Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4)

by K. R. Alexander

  The pups, valiantly chomping at their kills, were nevertheless yawning and growing wobbly on their little hands and knees.

  “Blimey, I’m tired,” Kage said and yawned.

  They yawned again.

  “What do you think? Just about time to curl up in a nice den after a successful hunt? How are we going to get there?”

  “Shoulders,” Helah yawned.

  “I’m a … knight…” Yawn from Noah. “And I’m riding my war horse home…”

  “Kage?” Helah slumped against him as he sat up. “Mum’s mean. I don’t want a bath.”

  “You sure, birdie? Is she mean all the time?”

  “Well…”

  “Think she’ll be mean when you get home?”

  “Um…”

  “What will she do when you get home?”

  “Well…”

  “Will she sing you a song when you curl up?”

  “I guess.”

  “Will she say a prayer with you and say she’s blessed to have you?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Will she kiss you goodnight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does that sound terribly mean?”

  “I guess not…”

  “Come on, birdie.” He kissed her forehead and stood up. “Sir Noah of Four Paws, do you reckon your charger might be a bit lame?”

  Jason heaved a sigh and rolled onto his chest with Noah tugging at his ruff. Noah climbed on his back before Jason stood up. He did look somewhat crippled.

  Out the door, the two pups yawned, “Moon bless,” to each other as Helah rode away to her home on Kage’s shoulders and Noah rode away on his war horse.

  By the time two of the four returned, I was back in the chair, doodling instead of making scrying notes. I flipped the notebook page when the door opened so they wouldn’t see sketches of pups.

  Kage fixed vanilla almond herbal tea. Jason changed in the dark bedroom and flopped across the bed. Kage refilled my cup and returned it to me. He seated himself on the floor with his own mug—right before my chair, facing me.

  “Making a list?” Kage asked, voice hushed in the now strangely quiet room.

  “Very funny. Hold on—” I withdrew a foot as he was pulling off my sock. “I thought we had your assurance you would leave me alone?”

  “That’s for bed.” He slipped off my sock, holding my ankle. “This is just friendly. Need to unwind before a trip into the city, right?”

  I remembered Andrew massaging my feet in London as I watched Kage.

  “Thought maybe … I could tell you a story.”

  “Oh yes?” I asked.

  He rubbed both feet, sliding warm, slightly work-rough hands down them, pressing to the toes.

  “Only,” he continued. “I already did. So maybe you’d tell me one.”

  “What about?”

  “About … how you’d train a young caster. If you were going to do such a thing.”

  “Well…” We both watched his hands. “I’d start with a few books on magical theory and energy. Then I’d go to meditation, shamanic journeys, vision quests, opening sensitivities to subtler energies and awarenesses around us.”

  “Anyone can meditate.”

  “I suppose so. Kage—?”

  He drew up my foot to kiss my toes. Which I watched, let him do, shivered, and finally caught myself and pulled away.

  “We should get ready to go.”

  “Loads of time.” He rubbed the foot still left to him.

  “But we don’t. That’s the thing.”

  Kage looked up, meeting my eyes. “There’s this Moon.”

  I swallowed. “Do you want to … try a meditation? I can guide you.”

  He gave me a rather sad look, like I’d let him down. Also like he was trying to decide if he could get away with pushing me or not.

  At last, “All right. You’re the teacher.”

  Chapter 16

  My pack together again, speeding north to London on quiet motorways before midnight.

  Sort of.

  As we rode into London, I thought of Jed. Who had not showed up to join us.

  London hadn’t seemed all that dangerous before. I was more concerned about the local mundane population than about vampires. In company, I wasn’t even worried about them. But, maybe that wasn’t the point. Maybe what mattered about the six of us working together was as simple as us being a pack.

  The argument commenced after we parked the bikes and started toward Bateman Street, looking for the alleyway that housed the entrance to Dieter’s silent hive. Begin with that. Then, if he wasn’t home, search around nightclubs. And, last hope, split into two groups, one with Jason in fur and one with Andrew, two bipedals to each quadruped, and search the streets.

  This was where trouble started. Andrew pointed out I’d never been on Team Andrew in the city before. I’d stayed with Jason and Kage. Distracted thinking of Jed, I agreed: I’d go with him and Isaac if it came to that. Kage and Zar could go with Jason.

  Shock and outrage from the other team. Even Jason seemed hurt that I didn’t want to be with him, while Kage insisted we worked well together and should stay in our own groups as previously arranged. Utterly ridiculous even to discuss because I hoped we wouldn’t have to split up at all.

  Now in company, that private, intimate side of Kage I’d been seeing all day was replaced by the macho, peer-supervised model I’d previously grown accustomed to. Our moment of peaceful meditation—which I’d had a feeling he had never really immersed into anyway—thoroughly forgotten.

  They’d brought a few small flashlights. We paused at the rusted metal doorway into the pitch dark stairs while they found these, still snapping at each other. Jason and Andrew had a mostly empty rucksack and a messenger bag to put their own clothes in. We’d also thought to bring wooden stakes this time.

  The city felt hot and damp, muggy as the American South. Even I thought it stank, feeling close and claustrophobic.

  “Right.” I took Isaac’s light and gave it to Zar, in return snatching the duffel bag from Zar. “You, Kage, and Andrew please go down and look for Dieter. I should be the one to actually talk with him. We had some rapport. So just leave Max here and if you find Dieter come get me and I’ll go with you. If not, we’ll have to search.”

  The three of them stared.

  “Us?” Kage said.

  “You may have noticed I have a delicate stomach, darling,” Andrew said.

  Zar looked regretfully after his duffel bag.

  “Yes,” I said. “And please hurry. I only had one coffee today and that was probably a mistake.”

  General muttering as they opened the door and Kage asked, “Why’re you singling us out?”

  “Because you lot argued the most on the way here, and three is the right number to go down. Thank you for volunteering.”

  With the three of them descending into the silent hive—the memory of which almost made me gag—Isaac stood quietly beside me and Jason gazed off down the alley to the lights on Bateman Street. He was smiling as if at beautiful music.

  I still didn’t know what to think about Jason. Of course, I was inclined to believe him about their pasts—no matter that I’d been warned that he was a liar. Which made me wonder if Jason was being given a really unfair wrap, or if I was, in fact, the pack’s biggest sucker.

  I rubbed my eyes. Isaac watched me.

  “I hope he’s down there,” I said quietly. “If not … that one in Germany couldn’t even walk without a cane and Dieter isn’t far behind. I can’t imagine him getting to a club, or anywhere else, more than a few blocks away. Can you search for us? Map anything that’s open and is that close?”

  Isaac started looking up London nightclubs on his phone.

  “Jason? If he’s out, do you think you can find his trail from here?”

  Jason’s expression sagged. “I tried once already. The problem with tracking vampires is they’re non-specific. Sure, these old ones reek like a landfill, but what’s that s
mell? Death is just rotting flesh. There’s so much rot in London. It’s easy to pick them up right here. We know they come in and out. Then … everything melts away into the sewer, rubbish, waste smell of the city. It’s not like tracking a human or a wolf.”

  “What if you were nearby? If we walked around the club where he was?”

  “Probably… That might have its own problems.”

  “For your nose, you mean? Drugs, alcohol, so many people?”

  He nodded. “If you want to melt into a crowd as far as smell, that’s the sort of place to go.”

  I was surprised he knew that. I couldn’t see Zar even having any concept of what a human nightclub was.

  “Isaac?”

  He nodded, looking at the screen. “Only one very close. And another about three blocks over. Do you intend to go inside?”

  “Dieter wasn’t. At least, not how I saw him. I think he was out back in the street. But if we run out of options we may have to check…”

  “Both these are open until two in the morning. Closing might be when he gets his customers if he’s hanging about outside. We could station one group at each place. If you do want to go in, though, you’ll want Andrew in skin.”

  I couldn’t deny the logic in that. Andrew could get us through even a strict door policy, I suspected.

  “If we can’t find Dieter outside, and we do go in, maybe we could ask around. Try to find anyone who looks like they’re strung out, and do they know an old guy who sells. But, also, how would we search? Can we do that too? They won’t let us take our pet wolf in anymore than they will our exotic Russian breed.”

  “If we have to, I’d go in with you,” Jason said. “And change in there. Those places are dark, aren’t they?”

  “This is getting…”

  “Hazardous?” Isaac asked.

  “That’s a good word.”

  “We may not have to do any of this,” Jason said. “Let’s see what they say. But there’s not much point in trying to track from here. If there’s no Dieter, we might as well go right for the clubs as long as that’s our only lead. Look outside. Then, if we have to…”

  I nodded. “Go in. Can you handle that? Have you ever been inside a nightclub?”

  “Uh … once. It’s only an hour to closing. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  “Right.”

  Isaac showed me the locations on the map while we waited.

  Then, sooner than I was expecting, Kage, Zar, and Andrew climbed back out to us. Each was sweating and gasping for outside night air.

  Kage swore. Zar shut his eyes and leaned against the door as if waiting for dizziness to pass. Andrew stepped around the door to vomit in the gutter. Based on the odor and appearance of London at night, however, this would simply blend in with the overall ambiance.

  I gave them a minute and Kage delivered the news. “Not down there.”

  I looked at Andrew as he stood with his head tipped back, mouth wide like a landed fish.

  “Andrew? This might not be a good time but … ever been clubbing?”

  Chapter 17

  No teams. Andrew did a search in fur outside the three nearest clubs we could find. Turning up nothing, he changed back and we faced a much more daunting task.

  It had been a while since I’d been in a nightclub. One in Portland that some girlfriends and I hit a few times once we legally could. The kind of thing you’re waiting to do for your birthday—in fact, that had been one of our occasions when Maddie had turned twenty-one. But, after those few visits, I’d been done.

  I wasn’t a dancer, only an occasional drinker, and what was the point in the whole setting for meeting men if you couldn’t even have a conversation and the types of men you’d meet would be the types to frequent clubs? A curiosity. No more.

  So I’d never imagined being in one in London, of all places, my eardrums shattered with the music, crowd, and commotion, strobe lights making me dizzy. And if I had thought I’d do such a thing, maybe hit a club with Melanie one night while I was visiting, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be on the fringe of the crowd at the bathroom hallway beside necking couples while I waited for a shifter to change so he could sniff around the place.

  As Nana used to say, You think life’s going along fine until the cat says good morning.

  I’d thought that was funny as a girl. No more. Now…

  Someone grabbed my shoulder and I jumped, spinning around.

  “Going to be sick again in those Moon-cursed lights.” It was Andrew.

  I knew what he meant. He’d been suave getting us in and paying the cover charge for three. Inside, though, Jason and Andrew had both frozen. It had taken us fifteen minutes just to reach the bathrooms.

  “Focus on something small,” I told him. “One head in the crowd and move toward that, point to point. If you can work your way around the parameter with Jason and watch for anyone who looks altered, I’ll go to the bar and ask questions.”

  “Altered? Darling, everyone in this bloody—”

  “No, I mean like on coke. Have you ever seen that? Not just drinking. There’s a look. It’s … hard to describe. Go on instinct.” We were having to shout all this and the conversation was impossible. “If nothing else, get him to search. And I’ll meet up with you. We can text.”

  “We can’t leave you alone.”

  “I’ll be at the bar.”

  “Until a vampire finds you—”

  “No vampire is going to find me at the bar! We’re trying to find them. You can’t stay with me. I’ll never be able to ask questions if you’re there.” Or get free drinks.

  He swore, shaking his head. “If I’d known you meant to go off alone—”

  “You’ll be twenty feet away! Keep your phone in your hand.”

  He vanished, kneeling down abruptly to Jason.

  Jason had apparently been standing with his head behind Andrew’s knees, hiding from the club at large.

  “Good thing you’re black, mate. Keep a low profile or we’ll be thrown out.”

  Jason pressed his head against Andrew’s chest, his tail between his legs.

  “Don’t be a pup.” Andrew held his head. “Just a quick sniff around the edges and we’ll get out of here.” He stood up, jabbing a finger at me. “You stay in touch.”

  “I’ll be right at the bar,” I repeated. “If I’m going to move from it, I’ll text.”

  We split up, Jason slinking ahead of Andrew around the blissfully dancing, drinking, oblivious crowd, myself pressing through dancers for the bar.

  Melanie had taught me this move. Alone, I leaned my arms into the polished surface, as if ready to order a drink, looked up and down the bar, then turned my back to it, watching for “someone.”

  Ninety seconds and a tattooed guy in a partly open button-down was beside me.

  “Buy you a drink, love?”

  “Hey,” I said distractedly. “I’m looking for a friend.” Calling above the music.

  “I’ll help you out if she looks like you.”

  “Blonde, but real small. I’m afraid I’ll miss her. Think you’ve seen her?” I leaned closer to be heard.

  “I’ll keep an eye out. Get separated?” Moving in beside me—all comfy. He didn’t sound like the wolves. This must be a cockney accent.

  “No, we were supposed to meet here at the bar. I’m worried about her, actually.”

  “You American? Looking like you just walked out of Hollywood.”

  I tossed my head and giggled. “How’d you know I was from California?”

  “That accent. I can always tell. Jimmy.” He offered his hand.

  “Katie.” I shook. And I’ve hardly set foot in California in my life, clam-brain.

  “So what’s the problem? No-show?”

  “It’s not that. I’m worried because she’s been getting in trouble. She said she was clean, but there’s this old, super creepy guy she’s been buying from. I’m afraid he might hang out around here. Do they have problems with dealers?”

  “He
ll no. Elliot runs a clean show. Don’t think you’d find someone like that around here. But I know someone I can ask for you.”

  “Would you? I’d really appreciate that.”

  “Sure, love. Glad to. How about that drink? And I’ll scare up Tony for us.”

  “Thanks. That’d be great. What do you recommend? What’s classic London?”

  “Ever had the Collins? Or black velvet’s my cuppa—”

  “What is that?” Jerking my head around as a drink was whisked past us.

  “Espresso martini.”

  “This night’s getting better.”

  While I waited for the drink my benefactor texted, then squeezed down the bar, waving to catch his buddy’s attention.

  I also texted Andrew, telling him to find us a back door in his search so we didn’t have to get across the main dance floor and could also check out the back.

  I was already sipping before he did scare Tony up.

  Thank you, Goddess, for Jimmy and espresso martinis. And sorry, Jimmy. I shouldn’t have called you clam-brain.

  Nana had always been strict about the power of thoughts.

  Tony also assured me that Elliot ran a clean place. Although he knew of an old man who was a dealer in the area.

  “Don’t know his name. Don’t know where or what he sells, but I’ve seen him. Little bitty guy.” Holding out his hand below his own chest.

  I nodded, still sipping. “Sounds like him. But he doesn’t come around here?”

  “If he does, he’s doing it on the sly. I’ve spotted him out back, but you can’t catch him at anything. Only shuffling along like a bent old codger. Bet it’s an act.”

  “Sure. Could be.”

  “That’s all I can tell you, though. Good luck finding your friend.”

  “Thanks for helping out.”

  With Tony gone, Jimmy settled in beside me. He ordered a black velvet and invited me to try it. I waxed elegant over the perfection of the espresso martini, all the while slipping in questions about drug issues in the area.