alone by the door.
Chapter 49
Zar embraced Jed also, which, if my hugging him had surprised him, bowled Jed over. Of course, Jed already knew about the pack, but they still needed space. After the long trip they’d made and what they’d been through to reach us, it didn’t turn out to be a happy hello for either Kage or Jed.
We left the three brothers in the living room, me retreating with Isaac and Andrew to the bedroom and shutting the door.
I should have finished getting ready. One folded blouse in that direction and I ended up sitting on the bed. Andrew gave me a tissue that I squeezed against my eyes, then remained like that for a long time.
Isaac sat with his arms around me. I leaned into him. Andrew sat cross-legged on the floor and massaged my feet until I asked him to give me my phone.
Volume low, I put on my Christmas playlist, starting with a very melancholy rendition of “Silent Night,” and went on sitting with them.
&
nbsp; Perhaps they could hear what the brothers said, but the voices were hardly mumbles to me. Nothing from Kage and Jason.
We listened to “Grown Up Christmas List” and “The First Nowell” before Andrew said, “You’re not Christian, darling.”
“Life’s full of contradictions,” I said into Isaac’s shoulder. “There are one or two Hanukkah songs on there also.”
“Christmas Day was originally a pagan holiday,” Isaac said. “Christians adopted their traditions and the date—though Jesus Christ was not born in December.”
“There you go,” I told Andrew. “I don’t know why religion has to be so labeling. We’re all people. I’ve always celebrated both Yule and Christmas, and all the solstices. I love holidays.”
“You need one,” Andrew said, working on my feet.
“We all do. Would you guys think it too much a stretch to celebrate Christmas with me? What about your own traditions?”
“Our practices are corrupted as well,” Isaac said. “We celebrate winter solstice, not Christmas, but we do exchange a gift or two and usually eat together—fix traditional dishes that have been influenced by mundane holiday activities over many generations.”
“See … I like that. Mixing up traditions, making ‘you’ and ‘me’ more ‘us.’ I hope we can be like that.”
Isaac shifted so he could look at me. I could hear the smile in his tone. “Are you planning our futures, arä?”
“I would love to. If I had the emotional space. Maybe someday soon.” I sighed, long, slow. “Someone’s going to have to. I’m pregnant.”
Andrew looked up sharply from my feet, his eyebrows jumping.
Isaac sat bolt upright. “You … what…?” It wasn’t like him to falter.
Andrew’s mouth formed silent words. Along the lines of, What the fuck?
I tore my gaze from him to Isaac, close beside me. “I should have told you while we were working on being truthful over dinner. I only recently found out myself and I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want you to…”
“Flip out,” Andrew muttered.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 33
