Entwined (Vukodlak Brew Book 1)

by Christine M. Butler

  I was lost to my thoughts long enough that I didn’t even realize when we were pulling into the Nantahala Outdoor Center. I disembarked with my family, even though I would have preferred to stay on the train and get back to Bryson City as soon as possible. It disturbed me to feel that way too, because this looked like the kind of place I could enjoy coming back to. There was some sort of canoe and Kayaking instructor training going on, and they looked like they were having a blast. A huge part of me totally wanted to go join in the fun. The other part of me still couldn’t understand the compulsion I had to return to the brewery as fast as humanly possible. It certainly couldn’t be because of the green-eyed man. I hadn’t even noticed him when I first felt that weird tug in my stomach.

  I was so swept up in my own little world, wondering what would happen once we got back that my focus was definitely not on anything happening around me any longer. So, when my family stopped abruptly to look at something my forward momentum sent me careening into my twin. Liz had been perched precariously on a large rock with one foot, and I watched in a slow-motion horror as her foot slipped, then twisted painfully underneath her. She screamed out, and went down on her butt cradling her ankle as tears streamed down her face. A man who was standing near us bent down to help her.

  “Are you okay? Let me take a look, I’m a first responder.” My dad tried to shuffle the stranger away, but the man insisted. “Please, I thought I heard a pop when she rolled it. Let me see if I can at least get it stabilized for her. The nearest hospital is still going to be a bit of a drive for you guys.”

  “We didn’t drive here, we were on the train,” my mom pointed out.

  The man winced and pulled his cell phone out. “I’ll call it in, and get an ambulance here. They can vouch for me, and the rest of you, who can’t be transported in the ambulance, can ride with me.”

  My father nodded his head to the man.

  “It looks like maybe it’s just a sprain,” my mom offered hopefully. “We could just wrap it up and get back on the train so we can have our car.”

  “The jostling on the train may do her more harm than good by the time you get back, not to mention the fact that she could probably use some pain meds,” the man countered.

  “Lori, it’s probably for the best anyway.” His eyes drifted to me instead of my sister as he spoke.

  “They’ll think we…” she took a breath and then spoke lower, whispering so we wouldn’t hear. “They’ll think we ran.” I still heard her, and I had no clue what the hell my parents were talking about.

  “Izzy?” My sister held her hand out to me, and I bent down to hold it and comfort her.

  “I’m so sorry, Liz, I wasn’t paying attention. This is all my fault.”

  “Yeah it is, so remember that when I make you carry my books around campus while I try to hobble on crutches.”

  “Maybe you won’t need crutches,” I smiled hopefully.

  She nodded her head to her ankle that was already discoloring. It was also already two sizes larger than her other ankle. “Damn, I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter Two

  ~*~ IZZY ~*~

  …Three years later…

  “I can’t believe you aren’t coming to my graduation, Lana. That sucks.”

  “I’m sorry, Iz. I can’t get off work though. I did try. How about you come to see me afterward? You can hang out here while you try to figure out where you want to work now that you have to start adulting. I haven’t seen you guys since you came out here three years ago. Hell, you were just starting college then, and y’all left early without even saying goodbye.”

  “I know. I still feel bad about that, but Liz did make me her personal bitch for the six weeks following our early departure. Trust me, karma got me back for accidentally knocking her over. My parents have been so weird about things every time Liz and I have asked about going to visit again. I guess Liz getting hurt that one time really threw them for a loop or something. It’s like they became paranoid because we weren’t living at home anymore. Heck, you know how my dad is about strangers. He hated every minute of having to rely on that guy for a ride while mom took off in the ambulance with Liz.”

  “Don’t remind me. Like I said, you guys ended up leaving before I got to say goodbye. All the more reason you should come out here and hang out with me. Pleeease!” Lana was begging, and if I could see her over the phone, I would have no doubt she was sticking her lip out pouting and everything. Lana was technically my aunt, but she was more like a cousin or best friend to Liz and I. She was only seven years older than we were. She had been a complete surprise for our grandparents who thought they couldn’t have any more children after my mom was born.

  “I’ll see what I can do to get out there. Liz isn’t done with school yet. She’s enrolled for the first half of the summer sessions, and then she still has to go back for fall and spring semesters.”

  “That’s what she gets for partying too hard. She should have taken a page out of your book so she could graduate early too.” Lana laughed.

  “Yeah, well, as Liz puts it, she had fun while I was trolling the library. I’m not sure who got the raw deal here. Now, I will be going straight to work instead of enjoying frat parties or whatever it is Liz gets up to.”

  Lana laughed. “So, you seriously still haven’t met a guy?”

  “Nope.” The word slipped out on a sigh. “Some of Liz’s men have tried, either mistaking us or perving on the twin thing. Obviously, they got a big turn down, and Liz dropped them like yesterday’s garbage when I told her.”

  “It must suck to be a twin sometimes.”

  “Yeah, but it has more perks than downsides. What about you? Any new men in your life lately?” I was the queen of deflection, and quite frankly I was tired of people wondering why I was still single when my sister was obviously able to snag any man she wanted. Their rationalization was that if Liz and I looked just alike, it didn’t make sense that I couldn’t get a man when she could pull in any of them she wanted. I could get them. I wasn’t conceited or anything, but I was aware of how I looked. How could I not be with an identical twin that commanded everyone’s attention? They didn’t understand that it was a choice. I wanted to focus on school and obtaining my degree, not guys, parties, and mistakes you had to live with for the rest of your life.

  “Oh,” she cooed. “I’m glad you asked, because I’ve been dying to tell someone. I’ve been seeing someone a lot lately. He’s hotter than seven hells, Iz!” She giggled over the phone, and it was infectious.

  “Seven hells, huh? Not five or nine?”

  Lana laughed again. “Izzy, seriously, he’s ridiculously hot. He normally doesn’t do repeats with women, but apparently, I have the goods, because I keep convincing him to take me home. I swear, I am going to do whatever it takes to tame that man.”

  I laughed at her. “Good luck, but you know you shouldn’t have to try so hard if it’s right. The guy should want to chase you, because you’re fabulous!”

  “He doesn’t chase anyone, hon. Believe me, when you see him, you’ll understand. He’s worth it.”

  “Well, hell, send me a picture then!”

  Lana laughed again. “Nope, I don’t think I will. You’re just gonna have to bring your little booty up here to the mountains and see him in person when I introduce you.”

  “Really, Lana? Isn’t that akin to blackmail?”

  “Whatever works, chicky!”

  “Fine, let me talk to Liz, and see if she wants the apartment to herself for a few weeks. I could always come up there while she’s in summer session. It will give me time to actually look for a job without little miss party trying to keep me too busy to be responsible.”

  “Perfect, give me a call, and let me know as soon as you figure out your plans.”

  ~*~ DRE ~*~

  “Hey man, you tapping that blonde’s ass again?”

  I just shrugged at Garrett. “I don’t know. Why?” I sipped on the beer in front of me. Once again, I found myself drowni
ng my sorry-ass mood in our pack’s famous Vukodlak Brewery. We came up with the unique beer years ago after toying around with the process after we ended up buying a brewery for next to nothing in a sweet deal that couldn’t be passed up. Now, the brewery was up and running as a bar and tourist attraction that featured our own brands. Usually, I left the brewery to the other guys. Lately, it was my only escape on the days I couldn’t get out on a run.

  “Just curious. You’ve been hitting that pretty regular.” I saw the look in his eyes. I knew what Garrett was trying to get at without actually coming out and asking. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat yet. We’d spent the last three damn years searching for the girl who never came back on the train. The closest we came to finding her was when someone on the train said a teenage girl hurt herself at one of the stops and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. We rushed to the hospital they were taken to, but they were already gone before we got there. The woman we spoke to from the train had accidentally snapped a picture of the girl who hurt herself when she was being nosy. Her face was contorted a bit in obvious pain, but it wasn’t the hurt girl that I noticed in the image. It was the other one, obviously her twin, who was bent down trying to comfort her sister. My soul called to her.

  The guy who helped them out, an off duty paramedic, told me it was a family consisting of twin teenage girls, mom, and dad. They hadn’t wanted to stick around and dad was acting shifty about having his daughter in the hospital too long. That made a lot of sense if he thought a wolf was about to claim his little girl, and he would know it too. The girl must have felt me as well before the train took off, and her dad knew what it meant. If she was young, I could almost understand him running with her, but he hadn’t brought her back to this area since. I’d know. I scoured the area daily for the past three years trying to pick up any trace of her scent. Hoping. My hope was dwindling with each year that passed. If her dad didn’t want the pack life for her, he might hide her as far from here as possible, and he was proving to be a slick son of a bitch too. We couldn’t figure out who they were.

  All I knew for certain was her dad had to be werewolf, her mom had to be human, and not one who could ever be mate potential for my kind. It was actually the only way mates were produced anymore that we were aware of. Our kind stopped producing female offspring too many years ago to have a solid history as to why. What began to happen was our kind hooked up with human women, and those human women gave birth to females who could potentially be a special kind of mate to a werewolf. They were often referred to as Potentials, Kindred, or Fated Mates depending on which pack you asked. Once found, and mated, the Kindred become linked to their mates in a supernatural way. A lot of hocus pocus happens in those matings and one of the perks for the Kindred is to have her life preserved for as long as her mate lives. The problem has always been trying to find our Kindred, for those of us who bother looking.

  I was yanked out of my thoughts with a quick warning from Garrett. “Head’s up! Your blond is on her way over.”

  “She’s not mine,” I growled out.

  “You sure about that? You might want to pass on that message to the one who won’t stay away, especially since you haven’t been turning her down when she comes around. Regularly, I might add.” I frowned at Garrett as he emphasized the word regularly. He was probably right. I’d been with Lana too many times now. She was bound to get the wrong idea if it kept up.

  I didn’t want anything long-term with anyone. I’d found my mate and she’d slipped through my fingers in the same damn moment. Three fucking years of searching, and I was losing hope. If I was being honest with myself, I’d lost most of my hope of finding her about six months ago when I fell into bed with the first woman I’d bothered hooking up with in two and half years. Depression was gnawing at my bones that day, because I’d seen the end results of the bastards unlucky enough to find their mate and lose them. It broke them completely. It was breaking me, and I knew I was using those women, and Lana to get off, and to try to forget. I couldn’t help it though. Lana, in particular, reminded me of the girl in the picture for some reason. It was the only explanation I had for why I kept going back to her. She just reminded me of the one person I couldn’t have, and for a moment in time I could pretend that I’d finally found the girl again. The truly horrible thing is, I always felt like scum afterwards. Instead of making me numb to my mate’s loss, it reignited the pain and hopelessness that were a damn near constant companion.

  “Hey baby, what are you up to tonight?” Lana’s voice was sweet as sin, and it didn’t hurt that she swung those hips in time with the music as she approached our table. No one could deny she was a sexy piece of ass. She just wasn’t HER.

  “I’m nobody’s baby, Lana.” I huffed out.

  “So touchy,” she teased in her flirty little way.

  “Yeah, I’m outta here, man.” Garrett dropped his empty bottle onto the table while shooting me a weary glance. “You might want to take care of that issue we were discussing. One way or another it’s borrowing trouble you don’t need.” Garrett winked, like I needed the gesture to know what he meant. Then he carried his grinning ass off to the bar to sidle up to some out-of-towner who was trying to pass as a country girl and failing. She was just Garrett’s type. He didn’t like them real. It was easier to keep them from clinging if they were just passing through and pretending.

  I should have followed his example. Hell, as pack leader I should have been leading with that example. Instead, I accidentally slept with a local in a moment of weakness one night, because she reminded me so damn much of the one I’d been chasing for so long. Now, she wouldn’t leave me alone, and I didn’t walk away because she gave me hours of my own twisted game of pretend. It wasn’t fair to the girl. Eventually, I’d break her damn heart. My own heart was God-knew-where with a girl I’d never even spoken to, and may never find again. That meant I didn’t have a heart left to give anyone else. Life’s a bitch sometimes.

  Lana didn’t bother taking Garrett’s vacated seat. Instead, she crawled right into my lap, and whispered into my ear. “Why don’t you let me take you home and see if we can put a smile on your face? The brew obviously isn’t working for you tonight.”

  “I have guests staying at my place right now,” I hedged. “You might not want to be doing the walk of shame in front of my visitors.” Actually, I wasn’t even being honest, which wasn’t really like me under normal circumstances. There wasn’t anyone staying at my place. I just didn’t want to take her there anymore because she seemed to be getting a little too comfortable the last couple times I took her home for a hook up. She even tried to leave a bag of her shit the last time, saying it would be more convenient so she would have a change of clothes when hers got messy. That was not happening. I definitely wasn’t trying to claim Lana.

  “We can go to my place.” It was the first time she’d offered that. I’d been banging Lana off and on for a few months now, but it was always at my place, outside, or in the fucking bar bathroom. We had never hooked up at her place. I hoped like hell she didn’t take this to mean more than it did even though I figured that was exactly what she’d think.

  “Sure, lead the way.” My own weakness was speaking for me again. I needed to forget my trouble, and she was my poison of choice. Again. Just a few more minutes of pretending that I actually found the girl I was supposed to be with. In the dark, it almost worked., except for the part where I still felt empty and lost. That never seemed to go away. Lana was a poor substitute.

  “You could stay the night if you want, I don’t have any company to run you off in a walk of shame.”

  “Not gonna happen, Lana.”

  “Just an offer.” She smiled over her shoulder at me. It was more of an offer than she was letting on. I could hear the uptick in her hopeful little heart as she asked the question.

  It didn’t take long to get to Lana’s place. She rented a little apartment above the shops in the middle of Bryson City. She said it was convenient for her since she
worked two jobs there. One was at the brewery, which I should have put a stop to before it happened. Unfortunately I hadn’t been around when she came begging for a waitressing job. One of the other guys had given it to her, not realizing we had been hooking up on occasion. Her other job was at a tourist trap shop her mother owned. If she took this shit bad when I told her this was the last time, she’d probably be back to just the one job. I didn’t need the drama at the brewery. Luckily, Hank had put her on the lunchtime day shift, so I was never in there when she was working.

  Once we were in her apartment Lana excused herself for a minute with a quick offer to make myself at home. No thanks. I did get nosy and start looking around her place. The girl had pictures hanging everywhere. In two steps I went from standing in front of her couch to looking at the pictures collaged on her wall. One in particular, in the middle of the collage, was drawing me in for some reason. As soon as I took that one final step I understood why. I swallowed down the bile in my throat. “She’s been under my nose all this time,” I whispered to myself. I yanked my cell out of my pocket and texted Garrett.

  Me: I found her.

  Garrett: Where? In Lana’s bed? Kinky dude!