Moonlight Betrayal: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 5)

by K. R. Alexander

  And people had. I’d seen to that.

  Chapter 9

  The day, like so many days, or nights, since I’d met my pack, did not go to plan. Not a moment to meditate in nature, update scry journaling, or have sociable sit-downs with my companions: one big happy family.

  I wanted to close myself in my room for about ten years and cry and hope they all found happiness and honest, non-backstabbing—or sleeping around, or “bloody worm”—love in their futures. But I was worried about Jason.

  Andrew lay with him on the bed in their shared room, holding his right arm while Jason bit a pillow and Isaac felt over the bones of his elbow.

  I brought Jason ibuprofen, first asking if it was okay for them to take that—they had strange reactions to things like alcohol and I wasn’t sure what else.

  He did and buried his bruised face in the pillow, rigid and gasping while Isaac frowned.

  “Right here.” Isaac shifted his forefinger as Andrew tested the spot.

  Andrew nodded. “Not quite smooth. It’s hard to tell though. It could be hairline, could be right through without displacement. Or it could be nothing but a bruise.”

  Isaac traded the spot with him again. “Jason? Does this point feel like a central cause?” Finger pressing the suspect edge of bone.

  Jason nodded into his pillow.

  “Bugger,” Andrew murmured and lay back, rubbing his eyes and pinching the brim of his nose. “You need an X-ray, Jay. You can’t change.”

  “If it wears off,” Jason panted, indistinct.

  “You can’t risk it,” Isaac said. “We’ve got to know for sure.”

  “They’ll want to cast it or something if it’s broken,” Jason managed, turning his head slightly.

  “If it’s bad enough, they might as well anyway,” Isaac said, calm. “You can’t change. But it’s unlikely. If it’s a tiny thing, or no break at all, we’ll make excuses, say you’ll see your regular doctor or whatever, and go. Just the X-ray. Then you can change. All right? Just because you go doesn’t mean it’s bad news. But we’ve got to know.”

  Jason nodded.

  “I’ll take you,” Andrew said. “Get your breath back. We’ll find a clinic near here.” He looked up for the first time to me, standing against the doorframe. “Nearest proper hospital? Maybe Harrogate?”

  “I’ll find out.” I retreated to my phone in my own room, tears in my eyes again.

  I didn’t deserve them. And they deserved so much better than me as a silver. Yet they didn’t even act like that. Which was part of the whole thing.

  Zar was out to take Jed his breakfast so I at least sat alone, able to research Yorkshire hospitals while the screen swam in and out of focus through suppressed tears.

  Harrogate seemed a good choice, a bit of a drive, but a couple of nice options and not too far. I wrote down names, addresses, and numbers to two different clinics in my notebook. My hand shook as I did so, even worse trying to pull the sheet from the book.

  “Cassia?”

  I jumped at Isaac’s voice in the doorway, soft as it was, quickly wiping the back of my hand across my eyes.

  “May I come in?”

  I nodded, not looking at him, carefully folding the sheet over. I would give it to Andrew and he could call and decide where they needed to go.

  Isaac sat on the bed beside me.

  “I should go with them. They…” I stopped. I couldn’t go. I didn’t have a vehicle.

  “I’ll go, decide what we need to do for his arm once we see an X-ray. Even if it is a real break, he’ll be all right. Only a holiday from fur, that’s all. He’ll be fine.”

  I shook my head, spinning with it—Jason and what was happening and Kage and what had been said in front of everyone. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to remember most of the shouting. I was, however, confident Kage had painted a vivid picture in his accusations and cursing out Jason. Everyone in the pack would know exactly what had happened.

  I leaned away, still shaking my head, wanting him to see he was wrong, when Isaac put his arms around me. He should be angry also, disgusted with me like Kage. He shouldn’t just go right on like nothing had happened.

  But he wouldn’t stop. He held on and I finally turned my face into his chest, breathing through my mouth as my tears wet his shirt and I whispered that I was sorry.

  Isaac stroked my hair and held on and said just about the only thing that could have made me feel a million times worse: “I love you, arä.”

  Chapter 10

  Before they left, with Andrew calling the numbers I’d found and Isaac packing up his laptop in case of a long wait so he could get some work done, Jason stopped to see me as well. He had his arm bent as if in a sling, tucked in close against his body. At least it was the right arm. Also a painful red swelling behind his eye and down his cheekbone.

  I was walking aimlessly around my room and met him in the doorway. “Sit down until they’re ready. How—?”

  “I’m sorry, Cassia. I had no idea—”

  “Sit. It’s okay.”

  We sat on the edge of the bed, Jason miserable, blinking and looking away.

  “This is my fault,” he said. “I thought it would make him happy—be good for him. I had no idea he’d take it like that. I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you didn’t. Even I thought it made sense. I’m sorry too.”

  I hushed him as he went on apologizing, holding his good hand while he blinked back tears.

  I was finally able to distract us both by saying he needed his jacket for the bike, then helping with the slow task of putting it on. He already had on his leather pants and boots from the day before.

  I saw them off soon after, with Zar and Jed joining us in the lot.

  Jed had indeed shaved and looked strangely neat and young—his curly hair washed, jeans black, not faded out, plus plain gray shirt.

  I wanted to tell him he looked nice, but I couldn’t in front of Zar. Anyway, I mostly just wanted to get away from both of them.

  I excused myself, saying I needed a break, even though I’d been having one, and retreated to my room, this time locking myself in. Here, I only lay across the bed in a torpor for half an hour or more. Finally pulling myself together enough to work on scry journaling.

  I added notes about my dreams, then went back and added what I could remember about previous scrying for the case: the stone circles, the rows of war graves, the vampire, burning city skylines, wolves fighting wolves, wolves dead, their bodies bathing a vineyard in blood.

  More. What else had their been early on? I never thought I’d be working on the case for weeks—or even days, initially—so I hadn’t been concerned about that sort of keeping track.

  I flipped to the suspects list that I’d compiled the first week. We’d progressed depressingly little. Still, tomorrow night would be a time for new information, new discoveries. Gavin might not hold answers. We just couldn’t be sure about that. But he would hold information. Something I felt desperate for.

  Information, keep better records, and stay on track.

  And the rest? Personal lives? How to stay on track there?

  Not by shutting them out again. I’d tried that. More open communication then? Right now?

  No, who I needed to talk to was Kage. And now was way too soon for that.

  They say love hurts. I knew from breakups and losing loved ones—deaths of my mother and grandmother. I’d never known it to hurt with bleeding wounds and broken bones, crushed hearts and shattered trust. I’d never known this feeling around love that was a betrayal of all love should stand for—a betrayal of another person whom I loved.

  Maybe “love hurts” was for normal, one-on-one human relationships. This felt more like torture.

  I journaled all I could remember of scrying and dreams, counted breaths, and finally did go for a walk late in the afternoon.

  Zar, Jed, and I walked to the nearby village and lunch/dinner at a local pub: four steak and kidney pies and a cup of vegetable soup, all
to go.

  Crossing the street on the way out, I spotted a corner shop called a Co-op—what, at home, I would have described as a 7-Eleven with slightly more groceries. The village was not large enough to have a pet store, but I popped in here and found they had a tiny area of pet food, a couple cat and dog toys, and bags of bird seed.

  For dog toys there was a marrow bone, a couple squeaky things, and a few balls indistinguishable from tennis balls except they were hard all the way through. Small for a wolf. I liked the red but they’d told me they couldn’t see shades of red in fur, so yellow. I paid with coins in my pocket and put the ball in my purse so Jed didn’t have to see it.

  We returned to a public footpath, climbed a stile in a dry stone wall, and up a hill to sit on a long grassy slope to eat while clouds were rolling in and the breeze really was becoming notable down here. It felt good: hot summer day with a chill rain just about ready to blow in. Sun still on us for now, birds still calling, sheep grazing in the next field and the smell of cattle reaching us from farther beyond picturesque walls.

  A postcard setting. Again, I counted inhales and exhales.

  They ate their two pies each and I sipped my soup while they came to join me. Zar was worried about my not eating enough but he didn’t make a big deal of it this time. In fact, all three of us said almost nothing all the way into town and now on the hill.

  It was not an uncomfortable silence. The brothers were not even testy to one another, only avoiding each other. No nasty comments or name-calling from Jed. No glares from Zar or trying to keep my attention. We just walked. And ate. And sat. And walked back.

  It was nice. Nothing more, nothing less. We might have been a little old married triad, everyone aware of the routine, nothing to discuss.

  Back at The Gables, I gave each of them a hug. I don’t know why—wasn’t sure what to say about it. I enjoy being with you, maybe?

  It sounded so stupid, I didn’t say anything.

  Jed did not hug me back. He was just over his surprise enough for a tentative touch on my shoulder when I moved on to embrace Zar. He returned it, kissing my cheek, then pressing me tight for a moment before I let go.

  “I want to make sure they’re back all right before we decide anything for the evening,” I said when we stepped apart. “Then maybe more the same as last night. But I’d like to find Kage. He shouldn’t be out there. Jed, what did you pick up last night? What spooked those deer?”

  Jed frowned across the field. “Something I never smelled before.”

  “Really? It wasn’t a vampire, though?”

  He shook his head.

  “And it wasn’t Kage or Jason or a farm dog or fox or anything like that? Any ideas?”

  He dragged his gaze from the fells to glare around at the garden and old house.

  “Like wetlands,” he said after a while. “Like stagnant water, boggy earth, minerals trapped in the ground, long-decayed bodies. Like something green grown brown, something young grown old. There was an area, almost a trail, where something was there, then was not. But there were no foot or paw impressions of scent from a host. Nothing that seemed to be touched by the smell, only an air scent. If it left physical marks at all, I couldn’t tell in the dark and the hard ground. But there was nothing about the smell to suggest a living creature.” He looked away again. “It was a soured smell of nature turned rancid, and happening to move through an area as if it were an animal. If I followed it I might be able to tell where it wafted from. Though it seemed to be dissipating.”

  Zar also gazed out toward hills while I only stared at his brother.

  “That’s remarkable,” I said after a pause.

  Both glanced at me.

  “Strange,” Jed said, frowning. “I wouldn’t say remarkable. Always an explanation.”

  “I mean that you can tell that much. Even if we don’t have an answer for what it was. I’ll scry for a source. Whatever it was made me uneasy. I don’t want to alarm the faie with too many people out, but maybe one more wolf in fur tonight? Zar, we need you trying to talk to them. Maybe Andrew will come with us. Unless Jason is all right and needs to change. Isaac is too visible in the dark if someone happened to look out.”

  The brothers smirked at this.

  “It would be all right,” Zar said. “He’d just look like a sheep.”

  I recognized this as a dig at Isaac, startled as I caught for the first time that they thought being a white wolf was a flaw—a bit of a joke, possibly ugly. This was news to me, not to mention irritating for the attitude. Yet Zar actually made a good point.

  “Perhaps a wolf in sheep’s clothing is a better idea for keeping a low-profile? We don’t have to decide right now. We’ll talk to the rest and see how Jason is. I’m going to stay in for a while. I would be grateful if we knew where Kage was, but I don’t want more fights. If you happen to see him, please leave him alone.” I started to turn away but looked back to Jed. “Everything fine last night, I take it? No people? No trouble?”

  Jed nodded.

  I was starting off again when I was startled to hear a, “Thanks.” And glanced back at him.

  Jed was looking at the gravel.

  “Of course. Thank you for your help last night. Both of you.” I went on in for a scry.

  Chapter 11

  I struggled to find the mental space for scrying. The sketching and walk had helped, though. I sat on the floor, back against the bed, and listened first to music, setting out the dog ball on the bedside table, drinking from my water bottle, opening my sketchbook.

  After some minutes just breathing, I put on the drum tracks on my phone and shut my two eyes to open the third one.

  I meant to scry for the faie. I meant to ask for a sight of the source of the swamp smell.

  Instead, I looked for Kage.

  I saw him clearly, almost instantly, going at a jog up a steep hiking trail into the fells, chest heaving, sweat soaking his shirt. The sun, at least, was clouding over now, offering him some relief.

  I’m sorry, Kage. I’m so, so sorry we hurt you.

  Of course, he did not respond. The only time I’d ever actually conveyed a message to a person through a scry in their waking lives was Gavin, this mage we would meet tomorrow night. One of the many things I looked forward to discussing in person.

  Having something to look forward to pulled my mind back from Kage.

  Faie. Concentrate. Clear intention.

  I walked along a mountain trail to the waterfall in silver moonlight. The air was cool, the sound of the water powerful in my ears, Isaac’s hand in mine warm and strong.

  I looked to my left to smile at him. Isaac focused ahead on rushing water. I moved on, him beside me, and we slipped behind the falls to the cavern. The place they’d come to me before, where they’d presented me with the heart of light and spirit and pure love and joy that had left me breathless and giddy, shrouded in love like a warm bath.

  Here they would return. They would invite me to a space in this historic, beautiful world of the Yorkshire Dales where I could find them.

  Yet I stepped in and caught my breath. There was something wrong. The light failed, the spirits motionless.

  I looked up but Isaac was gone. I had to run forward alone, calling for them. Only to discover they were already there. Cast about this way and that, broken, twisted, their eyes carved out of their faces, their forms like crushed butterflies in the dark. No voices, no warmth, no light radiated off them. I lifted one frail, almost weightless body in my arms, and smelled wet marshes, boggy swamps, a faint rot of musty old places.

  I gasped and jumped back, almost screaming as horror of the place consumed me.

  Show me what it is! Frantic, shouting for help. Please! What makes that trail? Show me what has done this.

  I focused on the beck, the boulders, the trees, the deer of last night. I pictured the trail Jed had described as a brown haze. I followed it, pushing aside branches, sick and shaking, down into a ravine, into scrub and damp places.

&nbs
p; There, skulking ahead, away from the place it had watched us last night, was…

  Bang.

  I jumped, my two real eyes snapping open.

  Someone had slammed a door. Commotion, calling out, then running steps down the stairs, the front door, another voice, more steps, front door slammed, silence.

  It wasn’t even my pack. The voices of children, a woman, a whole family staying at The Gables. Back here in the middle of the day for something, heading out again.

  But children made me think of pups, of my pack, what wonderful fathers I was sure they would make. Not with me. I couldn’t have pups. I could have babies. Their pack needed them to have shifter mates. They all needed that.

  Don’t start. That’s not in this Moon. Concentrate.

  I sketched the cave and the little bodies while tears filled my eyes once more. Not a good day for mascara.

  After a few notes about the date and time, the smell, the bodies, crushed and eyeless, I flipped the page and sketched the creature I had seen. Which meant very little as I’d seen a dark bulk moving through dark brush.

  But there had been a creature.

  There was a four-footed animal killing faie? Impossible. Yes, the faie could be killed. But not by, say, a bear or a panther. Their elemental energy was destroyed by the destruction of the elements they inhabited, thus so few faie left, and the ones that were around being shy, furtive things that avoided human energies as surely as something like total wolves did. To maliciously kill one, it would have to present as physical, then be trapped and murdered like any other physical being. But trapping was the thing. You couldn’t just run at a faie with a knife. It would simply vanish. It would take magic, or unusual cunning or trickery, to murder a faie in cold blood. Not some weird, hulking beast inexplicably slinking through the British countryside. And what about those eyes being cut out? Just like the shifters. Like the three dead druids as well.

  I reached unconsciously for my phone to text Zar, ask where he was. We had to talk. Zar knew more about these beings than I did. Nana had never sat me down for a lesson on faie. They were just sort of … around. Like coyotes or hawks in the high desert. We talked about them, she sometimes saw one, that was it.