by Faith Mudge
"Why do you have so be so decent?" Nadine muttered, but ruined the severity of it by hooking a leg around Gloria's waist and licking straight back into her mouth. "You make the rest of humanity a real letdown after dealing with you, it's unfair."
"Not sure–" Gloria began. She took a second to breathe. "I count as human anymore?"
Nadine rolled her eyes forcefully and was about to drag Gloria back to the important task at hand when there was a tentative knock at the door, and they turned around to see Eben and Louisa standing in the doorway, red-faced and wide-eyed.
"Um," Louisa said. "Sorry. The bride and groom wanted more spinach scrolls..."
"Oh. Yes." Nadine blinked, gesturing to one of the many foil-covered trays laid out on the sideboard. Louisa and Eben lunged forward to grab one each, muttering more apologies, and departed with all possible speed. Gloria leaned on the table and laughed a bit hysterically.
"My mother will be over the moon," she remarked.
"I like your mother," Nadine said.
"There's still a pack out there itching for a fight." Gloria lifted her head. "It's not that I don't want you here, Nadine, I swear I do, but you left all of that behind. You deserve better than dealing with it all over again."
"I do," Nadine agreed. She pulled Gloria away from the table, so they were standing face to face. "So do you. But just in case I didn't drum it home, I am not going anywhere."
Gloria felt a smile spreading across her face. She slipped her arms around Nadine's waist and dropped her head against her shoulder, letting Nadine take a little of her weight, so that they swayed together as if about to begin a dance.
"Not that this isn't nice," Nadine said, after a while, "but I think we've made enough of a spectacle in this room. Can we go somewhere else?" She tongued a brief, wet kiss to the side of Gloria's neck. "Preferably with a lock?"
"You have such wonderful ideas."
*~*~*
They were both practical people, whether in the middle of a crisis or a revelation, so Gloria checked on the party and Nadine labelled the remaining trays with sticky notes. When they made it to the hallway Nadine took the lead, pushing open Gloria's bedroom door, then making very sure it was shut and locked.
"All right," she breathed. "My next wonderful idea requires you on the bed."
But they took their time getting there, backing slowly across the carpet, Nadine's skillful fingers unbuttoning Gloria's shirt with their usual precision and turning her gently around to unhook her bra, before pulling off her own top with considerably less care. Gloria crouched to unlace her shoes and pull off her socks, and then did the same for Nadine, whose eyes fluttered shut as Gloria's fingers trailed over her ankle and the sole of her foot. When Gloria straightened up, Nadine pulled her in for a long, sweet kiss.
"You made me wait so long," she said, sounding exasperated again.
"You could have said something," Gloria pointed out, unbuttoning the waistband of her trousers and stepping out of them.
"I said a lot of somethings!" Nadine was distracted as Gloria slipped out of her underwear too. They matched the bra, which Gloria felt vaguely proud about. "I should have written you a letter explaining myself, shouldn't I, and left it stuck to your laptop so you couldn't miss it."
"That might have helped," Gloria agreed. They kissed again, easy and slow. "But I wasn't ready, in the beginning. You expected me to be all sorts of things I just wasn't."
"I wasn't ready then either," Nadine admitted. "Still. Six years, Gloria. I don't want you because I think you're strong, or powerful. Though you are." She kissed Gloria's shoulder. "This is my home. You are my home. Don't you ever suggest I leave it again."
Gloria really didn't have any answer for that except to kiss her. They were both on the verge of tears, hands running over shoulders and hips, little unspoken questions that edged them closer and closer to the bed until Gloria was sitting on the end of the mattress and Nadine was pushing her onto her back, climbing up to straddle her. Once there, Nadine calmly unhooked her bra the showy way, reaching behind without looking, and dropped it on the floor.
They had seen each other naked so many times, every full moon for six years. Gloria had respected her privacy as much as possible and she knew, without having to ask, that Nadine had done the same. Nadine's body was both familiar and shockingly new under her hands, beautiful in the way only beloved things could be. Gloria's fingers skated over the mess of scars on her shoulder, finding rough lines across her chest and thighs. She knew the stories behind them, the people she wanted to kill for them.
"I would fight for you," she repeated, breathing the words between Nadine's breasts. "I swear, I would."
"I know." Nadine bent over her, hands framing her body. "It goes both ways."
There was want but not urgency in the slow discovery of each other's skin, tasting, scenting, lips and teeth catching and clinging. It came with the understanding that they had time, to do this again, to do this in a thousand different ways. Gloria moaned when Nadine found the sensitive spot in the crook of her elbow and ran her fingers down Nadine's spine to encourage her closer. It was so easy to move together, a steadily building friction helped along by each other's hands. It wasn't until after, when Nadine was shuddering through her climax and Gloria was slumping back, gasping, that she could really absorb what Nadine had said. It goes both ways.
She rolled so that her head rested on Nadine's shoulder, contentment humming through her, and for once the wolf was sated too.
Nine
"What," Lissa said bewilderedly, "you weren't together? Until now?"
"Ha!" Nadine said, giving her an approving nod. She was whipping up pancake batter and not looking remotely embarrassed at the scrutiny now being inflicted on her love life, so Gloria decided to follow her example and just shrugged. That was enough for Lissa. Not for Damien.
"So you finally got your acts together?" he said smugly, as if he could take any credit for it whatsoever. "Love is in the air! I mean, obviously Nadine deserves better―"
Nadine swatted him lightly over the head with a frying pan and he yelped indignantly.
"Love and violence," he complained.
"Go outside and kill some weeds," Nadine instructed him, and he did. Gloria kissed Nadine's cheek on her way to the sink and Lissa beamed, starry-eyed.
"Off to work," Gloria said, making a shooing motion. Reluctantly, Lissa and Louisa left to set up the buffet. Eben had already vanished, presumably returning to his room. Gloria finished her tea while Nadine made stacked pancakes on the griddle with flip after practiced flip, and it could have been any morning, nothing special, nothing new, only now it was right.
"About that pack," Nadine said after a while, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "I've been thinking. We know there's at least three of them, and they've been close enough to the guesthouse to identify our scents. But they haven't come in person, which is odd for an alpha."
"Are they being cautious?"
"I'd say so, except they phoned us, and that's stupid. It's like they think they're in a mobster film, next there will be an offer we can't refuse." Nadine looked out the window. "I think the alpha is very young and he doesn't want us to know it. It might be he's left a bigger pack to start his own, that happens quite often–the males start fighting when they get older, to sort out the hierarchy of dominance, which is why alphas always encourage them to mate young. As a distraction." She caught Gloria's revolted expression and smiled a bit tiredly. "It doesn't have to be so… feudal. It depends on your alpha."
Gloria shuddered. "I think I need a shower, just from hearing that."
"It works for some people." Nadine said. She began clearing up the usual morning detritus, tipping a bucket of broken eggshells into the bin, tossing out onion peels, piling up bread crusts for Lissa to take out to the birds. "Not everyone wants to make choices."
"It comes with being alive. If the army taught me anything, it was that." Gloria considered, and added more thoughtfully, "The army taught m
e a lot of things."
"How to fight werewolves?" Nadine asked, sarcastic but fond.
Gloria smiled. "What else have I been doing for fifteen years?"
*~*~*
When the pack finally came to their door, it was at nightfall a few days out from full moon. They powered up the drive in full force, the four-wheeler flanked by a pair of rattling motorbikes. Gloria had three guests upstairs to keep in the dark and no idea where Damien was; she hoped that whatever he heard, he'd have enough sense not to get in the way. She stood alone in front of the house, arms folded, waiting for the boys to get their act together.
And it was an expensive act, judging by those matching tattoos and, dear God, each one had a claw worn on a leather thong around his neck, like the macho posturing version of friendship bracelets. There was in fact more leather involved than Gloria was accustomed to seeing outside of fancy car upholstery. She watched steadily as the two werewolves from the supermarket dismounted their bikes, waiting for them to make the first move, but apparently, they were waiting for something too. The stand-off lasted only a few minutes before the door cracked open on the four-wheel-drive and their alpha jumped down.
He was the biggest of the three, which was saying something, as they were all tall and muscular; probably he was the oldest as well, though not by much. He had shaggy shoulder-length blond hair and the beginnings of a scrubby beard, and walked like he was expecting a fist-fight any minute. His eyes skipped straight over Gloria, looking around for the back-up he could surely smell weren't there.
"So, what, you're in charge?" he asked, jeeringly.
"Yep," Gloria said, and waited some more. The younger boys shuffled uncomfortably; their leader didn't. His eyes narrowed as he took Gloria in. Judging by the slightly incredulous tilt of his mouth, he was thinking she looked like his mother or something. As if looking like a mother, or being one, ever made someone less dangerous. The opposite, in Gloria's experience.
He swaggered forward a few steps, the boys moving to flank him. "Well, shit," he said, sounding amused. "They do things differently in the backwoods, I guess. How's that even work, with women? You take turns giving orders when one breaks a nail?"
"We manage," Gloria said. "Somehow."
The alpha tipped back his head, sniffing deeply. There was something visibly not human about it, the flare of hyper-sensitive nostrils, the long drawing in of air like he was stamping it as his. When he opened his eyes to look at Gloria, they had a bright, reflective shine in the dark.
"Do you?" he said. He strolled forward a bit further, until he and Gloria were standing about a metre apart. His voice dropped, like he was sharing a secret, as he added, "Do you hear the wolf? It wants out of our heads, into the woods. It wants to feed."
Gloria said nothing. She watched him carefully, taking in the small twitches of his hands and the almost manic wideness of his eyes. Nadine was better at seeing these things than her, but Gloria was almost certain that he was new to the bite, and high on it.
"You hear it," he said, with absolute certainty. "All this," gesturing dismissively at the guesthouse and garden, "it's just trappings. I get it. I've been there too. But we're not like them. We're not sheep to be lulled by telly and chips."
He spat the words out with disproportionate fury. "We're predators," he continued, fixing his gleaming eyes on her. "We belong to a primal truth. You can join us. You can be pack."
He suddenly threw back his head and howled, joyful and savage.
Gloria stared at him. She imagined Nadine, seventeen years old and terrified of herself, hearing that speech, and she did not trust herself to speak. She shook her head.
His reaction was immediate. "You old bitch, you haven't got a fucking clue," he snapped. “You think you can say no to me―"
"It's not worth it, Mike," one of the boys muttered. "Let's just go."
The alpha turned on him, delivering such a hard shove to the younger boy's chest that he staggered backward and had to catch himself on the handlebars of his bike. "Did I ask for your fucking opinion?" he shouted. "Did I? Answer me! Go on, I want a fucking answer!"
The boy shook his head wildly. Michael whipped back to Gloria, in a thoroughly ugly mood by now. He didn't need moonlight to get in touch his monster.
"I'm not asking your permission," he sneered. "My pack, we do what we want."
There was a deep, quiet fury building inside Gloria's lungs that had nothing to do with the wolf, that came from being a woman facing a man who wanted her to be afraid. She had been waiting and waiting for the pack to make their move, lying awake beside Nadine with plan after plan rotating through her brain, and this was… enough.
She'd had enough. It was not the beast under her skin that snapped. That was all Gloria.
Her lips pulled back in a snarl. She showed them her teeth and the muzzle of her pistol, a memento from her service days. "Fuck off while you can," she told him.
He jerked back automatically. His eyes flicked between the gun in her hand and the look in her eyes, and for a wonder, took the sensible option, backing up slowly. "It's not over," he said sullenly, but he reached for the door of his four-wheeler and pulled himself inside. The other boys exchanged scared looks and went to their bikes.
"Hey," Gloria said. The boy who had protested looked up warily. "You don't have to stay with him," she said, willing him to believe her. "Whatever bunkum he's fed you, the world is so much bigger than that. You are worth more than that."
His eyes widened. Michael shouted an impatient command from the driver's window and the boy swung his leg over the bike, turning it around. But he glanced back on his way out and Gloria was still standing there. She nodded once. When they were gone, she tucked her gun into the back of her trousers, covered by her cardigan, and went inside. Nadine, Lissa and Damien were clustered around the kitchen door, armed with a frying pan, a cricket bat and a spade. Louisa was upstairs, making up something to calm the guests, with Eben at her side to nod and look calmed, whether or not he actually was. Gloria made a mental note to hug him later.
"They'll be back," Nadine said at once.
"Primal truth?" Damien said, almost at the same time. "Seriously?"
"He can't let his pack see him back down, or they won't follow his lead."
"Primal truth, though. Who follows someone who says stuff like that anyway?"
Gloria looked around at them and nodded again, more to herself than to her audience. "Like you said," she told Nadine, "this is our home. We're not going anywhere."
Ten
Because it seemed no week could go smoothly any more, Graham Seymour made a reappearance the next day. Not in person, since Gloria gathered that it took only the most serious crisis to induce that level of parental involvement, but he demanded a Skype session that his son and daughter duly sat through in the privacy of Louisa's room. Lissa prowled unhappily outside, hugging Wellington against her chest.
"He doesn't like me," she said.
"Of course, he does," Gloria said. "I just don't think he wants to be hugged right now."
"I mean Louisa's dad." Lissa turned big, sad eyes on Gloria. "I don't know what to do. How to look like a good girlfriend, how to be a good girlfriend. Louisa can do so much better. She's so pretty and so clever, she can do all sorts of things. She can play piano, did you know?"
"I didn't know that."
"I can't do useful things," Lissa muttered. "She'll be getting a degree, and I'll be weighing her down. I should just… I shouldn't do that to her."
"Lissa." Gloria gently prised Wellington out of her arms, putting the relieved cat on the ground. "I don't know how to be a good girlfriend either. It's not like you get a manual. This is something you work out as you go along. And take it from me, sweetheart, dating really isn't a decision you make alone. Make absolutely sure you and Louisa are on the same page before you try and be self-sacrificing. Do you actually want to go to London?"
Lissa was biting her thumbnail, a habit Gloria hadn't seen in months.
Gloria had a feeling Lissa was talking about her time in foster care, but she didn't know much about Lissa's dating history either. She put a hand on Lissa's shoulder and squeezed gently. Gentleness did not usually come as easily so close to full moon, but Lissa brought out all Gloria's protective instincts.
"Listen to me," she said firmly. "You are kind, and brave, and a damn good waitress. That is a perfectly fine job. You can go to London, build up your savings, and figure out what you want to do with your life there, and if it doesn't work out, you can come home. It's up to you."
Lissa was taller than Gloria, though she was so slight Gloria usually forgot, the same way she forgot Lissa was older than she looked and more capable than she seemed. When Lissa's eyes filled with tears, Gloria was sure she'd forgotten something else, had said something terrible, but then Lissa flung herself into her arms and hugged her, brief and fierce. That was when Louisa opened the door. Gloria suspected she had been eavesdropping, because her eyes were wet too, but she was smiling.
"I hope that applies to me as well," she said.
Gloria rolled her eyes. "Don't fish for compliments."
Louisa laced her fingers through Lissa's and tugged. "Okay, we'll go check what other mum wants us to do next." She laughed at the look on Gloria's face and pulled Lissa out of the hallway before Gloria could come up with a response.
*~*~*
There was a fight at full moon. Gloria had returned from her run to find Louisa and Lissa had been having talks with Damien, and that they had in turn talked to Nadine, and the end result of it was an abuse of local democracy. "You can't make us stay inside," Louisa said flatly. "We know the pack are coming back tonight, and we're coming out with you."
"I know what I'm doing," Gloria began, looking to Nadine for support.
"I agree with the girls," Nadine said, the traitor. "It's their fight too."
