Moonstruck

by Heather Young-Nichols

  “Inappropriate,” she said with an authoritative tone.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  A plate of eggs and bacon appeared in front of me. I ate while they planned the day. Antan said there were a few things they still needed to look into and wanted Orin to go out with them. My husband refused. Said he wasn’t leaving me alone.

  “You can’t expect us to go out there and put our necks on the line,” Roman scoffed, “while you relax at home with the little wife. We all have wives, Orin. Wives we aren’t with right now.”

  “He’s right,” I said softly because I just didn’t have the energy right then to be more forceful. “You have to help them.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” he snapped.

  “I’ll stay here with her, Orin,” his mother offered. “No one will get through me, I promise. You have to do your share.”

  “Do we all have to go or can one of them stay.” He waved over at his brothers.

  None of them volunteered which didn’t surprise me. I don’t think any of them wanted the responsibility of me on their shoulders nor did they want to spend the day with me.

  “It’s fine, Orin. I’m going to my father’s house today anyway.”

  He snapped his head toward me. “Out of the question. You’re not going back there. Certainly not alone.”

  “When did little Orin turn into a Neanderthal?” Roman snorted.

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Roman.”

  “I have the solution,” Antan cut in before things really got out of hand. “Roman was injured recently.” A pointed look fell on Orin who didn’t seem to notice. “So he’ll stay back to make sure everything here is taken care of. The rest of us will leave in twenty minutes.”

  They all groaned. None of them seemed particularly happy with this arrangement, me included, but nobody argued with their father.

  In the short time, I’d spent with this family together I’d learned that Antan presided over everything. His word wouldn’t be disregarded when it came to pack matters even with his completely grown adult children. To look at him, I wouldn’t go against him either. As large as Orin and the others were, their father’s mass still outshined them all.

  In my life, it had been stressed that I shouldn’t grow too large, as if that was something I controlled. For fear, he’d have a harder time finding me a husband. I was to stay thin, but sturdy and learn to keep my tongue. When I stopped growing at five feet and three inches, he’d been pleased. I dwarfed Orin’s family. Almost disappeared, within this group.

  Orin snapped his fingers in front of my face to bring me out of my own thoughts. Everyone else had moved away from the table leaving him and me some privacy even if not completely.

  “Does this all sit well with you?” he asked me quietly.

  “If you have to go, you have to go. I’ll just go to my father’s quickly then come back to wait for you.”

  “No. I don’t want you going there alone.”

  “Christ, Orin,” Roman called from the other side of the room. “I’ll escort her.”

  Orin kept his attention on me, his jaw tight and unyielding. “Please don’t go without him.” He dropped a kiss to my forehead, stood to his full height then looked over at his brother. “I swear, Roman, every hair on her head had better be in place when I get back.”

  “Calm down, brother.” Roman popped a cookie in his mouth. A cookie that I had no idea where it came from. “Your precious human will be intact upon your return.”

  Without further conversation, the four brothers and Antan were walking through the backyard and I’d been left alone with two werewolves, one of whom would really rather see me dead. It was late morning by that point, most people would have been eating lunch by then but I’d just had breakfast. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.

  Roman insisted we wait to get my things at my father’s until he was sure the family was far enough away, whatever that meant. For several reasons, I suggested we walk to my father’s house. I had questions and I thought that since Roman already didn’t like me, he’d at least be truthful.

  “So tell me, Elizabeth, why is Orin against you going home?” Roman asked after we got a block from home.

  When looked over at him, it hit me just how much he looked like Orin. They both—or all—had that very dark hair and eyes and toned muscles that could’ve been sculpted by Michelangelo himself.

  “He’s against me seeing my father,” I answered but was rewarded with that Vilkatas look that said he wanted more. “My father isn’t very nice to me. Actually, he’s never nice to me and he’s not that nice to a lot of other people.”

  “Did he deny you your one true wish?” he asked mockingly. “Why wouldn’t he be nice to you?”

  “I killed my mother.”

  The almighty Roman in his tracks.

  “She died giving birth to me,” I clarified.

  “How is that your fault?” he asked but I only shrugged.

  It wasn’t always easy to explain that you didn’t blame someone for hating you for something that happened out of your control.

  “You’re married, right?”

  He nodded while watching me out of the corner of his eyes. That’s one thing I’d begun to notice. They were always watching me whether because they were trying to figure me out or if it was because I was the only human in the room.

  “What is your wife’s name?” I asked.

  “Karina.”

  “And she’s a… ” I twirled my finger in the air of saying the word werewolf.

  Roman nodded the confirmation.

  “What’s she like?”

  He didn’t answer right away. We walked an entire block before I decided to prod him along.

  “You may as well answer me. I’m not going anywhere, Roman.”

  He cracked a smile. “She’s beautiful and funny. I think she’d like you. That last thing you said sounds like her.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do with that. It almost sounded like a compliment but Roman didn’t like me and wanted me dead. Luckily I didn’t have too long to worry about it because we were walking up the drive to Father’s house. Roman waited patiently while I stood staring at the large brown door before I finally decided to knock.

  “Miss Elizabeth,” Mrs. Atherton greeted me in surprised before moving aside to allow us both in.

  Roman followed me up the stairs to my room and even helped me pack the few things I wanted to take with me which included most of the stack of money Orin had left me before. I was beginning to think that we were going to get out of the house without a confrontation with my father. I was wrong.

  “Elizabeth Davis you stop right there,” his voice boomed into the room long before his body made it over the threshold making me snap to stand pin straight. “Do you think you can come crawling back to this house then disappear without a word?” He came to a stop when he noticed I wasn’t alone. “I guess I should add and bring a man with you. A man that is not your husband. Elizabeth this is not how I raised you.”

  “This is Roman Vilkatas. Orin’s brother. My father Henry Davis.” I couldn’t believe I was actually introducing them. “I came to get the rest of my things. I’m going home.”

  “This is your home, Elizabeth. I opened my door to you when your husband abandoned you.”

  “This has never been my home.” I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Having Roman with me and Orin always backing me up, made me reckless.

  “How dare you,” he roared moving toward me. Before he got two steps closer, Roman stepped in front of me blocking my father’s path. I could only imagine what Roman looked like standing there with his arms crossed looking dangerous.

  “How dare I?” Suddenly I no longer felt I had to rein in what I was thinking and feeling. Whether Roman wanted me dead or not, right now he was protecting me. “How dare you, Father? You’ve never even told me my mother’s full name? Where did she come from? How did you meet? Nothing other than she’s dead and I’m to b
lame.” A lump formed in my chest. A result of years of fear of this man. I pushed it down and would deal with it later. Moving forward, I stepped in front of Roman to face my father alone.

  “Just as surly as always right, Elizabeth? No wonder Noah ran off rather than marry you. You’ve brought nothing but shame to me. You’re one job was to marry well and instead you run off into the night with a man no one knows anything about.”

  “Noah didn’t run from me, Father, I ran from him. Orin loves me and couldn’t stand the thought of me being with someone else.”

  “Poor excuse for a man, I’d say.”

  Roman growled behind me. For all his bravado, he loved his brother which made me feel even worse for coming between them.

  “He’s a wonderful man and will be a much better father one day.”

  I knew that those words would set off an explosion like none I’d ever seen but I was beyond the point of caring. Father charged me. I wouldn’t be quick enough to avoid him, I never had been. I didn’t need to be.

  Roman jumped in front of me, grabbed my father by the throat and held him against the nearest wall.

  “Elizabeth?” Roman growled.

  “Don’t hurt him.” My words weren’t to save my father because he’d never tried to save me. I didn’t want one of the Vilkatas to have to live with another death because of me. Orin acted as if killing Noah wasn’t a big deal, never on his mind, but I knew him better than that. Even if Noah deserved it, Orin carried the fact that he’d ended a human’s life with him. “I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t know where the idea came from but I ran down the hall to Father’s office. In the bottom drawer of Father’s desk, all the way to the back, there was a book that my mother wrote in while she was pregnant with me. Mrs. Atherton told me about it when I was thirteen thinking that Father would one day give it to me. She said my mother wanted me to know how happy she was that I was on my way.

  Of course, he’d never given it to me at all. I pulled the drawer out slowly. And found it hidden under a pile of other papers and snatched it right up.

  I’d only been gone a minute but it felt like a lifetime and the ledger was heavy in my hands. Roman still had Father by the throat and while I couldn’t know what had passed between the two of them, I could’ve guessed. I knew just how sharp my father’s tongue could be. The tension had ratcheted up three notches since I’d left the room.

  “We can go now, Roman,” I said as I lifted the satchel that was stuffed with the things I cared to take with me.

  The muscle in the arm holding my father’s throat tensed before he finally let go.

  “That is not yours to take, Elizabeth,” my father said.

  It really wasn’t. I was stealing it. “I’ll bring it back when I’m finished.” And I would, too because no matter what protests he made, how horrible of a father he was, he had loved my mother.

  When I was little I used to try to imagine what he’d been like before she died. Or what he might’ve been like if she had lived. I was never able to come up with a clear picture of that in my head since I’d never seen a softer side of him. I used to hate him. After meeting Orin and discovering what love was really like, I pitied him.

  “If you leave here tonight, Elizabeth, you will not be welcomed back. No matter what that husband of yours does to you.” His words stopped both Roman and me at the door.

  “She won’t need to come back,” Roman said with a low, dangerous tone. “She has a family to take care of her.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As we stepped off the front steps of my father’s house, Roman grabbed the satchel from my hand. A move of chivalry that took me by surprise. He’d held my father back to protect me but this was more personal. Something he did not because Orin told him to but because he wanted to.

  “So this is why Orin didn’t want you going there alone?” Roman finally asked when we were halfway back home. “Orin feared your father would hurt you if one of us wasn’t there.”

  “Because my father has before.”

  Roman shook his head then looked away from me. All of his muscles tightened the same way Orin’s did when he was trying to hold himself back. Yet, I didn’t fear him. He’d proven to me that he’d stand by his word and not hurt me.

  “And Noah is the boy Orin disposed of?”

  “You say that so easily,” I countered.

  “Because there’s nothing we can do about it now, Lizzie.” Using my nickname for the first time surprised me and gave me a small sense of satisfaction that maybe, just maybe I’d won over the most severe member of Orin’s family. “As a general rule we don’t go around killing the humans but from the sounds of it, that couldn’t be helped. I’m surprised Orin has allowed your father to live. Believe it or not, Orin has a worse temper than the rest of us.”

  Saying that about Orin just made me laugh. I’d rarely seen a temper on him and that was only when someone or something threatened me.

  “I asked him to.”

  Roman gave me a questioning raised eyebrow.

  “I asked him not to harm my father. He promised he wouldn’t.” My answer seemed to be enough because he didn’t bring it up again the rest of the way home.

  “Do you want to do something fun?” Roman asked after I sat the satchel near the back door. Emmie was filling the house with the most delicious smell of chocolate as she worked in the kitchen. The aroma came out the windows.

  “Roman,” his mother warned from inside.

  “Ma, it’s fine. They’re not going to be back for a while. So, Lizzie, are you up for it?”

  “Am I dressed appropriately?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay then.”

  The only spontaneous thing I’d done in my life was run off with Orin to get married. I liked the feeling that gave me, the freedom I’d never known before. Going off with Roman without knowing what would be in store would be the second thing I’d done. It was a whole new me.

  He led me out through the woods behind the house. We were in pretty deep when I remembered that he was the brother that wanted me dead the most. The one that aspired to lead the pack one day. Disposing of me would clear the way for that to happen. Yet somehow, I felt safe with Roman. Maybe because he’d given his word and I knew how seriously their family took that.

  After twenty minutes of avoiding overgrowth and underbrush, we arrived at a small waterfall. Clear, sparkling water rushed over what looked to be about a thirty-foot cliff. We stood at the top looking down.

  “I didn’t even know this was here,” I said.

  “I found it on our way to town.”

  “On your way to kill me?” I asked and that came from nowhere. Inciting him should be the last thing I did.

  Roman stilled beside me, keeping his eyes firmly on the scenery so he could see the small grin on my face. The old Elizabeth would never have been comfortable joking about someone wanting her dead. But this Lizzie, me, somehow I was.

  “Yes,” he said finally.

  “Is that still the plan?” I’m not sure what made me bold all of a sudden. “I’d do anything so that Orin isn’t hurt.” And that was the truth. that man had given me more in mere months than I’d had in the previous eighteen years. More than I’d ever allowed myself to dream or hope for.

  “What do you say we jump?”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Uh… ”

  “It’s fun. The water’s deep enough. I’ll go first to prove it.”

  I still wasn’t convinced. This wasn’t something I ever thought of doing. Yet, that’s what made it so intriguing.

  “You’ve barely lived, Lizzie. There are so many things out there to experience and this is one of them. I guarantee that while you were locked up in that prison your father calls a house, your schoolmates were doing this very thing.”

  That wasn’t something I would have been privy to but I didn’t think he was wrong. Even Olivia who’d also known what her future held was allowed some freedom.
The idea that she may have already done this sealed the deal for me.

  Without waiting for an answer, Roman stepped to the edge and jumped without a second thought. I watched, partly in horror, as his body hit the surface, a giant spray of water shot toward me. The wave fell short of hitting me. I held my breath until Roman finally came up for air. He smiled widely up at me and waited to see if I was going to jump or not. At some point, I decided I was going to.

  Stepping to the edge then pulling my skirt into a ball in my fist so that the rest hugged me tightly which would keep me from exposing myself to him. I didn’t give myself too much time to think about it. Then, I just stepped off.

  I fell so fast and felt completely free like I was a bird leaving the nest for the very first time. The crisp chill of the evening water hit my toes and as if in slow motion, rose to my knees, backside, waist, breast then I was completely engulfed. As soon as I was under, my arms and legs worked against the flow of water to get me back to the surface. It was on instinct.

  “Well?” Roman asked with a playful voice as I gasped for air.

  “That was amazing.”

  His boyish excitement, a side of him I hadn’t yet seen, made me burst out in such a laugh that he had no choice to join in. We only spent a few minutes swimming and splashing before he said we needed to go home to beat the rest of the guys.

  We leisurely made our way to the shore even though I knew he could make it so much faster than I could, he still waited for me. Back on solid ground, Roman shook off in a way that reminded me of a dog and of Orin at the pond on our way back from the city. I laughed loudly but didn’t tell him about it. I didn’t think he’d find it as funny as I did.

  We talked quite a bit on the way back. Him mostly about his wife who he clearly missed. When I asked why they didn’t bring the women with them, he said they hadn’t known if it would be safe. Seemed to me someone should go get them.

  I’d paid attention when we left the house so I knew we were getting close.

  “Shit,” Roman muttered just before a large mass hit him with bone-crushing intensity.