Downstairs was abuzz with motion and sounds.
“Good morning, Lynn,” Sheppard said as I came into view of the dining room. He was seated at the head of the table: an oval-shaped, black granite thing with flecks of iridescence within the surface. The pack sat in white leather chairs at the table, though—as promised—there was an empty seat next to Jonathan. I smiled and waved as I approached my seat.
Chastity and Kaylah were still in the kitchen, but they alternated bringing out plates of food. Sheppard had nearly cleared his plate, but reached for seconds as I sat down.
“Mornin’ hun,” Kaylah said, touching my hair with one hand while the other placed an empty plate down in front of me. “How’d’ya like yer eggs?”
“Ooh, scrambled with cheese, please,” I replied. I reached for a pitcher of milk on the table and filled the empty glass at my seat.
Next to me, Jonathan had potatoes and bacon heaped on his plate. I stole a piece of his bacon and munched on it while I filled my plate. My arm brushed his a number of times as I did, and he lightly elbowed me back every time, a smile fixed on his face.
“Thanks again for fixing my doorframe, Ian,” I said, catching his eye across the table and taking a sip of my milk.
“Not a problem,” Ian replied, smiling. “We’ll go pick up new locks after we get done digging through the old house.”
I sobered. It wasn’t like I had forgotten that we were all going to do that today, it just still felt like it was my fault. Or at least, that it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. “I’m sorry you guys all have to do that because of me.”
“Not as sorry as those God-forsaken vamps are gonna be,” Matt retorted, shoveling a forkful of potatoes into his mouth.
“It’s not your fault,” Chastity added from the kitchen. It was the loudest I’d heard her be. “Those bloodsuckers don’t know the hornet’s nest they just stirred up.”
Daniel smiled at me. “We’re all alive and safe because we went running with you. We don’t yet know how many vampires there were last night. Maybe there was only one, maybe there were twenty. It was too hard to tell for sure while the smoke billowed from the house. Had we not been out on the preserve, you could argue that someone would have likely gotten hurt when the vamps came to start that fire. Therefore, if anything is your fault, it is simply that none of us were injured—or worse.”
Talk about a lawyer’s argument. I could see why he was as successful as Sheppard said.
“’Zactly.” Kaylah scooped fresh scrambled eggs from a pan onto my plate. “We’re all safe on account ‘a you.” She kissed Daniel’s forehead and returned to the kitchen.
I hadn’t thought of it that way. Sheppard caught my eye and the corner of his mouth turned up as he stood to take his plate out to the kitchen. Another I-told-you-so. I smiled back at him. Message received. Pack doesn’t blame pack for matters outside of our control.
Kaylah took Sheppard’s plate as Chastity brought another plate of bacon to the table. I shoved a forkful of cheesy eggs into my mouth. They were delicious, of course, creamy and yet somehow fluffy at the same time. I followed the eggs up with a forkful of potatoes.
“You guys finish up,” Sheppard said. “I’m going to take the truck over and start seeing what’s salvageable.”
Jamie stood up. “Hang on a sec, and I’ll ride with you.” He shoved the last two pieces of bacon from his plate into his mouth as he stood and handed his plate to Chastity.
“Mmm.” Ian took a gulp of his milk. “Me too.” He also handed his plate to Chastity, who deposited both in the kitchen sink.
The three of them headed out the front door. The engine of the Ram rumbled to life and then faded down the street.
“When you’re done,” Jonathan said to me as I crunched into a crispy piece of bacon. “We can head over in my Jeep.” He looked to Daniel and Matt. “You guys wanna ride along as well?”
Matt shrugged. “I’ll wait and bring Chas along after breakfast.”
“I’ll ride over with them, darlin’,” Kaylah said to Daniel. “You go on.”
Daniel smiled at Kaylah and scooped the last bit of his eggs onto his fork with a small piece of his slice of buttered toast. He stood when he was done and took his plate to the kitchen, where Chastity waited to take it from him, her hand on her hip.
Jonathan finished his last piece of bacon and did the same. Chastity also grabbed Matt’s empty plate when he was done, but Matt stayed seated. He leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Clearly, he was going to just sit there and wait for Chastity to be done cleaning up after breakfast.
I furrowed my brow, alternating looking at Chastity and Kaylah, who were cleaning up after breakfast. “Why not help them, Matt?”
He raised an eyebrow and opened his eyes. “I’m not going in there.” He hooked a thumb toward the kitchen. “That’s their domain. The ladies have this well in hand.”
I pursed my lips. “So you’re just going to sit there?”
“Yep.” He closed his eyes again. “If you think you could actually be useful in there, why don’t you go help them?”
I snorted. “My version of ‘doing dishes’,” I put my fingers up in air quotes around the last two words, even though he wasn’t looking at me, “involves throwing them all into the dishwasher, rinsed or not. I don’t do dishes.”
His clear brown eye speared me, though his head had only turned a fraction in my direction. “How is that any different than what I’m doing?”
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times. I didn’t have an answer for that.
Matt snorted and closed his eyes again. I shoveled the last of my eggs and potatoes together and washed them down with my milk. Then I stood and took my plate to the kitchen with a piece of toast in hand.
“Thanks, Kaylah,” I said as she took the plate. I took a large bite of the toast.
“Don’t you worry ‘bout it none,” she replied. “You folks get on.” She made a shooing motion with her free hand. "We’ll be along in a bit.”
I sprinted up the stairs and pulled on my socks and shoes before rejoining Jonathan and Daniel at the front door. Outside, Jonathan rolled the windows of the Jeep down while I finished my toast and we headed over to the burnt husk of Sheppard’s former home.
SIXTEEN
IT WAS ONE THING TO know that a house had been burned to the ground. It was another thing entirely to see the wreckage of that house in person. A uniform, ash-and-black mottling covered everything I thought I would easily recognize. It was disorienting, and bewildering.
Daniel finished taking video of the demolished home as we arrived, and then took pictures of some of the less damaged areas. But nothing was left untouched by ash.
Sheppard directed us on where to start, and though I initially balked at the first piece of fallen timber I moved, I lifted it with ease. The sheer physical strength of being a werewolf astounded me.
The smell was the worst of it, really. It started as wood smoke, but as we moved beams and pieces of wall or ceiling to get at what was underneath, we were struck with this awful choking, burnt chemical scent that stung the eyes.
I found the bowl of keys from the mantel. Or at least, what it used to be. The bowl was smashed, the keys warped and barely recognizable. The couches in the living room were just charred boxes with winding s-shaped springs across the top.
The stairs were not stable, what was left of them. But it didn’t matter, the entire upper floor had caved in. I tracked where things fell to see if I could find where any of my own belongings from my room would have landed among the wreckage. I moved a beam and a small section of the roof before I found something strange: a perfect circle of unburnt carpet.
And in the center of that unburnt circle? My completely undamaged rosary.
The air felt thin again. I’m not a devout anything by any stretch of the imagination, but I have faith in God, and that definitely looked like His handiwork.
Sheppard s
tepped up next to me and looked at the spot. Daniel snapped a picture.
I spun to face them. “You can’t show that to the insurance company! They won’t believe it’s not edited!”
Daniel smiled. “Of course not, but I almost don’t believe it myself.”
“Blessed,” Sheppard murmured, kneeling to peer more closely at the carpet.
“Hmm?” I knelt beside him and reached toward the unburnt circle.
“Your rosary.” Sheppard gestured to the spot. “It was blessed, wasn’t it?”
I nodded in wonder as I gingerly touched and then pressed my fingers to the carpet next to my rosary. It wasn’t even soggy from the water of the fire trucks.
“Can we make a whole house out of that?” Daniel whispered.
Sheppard’s mouth turned in a wry smile. “That’s not how it works.” He met my eyes and hooked a thumb toward the rosary. “I don’t suggest you try going anywhere without that.”
My teeth were clenched so hard my jaw ached. I sighed and grabbed the untouched rosary.
“What are we looking at?” Jonathan chirped from the wreckage of another room. There were only burnt beams between him and us.
I held up my rosary and pointed to the spot where it had been lying. “Some minor sort of miracle, apparently.”
He picked his way over to us and stared at the spot. “If I hadn’t seen it myself,” he said, “I’d have been sure you were making it up when you told me about it afterward.”
“Yea?” Matt tromped over in heavy boots. “Well she’s not. It happened. It’s real. Let’s get back to work already.”
I sighed and mumbled, “Jerk,” as I walked away from the spot, looping the rosary around my neck and tucking it into my shirt.
He just snorted at me.
As I moved other bits of burnt timber to look for things worth saving, I found myself next to Chastity, who was sorting through what must have been Sheppard’s office, judging by the shapes of burnt books.
“You’re wrong about him,” she said.
“Who, Matt?”
She nodded. “He’s not actually a jerk, or a chauvinist. He just shows off that way.” She shrugged a shoulder and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Behind closed doors he’s a complete softie.” Her voice resumed its normal pitch and volume. “That man wouldn’t hesitate to give his life for any of the pack. In fact, he’s already put his life on the line for you twice over.” She pointed a finger at me, poking it at my shoulder as she spoke. There was a hardness to her then that I hadn’t yet seen in her.
Matt had put his life on the line for me? “What? When did he do that?”
“Don’t you remember him pulling you out of that vampire club downtown?” There was anger in her voice now. “He said you were high that night, but his face is kinda hard to forget!” She made a clawing motion over the left side of her face, where Matt’s scars were. The golden in her hazel eyes became more prominent, and there was a sharpness to her vanilla scent. “Never mind that he also killed the crazed wolf that attacked you and brought you here to us!”
Wow. I had never heard so many words from Chastity. She was angry. Her mate had been in danger because of me, and I clearly needed to be more grateful about it.
I wanted to get defensive about it, wanted to shout back at her. But she had a point, and I was certain she wasn’t making any of it up. I’d been so caught up in all these changes that I wasn’t really thinking about how much it affected the individuals of the pack. I sighed.
“You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t know, or even think about it being him that pulled me out of the jam with that wolf. Jonathan had mentioned that Matt brought me in. I just hadn’t thought about it.” I gingerly touched her shoulder. I didn’t know how ready to fight she could have been. “There’s a lot of this that I’m still figuring out, okay Chastity? I didn’t know about the club. I remember having gone there a couple of times with my friend Frederick, but I don’t remember ever seeing Matt there. I didn’t know it was a vampire club.”
She closed her eyes and took a breath. “No. Of course you wouldn’t have known. It’s not like vampires go around telling everyone what they’re up to.”
“They certainly don’t advertise it to people who aren’t yet addicted to being their sheep,” Ian said. “Hey look!” He lifted a misshapen metal box out of the soot and ash. “It’s Shep’s computer. Hopefully the hard drive’s still good.” He wandered off to place the computer in the back of the Ram.
“Aw man!” Jamie exclaimed from the wreckage of the living room. He held up a small black box, but it was warped, and sludge dripped out of the back corner. “We’re gonna have to start our game completely over, Ian!”
A growl escaped Ian. “I had just gotten that ultra-rare sword too!” He sighed. “Stupid vampires.”
“Hey,” Kaylah said from where the kitchen used to be, “leas’ th’ pots ‘n pans are salvageable, along with most a th’ silverware.” She looked to me. “Hey Lynn, be a dear ‘n fetch me a crate outta th’ shed?” She hooked a thumb toward the metal structure in the back corner of the backyard.
“Sure,” I replied.
I trudged picked my way through the rubble to the backyard, where the grass was clear, if not a little soot-stained. A couple steps past the rubble, I smelled it. That same sickening dead smell that was from the front door of my apartment when I had first visited. The smell Sheppard and Matt had labeled vampire. There was a soft rumbling sound, and with a start, I realized it was me, growling. I was actually growling at that disgusting scent, at the thought of the thing that it came from. I shook my head and continued.
The shed was filled with all the normal landscaping tools you’d expect, along with a workbench and a standing tool chest. Crates were stacked in the back corner with a handful of crutches leaned against them. The top crate held what I considered to be very serious first aid supplies: sutures, gauze, epi pens, and the like—all neatly arranged and sealed in plastic to keep them sanitary. My own first aid kit at home had simply consisted of a half-empty box of band-aids that were something in the realm of two years old. The three crates underneath the first aid crate, however, were empty. I grabbed two of them and headed back to the rubble.
On the way back, I saw the football the pack had been playing with the other night. Smiling, I tossed it into one of the crates.
“Here you go,” I said to Kaylah once I got back, handing her one of the crates. I placed the other one down near her, taking the football out.
“Hey Jonathan,” I called, catching his eye across the rubble. I held the football up.
His eyes lit up when he saw what I had in my hand. I chucked the football to him and he caught it. “Hey, awesome! I’m glad this made it.” He headed to his Jeep, tossing it into the backseat.
“Looks like the grill is salvageable, too,” Sheppard said. “But I think everything else is a wash. I’m glad it’s all insured.” He picked up the grill—which would have only barely fit in the bed of his truck if the tailgate was down—and took it over to the shed. He put it down inside and turned back to the rubble. Kaylah had the two crates I brought her filled with pots, pans, and silverware. She stacked them on top of each other and took them over to the Ram, placing them in the bed as well.
Then we all gathered together in the backyard, where that sickening dead smell was. Sheppard looked meaningfully at Matt, who nodded and started to pull his shirt off. Sheppard put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “It’s broad daylight, Matt,” he said.
“And the scent of them heads straight from here, off into the hills, and onto the reserve,” Matt waved a hand to indicate the direction he was talking about. “It’ll be faster to track them in wolf form. If I get too close to civilization, I’ll stop at the abandoned park ranger shack, pick up some clothes and keep tracking in town.” He rubbed a hand over his head, spiking his blond hair with soot from the house. “We need to know where to start this thing.”
Something dangerous spiked his tone, and again I
was glad he was on our side.
“Be careful,” Sheppard said.
“Come back to me,” Chastity said, kissing him as he resumed getting undressed.
I turned away and Jonathan rolled his eyes at me.
“People clothes don’t fit wolves,” he said, chuckling.
I rolled my eyes right back at him.
“C’mon, Lynn,” Ian said. “Let’s go get the locks for your place.” He looked to Jonathan, “You mind driving? We can check on your place and mine afterward.”
“Sure,” Jonathan replied. “You comin’ too, Jamie?”
“Yep,” Jamie answered, heading toward the Jeep.
SEVENTEEN
WE STOPPED AT THE HARDWARE store and picked up a set of locks for my apartment. Remembering how Kaylah had chastised me in the big-box store, I tried not to obviously sniff at every person that passed. It was hard. They all smelled different shades of the same handful of scents. But even that didn’t compare to the vibrancy of the scents of my packmates.
Ian had taken a picture of my existing door handle and lock so that we could pick something that matched. I followed Jonathan as he led the way through the store. At the checkout, I reached into my back pocket, realizing belatedly that my wallet was in my purse, which was on the floorboard of my car.
“No problem.” Ian pulled out a black credit card. “Pack,” he whispered as he swiped the card for payment.
“I can’t let you guys buy everything for me!” I crossed my arms.
They didn’t reply until we were in the Jeep again.
“Pack takes care of pack,” Jonathan said as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“But buying everything for everyone?” I arched an eyebrow at him.
Jamie leaned forward from the backseat and put a hand on my shoulder. I met his pale green eyes. “Shep’s got a lot of old money tied up somewhere, so does Daniel. And they have investments too. There’s more than enough.”
“And we all take care of each other,” Jonathan said. “Shep doesn’t ask for money from any of us, but we usually all end up just buying things for the house and for each other.” He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s no big deal.”
A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1) Page 14
