Omega Moon Rising (Toke Lobo & The Pack)

by MJ Compton

  “What did he owe? Who did he owe?” Abby hoped Libby had answers.

  Libby shrugged. “We had other things to talk about besides stupid old Gary.”

  “Did you tell Tokarz about this the other night?”

  Libby shook her head. “I don’t want Uncle Dougie to get into trouble. He’s nice to me. He loves me.”

  Luke slipped away from the door. Okay, maybe eavesdropping on Abby and her sister wasn’t a great thing, but ever since talking to Libby with Tokarz the other night, he’d had a bad feeling. A real bad feeling. He’d been sidetracked by her bratty behavior on the trip to Fort Collins, but now the feeling, like an itch between his shoulders, was back.

  Maybe it was time to research Mrs. MacDougal on his own. He hadn’t heard a word back from Jasper or the FBI. Maybe he was being appeased instead of truly being on the task force.

  He went to the room he still technically shared with Abby and sat at his computer. Aunt Macy had done a credible job tapping into Gramps’ satellite.

  Macy was waiting for him.

  “Did you send that email I asked you to send?” he asked.

  “Yeah. No response yet. Maybe your Mitchell Jasper doesn’t trust me.”

  After Luke himself, Aunt Macy was the most computer savvy person he knew. Even his cousin Drioni, who ran the Toke Lobo and the Pack website, wasn’t as good as Macy.

  “Have you found out anything about Mrs. MacDougal on your own?”

  Macy made a face. “She’s a paragon of human virtue. Taught Sunday School for half a century. Has a son who works for the brewery in IT.”

  “Where Gary worked.”

  “I know,” Macy said. “It’s a little too neat.”

  “Never would have picked up on it if she hadn’t made off with Libby at the mall. Are you sure she’s not a cross-dressing he?”

  Macy laughed, then tweaked Luke’s nose, as if he were five again. “Your sense of smell isn’t your strong suit, nephew dear.”

  “The only time I’d willingly stand in the same room with her was if I had to fart. No one would notice, not even the famous Stoker Smith.”

  Macy laughed again. “And lots of human women of a certain age have chin hair issues, including Granny.”

  “Bad enough to trowel on makeup?”

  “Yep.” Macy perched on the corner of the desk while Luke booted up the computer.

  “So what about her son?” Luke wasn’t giving up. “The one who works at the brewery. In IT. He was one of Gary’s poker-playing friends.”

  That fit in with what he’d heard Libby tell Abby.

  “Not every person in IT is into Internet porn, Luke.”

  “MacDougal. Dougie. It fits.”

  “Give the FBI time. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.”

  Macy was right. Time had mired itself in too much emotion.

  “There you are.” Abby stepped into the room. Stopped short when she saw Macy. Or maybe it was the sight of him sitting at his computer that made her pause. She sounded as if she’d been looking for him, which warmed him. He hated being apart from her.

  “Oh. Hello, Macy.”

  Macy stood. “I was just leaving. Have a nice night.”

  Abby waited until Macy was gone, then turned to Luke. “I need to go to your house, then to see Tokarz. Will you drive me?”

  Luke shut off the tower before it finished cycling on. “Of course.” Her timing was great. He had a few things he wanted to say to Tokarz, too.

  ***

  “I need my guitar case,” Abby said as Luke unlocked the door to his cabin. “My father’s guitar case. What did you do with it?”

  “It’s around here somewhere.”

  Maybe she needed a pick or a capo. He should have thought to buy those when he’d bought her new guitar. But he’d had other things on his mind that day. But why would she want a pick this moment? She’d left the new instrument at Granny’s house.

  Luke finally found the battered case in a closet.

  Abby hefted it in her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Um, Abs, I don’t think Tokarz wants to hear more of your songs right now,” Luke said. He was trying to be kind. Besides, he didn’t want Tokarz promising her any more money. Money meant escape, and Luke wasn’t ready to let her go. And the guitar inside the case was in pieces.

  The look Abby bestowed on him might have daunted a more human male.

  Tokarz was on the floor, playing with his son, when Luke and Abby arrived.

  Abby apologized for intruding on his family time.

  Tokarz brushed off her concern. “It’s an honor to serve my pack.” He climbed to his feet, leaving the baby on the carpet. “What can I do for you?”

  Abby placed her guitar case on the floor, then knelt next to the case, almost as in prayer. She carefully undid each of the hasps, then lifted the lid. The shattered instrument lay on a bed of faux brown fur.

  Baby Daniel scooted over to check it out. Abby smiled. One of her family’s pet cats had loved to sleep in the case. When her family had pets. Before Gary.

  But Abby didn’t lift the ruined guitar from its fuzzy bed. Instead, she plucked at the lining on the lid. The material sagged way from the case. Abby slid her hand into the gap and withdrew a sheaf of papers.

  “Luke says you’re like the king of werewolves.”

  Tokarz smiled. “I’m the pack alpha, which means I’m the leader. Are these more of your songs?”

  Abby shook her head. She’d made up her mind to trust Tokarz after listening to Libby babble about Gary being a cheater. But now that she was actually in his home, all her doubts came rushing back. She stood and squared her shoulders.

  There was no turning back. “This is my mother’s will. The deed to the house. Libby’s and my birth certificates and Social Security cards. Some other papers Mama asked me to keep safe.”

  Tokarz took the proffered papers. Baby Daniel slapped his hand on the mangled guitar and chortled.

  “Oh, no,” Abby said as she nudged the case away from the child with her toe. She dropped to the floor again and closed the lid. “He might get a splinter.”

  Tokarz swooped down and scooped Daniel into his arms. He placed Abby’s documents on the sofa table. “He likes guitars. He’s always after mine.”

  Abby glanced at Luke, who was watching Tokarz and his son with an expression she could only interpret as hungry. Wistful.

  He was going to break her heart.

  “Libby told me something tonight that this Uncle Dougie creep supposedly said to her, and it triggered a memory. Last year, Gary wanted Mama to mortgage the house. Things got real ugly when she refused.”

  She had both Luke and Tokarz’s attention. She had to trust them because she couldn’t keep Libby safe on her own. She knew that now. “Tonight, Libby said something about Gary not paying what he owed, so I got to thinking maybe that’s why he wanted Mama to take out a loan. He had a good job at the brewery. He always had the latest in computer hardware. So why would he need Mama to mortgage the house?”

  “That’s a good question,” Tokarz said.

  “Have you heard anything from Jasper?” Luke asked.

  Tokarz shook his head. “Call him. Find out what’s happening. Share what Abby just learned.” He held his now-fussy son against his shoulder and rubbed the tiny back.

  Tokarz was so big and yet so gentle with the baby and the contrast brought an ache to Abby’s heart. Luke would be the same way with their child. And she wouldn’t be there to see it.

  Restin dropped off Abby’s collected mail mid-afternoon the next day.

  Abby sat at Granny’s kitchen table and leafed through the flyers and other forms of junk mail. She set aside the obvious bills—electric, telephone, cable. Most of it was addressed to Gary,
and she felt funny opening it. “Isn’t it a federal offense to open someone else’s mail?”

  “Not if they’re dead,” Restin said.

  There were a few condolence cards, too, from Gary’s co-workers at the brewery and people from church who hadn’t made it to her mother’s funeral.

  There was also an envelope from Sendall’s Funeral Home, containing a bill for an unpaid balance.

  “I thought this was taken care of,” Restin said, snatching it from Abby’s fingers.

  Abby snatched it back. “By whom? I don’t recall dealing with any of Gary’s expenses.”

  “The pack took care of it.”

  “What?” Abby frowned. She didn’t want charity from anyone, least of all the werewolves of Loup Garou. They’d already done more than enough by taking both her and Libby in.

  “You’re Luke’s mate. We take care of our own.”

  “I am not Luke’s mate. Ask him. He’ll tell you.”

  “Luke is wrong. Everybody knows you’re his mate except him.”

  Abby shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel. She pushed the memory of Tokarz with his son out of her head. “It’s the baby. You’re all more concerned about the baby, and that’s okay. That’s a good thing. I get it. If I wasn’t pregnant, Libby and I wouldn’t be here.”

  Restin stared at her with blue eyes edging the right side of sane. “The baby has nothing to do with mating, except as a by-product. Things are easier for you because of Tokarz and Delilah, Stoker and Lucy.”

  “Gary had life insurance from the brewery,” Abby said, trying to get this discussion back on track.

  “Luke’s problem is that he doesn’t want a human mate. He somehow believes that a lycan mate will bring him closer to restoring the family honor.”

  “Luke has a funny sense of honor,” Abby retorted. “Taking pills so he can have sex? Seriously?”

  “You’ve proved my point.”

  Now she was confused. “What point?”

  “Luke claims he took a pill before the two of you . . . made the baby. Now, you might consider this impertinent, but has Luke needed a pill since that night?”

  Abby’s face burned. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he takes pills, I don’t know who else he’s been with.”

  “Let me tell you what happened when we were on tour.”

  “I’m not interested.” That had been the first time her neck burned. She assumed it was because he was looking at porn sites on the Internet.

  “He pulled his usual at the bar after the show.”

  “I don’t want to know this.” If she didn’t know, she couldn’t resent it.

  “I don’t know if he’s told you, but he always tells women he’s diabetic, both to explain why he’s not drinking with them and why he might not be able to function sexually.”

  “Yeah. He mentioned it. What a great line.” Abby scooped up the junk mail and carried it to Granny’s recycle pile. If she kept herself busy, she wouldn’t have to look at Restin. “He told me about doing that. He also told me he had the mumps as a teenager and was sterile.”

  “He used that line on a couple of women at the bar that first night, until Tokarz reminded him he was married and sent him back to the motel.”

  “Does Tokarz expect a thank you note?”

  “That’s the same night he found your pictures online.”

  Abby didn’t want to be reminded. Even though everyone in the pack was quick to point out she was a survivor whenever the topic came up, the shame was too deeply rooted to be plucked with a kind word or two.

  “Look. None of us can force Luke to feel something he doesn’t. You can’t force me to feel something I don’t feel. You can rant all you want about mates and Ancient Ones and all of that werewolf stuff you have going on, but in the end none of it means anything. All I want right now is to collect my money from selling my song to Toke Lobo, take my sister, and get out of here. Out of Oak Moon. Colorado. Go someplace where it’s warm in the winter.”

  “You will never be allowed to take that baby away from here.”

  She hadn’t mentioned the baby.

  She forced herself to say the words. The words she didn’t mean. “What do I know about raising a werewolf baby?”

  “Exactly why you need to stay here.” Restin spoke as if there were no other option. That it was inconceivable to him, to any of them, that a mother could abandon her baby. Sometimes mothers had good reasons.

  “Thanks for bringing my mail, Restin. I owe you one.”

  Restin must have taken Digger Sendall’s invoice with him, because Abby couldn’t find it after he left, but that was a minor inconvenience. It took her all of five minutes to boot up Luke’s desktop and run an Internet search on the Sendall Funeral Home in Oak Moon, Colorado, D. Sendall, Funeral Director. Serving the families of Oak Moon for four generations.

  She waited until the rest of the house was asleep before placing a phone call on Granny’s old-fashioned rotary dial wall phone. Sometimes living with nocturnal folks was a blessing.

  “This is Abigail Grant calling.” She had yet to use her married name. “I received an invoice for services rendered, and I thought all of the costs associated with Gary Porter’s services had been paid.”

  Whoever answered the phone put her on hold. Pastoral instrumental music meant to soothe the bereaved echoed in her ear and annoyed her.

  “This is Digger Sendall,” the funeral director said when he finally picked up the phone.

  Abby explained her confusion about the invoice she’d received.

  “That was for your mother’s services, not your stepfather’s.”

  “Oh.” Abby had thought Gary had taken care of those costs. “I must have misread the invoice.”

  “I realize you’ve had significant loss over the past month, but—”

  “No, no,” Abby said. “Of course. I might have to make arrangements for a payment plan.” There went a chunk of money from the sale of her song.

  “I owe Gary some money from our last poker game—”

  “No. I know what you’re doing, and it’s wrong. Gary should have paid for Mama’s funeral. I want to work out something with you.”

  Digger agreed to draw up a payment plan.

  “I’ll be in to sign it the next time I’m in Oak Moon,” Abby said.

  “I can mail it to you,” Digger offered. “What’s your new address?”

  Abby didn’t know, and felt foolish. She rifled through Granny’s recycle pile until she found a circular addressed to Resident, 400 Gouverneur Lane, Loup Garou, CO. She shared the address with Digger, then replaced the telephone receiver on the silver-colored hook.

  Digger Sendall had always been good to her family, despite his friendship with Gary. If Abby recalled correctly, he’d given Libby her beloved Santa Claus pillow the Christmas after their father’s death.

  Luke woke up feeling crankier than usual. Abby wasn’t in bed with him, which is where he wanted her.

  He was no closer to figuring out where she belonged in his life than he’d been before he fell asleep, but he knew he couldn’t lose her. It was possible he’d accidentally marked her that night at the lake. That was the werewolf way. He certainly lost all sense of everything when he was with her.

  Maybe Tokarz was right, and Abigail Grant was his mate. That might not be such a bad thing. It certainly explained an awful lot. And who was he to decide whether or not a mate was worthy? All he knew for certain was that he couldn’t stop wanting her. Couldn’t keep her out of his head.

  Maybe he should just lure her back into bed and mark her, putting an end to the question once and for all. He could live with that. And making her his in every way would keep her from running away.

  A phone call disrupted his musings. Jasper, finally ret
urning his call. Once again, government demands took precedence over his personal life. But if Abby really were his mate, all of that would come crashing to an end. A mated male had priorities.

  Abby sat in the kitchen, her chin resting on her palm, propped by an elbow on the table. The kitchen, as Granny had pointed out, was the warmest room in the house.

  Luke came in, fresh from sleeping most of the day, scratching his chest. “Let’s go to the Oak Moon Mall together. You and me. I need to replace my laptop, you need a super phone, and I want some alone time with you.”

  Abby mentally rolled her eyes. She was weary of playing Luke’s game. “You don’t need alone time with me. Stop feeling guilty.”

  Something resembling hurt flashed across Luke’s expression. “Come on, Abs. It will do you good. The weather is going to keep us holed up here for the next couple of months, so we should take advantage of the pretty days while we’re still getting them. Change into one of the outfits we bought in Fort Collins, and we’ll make a day of it.”

  “I’m not in the mood.” Seeing Tokarz with his son had really done a number on her indifference. She didn’t know how much longer she could fake her way through her weird relationship with Luke. Through the anguish of leaving her baby behind for Luke to raise.

  “We need baby furniture.”

  Oh, he so didn’t play fair.

  “We can take our time and look at what we might want.”

  “You go.” The words barely squeezed out of her throat. “Buy what you think you’ll need. I’m sure your mother would be more than happy to help you.”

  “You’re Rosie Dawn’s mother.” Luke’s tone was sharp. As if he had a right to chastise her. “You should be making those decisions, not her grandmother.”

  “I’m not your mate, Luke. I’m the girl you were forced to marry because you got her pregnant. I’m not even really your wife. I’m only the girl you want to nail.” Abby slapped her hands on the table. Being angry was so much easier than being passive. “I’m done with that role.”