“Kage! Kage! Kage! Peter wants you! He says bring a shovel!”
Chapter 12
“I already filled those in today,” Kage said, going to the door as the little figure appeared.
The pup jumped, staring into the space in shock, just as Zar had. “What happened?” he sounded scared.
“We have a human guest,” Kage said.
He looked at me, blinking, all around, then whispered to Kage, “Do they nick things?”
Kage shook his head. “No, she just put stuff away. Tell Peter I already filled in those Moon-cursed trenches. And if Jed keeps digging up the willows I’ll fill in his face.”
“Peter says you missed the ones under the hedge.” A broad smile then, gleeful to be spreading bad news.
“Under the hedge—? What's he doing digging under the hedge?”
“Maybe he wanted to see the other side.” Still chipper. “Did you get steaks and fish for dinner?” He’d been sniffing.
“Want a bone, Adam?” Jason retrieved one, warm and meaty, from the fridge and offered it as Adam dashed in.
He snatched it from Jason’s hand and raced back outside, shouting, “Peter says get Kage, tell him to bring a shovel, missed under the hedge!” Then he bounded off down the alley path with his prize, singing, “Adam has a bone, a stick and a stone! Adam has a bone, a stick and a stone!”
Muttering, Kage stalked out after him.
I got up for the dishes, but Jason was already rushing to do them so I just stood at the window, watching Kage go.
Jason was telling me again how glad he was that I was here, then interrupted himself to say he heard motorcycle engines. That would be the group coming in from Brighton.
In another minute, I heard them as well. I went on standing there, watching after Kage in evening sunlight.
Adam raced back past, screaming as other pups chased him. Now all yelling, “Adam has a bone!”
They vanished, while the high, birdie voices remained in shrieks.
Jason left the sink to set the plate of three bones back out on the counter, then returned to scrubbing grill tongs.
I thought for a long time about things Zar had told me, but more about the conversation with Kage earlier, and about the two of them that morning.
“Jason?” I said eventually, still watching outside. “You can get him to do anything you want, can’t you?”
“Kage? Sure I can.” Jason chuckled, apparently at the silliness of the question, and switched off the water. His nails looked better.
“Does it bother you?” I asked.
“Bother me?” He faced me, hands on the counter edge behind him, also looking out the window, his expression thoughtful.
“Yes.” I looked at him, but didn’t explain, watching his eyes.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” He seemed uncomfortable in my gaze then, shifting in place.
After a minute, I said, “Okay. I just thought I’d ask.”
“Cassia,” he started, tense, “I love Kage. More than anything. I’d do anything for him also, just like he’d do for me.”
“I never said you wouldn’t.”
A shouting gaggle of pups burst around the corner and raced to the door.
“Jason! Jason! Adam said you gave him the bone!”
Jason handed out the rest of the waiting bones in the doorway, showing them the empty plate before they would go away, still yelling and jubilant.
He put the plate in the sink and rubbed his black hair backwards, letting out a slow breath. “Has someone been talking to you about me?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I asked. I can see you manipulating Kage with my own eyes.”
Again, Jason stood there for a moment. He crossed his arms and looked at the floor, chewing his lip. “There’s nothing hidden about my relationship with Kage. ‘Manipulating’ implies deviousness. Yes, I can get him to do what I want, but we both know that. We’re on even footing. Every now and then, like last night … we don’t … mesh well. There’s a communication problem. But that’s rare. He was upset last night. I should have left him alone and I didn’t. It wasn’t a good time. But I don’t usually spend my nights in the Jeep. We have a great relationship.”
“You do?”
He looked at me. “Is this about Jed? Did Zar tell you I manipulated Kage into turning on Jed? Even though they’d been best pals?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m really sorry if you’re hurt or … unsure or concerned by anything anyone has said about me. They call me a dark star. And it started with the whole Kage/Jed thing. No one remembers what it was really like. Or they forget and sugar-coat what was happening. Blame Jason for trouble in paradise, that’s easy enough.”
He shook his head and rubbed his hair again. “I’m sorry. If I were getting mixed information, I’d be confused also. I can tell you what happened. And you can do with that what you will. I don’t mean for this to be some ‘he said,’ ‘she said,’ kind of thing. But just … what happened, for me anyway. And for Kage…”
He lifted the kettle and I thanked him.
When he’d poured my tea, he sat again in his dinner spot and I joined him with my mug across the bowl of bones. Jason ran a finger along the edges, grooved by teeth. He looked miserable, his eyes sad and his shoulders hunched forward as he gazed into the bone jungle.
“Kage and Jed were best friends. That’s true. First cousins and really close. Same games, same lessons, fighting over the same bone and trying to impress the same female.
“Once we went through transition—you know, like human puberty—things started to change. Jed was always trouble. But his dad was really messed up by then, drinking, getting pissed and staying out with humans, or coming home like that. When Gabriel left, that hit Jed hardest. It hit them both, Zar and Jed. Gabe was like their father in many ways. Gabe was silver, even then, as a young wolf. I wish he were still here. A lot of things would have been different.”
Jason let out another breath. “But they weren’t different. Gabriel junior and senior had one fight too many. Fur, skin, blood, yelling. It was sharp ice … horrible. I thought they’d both end up dead. Silvers intervened. Gabe left. We never saw him again…” He finally looked up to meet my eyes. “That’s when things got really bad with Jed. He became a stranger then. He tried the drinking, he chased sheep, he bit wolves in skin. He was going right along with his father. And who was at his side? His cousin. His best mate.
“By that time, I fancied Kage anyway. I’d sort of been after him. He would run hot and cold, but always back to Jed: out for another night on the beach or tearing up the back field where they weren’t supposed to be, drinking a lot, and I don’t know what all. Of course Jed’s sire didn’t do a thing. Showing him the way into trouble, in fact. And his mum was in poor health. Kage’s parents would get after him, restrict him, but he’d just keep it up.
“They were running with death. You can’t go on like that and the pack not stop you. So you know what I did? I did everything anyone has told you I did. I turned Kage against Jed. I started fights with them anytime I could. I knew how to get Kage’s attention: fawn on him. He’s a bloody peacock. And I love that about him. He’s gorgeous and strong and he knows it. So I did. A fawned on one—got him to stop with the drinking and find healthy interests—and teased the other. Jed started going after me. Skin, fur, didn’t matter. Kage was his running mate and he could see how things were going. The way he’d made himself a stranger, his father and Kage … those were Jed’s whole pack. That was it. When you see it that way … of course he was ballistic. I don’t blame him.”
Jason pushed both elbows onto the table and rested his head in his hands, voice coming out muffled.
“One night … there was a fight, worse than any of the others. Jed would have killed me, I’m sure of it. And once he trapped me, I was no match for him. I’d always relied on being quicker and having Kage around to cut him off. That night … he broke my leg … he tore me up so they had to shave off t
he fur and stitch my insides. I couldn’t change back to skin for a full Moon phase and more, just to let the wounds start to knit together and the bone set enough. Kage did get there eventually, or I’d have been dead.
“Now, they say it was ‘that Moon,’ not this one. It happened in fur. You move on. Instead, Kage went after Jed the next day while I was laid out at home, everyone wondering if I’d even make it. Jed was still in fur. He’d go for days then and not change. So Kage went on anyway, back in skin himself, shouting at Jed: dressing him down, saying he’d had it with Jed, would make sure others were through with him also, and that I was Kage’s pack, not Jed.”
Jason dragged his hands down his face and leaned his nose into his fist, once more gazing at the bones.
“So Jed went for him. He’d bit skin before. Bit Kage before. But it was like me: he would have killed Kage. Went for his neck and everything.” His voice grew very soft. “I’m glad I didn’t have to see that. All kinds of silvers and core and family were involved getting them apart and taking care of Kage. He was also stitched up and couldn’t change for weeks.
“I wanted to be with him so much. I kept trying to get up, to get out and find him, but the leg…” Shaking his head. “Andrew finally brought him to me. After a few days, Kage was up and came to lie on the floor with me. He’d stay there for hours and stroke me and talk to me, or read aloud or sleep. I wanted to be with him forever like that, close, even if it was just the two of us as a pack. Because it wasn’t only Jed who hated me. Many wolves saw a little of what was happening, not the full story, and they saw me ‘manipulating’ and getting in trouble with them, just trying to draw Jed out to be an arse, I guess. I don’t know what all they think.”
He stopped for a while and sat back.
“I’d do it again. The way things went… It wasn’t long after that when they executed Gabriel Senior. And Jed defended him. He had the gall to stand in the way, fight in fur. I thought they’d kill him. They almost did. Jed had been in so much trouble himself. Still, it was small compared to his father—who bit a human child. Jed was torn up also, facing the whole pack the way he did. Maybe they’d have gone through with it in the heat of the moment. It gets like that. You can’t think. You just go in and bite.
“You know what stopped them?” Looking up suddenly while I met his eyes. “Isaac. Isaac had recently moved to the area then. Just getting to know the pack in fur while all this was going on. The night they did it, he was there in fur while they took Jed down and he stopped them. Later, he argued to the silvers. The deeds of the father were not those of the wolf. They said that wasn’t it, that Jed’s own crimes were enough. He’d just bitten me in skin again, among plenty more. But, where Isaac came from up north, I guess they didn’t handle problems the same way. Anyway, Jed was still not much better than a yearling. And everyone knew what a huge influence his father had on him. With his sire gone and Isaac making a case for him, they let him off.
“Jed also quit with the drinking and sheep hunting then. Now he’s just a stranger. But he’ll still bite. You saw, just the other day, he bit Zar. We thought we were rid of him when he took up with the Beech Pack, but he came padding home eventually.
“So … does that make me right? Or Jed? Does it make all the wolves who call me a dark star right? I don’t know. I can only tell you what happened for me. Maybe there was a better, and kinder, way to save Kage. Yes, I have Kage wrapped around my paw. I know that. I like his attention. I love him even more for having been through what we did together. And I’m not perfect. I still give Jed a hard time, even if I shouldn’t. But I’ve never done anything with the intent to hurt Kage, or in some way exploit him. All I did with Jed was try to save Kage’s life before it was too late. I did want Kage—his life spared, his sobriety, his love. And I got him. I’d have done the same thing to protect him even if it meant sending him into the arms of any other in the pack. If that meant he’d be safe and he’d also have someone he loved. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to. I got both Moons. I know how blessed I am for that. The only thing I didn’t walk away with was respect from my pack…”
He looked around the little rooms and back to me. “But I’d rather have Kage anyway.”
Chapter 13
Kage had come stalking back, muttering about, “If vulture-face digs into those roots one more time—” before I took my leave to visit Isaac.
I didn’t reach Isaac, though.
The pups were out for the evening, presumably after having lessons and being fed. They were playing a capture the flag sort of game involving a lot of running, screaming, chasing, tackling, and taking desired objects from one another. These objects were things like flying disks and rubber balls. I knew because they sailed past my face as I tried to walk.
I moved over to the edge of the alley as three or four of them chased after a blue rubber ball that another was trying to catch from a teammate and get away with.
They were all different ages, with little in the way of generation clusters, from maybe three or four years, hardly old enough to run at all, up to pre-teens.
“Over here! Throw it to me!”
“Get Elah!”
“Adam, catch it!”
The shrieking bunch tore around the homes, weaving in and out of sight, but always in sound.
When someone shouted, “Andrew!” I spun around.
Probably just a young one with the same name, but—no.
There he was, walking up to Kage and Jason’s door.
I knew at once he was looking for me.
When his name was shouted, Andrew also looked around.
As pups rushed him, he spotted me far beyond at a corner.
He grinned. I smiled back, grateful to see in his face he wasn’t upset like Kage, or overwrought like Zar. It was a gift to see him, a warm hug on a cold day. Not only because he was a godlike vision in the summer sun, but mostly because he meant we were nearly all back together again.
Then pups piled into him, almost knocking him to the ground.
“Andrew! Andrew! Snake chain!”
“Snake chain! We want snake chain!”
Andrew staggered and waved them off. “That’s a field game. You’d go through someone’s window here.”
“No! There’s room!”
“Right here! Just a short one!”
“Right through a window and into someone’s oven.” Andrew crossed his arms. “Slam, bang, and you’d be baked in a pie.”
“A short one!” they howled.
“How many?” he asked.
“Five!”
“Too many.”
“Four!”
“Too many.”
“Three! Just three, Andrew!”
“Okay, three and take turns.” He offered his hand to the nearest girl. “Everyone else, sod off!”
There was a scramble for two others to catch hands, then the losers dashed away to give them space.
Snake chain turned out to be what I’d always called crack the whip. But I’d played it with other kids, maybe a big sibling. I’d never played it with anyone as strong as Andrew. That was no idle boast about going through windows.
Only the female closest to him managed to hang on after he’d slung them around and jerked them to a stop. The two younger pups on the outside went flying, one through the weeds and into a shrub beside a home, the other right across the alley and smashing into a wall.
A head poked out a window above the crashed victim.
“All right, Elah?” the grown-up called.
“We’re playing snake chain!” Elah shouted back, howling now with laughter. “I went the farthest! I’d have gone all the way to the sea without your den, Joanna!”
“Good work, Elah. Your mum will be proud. Andrew, that’s a field game!”
“I told them!” Andrew shouted back. He was already starting the next chain.
Again, pups flew in all directions, screaming, laughing, one scraped knee, and boasting about who’d gone the farthest.
Twic
e more, some coming back for seconds. Then they crowded around again, panting, covered in dust, a couple slightly bloody. Everyone reaching for his hands.
“What’s this game?” Andrew asked.
“What?”
“How many games have you played for the evening?”
“Just two. This makes two.”
“You can’t finish the evening with less than six games. Bet no one here has a good enough nose to find the robin’s nest in the willow trees. Probably too high for you shoddy lot to climb up for anyway.”
All thoughts of snake chain were forgotten as they went ripping off toward the back of the property and the willow grove there, yelling about being first to climb.
As she started past him, Andrew grabbed the shoulder of a little female in a yellow jumper.
“Hold up, Mary. All right there?”
“I can climb too.”
“I know you can. You’re a strong pup. You really tackle a challenge. If you go after a bird like that, though, she’ll smell you coming.” He pointed at the pup’s knee and, as she turned back to him, I also saw the blood running from her knee to her bare ankle.
Mary looked disappointed when she saw it. More like she knew it meant bad news than that it was actually troubling her.
“I want to climb too,” she said in a quavery voice.
“I know you do, sunflower. But I’ll tell you a secret about how to spot those nests if you want to stick with me and let me clean that cut.”
Her eyes widened and she reached up to him.
Andrew picked her up as Joanna’s head reappeared.
“How bad’s the damage?”
“It’s nothing, Jo,” Andrew started.
Mary stuck her dangling limb out toward the window. “It’s bad, Joanna. Andrew says I’ll scare the birds.” She regarded her own leg again. A drip of blood splashed off her heel to dirt below.
Joanna sighed. “Oh, love, come here. Andrew, really—”
“No!” Mary shrieked as Andrew carried her toward Joanna. “Andrew’s going to tell me the nest secret!”
Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4) Page 8
