I sat in silence.
He looked up slowly from the flower to meet my eyes. “They haven’t contacted the police, have they?”
I shook my head.
“Of course not. That would be intolerable, involving humans in their lives. Yet you say you’re their friend? They’re letting you help?”
“They asked me to help. Diana did. Many did not agree with her.”
“No … I’m sure they didn’t.” He had Zar’s eyes. Not the color—all three brothers had the same dark brown—but the look of them: intelligence, thoughtfulness. Where Jed looked wary, brimming with trapped anger—and, yes, frustration—ready to burst out. Gabriel had something else though, beyond Zar. His eyes, his face, his voice. No matter how straight he sat up or how crisp and professional he appeared, an almost palpable sadness seeped from him.
Was it only because of the circumstances? The subject? Or was he so depressed his energy sagged and crumpled with it, deadening the aura around him?
“Why did you leave?” I spoke quietly.
“Why did they stay?” Again, he met my eyes.
I could hardly return his gaze, suffering I read there making my throat tight. “I don’t understand.”
“How long have you known the Sable Pack?”
“About … two weeks.” It felt like years. Yet seconds.
“I see… Well, I’m glad they’re being tolerant of you and you’re willing to help them. I’m sure you’re doing them a great kindness.”
“Tolerant? I’m trying to save their lives. They’ve been gracious. Well … the silvers, the handful I’ve met. I suppose I don’t actually know many. I’ve just now been staying there with them for a couple of days so this is all new.”
“Good to hear. I hope they keep being gracious.”
“I don’t understand…”
“You’re not talking to the right person to gain an unbiased view of those people. I left because I couldn’t live the way they do. Although I still never would have if not for my father.”
“You had a fight?”
“That’s right. He rowed with everyone, but there was one too many and one too dangerous, for us both. I brought the other three together—my mother and two younger brothers. I told them how it would be. I was the only one in my immediate family who’d started working out of the home. The other three were skilled leatherworkers, with Zar, at least, also having potential to work with humans. We would move north: any small, anonymous town, maybe in Berkshire, maybe Somerset. And we would escape, live among humans, support ourselves and work for ourselves.”
“Escape…?”
“From the xenophobic, anthrophobic, fascist, star-worshiping cult we’d been raised in.”
I just sat there for a moment, a buzzing in my ears.
Then, “I think … maybe things have changed since you were there.”
“Of course.” He gave a gentle nod. “Anyway, they wouldn’t go. Zar might have. But he wouldn’t leave Mum. And he was still really young. Seven and a half years younger than me.” Gabriel let out a breath. “I told them I wasn’t coming back. I wasn’t living like this.”
“You did?”
“What did they say? That I’d simply vanished? That they had no idea what had come over me? Some big mystery?”
“I knew about the fight and your father. Not the rest. He’s dead now, by the way.”
“I assumed. How long did it take them after I left? Do you know?”
“He’s been dead less than three years. So years after you’d gone.”
He looked away again. “I saw in the news out of Brighton about the sightings of a black wolf believed to have been someone’s illegal pet that they’d let loose, finally the attack on that little girl in a back garden. Then it all melted away.”
“But you didn’t settle in a small town. You came here?”
“I went to business school. Which was where I met the owner of this hotel as a guest lecturer five years ago. She said leadership in business wasn’t about the bottom line. It wasn’t about the economy, or growth. It was about people. Your own people and the people coming in, your clients, customers, guests. Everything she said was so spot on to my own feelings, I approached her after. We ended up talking for hours. She invited me to come work front desk here, which I did for two years while I finished school. Then assistant manager. I’ve only been in this position since late last summer, when the general manager I’d been working under retired.
“I don’t know what they’ve told you about me or the circumstances of my leaving. Or why they want to find me at all. I’ve never been worried about hiding from them. It’s not as if they come into London. But it shocks me that they are wanting to find me. What is it they think they’ll gain?”
“They miss you and they’re worried about you. They thought you were dead. They want to know you’re all right. I’m sure they’d love to talk to you and see all you’ve done.”
He gave a dry, one-note laugh, more a sound of disgust than humor. “They’d be embarrassed and sickened by the way I’m living.”
A knock at the door. Gabriel stood.
I sat there, mind racing as fast as it had when he’d walked away from me the first time. Only a few of the topics were the same, though.
Gabriel took the cart from the server with thanks and rolled it into the kitchen.
“Please.” Inviting me through with a nod and gesture of his left hand.
I settled at the indicated dining table, with upholstered wood chairs for eight. I took one end of the row of three and Gabriel sat across from me. First, he set out full servings for us both: white linen napkin, silverware, glasses of chilled, bottled water to join the coffee. He lifted a silver cover from my plate as he set it before me.
The salad was a tapestry of colors, textures, and even temperatures: hot bits of American style smoked bacon with toasted pine nuts and crunchy walnuts, then cold gorgonzola cheese crumbles, sweet and tart dried cranberries, and a mound of spinach and other bright mixed greens lightly dressed in a tangy citrus vinaigrette. All served on top of a fan of alternating pear and apple slices so thin they were translucent.
Gabriel set silver salt and pepper grinders before me, the bottle of water beside my glass, and, finally, a tiny walnut breadboard with a miniature loaf of warm sourdough and dish of herb butter with dill and lemon zest before he sat down.
I stared at that salad while Gabriel expertly flicked out his napkin and spread it on his lap. His own meal was a brie and bacon—UK style, like Canadian bacon—sandwich with a watercress side salad.
I longed to take a picture of my food, of the whole spread. And I wasn’t even like that. Not one of those people recording or sharing everything they ate. This, though…
“Thank you so much,” I said. “This is beautiful.”
He gave me a vague smile, taking up his fork for his own side salad. Still, he looked sad. “Please enjoy. I’m sorry, you … must have a poor impression of me after how I behaved downstairs. It’s … I had not seen one of them in six years.”
“No, I … well, I won’t tell you ‘I understand.’ It’s not as if I know what you’ve been through. But I can certainly sympathize. That must have been a shock. I wish there’d been another way. Send you an email and give you some warning. Although, I don’t suppose we’d have heard back.”
As we both started to eat, he drew a business card, smooth and expensive feeling as the menu, from the breast pocket of his jacket, which he slid across the table.
“Should you ever wish to get in touch. I assure you, I’ll reply as soon as I can.” Slight smile again, yet those eyes broke my heart.
“Why? Why would you want me to be able to reach you? Do you want them to? Your family? Would you be willing to talk with your mother? Meet your brothers here? Or come home to see them? I’m afraid for them. And I’m afraid of the difficulties they could place themselves in by not letting this go.”
Gabriel ate his salad delicately, fork in his left hand, occasionally us
ing the knife in his right. Partway through, he set them down to pick up half the sandwich. The bacon was chunky and the brie like a whole wedge had gone into it. Slightly warm and melted.
“I’m sorry for what’s happening to them. Very sorry,” he said quietly after a minute. He chewed for a long time after each bite. “If I can help with what you’re doing in any way, I will. You need only ask. Your search has brought you to London? Do you need a room? I can make arrangements for you. If it would help you to base your investigation here? I have a personal guest room.” He gestured back toward the living room. “At your disposal. I’m seldom in. Even in the evenings. This place keeps me busy. So I wouldn’t disturb you. Or I can arrange a couple of our regular rooms for you if you’d like to remain in town with some of the others who are helping.”
“You’re very kind to offer that. You obviously still care about them. But you’re not answering my question.”
“I know.”
We ate in silence for a long time.
I had to force myself to slow down from the spectacular salad, slicing off a little of the loaf and spreading it with the herb butter, nibbling that while I waited.
At last, with one half of his sandwich gone, Gabriel said, “I will not go back there. Ever. But you may give my mother my number. I’ll talk to her. If Zar and Jed wish to see me, I’ll meet them in the park. Not here.”
“Thank you.”
Another long silence.
“Is your lunch all right?” he asked in that same quiet, withdrawn voice that went with his suffering eyes.
“It’s the best salad I’ve ever had. One of the best meals probably.”
He nodded. Grimly. And wiped his mouth with his napkin as his phone rang in a light chime that I at first thought came from wind chimes outside.
“Please excuse me.” Gabriel stood to answer. Only away for thirty seconds, explaining not to worry, something had been switched from this Sunday to next Sunday. He returned with another apology.
“That’s fine. I’m barging in on you. I appreciate you talking with me at all.”
Again, he did not seem comforted. He only ate.
“Gabriel? You don’t happen to know anything about vampires, do you? Or … if there are other … people like yourself living in London?”
“I’m not a part of that world.”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just … the lead we’re following now suggests that vampires—young, newly spawned ones—are responsible for these killings.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Before that,” I went on carefully, “we suspected it was other shifters. Wolves killing wolves. That trail ran cold because we couldn’t find much more than a scrap of evidence that there are any urban shifters in London at all. Finding you here makes me wonder again if there are city wolves and if … they all hate the more traditional packs like the ones in the South Coast Cooperative.”
“I don’t hate them. I just don’t agree with them. Nor they with me. And you need not worry about there being city wolves sneaking out to murder country wolves. There are no wolves in London.” He met my eyes, unblinking. “Only a whole lot of people from diverse backgrounds. No wolves.”
Chapter 33
The train journey home was the longest yet. An impossible grind of stops and starts, people on and off, hours sunk in torpor.
Or so it seemed.
Then we arrived in Brighton and the journey had flashed past. In another breath we were riding up the jagged road to the mobile home park on the two bikes.
In half a blink, I was having to face Zar and Jed with a smooth business card pinched between my sweaty fingers. I’d taken a photo of it, to keep a record of the information for myself. Now, though, all too soon, the honeymoon was over.
All that time, all that train ride and drive here, yet I had nothing to say that didn’t stick in my throat.
The two brothers had heard our bikes and hurried from the workshop to meet us, Jed with an unfinished boot in his hands, both looking to me for news.
I held out the card to Zar with a galaxy of things I’d wanted to say—needed to say, should say, should explain, justify. Instead, he took the card, Jed stepping forward to see as well, and I watched their faces in silence as they read the name above General Manager. And it was just as well I couldn’t speak because there was nothing more to say right then.
They stared as if I’d pushed his casket in front of them and opened it.
Andrew, Kage, and Jason had climbed from the parked bikes and watched us.
Despite noise from the workshop and laundry room and running pups and music far off along a row, everything seemed very still, very cold.
Zar looked up, his expression more than shocked: sick, crushed. “You met him?”
“Yes. He says he’ll see you at the park, and talk to your mom on the phone. If you want to.”
Jed, who’d never taken his eyes from the card, spun on his heel and marched off through the gravel. Past the wide open double doors, he hurled the boot viciously inside and kept going, heading for the willow trees at the back of the property.
Still, Zar only stood there, tears in his eyes as he looked again at the card.
I hugged him and he bowed his head onto my shoulder.
I wanted to tell him not to worry about Gabriel. That his oldest brother had made a new life for himself where he was happy. That Gabriel had found his own niche in the world and was enjoying his own success and had a new family to call his own.
But I couldn’t lie to Zar. So I just stood there with him for a long, long time in a very loud silence.
Chapter 34
It was late in the afternoon—dinnertime smells of roasting meat beginning to fill the park—before I returned to Atarah’s home. To my relief, she was not in. I lay across my bed, watching the ceiling.
I’d wanted to get a proper tour of the park today if we were home. I could not, however, find Kage. Rebecca, who I needed to see anyway, would be good company for a tour. Kage’s nineteen-year-old sister had been a blessing all along the way for me, yet I hadn’t had a chance to speak to her since returning. Could go find her…
Push myself. Get up and move.
Yet, if I was going to see anyone, it really should be Kage. In private.
I’d just been at his place getting my stuff for here. Not like it was an accident, him making himself scarce.
Give him a minute. Give us a minute. I needed one as much as he did. We could talk later and, no matter how mad he still was with me, perhaps it would help both of our respective mental and emotional states if I had a chance to admit that he’d been right all along.
Since he wasn’t around … keep moving. Faie, translator, death … I couldn’t just lie here all evening.
Instead of pushing myself, I replayed the conversation with Gabriel. Again and again.
He wasn’t my brother. I hadn’t wanted anything from him. I was no more opposed to his lifestyle than to those of the people currently around me. I admired what he’d done, striking out, growing a staggeringly successful career from nothing in a matter of years.
Yet the grief. Grief in him. In them. Now in me…
Voices through the open window had changed from laughing pups to angry grown-ups. Breaking through my circular thoughts as they raised to shouts.
Kage?
I was back out in the sun with my new Swedish sandals from my sister on before it crossed my mind to stay away.
I went on anyway, able to make out voices as I headed for the back of the property.
I didn’t see or hear Kage. Peter and Zar were involved again, as well as several others. Even pups who turned out to be up in the willow trees.
“So he was still in skin when you saw him, Adam?” Peter called into a tree.
“Skin but alone,” Adam called back. “Mum says no one’s to go anywhere alone now, not even silvers. Not even Moon.”
“And you couldn’t be bothered, Eleazar—?”
“I
didn’t know what he was doing! I thought he’d come to sit out here—”
“Someone’s got to change and find him,” a middle-aged, black-haired female told Peter.
“If we change it’ll just give him an excuse to attack,” a younger male said.
“He’ll attack anyway,” another said. “He’s raving, Peter. Why didn’t Zacharias put the cuff on him?”
“He’s right,” said the first. “Normal lockdown won’t stop a stranger. He does what he wants and silvers let him because they’re afraid of him.”
“That’s enough, Philip,” Peter snapped.
“I can find him,” Zar said. “You’re right that he might go for you if you change and track him. He’s upset.”
“When is he not?” Philip sneered.
While they argued, I’d moved off toward the fence along the road and field, the direction Adam had pointed from the tree.
I climbed the fence, then joined this at the hedge line. Here, there was a footpath that bordered their territory along the hedge, leading to the wood, then south, along the border of trees as well.
I followed the path, then knelt, touching the earth, opening my third eye for a look at the same spot, a quick glimpse with the exact intention and knowledge of the person in mind: easy.
I saw Jed walk through, only a moment before, storming along the trail and into the wood.
I ran after. All the way through the belt of trees—the whole strip of wood at this top end being a mere fifty yards across.
Out to a barbed wire livestock fence bordering the far side, then a trail through a well-grazed field, scattered with piles of droppings. There were no livestock in there now, however, only a solitary figure walking away across it, along the footpath that again moved beside the hedge.
“Jed!” I called.
He turned.
“Will you do something for me?”
He was much too far away for me to see his expression. Indeed, I don’t even think a human would have heard me at the distance. But he hesitated, then started back.
It took a couple minutes for the little figure to grow into the full-sized, impressive model. When he finally reached me, sporting his three-day beard and a frown, I offered my hand over the fence beside the stile.
Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4) Page 21
