Howl of the Sequoia (Secrets of the Sequoia Book 1)

by Deidre Huesmann

  Rachael exhaled slowly. A small gust of brittle wind stirred her hair, tickling her cheek. Brushing the strands back, she said, “So you turn a lot of kids?” The concept made her ill.

  “Generally, no.” Holden shifted uncomfortably. “Roxi was the fourth and last Aaron infected under 13 years old.”

  The odd phrasing didn’t pass her by. “Infected?”

  Holden rubbed the back of his neck, where his hair was beginning to grow long. He probably hadn’t cut it since she last caught sight of him. “So the way it works is that a human gets bitten by a wolf. It has to break skin and saliva has to be there. It’s . . .” The coloring on his face nearly matched the green in his irises. “It’s an infection. I don’t know how else to describe it. The wound festers. You get feverish. Really sick. It’s a big reason why many die, I suppose. Human immune systems can’t always overcome it.”

  Though gruesome, the description fascinated Rachael. “Doesn’t medicine help?”

  A tight smile was his initial response. “There’s maybe a few hundred of us all over the world. It’s not like we have the resources or time to study and make vaccines or cures or anything like that.”

  “What about herbs? Natural stuff?”

  “All that taught us is that we’re still susceptible to poisonous berries and plants. Plus we still heal faster, so long as it doesn’t kill us right away.”

  “How much faster? Like, a few minutes or a few days?”

  Gradually Holden’s smile became more lax, his eyes glimmering with a hint of his familiar amusement. “I could have sworn you told me you hardly watch TV. No, it’s not a miracle. It’s like your immune system is a foot race and mine is a Formula 1. Your broken bone takes two months to heal and mine takes a week.”

  “Oh.” Lowering her eyes to the driveway, Rachael wrestled with the decision to ask her next embarrassing question. “So . . . what’s Formula 1?”

  Holden chuckled.

  Their conversation continued in that manner. Rachael’s apprehension set aside in the wake of burning curiosity. Holden patiently explained what he could, from their rapid healing abilities to their basic vulnerabilities (and what a Formula 1 race entailed). Apparently, there existed no special herb or element that was instantly fatal to a lycan, the moon did nothing other than aid their nocturnal vision, and aside from life span and physical quirks, they were practically the same as any other wolf—or human.

  “And that’s sort of a tell-tale sign,” he admitted. “Most lycans get these sort of gold speckles in their eyes after they turn. No one really knows why.”

  Something about that bothered Rachael. “How come Aaron and Nathan don’t?”

  “Don’t—oh, have them?” Holden shrugged as though considering the whys of those two were beneath him. “Who knows. I’m sure it helps for blending in better.” Uneasy with his tone, Rachael chose to spurn the subject away from other lycans.

  After a time her legs grew tired and Rachael opted to sit on the freezing concrete. Holden quickly joined her, holding her gaze as he steered the conversation to his current job.

  Dusk gradually settled upon them. Rachael barely noticed until a flash of headlights blinded her. She threw up a hand, squinting as her father’s car pulled to a stop behind Holden. “Crap,” she muttered just as the engine turned off.

  The two were on their feet when Henry blustered out of the car. His unkempt beard made his scowl dig deeper into his squared jaw. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded of his daughter.

  Rachael rubbed one of her freezing thighs with a wince. “We were just—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. Get inside where it’s warm. You too, boy,” Henry barked when Holden began to back off.

  Holden’s rusty eyebrows shot up, but he fell into step behind Rachael. Halfway to the front door, she remembered they had been locked out. “Daddy?”

  “What?” Henry grumped behind her.

  “We were outside because we got locked out.”

  If anything could worsen her father’s mood, it was a minor inconvenience. He fumbled for his keys again, digging through his pockets and cursing. “Why did you lock the damn door?”

  Rachael had to bite her tongue to keep from giving in to her irritability. She’d already fought with her brother; she didn’t want to repeat the experience with her father. “I didn’t.”

  Solemnly, Holden said, “Your son did, actually.”

  Jamming the key into the lock, Henry shot his daughter a skeptical look. When she didn’t meet his eyes, he cursed aloud and practically threw the door open.

  “JACKSON HORACE ADAIR, GET DOWN HERE!”

  As her father stormed up the stairs in a whirlwind of fury, apparently forgetting he’d just demanded his son come to him, Holden closed the door. Quietly, he said, “So what’s your middle name? Antoinette?”

  Rachael smiled. “Marie, actually.”

  For the first time all day, Holden flashed her one of his genuine, if slightly crooked, smiles. It hit her then that they had literally spent hours talking in the winter cold, in the middle of her driveway, lost in each other’s words as the sun had set. Had it not been about werewo—lycans, it would have almost been romantic.

  The butterflies were returning. Flustered, Rachael diverted her eyes. “Um, can I get you anything to drink?”

  In her periphery, Holden’s smile faded. “No thanks. I should actually get home now.”

  “Oh.” Blinking, she cast him a sideways glance. “When you came over were you a . . . um . . . did you do that thing?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted glumly. After a pause filled with the muffled sounds of Henry and Jackson arguing heatedly, Holden added, “Look, just so you know, I have to tell Aaron about all this. Everything we talked about, what I saw, your brother; all of it.”

  Well, that was unsettling. “Why?”

  “I’ll explain more next time.” He hesitated. “Er, if there is a next time.”

  Is there? Rachael wondered. The visit had been startlingly pleasant. The word monster had only crossed her mind once. For all intents and purposes, Holden had come and presented himself to her as a human. Moreover, she’d enjoyed it. Even with the nipping chill, sore feet, and the headache steadily growing between her eyes, Rachael hadn’t had such a relaxing, easy time since before her mother’s fatal diagnosis.

  “I’d like that,” she said softly.

  Holden reached out and gently hooked onto her pinky and ring fingers. Heat blossomed in Rachael’s face.

  “Good,” he said. “I would, too.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  For the first time in years, the change barely hurt.

  In fact, everything about being a wolf felt strange, new, and exhilarating. Holden waited until he was well away from the Adair house and in a dense part of the woods to shift. Cracking and snapping reached his ears, but the pain was almost sweet this time. The tearing loss of his favorite pair of jeans during his transformation didn’t even register.

  He was over the moon. The toes of his paw tingled as though he were still touching Rachael’s fingers, the blood in his body running hotter than normal at the recollection of her responsive blush. She didn’t hate him. She wanted to see him again.

  He stuck to forests and desolate roads as he ran home. The brisk air did well to cool him. Here and there Holden caught pleasant whiffs of dank, musty leaves, though it never overpowered the sweet zinnia scent Rachael emanated. The trek home would take a couple hours, and Holden used the blissful break in time to enjoy the simple, glorious fact that everything had gone—and hopefully would continue to go—better than expected.

  By the time he made it to the Moreno house, he was keyed up and extremely sore from the loping and dashing. He padded up to the front door and sat in front of it, waiting. It wasn’t too cold for him to take his human body again, but on the off-chance there were any humans in the house or otherwise nearby, a naked teenager on the doorstep would bring a lot of unwanted questions.

 
Normally somebody would hear or smell one of their kind and respond within minutes, especially if a tail was thumping against the porch as vigorously as Holden’s. For whatever reason, nearly an hour passed before Aaron answered the door.

  Holden strutted in, skimming past his leader’s ironed jeans and ignoring the resounding, “Hmm,” that escaped Aaron’s throat. Before Holden made it to the stairs Aaron called after him, “Once you change, come see me.”

  Tail still swaying in a blur of white, Holden bounded up the steps.

  After returning to his human form, showering, and climbing into a pair of old jeans and a gray long-sleeved shirt, Holden hopped down the stairs to look for Aaron. He found his alpha on the front porch’s maple rocking bench, his eyes distant and hazy as the smoky tendrils drifting from his clove cigarette.

  Rather than get straight to business, Aaron said, “I apologize for making you wait earlier.” When Holden rolled his eyes, Aaron’s gaze sharpened. “That apology was genuine.”

  Holden still felt he was walking on a streak of puffy white clouds. “Okay.”

  “Roxi was behaving more obnoxiously than usual.”

  Shrugging, Holden replied, “Since she gets more obnoxious every day, I really don’t care.” And he didn’t. Nothing could ruin his mood now.

  A strange, slow smile spread across Aaron’s face. “Very well, then. How is Miss Rachael faring?”

  “Great. She’s great.”

  “This, I know.”

  His condescending tone put a crack in Holden’s joy. “She’s doing fine.” He explained what occurred from the moment Jackson answered the door to his and Rachael’s parting farewells, taking exaggerated care to leave out that he had touched her hand . . . and that her cheeks had blossomed pinkly when he did.

  Aaron sat quietly, barely interjecting. Long after his cigarette burned out between his fingers, the man remained at ease on the bench. Occasionally he nodded in time with his gentle rocking. His behavior caused the crack in Holden’s mood to branch out, zigzagging until it became a delicate spider web upon his psyche.

  Somehow, Aaron was too calm; he was too okay with Holden’s report. Always the man gave off an air of relaxed cunning and now it was in juxtaposition with his distracted manner.

  Holden hoped it was more about Roxi than Rachael. Either was disquieting, but the latter would be more reason for concern.

  When Holden wrapped up his report, Aaron tossed the dead cigarette butt in the nearby ash tray. “It sounds as though your meeting went well, Ambassador Wolfenstein. Let me know what she says next time.”

  Hooking a thumb in his belt loop, Holden replied, “I’m not sure there’ll be a next time.”

  Aaron rose to his feet, weariness in place of his usual mocking façade. “Until now you were the only one this pack not trying to play me for an idiot today. It would be considered a kindness if you reverted to that path.”

  So he wasn’t completely out of sorts. Holden hardly cared how his leader felt, but a punch of interest caused him to ask. “What’d Roxi do to get you all worked up?”

  Nuanced irritability added an unnerving glow to Aaron’s black eyes. Laconically, he said, “That is not your concern, pup.”

  Apparently Holden had not won back any good grace. He chose against pursuing it in favor of retreating into the subtle warmth of the house. Let Aaron stew, he decided. If he thought to win anything resembling sympathy from his charge, then he was more delusional than a middle-aged man impatiently awaiting Santa Claus’s arrival.

  Alone in his room some of Holden’s good spirit filtered back in. There was no illusion of sealing a long-term bond with Rachael and her vacillating sunshine. All the same, for the first time he wanted to enjoy the friendship for its pithy duration.

  In the gentle embrace of looming slumber, Holden was pleased to catch a brief scent of zinnia.

  For a space of time, Rachael’s worst stressor was her brother’s refusal to speak to or acknowledge her. The already tension-sweltering household was now on the brink of bursting in a flurry of flames. Even—or perhaps especially—Henry could do nothing about it. When shouting didn’t work, he removed the lock from Jackson’s door; when that failed to produce satisfactory results, the door came off the hinges altogether. Even the confiscation of Jackson’s laptop and new headphones only made the silence more unbearable, until their mother finally begged her husband to return her son’s game access so he would do more than lay in bed and scowl.

  To Rachael’s relief, Holden called the very day after their reunion. Amazingly, Henry allowed his daughter the phone and even gave permission for Holden to visit that Friday. Provided, of course, the two didn’t leave the living room. The arrangement made inquiries about lycans impossible, but catching up on the past several weeks was feasible enough to make the visit worthwhile.

  In fact, lycans were only brought up in passing when Holden commented on how pleased he was Rachael had made a couple of fast friends. “Keep them around as long as you can.”

  Taking a break from blowing on her hot cocoa, Rachael gave him a quizzical smile. “You think I can’t?”

  “Of course you can,” he assured. “It’s just that it makes Aaron less . . . interested.”

  Though dying to know what Holden meant, Rachael let it go for the time being. Instead she switched the topic to school and, eventually, the notable lack of Coleen-related drama. Holden seemed equally as pleased that Second Chair Coleen had acquired a number of unsavory nicknames, “Poor Crippled Liar” being one of the kinder.

  By the time Monday rolled around, the day after New Year’s, Rachael would wonder if the mere mention had jinxed her.

  Already flustered by Jackson’s mute fury on the car ride in, Rachael had to hurry to her locker lest she be late for her first day back. The throng of tightly bundled students was beginning to thin as her peers retreated into their respective classrooms.

  Only a handful lingered in the hall when she realized there was a stranger leaning against her locker.

  Slightly winded, Rachael waved to get his attention. “Hey.” When that didn’t work, she raised her voice. “Hey. You’re kind of blocking my stuff.”

  The guy swiveled to look at her. Rachael’s first impression was, Geez, he’s huge. Easily over six foot, broad in the chest, shoulders, and biceps, with a protruding chin and oversized teeth, everything about him encompassed the word “massive.” His gray-on-green varsity jacket was probably the largest the school could offer, and it still pulled tight and came up short in the arms.

  “You’re Rachael?” His baritone voice seemed to rattle the lockers.

  She shifted uncomfortably. “Uh. . . .”

  Offering an oversized, thickly knuckled hand, he said, “I’m Kevin.”

  No way. Rachael did a double take, blinking so rapidly she almost gave the impression of fluttering her near-white lashes. Was this the Kevin, Vera’s ex-boyfriend? He bore an awful resemblance to Jackson, from the sturdy build to the unruly brown hair. His eyes were sharp and hazel, shifting from green-brown to brown-green in that moment.

  Without taking his hand, Rachael took a step back. “I’m going to be late—”

  “It’ll just take a second, I swear.”

  At least he didn’t act like her brother. Rachael inched back again. “Look, I don’t want to judge—”

  “About me cheating on Vera? It’s true.”

  He had a propensity for interrupting matched his bluntness. Mouth agape, it occurred to Rachael that this could very well be a set-up of some sort. When she found her voice again, she stated, “Just move, please.”

  Possibly-Kevin didn’t budge. Instead he seemed to deflate, his massive shoulders slumping inward. “Look, can you just . . . can you tell Vera to please stop ignoring me?”

  “No,” Rachael said firmly. “It’s her choice.”

  “I know we can’t get back together,” maybe-Kevin insisted. “Yeah, I miss her, but I get that. All I want is to explain what happened better. I feel like crap for what
I did.”

  Agitated, Rachael came to a quick decision. “I’ll let her know you want to talk. Can you please move already?”

  Relief seemed to straighten the boy’s posture again. Thanking her profusely, he at last obliged and left her alone.

  The encounter didn’t leave her as shaken as it might have a few months ago. All the same, Rachael mulled over maybe-Kevin’s words through her first three classes. Why approach her, and not one of Vera’s other friends? How had he found her locker? And if it wasn’t a set-up, perhaps Vera deserved to know. At the very least Rachael could describe the guy and see if it matched the Kevin her friend had dated.

  She didn’t get an opportunity until lunch. Immediately everyone around them was interested, leaning in and speaking in harsh, hushed whispers.

  “That’s totally Kevin,” Shawna said grimly. “What’s he doing asking you, Rache?” Helplessly, Rachael shrugged.

  Vera shifted uncomfortably. Since Rachael had brought up the encounter, Vera hadn’t touched her food. “I don’t really want to talk to him.”

  “And you don’t have to,” said Shawna. Her dark eyes sparkled fiercely, reminding Rachael of Jackson when he got overprotective. “In fact, screw ‘im. He doesn’t deserve closure.”

  Worrying at her lip, Vera turned to Rachael. “Why is he asking you?”

  “Probably because none of us will give him the time of day,” suggested Jain.

  Even standoffish Amanda had scooted over to join the gossip. Her green eyes were bright as fresh ferns when she spoke. “You want us to take care of him?”

  “Of course not,” said Vera firmly. Her breath hitched as she appeared to rethink what she was about to say, and then . . . the strangest thing happened. Vera’s expression went hard. Her blue eyes took the steely hue of resolve, the normally gentle curve of her mouth flattening in a sharp edge. Wordlessly, Vera climbed off the eating bench and vanished into the hallway.

  Rachael didn’t understand, but the other girls seemed to. A brief exchange of glances later Shawna, Jain, and Amanda moved to follow.