When he stopped, I didn’t know what to say. More than a tightness in my chest then, but my throat, my whole body. I wanted someone there who I could apologize to; to embrace.
Isaac glanced at me and, after a time, he was the one to say, “I’m sorry, Cassia.”
And I still didn’t know what to say.
Chapter 26
Stonehenge was not what I’d expected, even after warnings from Zar about barriers and tourism. For one thing, I’d imagined it remote—not surrounded by motorways. For another, I hadn’t realized how controlled the visiting of it was. Kage, Jason, and Jed didn’t bother to come with us, but Isaac, Zar, and Andrew accompanied me to view the stone circle.
I’d never visited any others and the size and scale of it threw me—it just didn’t look that big in photos.
“Early worms out for birds,” Andrew said cheerfully after we’d paid and walked up the footpath.
“Please don’t steal anything,” I said absently, gazing at the stones yet seeing blood, smoke, and cliffs over saltwater.
This was not one of the stone circles I’d been seeing, either in nightmares or scrying. It was too massive and close, too distinct with some of the top stones still in place after thousands of years.
Still, I felt the sense even more deeply that this was right. That I should be here. While Zar read the signs and Andrew was scoping out the small crowd, Isaac followed me around the stones like a polite guard dog. I told him I was fine and if he wanted to do me a favor he could watch Andrew instead. I wasn’t going to leave here with him carrying stolen property.
Which was why I was alone, standing back to gaze at the stone circle from the less crowded north side, when a man approached me.
“Good morning. Are you Cassia, by chance?”
Goddess, I don’t know why, but my instant reaction was terror. Isaac should have stayed with me. All of them. That’s what they were here for, right? Not that they’d done much protecting. But this was it. When someone got word of what we were doing—someone sinister—and we should all be sticking together.
Yet … the guy didn’t look all that sinister.
Very young, sandy-haired, glasses that made me think of just discovering Andrew had them. A slight figure, even boney, everything about him, from the preppy sweater around his shoulders to his looking as athletic as a drinking straw, screamed academia. He may be a mage, but otherwise he didn’t exactly look alarming.
As I took a step back, then caught my own fear and nodded, it struck me that he was the one who looked nervous.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw you on the trail and I thought that might be you coming up. I’m here practically every day.” With a tentative smile. “And you were on my mind this morning so it was one of those natural divines.”
I nodded, willing my pulse to settle. “Are you a scry?”
“I wish.” An embarrassed sort of laugh. “I’m a druid. Ellasandra told me about your visit. She’s my great aunt. It’s a tight community.”
“I see…” Yet I felt more suspicious, not less. Wasn’t this a tidy coincidence?
“I’ve been studying the stones for years. I often come out in the morning or evening and just watch the way the sun moves across the circle. But this morning I came to meditate on you and offer blessings. You see, I’ve been hoping to track clues in this case myself. That’s why Ellasandra rang to tell me about you last night. When I saw you with those three just now, I thought it might really be you.”
He paused, taking a breath. “I’m Rowan. And ‘druid in training’ may be more apt. If I may…?”
I let him take my hand, also with a deep breath, watching his anxious eyes, blue as the horizon and so sad I wanted to ask if someone else had died.
“You’re our hope,” he said quietly, making me shiver, remembering another’s words a few days before. “Natural paths always lead us to what is right for us. Natural divine guided my step and yours today.” He pressed my hand in both of his.
“Do you live here? Have you been able to follow up any clues?” Still uneasy, I watched him closely.
“I do, not far, but university studies and personal studies devour my time. I wish I had something to offer. Police have investigated the two members we’ve lost as well, but nothing from them either—not a lead nor suspect. All I can tell you is we don’t know why we’re being targeted and we need help as badly as your friends here. If shifter conflicts are beginning again, if we only knew where and why, perhaps we could at least get out of the way.”
He shook his head, looking up from our hands to my face. “We only want to preserve natural divine. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I wondered if you would be willing to keep in touch? If I discover anything new, I’ll let you know.”
“I don’t understand. What shifter conflicts?”
He glanced away across the stones to the others. Zar and Isaac were walking toward us on the grass.
“All we have to go on are these shifter deaths, with druids somehow caught in the middle. If we only understood what was happening and how we could stay away…”
“So you also think shifters are top suspects? Why?”
“Who else would even be physically capable of this?” He shook his head sadly, still holding my hand, warm and gentle. “Ellasandra said they’ve lost seven. We hadn’t known it was that bad. We may be judging them unfairly. But I’ve long heard rumors of disenfranchised packs, solitary shifters who abandon packs all together, and those of London and other urban places who shun their own kind. Then there’s history to consider. Of course, we don’t know for sure. We have shadows and blank pages on our hands.”
He looked past me to the others, releasing my hand, but gave me another sad smile. “If there’s anything we can do, if you need any aid from the druids, we will do all we can. If we’re in this together we can strengthen all our chances.”
I turned to Isaac and Zar. Like Ellasandra, he knew what they were. He appeared intimidated by the idea. I couldn’t blame him. Isaac in particular looked like he could snap this scholarly youth over his knee.
Rowan introduced himself to them and they shook his hand, neither saying more than their names as I told them how he knew about us.
“It’s an honor t-to meet. I’m s-so sorry for what’s been happening to your kind.” Rowan gulped.
“Could you give us a minute?” I touched the young man’s shoulder and walked off with him closer to the barrier and stones, hoping to soothe his nerves now that my own had settled.
Isaac and Zar waited, only watching us.
“You’re right,” I told Rowan. “If you keep in touch, it might help you both. If you learn anything more, or you experience more losses… And they could tell you if they find out more. How can we send messages?”
“Oh…” He looked even more flushed and uncomfortable. “You mean with magic? Druids aren’t really casters. I was hoping … I could give you my mobile number?”
I almost laughed. “Well, I don’t know why that didn’t jump to my mind. You use such things?”
“Of course.” He smiled then. “If we could just text it might be easier than … performing rituals to send missives on the breeze.”
“Wouldn’t it, though? Thank you for bringing me back to reality. You have to use international dialing for my phone. And I don’t know how long I will even be involved in this, but I’ll pass your number along to others working on it.”
He nodded and gave me his number to put into my phone with the country code.
I took both a literal and emotional deep breath as I typed.
For some reason, this felt like getting somewhere far more than the sight of the stones. Finally druids and wolves able to reach each other by modern means if they wanted to share new evidence or theories.
“If there’s any way I can be of service to you, you’ll let me know?” Rowan repeated. “And I hope you’ll be careful while you’re helping them—helping all of us.”
“You too if you’re meaning to inve
stigate this for your people. Thank you for coming forward.”
“Thank you for listening. I was afraid I’d scare you off. It probably sounded mad that I knew your name. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I shook my head. “I’m glad you did.”
He thanked me again, I promised to be in touch, and he walked on around the stones, watching shadows and sun, which he’d probably seen in this spot hundreds of times and still fascinated him.
“Quite the collector, aren’t you?”
I looked around to see Andrew almost at my shoulder. “Collector?”
“Of males.” His eyes were hooded behind the glasses, smirking at me.
“Collecting something implies deliberate action. This is not my fault.”
“Interesting word choice.” He arched an eyebrow. “Don’t judge me because I’m sexy, eh? Ready to go?”
“Don’t you care what he wanted?”
“I’m not deaf, darling. Name’s Rowan. Thinks we’re a bunch of barbarians meaning to kill each other off. Bet he never got a woman’s number that fast in his life.”
“Where were you?” I looked around. There was nowhere to hide. He might have been behind other sightseers, but he could not have been close without me seeing him.
Andrew stepped forward to pull jingling car keys from my ear. “Ready? Wolves are getting hungry.”
Isaac and Zar walked up to us.
“Where did you get those?” I asked.
“I just showed you. You ask so many strange questions.”
“Give them back to Isaac. Unless you’re wanting to drive now?”
“Please.” He curled his lip. “I don’t drive four-wheels. Most of us don’t. Kage is just a freak who likes to compensate for other deficiencies with extra wheels. And Isaac knows how to be a good little worm.” He threw the keys at Isaac. “Now, lunch?” Walking away.
“None of you drive?” I looked around at Zar as we also started to walk. So there had only been two options for driver all along?
“We ride bikes,” Zar said.
And hardly any phones between them. All fitting.
I sighed. “Zar, is it true there’s a history of shifters killing each other?”
“That was a long time ago. And they didn’t use tactics like this.”
“Even so, no one could have mentioned that? The more I learn from outside sources the more I feel like you already knew what was happening but you’re hoping I’ll come up with an answer to point the finger somewhere else.”
“Cassia?” Zar kept pace with me. “Last night—” He was looking at my bruised arm.
“Forget it.”
“It was my fault. It shouldn’t have happened. I only wanted to protect you.”
“I know that. You all act on impulse. Sometimes you need to slow down and think, see what’s going on first. But my arm is fine. It’s just bruised. It’ll be better in a couple days.
He looked pained, more distressed. As if I’d said it would be a couple of months.
How much more did they know about this that they hadn’t mentioned? And what was I going to do about it? Was I still involved? Was it time to bow out?
“Cassia—”
“Don’t. It’s fine. Give me another minute with the stones.” I stopped at a good vantage.
Zar showed every intention of remaining with me.
Isaac, however, gave him a look and Zar followed him to wait at some distance on the trail. Was their hearing really that good?
After more time gazing at the circle, I said, in a soft, normal voice, as if speaking to someone personally close, “Isaac, can you hear what I’m saying?” I glanced at him, thirty or forty yards away.
Isaac nodded.
Maybe he only did because I looked to him?
“What’s the square root of four?” I asked, a bit softer.
Isaac held up two fingers.
Damn…
“Go on,” I said again to the stones. “Let me sit here a minute. See if I can see anything else. Then we’ll get out of here and find lunch. And please make sure Andrew doesn’t have anything he ‘nicked.'”
I sat on grass in the sun, watching those great standing stones, and didn’t push, just waited and let my vision run clear.
I didn’t see stone circles. Then I knew: I already had that answer. Rowan was the answer.
Natural paths always lead us to what is right for us. Natural divine guided my step and yours today.
For him, natural divine. For me, magic and dreams. At the end of the day, weren’t they the same thing?
Rowan had been the reason for visions of standing stones last night and this morning.
And this treasure hunt? The next step?
We would just have to keep tumbling down the rabbit hole.
Chapter 27
We arrived back at the mobile home park early in the evening, Kage driving, as I’d offered for the last leg. He could save face this way, driving his own car back home with his family watching—and he certainly seemed less tetchy after Isaac gave back his keys.
In long shadows a group of children were playing what looked like capture the flag on old bicycles and tricycles up and down the pitted drive to their homes. They left their game to ride around the Jeep, yelling at us, asking questions, as soon as we pulled up beyond the orchard.
“Did you find bad guys?”
“What did you eat?”
“Did the American witch use magic?”
“Did you bring food?”
It took a while for Kage to be able to stop outside their homes. Then he and the others were mobbed piling out the doors. The kids avoided me, keeping clear of the passenger door, casting me curious or downright scared glances, but yammering at the others.
This was a weird experience because I love kids. I’d been a locally sought-after babysitter in my day. The job I was starting at the end of August was upper elementary school level and I couldn’t wait. Kids who were old enough to really question and work on complex concepts, but preteen, still eager to have those projects as long as you knew how to get their interest.
According to this lot, you’d have thought I had the plague.
There were six or seven of them, filthy hands and knees, mostly barefoot, dusty, beaming and bouncy. Males and females had short hair and no difference in their dress—mostly cut-offs and T-shirts, though some were shirtless.
“Jason, did you see me take that jump? Elam said I couldn’t make it!”
“Andrew, what did the worms give you today? Did you bring me anything?”
“Did you meet the druids?”
“Are druids shifters?”
“What’d you bring to eat?”
“Pick me up!”
Kage picked up a little girl and tossed her to his shoulders as easily as a dish rag.
“Did you eat chicken?” she shrieked. “You smell like chicken!”
“Chicken!” they all screamed, most leaping about.
“Zar!” A couple ran for the caravan as Zar, then Jed, stepped out.
“Do you have chicken?” Scrambling to get a look inside.
“Do me! Me next!”
Andrew had just pulled a pound coin from the ear of a little boy and he repeated the performance for another.
“Chicken! Chicken!”
The littlest, three or four years, was tugging Isaac’s slacks and he squatted down for the kid to whisper in his ear.
Zar and Jed were having to display their open hands and open mouths. “We don’t have chicken.”
“Why don’t you show me your jump, Adam?” Jason said. “Did Hannah fix your ramp?”
“Yes! Elam said I couldn’t but I did!” Adam grabbed his bike and raced off for a battered plywood jump.
“Where’s our cataja, Helah?” Kage asked the girl clinging to his hair.
“With Abraham. He’s sick.”
“Sick? How’s he sick?”
“Mum says he’s sick. There was a kitty in the barn. She thought she’d move in and own th
e place.”
“Oh, yeah? What’d you do?”
“Me and Noah said raaarrr and chased her up the oak tree. Noah climbed up but she scratched him and he fell. She won’t come back. She was soooo scared. Fur like this—” Helah held out her arms wide and, in so doing, fell off Kage’s shoulder.
He caught her and put her back. “Good work, Helah. Last thing we need around here’s a cat infestation.”
“She was a bad cat! I told her. Noah told her. We were a good pack.”
“You are a good pack. That’s great teamwork.”
“Kage? Did you find druids?”
“Yes. And you know what? They had no chicken.”
The girl gasped. “Why?”
“I don’t know. They’re just a bunch of apes.”
“Rebecca brought a worm home today.”
“That red-headed bloke who smells like motor oil? The one Jason introduced her to?”
“Yes. And she said, ‘Don’t tell Kage.’” Beaming.
“You’re a good pup, Helah.”
“Upside down!” Helah screamed.
Kage held her upside down by her ankles and stepped away from the rest to swing her around while she howled with laughter, hands out over her head as if riding a roller coaster.
This distracted chicken seekers as they all wanted rides and Zar spun one as well.
Isaac was walking away for one of the single-wides, holding the tiny hand of the tricycle rider who’d whispered to him. I followed, passing the plywood jump and Jason telling Adam he could do better than that if they moved the jump over to the downhill part of the drive.
I couldn’t keep from looking back. Andrew was going through his rucksack from the Jeep to see if he had anything more to hand out. Jed was letting another one search the trailer—presumably for chicken.
Isaac paused on steps to a blue door with chipped paint and a bashed in knob. It stood ajar.
“Are you all right, Cassia?”
“What?” I looked around. “I was just … distracted. You all are popular.”
Isaac smiled in that soft way he had that was reassuring and knowing and sexy at the same time. “Pups are life. The whole pack is involved. There’s no such thing as an orphan in a wolf pack. Each birth is Moon’s blessing and births are not common these years. Reuben? Will you go in to your mum? I’ll be right there.”
Moonlight Desire: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 1) Page 17
