Moonlight Hunters: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 2)

by K. R. Alexander

  “Guardians? Are you talking about signs opposite each other? Aries and Libra, Cancer and Capricorn? I’ve never heard them called guardians before.”

  “They are the guardians of one another’s strengths and weaknesses on the wheel. They are the perfect opposition and perfect harmony. When you are born with guardians making up your Sun on the one side and your Moon on the other, we say of that pup, she is her own guardian. Your power is intense. Your fire leads your heart. Your air leads your questions and judgments. At their worst, they will battle and break you. At their best, they will make you unstoppable, indomitable.”

  She looked around again to the rising sun, silent for a time as she sipped her tea.

  “It is the fire all through your pack that will break it,” she said at last, voice soft with that sharp edge faded. “Fire fighting fire, fanned by air, blocked by water. There is no grounding in your pack.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We won’t be together much longer. By tomorrow evening we’ll be back in England and will part company.”

  She looked at me and said only, “You mustn’t.” Very matter of fact, as if saying what time breakfast would be served.

  It made a shiver slide down my spine. “Excuse me?”

  “The fire may burn too bright, but, scattered, it will die.”

  I had trouble on a swallow. “Why would you say that?”

  “Everyone knows that, yearling. A scattered fire is nothing but ash to be stamped out. Understand them, find Moon in them, and bring your own power to the fire for guidance, direction, focus. Not control. Let go of control and find your own freedom.”

  “I don’t even know what their signs are. Except for Isaac. And I’m no astrology expert anyway.”

  “Isaac means a great deal to you.”

  “Yes—”

  “Though no more or less than the rest of your pack. It is a strong silver who sees value in each member, power in each wolf, and guides with her own strengths to show the way. But it is a great silver indeed who does all this and also shows her own weaknesses and forgives the failings and faults of her pack. It is through greatness that the force of a storm may be focused to the force of a bullet.”

  I hadn’t the faintest idea how to answer that.

  Anyway, she’d gone back to watching the sunrise and seemed done with me, whether or not I’d had anything intelligent to add.

  Chapter 37

  I finished my coffee, took a quick shower, ran the washing machine, and returned to my room to mend the glasses.

  I called the magic both for the smoothing and clearing of the lens and also for the transfer of the properties of the still whole lens into the repaired one. I couldn’t tell if it was a success, but both lenses blurred my own vision and they looked normal.

  I set them aside and opened the bag from Andrew. Local chocolate-covered expresso beans. The chocolate was deeply dark and rich, the beans intense and warming. It was the sort of take home treat I’d have bought for myself while traveling, decadent and satisfying.

  I thought of the meals from Isaac, the flowers on the trailer step from Jed, the bag from Zar, even Kage offering me food, now this from Andrew.

  And, again, I thought of those teeth, dragging dawn the white wolf like prey that fought back.

  Martha had started her spinning with the sun above the mountain. The roosters were really going to town when I walked out to visit the greenhouse.

  I found a few dark brown feathers on the earth out there. The hapless fowl had been a duck. I hoped they’d at least eaten it. All this for a duck.

  The greenhouse looked how I’d imagined, maybe a bit worse with Andrew’s blood on many fragments of broken glass on the inside.

  There was still a good deal of dried black blood across the grass as well, leading all the way to the guesthouse patio.

  But it wasn’t blood or glass or feathers that shocked me. It was the lump in the earth. Not huge. If I hadn’t known the exact spot because of the blood, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all. Yet there was a little heave in the earth that I was sure had not been there before. Like putting a pebble under a pancake.

  The point of impact had actually changed the shame of the ground.

  I don’t know why this bothered me so much. The idea, however, that I was capable of something like that, much less had done it in a fit of emotion, stunned me and left me feeling cold again.

  I struggled feebly with the greenhouse glass—perhaps ironically since I’d just moved the earth. I righted the pots and cleaned up, but could do no more with the magic than bunch up the bits of breakage all together in a heap below the window.

  I resorted to the old-fashioned way. Finding duct tape in the machine shed, I taped a large garbage bag over the hole, threw out the mess that I swept up, and cleaned away blood with supplies from under the kitchen sink.

  We could pay for a replacement and they could get it seen to at their convenience now. I felt a bit better for all this being done and also the bath towel coming out in good shape due to the quick treating.

  It was still only an hour past sunrise and I wasn’t sure where to turn next. I wanted to take “my pack” to task. And I never wanted to speak to any of them again. I wanted to lecture and shout and I wanted to simply walk away and give them all the cold shoulder. I wanted to go back to Isaac, make sure he was fine, still have dinner. And I wanted to ignore him along with the rest, build a mental wall for the impending breakup.

  Breakup. And die.

  But Martha had said that as a metaphor. She didn’t actually mean that when I returned home and the wolves went on with their own mystery solving skills they would literally die. It was only a fire analogy.

  Wasn’t it…?

  Feeling weak, like a low blood sugar attack, I returned to the house and fixed myself a repeat of the breakfast Joseph had made me. And one more cup of coffee.

  I began to feel better almost at once as I sat again in the sunroom with Martha and ate in silence. More stable, my stomach settled.

  “Do you think,” I said at last, “that … you…? Would you be willing to offer me some guidance about working together more efficiently with this pack if you had all their signs? Even if it is only for a few days? I respect that astrology can be a useful guide when viewed with knowledgeable interpretation. If there’s any insight you could share, I would be deeply grateful. I’m … in over my head. Dealing with too much fire…” I swallowed. “Or too many wolves.”

  “First let go of control,” she said softly, spinning as she did. “Your own desire to maintain control and a fine order of justice and harmony between each side of the scale will crush you if you cannot step back. You do not analyze the pack. You run with it. In running with it, you get to know it. That is when you can find your own in your true greatness as silver. If you wish guidance on members of your pack, you must bring them. I spoke to only three yesterday.”

  “You did? Any thoughts on the three? Who did you talk with?”

  “Suns in Aries, Leo, and Scorpio.”

  Isaac and Kage then. But I was a bit alarmed even that there was a Scorpio. Personal relations with water signs were not tops for me in general, and I’d had a couple of particularly bad experiences with the nastier side of Scorpio as well.

  My mom had always been stern about this kind of thinking. All signs had wonderful positive qualities. And all signs had challenges and negative qualities. It just depended on what the individual chose to use. No sign was “better” or “worse” than any other. It was the will behind it that brought out the best in some signs and the worst in others.

  Intellectually, I got that. But I still tensed when Martha dropped the S-word.

  “And, did you learn anything useful?” I asked.

  “Your Aries has a fierce power, not unlike yourself. He is skilled in utilizing his own strengths. A wise wolf. With the passion and self-assurance of Aries and the ambition, work ethic, and love of order from his Moon, Capricorn. It appears possible to me he is the
only earth in your pack. Look to his calm and grounding in the storm when the fire rages and the winds are high.”

  “Do you believe in the theory that opposite houses, what you called guardians, are good matches romantically?” I felt my face heat as I asked, but it wasn’t as if she was looking at me. “Like … Aries and Libra?”

  “There is always potential for success. And for failure. You must look at Moon influence and, when possible, the whole chart. There is, in instances of guardian pairings, a near certainty for a dynamic relationship. But one to last in love? Moon only knows without a closer look.”

  I nodded. “How did you feel about the other two? Any advice on how to be a good leader there?”

  “Your Leo’s Moon is Cancer. Always a battle in himself between fire and water. His Moon offers sensitivity, a love of home, family, paternal instincts. However, his Sun is where he finds fulfillment now. Burning is what feels good to him. If he’s not in his Sun he’s not happy. Instead of telling him how to be, show him the right place to stand where he can burn the brightest and do the most good.”

  I thought of Kage’s need for attention, but also his aggressive efforts with me—all a part of a real attraction. I’d felt it too. I still did. Then, a Cancer also? Had Jason meant more than what I’d thought when he’d said Kage was sensitive? This certainly helped to explain Kage’s desire to be a core member in his pack—which I’d thought didn’t suit him at all.

  But Martha’s recommendation? How was I supposed to help him burn bright and also be doing good? It seemed a tall, and confusing, order.

  “Your Scorpio’s fire comes from Moon in Leo,” Martha continued. “But he is using his fire on seeking escape and repressing anger. He is not enough in touch with his Moon, drowned in his Sun and his own broken transformation. Scorpio is death and rebirth, change and journeys into the next life. When a Scorpio is blocked, his natural impulses are turned inward and become toxic for himself and those around him. He must be allowed to reach his potential or become an underwater volcano. He is savage not because he is wicked-natured but because he is kept on a chain.”

  I gazed down at my plate, pushing a crumb around with a finger. “I appreciate you sharing your insights. I wish I could help them both but I’m not sure I know what to do for Kage or Jed, even with that help. That is Jed you’re referring to?” I glanced up. “Curly hair, dark, three-day beard?”

  She nodded serenely in her chair.

  “Thank you. Maybe the others will talk to you as well. I don’t know what to say to them right now. About last night—”

  “That Moon is passed.”

  I glanced at her.

  “The day’s Sun matters now. Not the night’s Moon of before. There is nothing to be said.”

  Was that what Joseph had meant?

  “I can’t just ignore what they did and pretend it didn’t bother me when it’s all I can think about,” I said.

  “Then you must start looking for ways to give up control. This is not a time for justice. It is not a time for the flames. It is the new Sun. Nothing less. And nothing more.” She placed stress on those last few words.

  Yet I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. I didn’t care if it was one night on, or ten, or ten hundred. I would never forget those teeth.

  Considering barging into the guesthouse and waking sleeping wolves, I went for a walk instead.

  Think.

  I hiked up the mountain trail for perhaps a mile until I reached the first of the waterfalls that ran from the peaks into streams the fed the valley and eventually a river running into Austria.

  I couldn’t see the valley from here, but took off my shoes and socks in the now hot day and dangled my feet in the crystal water. After soaking, then air drying, getting a drink and pulling the socks and shoes back on, I felt refreshed and climbed another mile or two on the winding, sometimes very steep, sometimes gentle, forested trail.

  Then: my view.

  After passing a few other hikers—with walking sticks and backpacks, compared to my uninspired nothing—I reached a rocky ledge and another long, white fall, roaring in my ears, dazzling in the sun. This had to be that one white streak I saw so plainly from below in the valley.

  With another drink, I sat and took in the view for half an hour or more, gradually slipping into a meditation, thinking of letting go of the past, living in the moment with the magic and the natural world, including wolves.

  Did a biting wolf make him a villain? Or did it only make him a wolf?

  After a few more touristy hikers had come and gone, chatting in Italian, I lay back on the rocks at the water’s edge and let my fingers dangle in the current, listening to the roar, using it to trance.

  I saw wolves. Not my wolves from the Sable Pack. But a sense of wolves in skin in sunshine surrounded by acres and acres of vineyards.

  Blood ran through the rows of grapevines, soaking into the ground. Only then did I realize that all those fit, handsome wolves I’d thought I was watching were in fact corpses.

  Did the Aspens or Greys own a vineyard? Were there any vineyards in the South of England?

  The minute I started to question, guiding the scry, asking for a view of the killers, everything fogged over and broke apart like cobwebs feeling the wrath of a feather duster. Why? How? I’d never seen a scry image like this.

  I turned my attention to the grave robbing tonight, asking the magic and spirit helpers and Goddess, which were all one in the same, for help and guidance on our mission.

  I got nothing. Once it was gone, the vision never returned. Only the rush of the waterfall.

  I must have stayed up there an hour before it dawned on me that it was late afternoon. I would be missed by now and I hadn’t bothered to bring my phone or anything else, simply walked away for a stroll and kept walking.

  A salad. That was what I needed to finish clearing my head. Take some of that sauce and mix up a salad with it—hold the meat—and enjoy. They had heads of lovely green and red lettuce growing. Maybe a radish or a tomato if I was lucky. A cucumber, a bell pepper? I’d seen all of those in their farm store.

  And what about dinner?

  I started back down the careful descent knowing at once it was going to be hard on my knees. This explained the hiking sticks I’d seen with others.

  So it was gentle going as I thought about Isaac and the invitation I’d accepted.

  I had no business going to dinner with any of them. I knew that.

  And I knew how I felt when I was with him. How I’d felt last night when I’d thought he was in danger. And when I’d held onto his arm. And he’d said he loved me. And how I felt now thinking of him, wanting to see him again, be with him in his skin, hear his voice, feel his lips, his body against mine.

  Of course I would still go to dinner. And of course I knew better.

  I was still picturing the dinner, still thinking of Isaac, imagining our next conversation, when I stopped in the middle of the trail and looked up.

  There were two wolves running toward me.

  Chapter 38

  I’d never seen them running through daylight like this and the image was disconcerting, then alarming as I wondered who else was seeing them. But I spotted no mundanes on the trail as I quickly looked around.

  The great white wolf pelted up the steep trail to me, apparently whole and well. The equally big chocolate wolf, touched in black and cinnamon, with white hairs on a patch on his chest, came right after him, running up the trail as if it were nothing.

  “What are you doing out here?” I was horrified by the idea of them being seen—distracted as I had no choice but to stop and greet them on the trail.

  Isaac bounded up and entwined me, lashing his tail, licking at my hands and arms, pressing against me as if to hug me. Jed followed and I was certain for a terrified moment there would be another fight.

  Jed only gave a similar performance, spinning his tail, crowding against me, whining way back in his throat. Like two puppies. Who
each weighed more than I did.

  I had my hands on Isaac’s face, pushing him back as much as meaning to stroke him, afraid he would jump up and knock me over. Jed nuzzled under my left arm and I stroked his ears, diverting attention and still worried lest a fight break out.

  I sat on the rock ridge in the middle of the stair-like trail before either could throw me down with their ebullience.

  Jed stood at my back, looming over me on the ridge, shoving his face into my hair, sniffing until his hot nose pressed my neck. They always seemed fascinated by my hair. Isaac stood against my legs, leaning his head into my chest.

  Both were panting and shedding in the July sun. My one clean blouse that I’d put on this morning, sky blue, was soon covered in fur.

  They didn’t seem about to let the matter go, so I gave them a minute, then tried to push eager faces away.

  “That’s enough. Why are you all worked up? And what are you doing out here? Don’t tell me none of you bothered to change this morning? I thought you were in your beds.” I got to my feet, brushing at the wolf fur, and started walking again as I spoke.

  They stayed with me for only a few minutes as we climbed down, then abruptly vanished into the forest to my left.

  I stopped, looking for them. A moment later a couple of hikers came up the trail, greeted me in German, and went on. Isaac and Jed were soon back with me. This happened twice more while we made the descent and we were getting to the less treacherous part of the trail, my knees rubbery, when I spotted two more guys coming toward us. The wolves remained in place beside me.

  It was Kage and Zar, in old jeans and T-shirts, sweating and hurrying up the trail. When Zar spotted us, like the furred ones, he broke into a run to meet me. Unlike them, he didn’t look happy. His eyes were wide and scared as he hurried up to hug me.

  “Zar—” I shoved him away. “What is wrong with all of you?”

  “Wrong with us?” Kage was also running up.

  “Are you all right, Cassia?”