Moonlight Desire: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 1)

by K. R. Alexander

Chapter 29

  I’d never ridden on a motorcycle. I wrapped my arms around Isaac, held on with my knees, and loved it so much that by the time we were five minutes out of the trailer park I knew I needed to learn to drive one at home. And get one.

  The most wonderful, free feeling. Not like being trapped in a smelly Jeep swaying and rocketing around corners at speeds beyond it. The motorcycle curved and leaned in smooth control. It must have had great shocks because the ride overall felt wonderfully silky. Just … flying. Eating up the road like a rocket, lights and stars and navy horizon streaking past.

  If it felt this good hanging on behind, what was it like to be the driver? No wonder these things inspired gangs. Which made me speculate on how many biker gangs were actually werewolves. Maybe that was the norm and even the casters didn’t know.

  Then again, perhaps being a passenger was better. I had nothing to worry about but embracing Isaac, which, given the guy I’d just left behind, I should not have been enjoying.

  Even so, I felt euphoric, hands around Isaac, making no pretense about holding on only for security—wrapped around him.

  Thinking of Zar, I was ashamed, as if at a betrayal. Yet I reminded myself, again, this was it. Goodbye. So what difference did it make? I would feel plenty bad about both of them—all of them, the whole situation—later tonight. For now, I held on and only wished the helmet were off to feel coastal summer wind in my hair.

  The journey took an impossibly short time. Isaac was speeding, but even so, it flickered past and I was having to give directions to the door.

  I’d told Melanie I’d be in tonight. Now I prayed to Goddess she would not spot me or come running out or anything like it.

  Isaac did not let me hop off on my own or leave the motorcycle idling. Again, he shut the engine off after pulling onto the sidewalk, through a gap in parallel-parked cars.

  I climbed off, reluctant to leave him, startled by the chill in the night once I was no longer leaned into his back.

  Isaac left my helmet on the bike—he wasn’t wearing one—and walked me up concrete steps to the illuminated red front door.

  “Thank you. That was … freedom. A perfect finale to the trip.”

  “You are most welcome, of course.” He stopped one step down while I stood on the landing. He was still taller than me, yet this greatly helped to level the playing field.

  “And thanks for all your driving and … responsibleness. I’m grateful to you.”

  “My pleasure.” Looking into my eyes. Right down to his smile he wasn’t like them. That smile was so much more about his eyes than his mouth. This was no Cheshire Cat but a Real Prince charming. There was something so courtly about Isaac it crossed my mind he hardly seemed to belong to this century. Perhaps no wolves did.

  I stood on the edge of the landing, too close, hand on the rail, my backpack still on yet not feeling it. I wondered if my hair looked crushed and horrible after the helmet. It hadn’t been on long, though.

  “If you need anything,” Isaac said, “please get in touch.”

  I nodded, mouth dry. “I have your number. Maybe you can let me know what happens? And if I see anything more—scrying, clues, locations in London—I’ll call.”

  “Thank you, Cassia.”

  The way he said my name was exactly like his smile. Slow, relaxed, incredibly sexy without him doing anything. Just standing there. Gazing into my eyes. Not with a focused or lustful or amused expression. Instead, his eyes were selfless. In his gaze I saw myself as the only person in the world—while he lived to look into my eyes, to do whatever I wished. Calm, respectful, awaiting his next chance to carry me over mud puddles.

  That may sound off the deep end for a mere expression. But, looking back into his eyes by the light above the door, that’s what I saw.

  I moved in no more than a hint, an inch or two.

  Isaac took it and met me.

  His lips were soft, while the short beard felt rough but not unpleasant. Only a kiss. Count of three while I felt a response all the way to the soles of my feet. Then he broke it, his face still close.

  I moved for the next one. Kissing him, repeating the contact and break.

  Again, we stood, looking into each other’s eyes.

  More firsts. I’d never had so little—two very modest kisses—yet wanted so much—him in my bed.

  “I’ll … be in touch,” I said at last. “I’ll be here another ten days or so… If…”

  “If there is anything I can do for you in that time, I pray you will also let me know. Anything you need or desire, I am at your command.”

  I swallowed.

  “May I?”

  I gave him my hand to kiss.

  “Good night, Cassia. Moon bless.”

  The way he said my name again, Goddess.

  “Good night,” I said. “And good luck in London.”

  I was inside, my back leaned into the door, flushed, breaths short, listening to the engine roar away, before I remembered I still had his gold necklace around my neck.

  Chapter 30

  Melanie wanted to stay up and talk, hear everything about my days away. She told me she hoped I could meet this guy named Geoffrey tomorrow—the British spelling of which she explained. Calling a man Jeff when it was spelled Geoff only made my head spin more.

  The wonderful thing about my big sister, though, is that she’s been my best friend all my life. Instead of spending the night talking my ear off, she got me a fresh towel for the shower and, by the time I was out, she had a cup of macaroni and cheese from a box and a mug of peppermint tea with a few chocolate chips melting in the bottom ready for my very late dinner and dessert.

  I told her about Cornwall and the wind and views and sea cliffs.

  She told me if I didn’t hurry up and start relaxing for this trip I’d never get around to it.

  While we sat up in the kitchen, I did laundry—which always seems to be situated in kitchens in this country. I’ve never seen an actual laundry room in England.

  Then she sent me to bed.

  I love you, Mel.

  I did not, however, sleep.

  I was much too busy, first imagining having slipped in here with Isaac, unseen, to this room and this bed. Then changing my mind and seeing how it would have been to stay there: Zar taking me back to his home.

  Did he have one? He must share. At the very least, they must all have a family member or roommate or still be living with parents. Father and brother gone, I guessed Zar and Jed still lived with their mom or other family.

  What about Isaac? Did he even live there? He must have means to live in Brighton if he wished, but maybe that wasn’t the nature of the pack?

  And who was Susanna to him? Was I jealous?

  Rich thinking for someone lying here dwelling on two guys at once.

  Oh, please. Who was I kidding? I was thinking of six guys. Even Jason. He and Kage had vanished after the meeting. No goodbye. Hopefully things would be okay between them now without me in the middle. Until the next pretty face, male or female, to come along and distract Kage while Jason hopefully twiddled his thumbs? Why was he so loyal to Kage? Someone needed to slap him.

  Maybe loyalty was another trait they shared—if not Kage. Jed fighting his whole pack to try to save his father’s life? Himself almost killed. And what had happened to him with the Beech Pack that he’d never talked to anyone about?

  Why hadn’t Andrew come back to the meeting? Only because he’d been a stowaway and shouldn’t have been there? Or because of me?

  I relived the kiss with Zar, switching him out for Andrew. Andrew would have had his tongue in my mouth as soon as he touched me. Until this very moment, I’d have said that was a jackass thing to do on a first kiss. Give us a minute, buster.

  But I didn’t feel that way thinking of Andrew. I wished I had Andrew here as much as Zar or Isaac. Which got me thinking about Kage. Kage would be obnoxious also.

  And what about Jed? I’d put the wildflowers from this morning in a glass
of water beside my bed. They were badly wilted from their journey, poking from my bag all day, but I hoped they’d perk up.

  I’d known he wouldn’t bite me deliberately. Scary to see those gaping jaws in my face, yes. But, somehow, I’d never really thought he could bite me last night. Had it only been last night?

  My arm still ached, incredibly tender at the slightest touch around the bruise. Yet I wished it hurt more. I wished my arm gushed blood or I had cramps or food poisoning or at least a splinter. Anything to distract from this realization that I had tears in my eyes and I didn’t even want to fall asleep.

  I just wanted to go back.

  Well … I’d have to. Isaac’s necklace.

  Give it a few days. Cool off with Melanie and the beach. Even if I had to tell her I couldn’t start meeting men with her right now.

  Then get a cab—I didn’t want Melanie up there, no explanations—and return the necklace. Go in the middle of a weekday and hope I could leave it with someone. No way I could hand it personally back to Isaac. Then I might not be able to leave.

  I was still supposed to be helping them. Doing what I could from afar. I tried and couldn’t draw the magic. I didn’t see the faces of any threatening werewolves in London bent on killing off their more traditional fellows. I saw the faces of six werewolves just a short drive away and lifetimes removed from my own.

  By the time I did fall asleep, it was for nightmares.

  The stones were gone. Followed up, scratched off the list. The magic had called me there to meet Rowan. But if knowing Rowan and Ellasandra were so important, what was next? They were such a tiny clue. Not even as revealing as stakes and amputated eyes. But at least they were solid. The latter two … as long as I didn’t know what they meant, how could they be relevant?

  Make them relevant. Find out.

  Instead of standing stones, I saw the black cityscapes. I saw smoke. And I saw a row of bodies lined up in a field with crosses at their heads. No … in graves. All dug into graves, crude wooden crosses placed above the head of each. I was seeing through the soil. There was a man walking away. An incredibly pale, sallow-faced man, wiping blood from his lips.

  A row of thin wooden stakes were laid out on a wooden table. Carved to points on one end, just right for plunging into a humanoid chest.

  I woke again covered in sweat and had to crawl from bed, wanting to tell someone aloud,

  We have to find the vampires. Druids, stones, shifters, now vampires.

  But there was no one to hear. No “we” at all.

  I clutched my own head, tears in my eyes.

  Just a dream. It hadn’t been a real scry. Just a dream.

  I lay awake again with pain in my chest sharper than my arm.

  In the morning, while the sky was only gray, I dressed in indigo jeans and a white cotton blouse. I did my face in a few minutes, brushed my teeth, repacked my overnight bag, and left a note for Melanie on the kitchen counter.

  Mel,

  I’m so sorry to take off again when I really came here to spend time with you. Something important has come up and there’s someone I think I can help. I’m sorry I can’t explain more. I’ll text you, but I may be gone a couple days again. Thank you for being so patient with me.

  Love you.

  Cass

  Chapter 31

  I asked the taxi driver to leave me at the bottom of that last curving, pitted drive up to the trailer park along the rough field. Then I walked in newly risen morning sun, backpack on, still second-guessing every step I took, but striding with purpose all the same.

  Would they be up yet? Or would they be still up? Some in fur? Or already be gone on an early train?

  As I caught sight of the park ahead, a few furry figures dashed into hiding through the alleys. They’d heard or smelled me coming and looked like no more than giant, scruffy dogs from this distance.

  So the place was dead quiet, not even birds calling, when I reached Kage’s Jeep and stopped, looking down the row of mobile homes. If I didn’t happen to see anyone, I didn’t know a door to knock on.

  I stood uncertainly, only wanting to find Isaac or Zar, or even Kage, when a honey-haired young woman in a threadbare, sky blue bathrobe stepped from around a corner.

  “Rebecca?” I smiled, starting forward to meet her. “I may have more information.”

  “Cassia? I thought that was you.” She stepped out, tears dropping from her lashes, and hugged me.

  Startled, I returned it. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m glad you’re back.” Her voice shook as she held on, yet her strength was solid and shocking, crushing my lungs. “It’s Abraham. They just brought him in. He’s dead.”

  A thrill of horror shot up my spine. At the same time, I knew at once how important this could be—the opportunity it presented.

  “I have to see him. Can you show me?” I was breathless, fighting to get the words out.

  Rebecca let me go. “Diana was worried about him being upset and roaming too far from the pack last night. She asked for volunteers to track him.” She gulped.

  “But he’s here now?” I looked around. “Can I see him?”

  She nodded and took my hand. They were at the top of the park, past a two-story timber building and before a grove of willow trees. Beyond the trees ran a thick hedge and a crop of some kind on the other side, rich with hazy, defused morning sunlight.

  Many stood about in their skin, though some in fur as well. Kage and Zar were there. So were Diana and other elders.

  A jet black wolf was first to look around at our approach, ears pricking. He ran forward and I knelt to catch his great head in both arms, hugging him while he leaned into my chest.

  “I’m sorry, Jason,” I whispered in his flattened ear.

  His fur was wet, especially around his legs and chest where he’d been through long grass and brush: one of the tracking party. His body felt tense, breaths shallow.

  When we continued, the others were all turning to us, the elders parting around the still form laid on a blanket at their feet. Zar started forward, then stopped. No one said a word, yet all eyes followed me as I shrugged off the backpack and walked on to sink to my knees by the naked body, wooden stake still in his chest.

  His face was covered in blackened blood, eyes having been carved away. His throat was sliced open nearly to bones, yet there was almost no blood below his neck, only all over his face and hair. The rest of him looked normal aside from the stake protruding from his chest. Around this wound, also, was no blood. Staked after he died. He reeked of gasoline and menthol.

  My stomach turned over, bile in my throat, and I was glad I’d had nothing substantial to eat since lunch yesterday. Even that little bit of macaroni threatened to come up, but I clenched my teeth, shut my eyes, and touched the stake lightly with my palm.

  I didn’t have to work at intention or relaxing my mind into a state of trance. I simply drew the magic and made one request.

  Show me who.

  I saw the driving in of the stake with a mallet while the body dangled upside down from a tree. It was dark, the moon high. A large man in a hood and gloves held him from the back so he did not swing around while another man hammered. They wore jumpsuits and hoods. Abraham’s blood soaked the forest floor. Final drips dropping off his hair as it trickled from his neck down the side of his head with the jarring impacts of the stake. His eyes were already gone.

  More figures stepped up with gas cans. They splashed this up to his feet, which were looped into a plastic-coated cable from a tree branch. Then down the body, soaking his skin, splattering the ground. They retreated with the cans in use, splashing the area in their wake.

  Out of the wood, over a stile, one at the rear threw out fistfuls of cayenne pepper as he, or she, backed away. Along the grass verge, they climbed into a waiting van and pulled slowly out, still scattering liquid and powder which diminished until they were driving down the main part of the road, blending in with all the other car trails back and forth. They s
hut doors and windows and drove sedately away in the dark.

  Show me more.

  A wolf pack by moonlight, running like deer in their fur. Then falling, one, two, three, dropping away in sprays of blood as if each had been shot in the throat with a shotgun.

  One, two, three, eight, a dozen.

  The man from the rows of crude graves, blood on his lips, looked into my eyes. His pupils contracted to slits like a cat’s. He smiled to reveal two pointed fangs.

  A wolf howled and another crashed into it, teeth to throat.

  Church spires ran with blood, roofs crumbled in flames. As the cities crowded into the country, wolves moved onto patches of green that shrank until the green was red with their blood while they fought their way out, leaving only a mound of bodies surrounded by urban progress.

  But not like this. How could wolves kill wolves like this?

  Find them and ask. Ellasandra’s voice. Squeezing my hand. Please, Cassia. You found us. Find them and ask. Help us. Please.

  If shifters hunting shifters, why hunt druids? Champions of nature?

  If humans hunting shifters and druids, why like this? What do they want?

  The cat-eyed man pressed a finger to his lips to silence me. Then he pointed. There, as far as I could see, were graves with plain crosses at the heads. Miles and miles of them reaching to the horizon.

  They’re all gone, you know? He spoke in my ear. Can’t you see that? It’s too late. You’re much too late.

  No!

  I sat back, gasping.

  I scrambled to my feet, weak, shaking, but unwilling to remain leaning over that mutilated face.

  Zar was there, stepping close. I did not touch him, still seeing the visions.

  “Can I speak with you?” I asked Diana quietly, unable to focus my eyes, possibly appearing drunk. “Inside?”

  She nodded, extending an arm for me to go ahead. Zar grabbed my backpack.

  The black wolf was at my side.

  I bent to him, unsteady and holding his face. “Get Isaac, Jed, and Andrew. Ask them to come with us. We can cover more ground that way and stay in groups. I’m not the one in danger. I have to tell Diana what I saw and what we’re doing. You all get ready to go and I’ll meet you soon.”