by Moira Rogers
He was burning, and the fact that she thought he might not be drew a ragged chuckle from this throat. “Control. Don’t think about what I’m doing, Eden. Feel what I feel.”
A heartbeat. Two. She exhaled on a shaky sigh as her fingers tangled in his hair. “You want to—to take me.”
“Until there’s no part of you that doesn’t belong to me.” Her shirt yielded under his hand, baring a white bra so sheer he could see her nipples, dusky against her pale skin. He bent his head and rocked her hips harder against his leg as he sucked one peak into his mouth.
Pleasure spiked. Tension spilled down their bond, and she slammed her wrist to her mouth to muffle a cry. Paying attention to the jolts sparking between them made it laughably easy to find the perfect rhythm, the speed and pressure that had her clutching at the edge of the table with one hand as she bit her wrist hard enough for him to feel it.
The wet mesh fabric clung to her nipple, and Jay gave her the slightest edge of teeth before turning his mouth to the flushed center of her chest. “That’s it, honey. You’ll feel so good coming all over me.”
As if the words had been a command, her hips jerked. Her back bowed, arching over his arm until her hair pooled on the table. She came in virtual silence, her face slack and her lips parted on a soundless moan, but the intensity of it slammed into him as her wolf surged.
“Kaley, were you thinking of—” Lorelei walked into the kitchen, her eyes fixed on the catalog in her hand. She looked up and clapped one hand over her eyes before spinning around. “Oh shit. Shit, I’m sorry.”
Eden sat up so fast she crashed into Jay as a choked squeal of embarrassment escaped her lips. Her cheeks flamed and she shoved at Jay’s chest with clumsy hands. “No, no it’s okay, we weren’t—we were just—” She clutched the open edges of her shirt together, but her fumbling fingers popped the button off when she tried to fasten it. “Fuck.”
A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled out of Lorelei. “Yeah, I can tell.”
Jay cleared his throat as he took over buttoning Eden’s shirt. “The witch is here.”
“She is?” Lorelei half-turned before snapping her head forward again. “Already?”
“Yeah.” Eden finally met Jay’s eyes, and embarrassment faded as her lips curved into a wry smile. “She’s over at the little house with Shane. Once she made Jay my Guide, everyone fled. And now I’m understanding why.”
“Uh-huh. I think I’m going to follow suit.”
“We’ll be out in a little bit,” Eden promised.
There was no mistaking her look, and even as Lorelei hurried away, Jay shook his head. “Later, Eden.”
Her breath hissed out. “I know. I know. But this is uncomfortably like being a teenager again. I just want enough privacy to get my damn hands on you.”
“Tonight,” he promised. The guys could take a hike for a few hours, maybe even until morning. He and Eden could be alone.
She shivered as he fastened the button over her breasts, and her eyelids drooped. “How do you do it?” she asked in a whisper. “If I couldn’t feel you, I wouldn’t think you were all that turned on. You’re still giving me a complex.”
The same way he did everything—because he had to. Because people were counting on him.
“Because it’ll be worth it.” He brushed her disheveled hair back from her face. In return, she turned her head to nuzzle his palm, her lips soft as they ran along his skin. A whisper, a quiet acceptance of his promise and an intimacy that went beyond sex.
Stopping was hell, but the tender way Eden touched him eclipsed all the discomfort. Knowing she wanted him just as much as he wanted her was soothing in its own way, turned a frantic rush toward pleasure into something more complex and rewarding. A chase in every sense of the word—stop and go, back and forth, but when they finally managed to catch one another…
The chase would end, and hell would turn to heaven in a heartbeat.
Chapter Nine
Eden had assumed the warmth and arousal of her new bond with Jay would fade eventually.
She’d been half-right.
Lunch was long behind them, and the men and women had parted ways for the afternoon’s work. Only practical when Mae still froze up when confronted with Jay or Shane and outright avoided Colin and Fletcher, but the division of the genders made the farm feel a little stuck in time. Eden could hear the men in the distance through the open back door, the pounding of hammers and occasional buzz of a saw interspersed with thuds and grunts. Masculine sounds, sharply contrasting with the bright chaos of yarn and crafting materials littering every surface of the kitchen.
It might have perturbed her more if Shane and Fletcher hadn’t seemed perfectly willing to sort yarn and package decorative soaps alongside the women. Respect had the males keeping their distance, not disdain or antiquated notions of gender roles. And no matter how far they strayed from the house, Eden could track Jay’s presence, a warm awareness that brought whispers of emotion along with a steady embrace of soothing power.
She wasn’t alone anymore. The knowledge made the ground solid under her feet again, and the shards of glass tearing up her throat had vanished. With a little time and luck, maybe they could make that true for all of Zack’s pack.
Eden opened the next box in her stack and inhaled the scent of lemon and lavender. “Is this lotion?”
“Body cream,” Kaley offered with a grin. “Mae’s skin-care specialty.”
“Our specialty,” Mae corrected, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. “Kaley’s pretty much responsible for all the most popular scents. She has good instincts.”
Eden lifted one professionally labeled jar declaring all natural ingredients in a clean, elegant font. “How much profit do you make per jar?”
“With that? A few dollars wholesale, a little more retail. I was working on an online storefront when…” Mae trailed off and shoved her hands into the pockets of Shane’s hoodie. She’d taken to wearing it instead of a jacket, and no one had commented on it, not even to tease.
Undoubtedly no one wanted to risk taking away the small comfort Mae had found. Eden filled the awkward silence by lifting the box. “So which scent is your favorite, Kaley?”
“Sultry Southern Nights.” She reached over and dug through a box until she came up with a bottle, which she handed to Eden. “It has jasmine and vanilla, with a little bit of amber and musk.”
The scent matched the name, heavy and sensual. Eden could imagine the jars lining shelves at a boutique in Memphis and selling in bulk to tourists who wanted to take a little bit of the South home with them. “This is amazing, y’all. I thought you had more of an idea than an honest-to-God business already underway.”
Her approval brought a hint of color to Mae’s cheeks. “It’s really thanks to Kaley and Lorelei. They encouraged me to make it more than a hobby. I started off only selling the yarn, but the bath and body products are really popular.” She shifted awkwardly and offered Eden a shy whisper of a smile as Stella walked into the kitchen and eyed the products scattered across the table.
“Organic plays big with the hipster demographic.” Stella sniffed at an open jar and hummed. “So what’s the deal with your cousin, Eden? He’s cute, got that whole motorcycle-gang thing happening. Taken?”
Tension snapped through the kitchen. The friendly light in Mae’s eyes vanished, replaced by something cold and protective. Kaley was sorting bottles as if her life depended on it, all her attention focused on placing lotions and face creams into battered woven baskets.
“It’s complicated,” Eden told the witch carefully. “He’s been through a lot and could use some space.” The pounding of the hammers from outside had fallen silent, and Eden winced. “Plus, he’s probably listening to this conversation.”
Stella shrugged, clearly unembarrassed by the possibility. “You never know if you don’t ask, right?”
The hammering started again with renewed enthusiasm, and Eden bit her lip against a smile. “I’m still hung up
on the human idea of privacy being possible. Doesn’t work so well among werewolves, I guess.”
“Jay mentioned privacy wards. I can do that, you know. Magical soundproofing.” She shrugged again. “No one in Red Rock would dare live without it.”
Eden carried the box of body cream over to the table where Kaley had started sorting bars of soap. “What about in Memphis? Did y’all have anything like that?”
It took Kaley a moment to answer. “Aside from a few people who roomed together, we lived apart. We only—”
A scream of sheer animal panic tore through the house. Eden acted on instinct, lunging from the table with a burst of inhuman speed. Her chair toppled over in slow motion, clattering to the kitchen floor as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
So fast, and not fast enough. There had been so much terror in that scream, so much pain. She stumbled on the steps, awkward as werewolf agility and human muscle memory did uncomfortable battle.
She clawed her way up the final two stairs and burst into the upstairs sitting room. Lorelei stood in front of Quinn’s open bedroom door, her hand clapped to her mouth, her shoulders shaking.
Dread overtook any other emotion. Eden froze, knowing both that she had to face that open door and that she wasn’t prepared for what she’d find on the other side. Behind her, the stairs shook under a stampede of footsteps, a wave of concern that washed her forward, ready or not.
She wasn’t. She couldn’t be. But the others had followed, were already at her back, a flood of agitated power converging on her from all directions. Steeling her spine, she crossed to Lorelei’s side.
Quinn swung from an exposed rafter in the ceiling, the rope he’d looped around his neck digging into his skin. His face was swollen, purple, his tongue protruding slightly from his mouth. Eden looked away. She had no idea how long he’d been there, but one thing was clear.
He was dead.
Lorelei gasped in a breath as Kaley, Mae and Stella stumbled into the room behind them. “No, get out of here. Don’t look.”
Eden grabbed for the door and hauled it shut as her stomach threatened to revolt. “Jay,” she choked out. “We need to get everyone back downstairs and find Jay.”
“Where’s Quinn?” Kaley demanded. “Eden, what’s going on?”
She parked herself in front of the door like a sentinel and raised her voice. “Quinn’s—” What could she say? There was no way to soften this blow and no reason to wait. She didn’t need Jay to confirm what she’d seen. But she couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t make her lips form them.
She couldn’t even say them in the silent darkness of her own mind.
Jay appeared at the top of the stairs. “We heard a scream.”
Lorelei herded Mae and Kaley past him, her face pale and her hands shaking. “You heard Eden. Downstairs, now. Let them—let them do what they have to do.”
Mutters. Protests. But they obeyed, slipping down the steps, and then there was only Jay. Strong, steady Jay, but not even he could make this all right. Eden wet her lips, tasted salt, and realized she’d started crying. “It’s Quinn,” she whispered. “I think he killed himself.”
“What?” He laid his hand on her shoulder as he walked past, but turned her away before opening Quinn’s door. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Oh, Jesus.”
Looking away didn’t help. The image of Quinn’s still body had painted itself on the backs of her eyelids in a thousand vivid colors. “We should have heard something. We should have checked on him when we didn’t.”
“You can’t watch everyone all the time.” The door closed, and Jay wrapped his arms around her. “Shit, what do we do?”
“I don’t know.” Numbness was settling over her, the kind she’d always told herself was practical. In a crisis, things needed to be done, and it was easier to deal with the practicalities if you couldn’t feel. But what practicalities were there when a werewolf took his own life?
She clutched at Jay’s arm and tried to walk through the possibilities. “If this had happened somewhere else, I’d be calling 911. Can werewolves even do that?”
“He’s dead,” Jay whispered. “No one who looks at him now will ever know he wasn’t human. With something like this, the Medical Examiner is supposed to do an autopsy, make sure it really was a…” He trailed off. “It’ll mean more gossip.”
Eden stiffened as she imagined nosy neighbors sneaking onto the farm to uncover illicit activity—and discovering something far more damning. “We can’t afford much more, can we?”
“No,” he admitted. “But burying him out back like a fucking dog might be even worse for the rest of them. We need to talk to Zack, see what he thinks.”
Ice crept through her veins, helping with the numbness. “No one’s burying anyone like a dog. Even if Zack wants to keep it quiet, we can do it with compassion. We can do it properly.”
“You’re right. I didn’t mean—”
Footsteps thumped up the stairs, and Colin walked in. His gaze raked over Eden before jumping past her to land on Jay. “Which do you want me to manage, the dead or the living?”
Jay shuddered. “Get in there and get him down.”
“I’ll help,” Stella offered hurriedly.
Colin’s expression looked as flat as Eden felt. “Zack’s at the foot of the stairs,” he said as he circled them. “I’m not sure if he’s waiting for you or guarding the way up.”
“I’m on it.” Jay pulled Eden away from Quinn’s door. “Come on. I need you to help me with him.”
It didn’t seem like a monumental request, not until she reached the bottom step and Zack turned to face her. If she was numb, he was…empty. No, worse. Empty implied a passive, neutral state. Zack was folding in on himself, forming a black hole that swallowed emotion before it could form. Empty could be filled, fixed, but the darkness inside Zack might hollow out anyone who tried.
He looked over her shoulder, at Jay. “How’d he do it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jay said quietly. “Did he have family?”
Zack shook his head. “None that knew he was still alive. He broke ties when he was turned, more than ten years ago.”
“Then we need to think about whether to get the authorities involved, or just have a quiet burial and take care of him as best we can.”
Zack stared in silence for so long that Eden reached out to him. He flinched back and refocused on Jay. “If there’s any chance the authorities might end up looking into the rest of us, it’s not worth it. We’ve all got too much weird shit to explain.”
Jay nodded. “Then it needs to be tonight. I’ll take care of the practicalities.”
Zack closed his eyes. “So now there are four of us. Not much of a pack.”
“Six,” Jay corrected firmly. “Eden and I are right here.”
“And none of us are going anywhere,” Eden promised. As soon as the words escaped her lips she regretted them. With her body as numb as her heart, the words rang hollow.
She didn’t believe them. No one was going anywhere, but Zack was still slipping away. He didn’t have to make Quinn’s choice to leave. If something didn’t change, that hungry emptiness inside her cousin would consume every trace of the man he’d become.
Something had to change. Soon.
They buried Quinn in a small clearing surrounded by trees near the center of the farm. Stella laid protective wards around its perimeter while Fletcher and Colin dug the grave deep into the loamy soil.
The magic tickled over Jay’s senses as they crossed the barrier, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It had been too long since he’d been involved in the harsh reality of being a wolf in human society, too long since he’d dealt with anything but his own practical matters. And, since reaching adulthood, those were few—he had good control, never had to worry about hurting anyone or blowing his cover.
Never had to worry about much of anything until now.
Horrible, to be burying someone in the middle of the night by the light of the moon. N
o preachers, no funeral service or sleek caskets, none of the sterile niceties that allowed you to remove yourself from the proceedings. With the mounds of dirt excavated from the grave covered by bright green plastic carpeting, it was easy to see only the steel box being lowered into the cold ground.
All they had was a body sewn into a sheet from the attic.
But as he looked at the somber, sometimes tear-streaked faces around him, the truth hit him. They didn’t need tact. They needed the visceral candor of this moment—no music, no flowers, no sonorous prayer offered by a religious official.
Just them and their dead friend.
Someone had to say something, but a wind warmer than the chilly night breeze rushed past him, odd enough to draw his attention. It felt like breath, and Jay turned instinctively, looking for its source.
Nothing. No one behind him, just the quiet of the night.
The whole damn thing was making him paranoid.
The wolves gathered in a ragged circle around the grave. Mae, Kaley and Lorelei huddled together, a quiet knot of pain echoed in the tight set of Zack’s shoulders as he stood stiffly beside them.
No one spoke. No one seemed able to.
Jay cleared his throat and squeezed Eden’s hand. “I didn’t know Quinn, but I wish… Well, I wish the things he’d been through hadn’t seemed so insurmountable.”
Mae sniffled and turned her face to Lorelei’s shoulder. Fletcher looked away from the women, as if their obvious pain was too much—or too naked—to bear.
A hand brushed Jay’s right shoulder. He glanced back again. There was no one behind him, and Eden stood close to his left side, her right hand tucked into both of his.
Paranoid.
Kaley wiped her red eyes and stepped forward. Shane tried to stop her, but Zack growled a low warning. She shook her head and wrapped her hands around the pitted wooden handle of a shovel. “I need to do this.”
Fletcher retrieved a second shovel. “We can do it together. Anyone who wants to.”
