Were there footpaths? Could I walk up and touch that crystal water? Could I get the view from the other direction? Reclaim a bit of vacation, even if I didn’t have Melanie here to enjoy it with me?
I sighed and turned my face into the rising sun, eyes shut, though it was hard to part with that view. I’d make it up to her. Next trip. Somehow.
“Guten Morgen.” A booming, jovial male voice I remembered from the night before. My host.
I blinked to see him striding over from the direction of the barn.
In heavy work boots, he must have been six and a half feet tall, so big he blocked out the early sun as he walked up, beaming.
“Care to visit the falls? You can find the way just out there.” Pointing with an arm like a tree branch. “Beyond the beehives, see? The white boxes? The trail joins a public footpath that is signposted. I hope you will make yourself at home and do all the exploring you like.”
He exuded so much good cheer at the sight of me, I feared he might clap my shoulder—which would surely cause damage, no matter how he meant it.
“You read my mind,” I said, smiling up at him. “I’d love to hike up there.” I looked around to the mountains and gardens and beehives. “This may be the most beautiful spot I’ve ever stood on in my life.”
His chest swelled like a vast farmer Santa Clause—with a brown beard flecked in gray instead of white. “Moon blesses our pack with every breath.” Also tipping his head back to take in the view, then beaming down at me. “She blesses us today with your presence. Can I offer you breakfast?”
“Thank you. And thank you for having us here. You were very hospitable for offering your home to—people you’d never met.” I’d almost said “to strangers.” “I’m not much of a breakfast eater. But coffee? If you have it? Or tea?”
“Plenty of both,” he boomed, leading the way through the sunroom, past the old spinner, and into a kitchen that had seemed like a normal size until he reached it—suddenly a tiny room with a butcher block work surface and this guy crammed into it, no space for anything else.
“Eggs, fruit, bacon?” He started rambling off a list as he attended to a coffee maker.
“Coffee is fine. Thank you, though.”
“You must not drink coffee with nothing to eat.” He added grounds, then water. “Sour your stomach. Have a roll to cut the acid. Elisabeth made rolls yesterday. Our goats have supplied the cheese, our bees the honey.” He turned on the pot, lifted the lid on a bread box to show me the golden rolls within, and lifted bushy eyebrows in a question.
“Oh … thank you. I’d love a roll. But you don’t have to—I can—”
“No worries, no fears, Moon take our tears,” he said in a sing-song rumble. “One minute and we will set you back out to enjoy the view. Make yourself at home, Cassia.”
“I’m so sorry, I was in a stupor last night. I can’t even remember your name.”
“Joseph Vehstner!” He said it like a bark, shouting his own name with pride. He pronounced it Yo-sef. “Elisabeth is my mate, hanger of the stars and lighter of every true path. Spinning the wool is Martha, my dam.” This was pronounced without the H. “And you will see my sons today working the farm. Some of the harvests are starting. They are Raphael and Tobias. My daughters are now in Brannenburg seeing to our farm store. The other family in our pack live at the neighboring farm—” Jerking his thumb at the wall. “Given the work of the season, you may not meet them, though it will be my delight to introduce you should the opportunity arise.”
I could tell he really meant it.
While the coffee dripped and he talked, Joseph fished snowy goat cheese from the refrigerator, spread a great quantity on two rolls he sliced open, like liberal cream cheese on a bagel, added honey from an earthenware jar on the butcher block, and stuck them under the broiler.
For the few minutes in here and the coffee to finish, he told me about their pack.
The Landesgrenze Pack, or Landesgrenzrudel, as they said—because why not add syllables?—were the Vehstner family at this farm—Bauernhof Landesgrenze—and the neighbors, who had joined their mission in self-sufficiency and formed a pack together in 1948.
I nodded and listened, but struggled to follow him with those names and his accent occasionally getting in the way. In truth, I wasn’t much interested in the names of the farms. What I wanted to ask was How?
How did wolves raise chickens and milk goats?
How was any of this possible? Were there others like them? Was this unique? Did they ever have problems with … premature deaths of their livestock?
I told him I would love to learn more about their farm and their lives out here, but we couldn’t get into a tour just then because Elisabeth arrived looking for him as he was pouring my coffee.
She looked tired, also large and strapping, her hair in a bun, her canvas pants mud-spattered. She smiled warmly at me when she spotted me, interrupting what she was starting to say to her mate.
“Haben Sie gut geschlafen?”
“I’m sorry…”
“You had a good sleep?” Her English was halting, much more careful than his—which seemed flawless aside from the heavy accent.
“Yes, I did. I slept wonderfully. Thank you so much for having us here.”
“You offer us favor by your presence.” She stepped over to press my hand in one rough with calluses. “Diana says you are trying to … save them.”
I felt my face heat, wondering if it was an uncertain word, or if that was indeed what Diana had said.
“I’m trying to help. And I hope I can. But I haven’t been able to do much so far, I’m afraid.”
“When we seek with intent to do good for others, Moon guides us,” she said carefully, lips moving slowly over the unfamiliar words. “I am sure you help very much.”
“Thank you. I…”
“Da ist zu viel Feuer.” the old mother shouted from the sunroom, after having been silently spinning all this time.
“Was war das?” Joseph called back.
She said more, some kind of explanation, until he was nodding, assembling my two toasted sandwiches now on a heavy clay plate.
“Ja, ja. Ich frage sie.” Joseph smiled at me, passing over plate and mug to the butcher block. “Do you take cream or sugar?”
“Black, thank you. That looks delicious. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
He waved this off. “I must see to the pasture change this morning with Elisabeth. Mutter wishes you to know she’d like to do your chart. She says your group has too much fire and not enough grounding influences.”
“My chart? Oh … for astrology? I don’t have my birth time on me, but I can tell her some stuff. My mom used to do my chart. She was the expert, though. I’m no more than an informed amateur.”
“So you have had charts before? You may enjoy talking to her about it anyway. She wishes to offer you advice if she can get more information on you and your friends.”
“I don’t even know what any of their birthdays are. I’m a Libra, if that helps her.”
“So she said.” He was starting out with Elisabeth while I took up the plate and mug.
“She did? How would she—?”
“Please make yourself at home. Ours is yours. Anywhere you would like to go, you are welcome.” He dropped his voice, hand on a doorway as he looked back at me. “And don’t let her fool you. She speaks perfect English.” He winked and headed for the front door with his mate calling back another good morning to me.
A Taurus, I suspected for Joseph. My mom had always been a pretty good guess with people’s signs. But how had the elder wolf known mine when she’d hardly even set eyes on me? Or had we seen each other more than I remembered last night? There had been more than just Joseph and Elisabeth around, yet it was fuzzy.
My mother had been an astrologer, though only as a hobby. And Nana’s focus had been elsewhere. All on the magic and shamanic arts. My own interests had shifted so it had been years since I’d thought much about the z
odiac beyond liking to know some superficials. Such as wanting the sign of any guy I was dating. I knew my own strengths were with other air signs and fire signs, while water signs were my weakness in interpersonal relationships. And I still found it interesting.
I also understood that to get best use out of it you needed details: a chart. Simply knowing a sun sign was interesting in the same way knowing where someone was from or where they worked was interesting. That didn’t define them the way knowing a chart could.
How was this elder spotting us at a glance? I was a Libra? And we had too much fire? Okay … that didn’t take more than a quick look around. I myself had a fire moon sign. Now that I thought about it, I’d have been willing to bet there was a lot of it running around the pack.
I paused with my plate and mug in the sunroom before heading back out to the morning.
“Did you want to speak to me?” I asked Martha. “About astrology? I’m sorry I don’t know my birth time off the top of my head, but I can tell you a day and location if you’d like. And I can ask the others for their birthdays. I find it all very interesting.”
She answered me in German.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
More in German.
I excused myself, saying I hoped we could talk later. This was true but, after what her son had just told me, I wasn’t going to hang about for games either. I figured she’d talk when she wanted to.
Outside, I walked to a flower arch at a stone path leading out to beehives at some distance in the field. Here were two benches situated to enjoy all this landscape had to offer, and close to the guesthouse rather than the barn, out behind all of them: drinking in the splendor. And the coffee—which had a kick to it like a mule. Perfect wakeup before a hike.
With the mug partly empty, I set it on the bench and turned my attention to my lavish breakfast.
Those English voices were more numerous and louder now. I distinctly heard, Kage, Zar, and others. The roosters had settled down. Clanking cowbells in the distance and mooing of their wearers. Mostly, though, those arguing voices that were disturbing the peace and mood of the moment.
I started a warm sandwich. Bliss. Which I should have prefaced by saying I don’t even care for goat cheese. Bliss anyway. This goat cheese was smooth and mild, blending beautifully with the sweet wildflower honey. The bread was fresh and soft, yet chewy, with crispness inside from the broiler. I could have happily eaten a dozen. Heaven just turned into paradise.
Except for the bickering and splashing and whatever it was they were doing around their lodging.
I savored every bite of the first one, chewing slowly. But finally broke as I picked up the second and looked around to the guesthouse.
Oh, Goddess—they were arguing about the shower. Which was outdoors at the back of the building.
Chapter 27
“That’s a bloody lie, you tosser,” Kage shouted with his head under the spray from the shower. “I never claimed to be fluent. I can speak a bit of German and it’s those Moon-cursed accents. Hardly sounded like he was speaking German at all. It’s Bavarian.”
“Right. Like Bavarian is its own language,” Zar said.
“Were you doing any better? Can you speak it? No. Don’t know why he wasn’t speaking Lucannis.” Kage rubbed water out of his eyes and looked around. He was inside a shower stall with one wall against the building, two walls of slats that concealed him from knees to shoulders, and what must have been a similarly made door on the offside. Kage raised his voice even more. “Andrew! Where’s the tytus soap?”
Zar, who stood beyond the stall door on the stone patio in bare feet, nothing on but a towel around his waist, obviously waiting for the shower, also looked around. Innocently.
Thirty seconds earlier, he’d watched Andrew snatch the liquid soap bottle out of the shower while Kage had his head under the spray. I’d also watched Andrew do a pull-up on the edge of the slat barrier and reach in to grab it.
Andrew, wearing only his prescription glasses and red shorts which he’d presumably slept in, was now creeping up on a big, chocolate-colored wolf beyond the patio grass. Jed dug in the dark soil, apparently with some urgency, or else great enjoyment, as his big paws flew through dirt.
Andrew silently popped the cap on the shower gel, turning the bottle, ready to dribble out the contents along Jed’s back.
I couldn’t see Isaac or Jason, though Jason had been shouting down from a window. I’d turned all the way around on my bench to see the rest, though. Now sitting with my knees drawn up, facing the back of the bench and leaning on it as I ate my second sandwich.
“Zar? Did he just pinch the soap?” Kage was looking around at the stone floor of the shower.
“Are you going to be in there all morning?” Zar asked. “It’s not a bloody private bathroom.”
“You don’t think I noticed that? Andrew!”
Andrew turned the bottle, moving breathlessly, holding it at arm’s length over fur to ooze out with the hope of his victim’s not noticing while he remained absorbed in his digging.
I swallowed a bite and shouted, “Jed!”
Jed’s head snapped up.
He wasn’t the only one. Kage spun around in the shower, Zar looked up as fast as Jed, and Andrew watched with an expression comically mixed between surprise and regret as Jed bounded away. Jed never even noticed him as the soap blobbed into the dirt and Andrew righted the bottle.
Clearly none of them had known I was there, yet it didn’t take Jed a second to spot me as I beckoned. He ran through the lawn and shrubs, scattering honeybees, and up to my bench at the flower arch. His muzzle and forepaws were covered in dirt.
I was surprised by this obedience. Also amused by the startling effect on my audience. Zar shouted good morning at me while Andrew and Kage were still only staring.
“What were you doing?” I asked Jed as he came to a stop at the back of my bench, looking up to my face and sandwich—though he didn’t have to look “up” much. “You can’t shred our hosts’ landscaping.”
Jed glanced back to the spot he’d just been working on, as if confused by my comment, and spotted Andrew there for the first time. His ears jumped, pricking forward, and his eyes narrowed. He growled.
“Don’t be angry. Andrew was just being Andrew.”
The latter was already walking on as if he’d only happened to be in that spot randomly with the stolen soap bottle. He snapped shut the cap. This caught Kage’s eye, distracting him from me, and he started cursing Andrew again.
“Should you be in fur?” I asked Jed.
He finally shifted his gaze from glaring over his shoulder at Andrew and back to my breakfast.
I had half a sandwich—and way more calories than I should be scarfing down first thing in the morning—in my hands.
His eyes were deep ocher and gold, though Jed’s eyes were brown in skin, and his hair was jet black.
They were all different. I’d never been able to study Kage, Zar, or Isaac closely in fur. It seemed, however, that all bore a certain closeness between their two forms: some keeping eye color, while hair/fur color might be close but not necessarily a giveaway. Jason was the only exact match in regard to hair to fur—a raven either way.
The more I saw of them, the more fascinating I found them, the more I wanted to know them, and the more I was allowing myself to learn. While, paradoxically, the less time I had here.
“I would very much appreciate it if you would not retaliate with Andrew about this,” I told Jed, though I didn’t make a demand of it as I tossed him the last quarter of my sandwich. I knew something about family and classroom dynamics. And I knew that a personality like Jed wouldn’t take kindly to orders.
He swallowed the bread, goat cheese, and honey, then walked around my bench, placing it between himself and the guesthouse. He was sniffing the earth while still licking his whiskers. Mole hunting?
“Jed? It would be nice if you didn’t start digging over here. This is part of their y
ard. Can you find what you’re looking for out in the pasture? Or the woods? Dig out there?”
He scanned the horizon, but our conversation was interrupted by someone else calling his name from the guesthouse. I’d been trying not to follow the argument, which had settled down—Kage had his soap back—but this was Isaac’s voice. He sounded angry: demanding to know where Jed was.
“Right over there.” Zar also seemed irritated.
“You said you’d see that he stayed in if he wanted to change,” Isaac snapped.
“He wasn’t doing anything. He only fancied a dig.”
“Jed?” Pause. “Cassia? Good morning. Is Jed over there?”
I looked around from watching Jed poke for a new digging spot.
Isaac stood on the stone patio, fully dressed, including motorcycle boots. He couldn’t see the dark wolf beyond the bench and flower arch.
“What do you want with him?” I called back, picking up my mug.
“I want him to get back inside and change.” Isaac was walking over. “He’s not to be out in fur in daylight and he knows it.”
I glanced at the subject. He dug off to the side of the trail to the beehives, ignoring us.
Now Isaac could see him. “Jed! Come inside!”
Dig, dig, leaning into it, starting to throw back showers of earth.
“He’s fine,” I said to Isaac as he walked up, though I wished Jed would move to the forest if he wanted to hunt moles. “I’m pretty sure I’m the only human within a mile.”
Isaac stopped in the grass and pointed off to his left. Chicken coop. Beyond that, barn, goat pens, and so on.
I sighed. “He’s not bothering anything, Isaac.”
“He cannot stay like that out here. We all want to change and check out the area. Tonight. Away from the farm. Not here in a yard with livestock. It’s not a healthy combination. He wasn’t even supposed to leave the house as long as he was in fur this morning and he knew that before he changed last night to sleep. Jed—”
“Don’t fight with him.” I slipped off the bench to kneel. “Jed, could you come here please?”
He looked up from his work, nose freshly plastered in dirt, then strolled over. The sight—so big, so wild—remained intimidating. He certainly made my heart beat faster than watching the bathers had.
Moonlight Hunters: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 2) Page 17
