by S. M. Reine
“Kill me now,” Rylie said as her daughter stretched out in bed, head on the pillow right next to hers, shoulder-to-shoulder. Summer’s feet hung off the end of the mattress. She was much too tall for a twin-sized bed.
“It’s okay,” Summer said. Sir Lumpy jumped onto the mattress between them. He was a black ball of fur the size of a small whale, and he made the bed sink with his weight. “You don’t have to introduce us to your mom, you know. I understand.”
Rylie really didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Her head throbbed dangerously. “It’s not because I don’t want you to meet her.”
“I know. It’s hard to explain everything, and I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“Gwyn’s more my mom than Jessica is,” Rylie said, as if Summer were trying to argue with her. She felt weirdly defensive. “She’s always been there for me. I don’t even want Jessica in my life. In our lives.”
Summer rolled onto her side so that she could look at Rylie, head propped on her hand. Purring, Sir Lumpy jammed his nose underneath her chin. “Whatever you choose to do, I’m going to support you. Okay? Don’t let it eat you up.”
Rylie gazed up at her daughter—her daughter—and surveyed the gentle slopes of her face, so much like hers, yet somehow still foreign and strange. It had been weeks since Summer and Abram returned from the Haven dimension as adults. Rylie had lost most of the baby weight and was totally healed from labor. The heinously difficult pregnancy felt like a nightmare.
It was almost like Summer had appeared from thin air. But Rylie still felt fiercely possessive of her.
The idea of Jessica learning the truth and judging Summer for who she was, and how she had been made—rather than knowing her as the strong, smart, hilarious young woman that she truly was—filled Rylie with passionate fury.
Jessica didn’t deserve to know about Rylie’s real family: Summer, Abram, Abel, Seth, the pack. None of them. Period.
“I’m not going to tell her the truth,” Rylie said. Sir Lumpy, obviously offended that the conversation had nothing to do with him, purred louder and started making biscuits on Summer’s arm. “She’s going to visit, we’ll tell her that we’re all just roommates or whatever, and she’ll leave without ever knowing anything.”
“Okay,” Summer said.
And that was that.
But it wasn’t the end of the conversation. Not by far.
Rylie called the seller that afternoon. “I have the money,” she said. She was still in bed, and she pulled her pillow over her head to protect herself from the sunlight coming through the window.
“All of it?” Bert asked. He was nasally-voiced, almost falsetto. They had only spoken on the phone so far. Judging by the way he sounded, Rylie imagined that he probably looked like a wire hanger with legs.
“Yes. Can we meet this afternoon to sign the paperwork?”
“Mmm, I don’t think so. I’m busy. How’s Friday afternoon, four o’clock? We can drive out to look at the property together before it gets dark. It’s kind of a hike, so bring appropriate footwear.”
Rylie bit her bottom lip. Friday afternoon—the same day that Jessica was arriving. Now that would be a fun conversation. I’m going to be late for dinner. I need to go pay for my werewolf sanctuary. No, that was definitely on the list of Things Jessica Can’t Know.
“In that case, I’d rather wait until next week,” she said.
“Next week?” Suspicion crept into Bert’s tone. “I don’t want to delay the sale any longer. I have other interested buyers.”
Rylie somehow doubted that. How many people could be interested in that much land so deep in the mountains, with zero access to utilities?
Maybe he was bluffing, maybe he wasn’t, but she didn’t want to risk it. The pack was counting on her to build a new sanctuary. They needed somewhere to be safe from the Office of Preternatural Affairs, somewhere that they could fly under the radar of census personnel trying to add them to databases, a place that they could safely wolf out every new and full moon. She couldn’t let her mother’s visit get in the way of that.
Her skull throbbed dangerously as the headache struck back. “You really can’t meet until Friday?” Rylie asked, trying not to whine. It was hard when her head hurt so much.
“Friday at four. I’ve already got a notary visiting that afternoon.”
She sighed, and a clump of fur that Sir Lumpy had shed sucked into her mouth. She coughed, spluttered, wiped off her tongue. It only seemed to spread the fur around. “Okay,” she wheezed, pulling a face. “Friday at four. Where’s your office?”
Bert gave her an address in Northgate, a five hour drive away. Rylie rolled out of bed long enough to write it on a piece of paper and stick it to the cork board on the wall.
“See you there.”
He hung up. Rylie flopped into bed again, and decided she wasn’t getting out again until Friday morning. Period.
Her resolve lasted until the next morning, at which point Rylie was swept up in errands with Gwyn and Summer. There was a lot to do before they could move onto their land. They would have to build practically an entire village to house the werewolves, and that meant making arrangements with contractors, picking out floor plans, and ordering building materials.
When Thursday night rolled around, Rylie was a bundle of nerves. She tried to distract herself by helping Aunt Gwyn cook dinner. Even with most of the pack hanging out in California with the coven, the house was uncomfortably full, and the kitchen was the only place she could get room to breathe. The other residents of the house were wisely hiding from Gwyn’s grumpiness, lest they get enlisted in some kind of unpleasant chore.
“I don’t even have a room for her,” Gwyn said, jerking oven mitts over her fists like she was donning armor.
“She’s going to get a hotel,” Rylie said. She had already told her aunt as much at least six different times.
That answer seemed to relax Gwyn as little on the seventh time as it had on the first. No matter what she thought of Jessica—which was not a favorable opinion—her DNA was riddled with country-bred courtesy. If she had talked to you more than twice, you were family. Family didn’t stay in hotels. Family stayed with family. Even when family was a pain in the ass.
Gwyn shoved a pan of meat into the oven and slammed the door.
Rylie touched her elbow. “It’s okay. She understands we don’t have much room. It’s not rude.”
“Bring in the sun tea, babe.”
Rylie obediently retrieved the jug of tea from the table on the back porch. It smelled like fresh lemon, and the jug was warm in her hands.
While she was outside, a glimmer of sunlight on glass caught her eye.
It was one of the pack’s cars—an old, beat-up truck that they had bought off of a farmer for two hundred dollars. Rylie’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of it.
There had been reports of a murder spree in another city. Seth and Abel decided that it had to be a rampaging werewolf, so they had taken Abram on a hunting trip to take it down. Weirdly, Summer’s boyfriend, Nash, had chosen to tag along, too. With two hunters, a werewolf, and an angel on the murderer’s trail, Rylie almost felt sorry for the perpetrator.
Raw power of their hunting party aside, the three of them had been gone for a week. Rylie knew that they would be fine—Seth and Abel had been hunting werewolves for years before she met them—but she couldn’t help worrying that something would go wrong while they were away.
It didn’t help that the men were so damn vague about their hunting activities. The only updates Rylie had gotten had come from Abram, who called Summer every single day. They talked for at least an hour each time. He talked to Rylie, too, but he didn’t have as much to say; he only seemed to unleash his inner chatterbox for his twin sister.
As long as that hour-long phone call happened, Rylie could believe that her boys were all okay. She could sleep at night. But she had still been missing them fiercely.
That truck had been one of the two vehicles they had tak
en hunting.
Rylie shielded her eyes from the sunlight as the pickup parked next to hers. The man who stepped out was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, muscular. Her sharp werewolf eyes could pick out the half-healed scars twisting the left side of his face, but she didn’t need to see them to know that her mate was home. She could feel it deep within her gut.
Abel’s eyes found hers over the fence. Rylie’s cheeks heated immediately.
She ran inside and shoved the jug of tea into her aunt’s hands.
“What’s the rush?” Gwyn asked, stepping back when Rylie bumped past her.
“Abel’s home,” she said breathlessly. She caught a glimpse of Gwyn’s knowing smile on her way out of the kitchen.
Rylie met him at the front door. Any room that Abel stood in was filled by his presence, and Gwyn’s tiny living room was no exception. He practically had to step sideways to fit the breadth of his shoulders through the door.
It had been a very long week since Rylie had last seen Abel, and his familiar smell almost brought her to her knees. “Hey,” she said, grinning stupidly at him. She couldn’t seem to help it.
Abel’s eyes warmed at the sight of her. He dipped his head toward her, grazing his nose over the soft skin along the side of her neck, and inhaled deeply. It was a wolf greeting, not a human greeting. But the feelings that it stirred in Rylie were definitely human.
She tilted her cheek against his and returned the favor, smelling the odors behind his ear, near the hairline. He smelled of werewolves, of Alpha, of musky man-sweat and gunpowder.
The scent was overwhelming. She swayed on her feet, and he caught her by the arms, holding her in place.
But when Abel straightened, he wasn’t smiling. “Where’s Gwyn?” he asked.
Rylie’s pleasure at seeing him evaporated immediately. Worst case scenarios whirled through her mind: death, dismemberment, arrest by the Office of Preternatural Affairs. “What happened? Are Seth and Abram okay? Did Nash leave?”
“They’re fine,” Abel said. “Just out of money, is all. We need to send them more.”
Her breath gusted from between her lips. “Thank God.”
“Haven’t been worrying, have you?”
“No,” Rylie lied. “But if they’re okay, then why did you come home?”
“It’s almost the moon. You and me, we’re doing it together.”
She glanced at the calendar on the wall. The full moon was circled—Monday night. “You’re early.”
His eyes sparked. “I wanted a couple nights with you first. It’s been a while.” His expression spoke volumes about what kind of plans he had.
Rylie’s jaw dropped.
He brushed past her, heading into the kitchen to greet Gwyn. Their voices echoed through the halls. Rylie looked at the calendar again and saw the full moon circled on Monday, with “Jessica” written on the Friday before.
It was going to be a hell of a weekend.
THREE
GWYN’S TOWNHOUSE WAS a two bedroom, one bath house intended for retired couples and young families. It was not equipped to handle a werewolf pack getting together for dinner. Even with Rylie’s boys on a hunt and most of the pack in California, the dining room was packed tighter than the teeth in a wolf’s jaw. There was no room to move, much less relax. But they squeezed in corners or sat on one another’s laps, and everyone somehow managed to fit.
The sounds of happy conversation filled the dining room, except for Rylie’s end of the table. She was mashed into Abel’s side. Their arms were pressed tight together, hip-to-hip, thighs in full contact. It was distracting on the best of days.
This was not the best day.
Rylie didn’t really have enough elbow room to cut her food, so she stabbed at it half-heartedly with a fork, imagining her mother’s face in the middle of the prime rib.
“Eat,” Abel said.
She sighed. “I’m not hungry.” That wasn’t strictly true—the wolf was always hungry, and her stomach growled at the sight of the meat—but she had no real appetite.
“You know you need lots of protein before the moon.”
“I guess,” she said.
Rylie managed to saw off a bite of prime rib. It was ash on her tongue.
It was too crowded in the dining room. The conversations and laughter that normally warmed Rylie made her feel hot and miserable tonight. She wanted nothing more than to be alone, away from everyone, and out of the city—where Jessica would never find her.
She stood. Summer moved to follow, but stopped when Rylie shook her head. Sir Lumpy was in Summer’s lap, as he always was when she was horizontal for longer than two seconds, and Rylie didn’t want to disturb him.
The back yard at Gwyn’s townhouse was kind of a joke. It was a twenty-foot by twenty-foot patch of overgrown grass that mostly served to jack up real estate costs. Gwyn had been making good use of the narrow flower beds by planting an herb garden—more than any of their neighbors could lay claim to—but it wasn’t nearly enough space for a werewolf. The evening air felt suffocating.
It was only going to be worse once her mother arrived. All of those normal werewolf behaviors that she let herself engage in normally, like sniffing other werewolves in greeting and growling in annoyance, would have to be suppressed. And if Jessica was still in town Monday night, then they would have to give her the slip before the transformation hit, too.
The idea of getting through dinner with Jessica a few short hours before she was due to turn into a werewolf made Rylie feel something very close to panic.
The back door opened. Abel’s smell flooded Rylie’s senses.
“Summer says your mom’s visiting,” he said.
Annoyance pressed Rylie’s mouth into a thin line. “Oh, did she?”
“Yup. Funny how I heard it from her and not from you.”
“That’s because I’m trying to pretend she’s not coming, and I don’t want to talk about it.” She finally faced Abel, and immediately lost her train of thought. The opalescent moonlight on his skin brought out a deep copper undertone, highlighting every curve of muscle from his shoulders to his bulging forearms. The wife beater clung to his chest, outlining the cut of his abs.
Her mouth dried. It had only been a few weeks since she had officially broken up with Seth, and she still wasn’t used to the idea that she was allowed to look at Abel—more than look, actually—and the sight made her feel as guilty as it did aroused.
Rylie cleared her throat. “I think I’m going to bed. I’m tired.”
She stepped around him, careful not to touch him. Once she started with that, there was no stopping.
But he followed her down the hall, past the kitchen door, to the bedroom. When she stepped inside, he did, too.
Abel leaned on the door, shutting it. The lock audibly clicked, and Rylie’s heart leaped.
They were alone.
With a full house, Abel and Rylie hadn’t had much time to be intimate since they returned from the Haven’s door. Just thinking about it Rylie’s entire face burned. It didn’t help that intimacy looked to be number one on Abel’s mind, judging by his expression. His golden eyes bored through her.
She was shocked when he said, “I’m going to the airport with you tomorrow.”
Disappointment sank into her bones. “Oh,” she said, hanging her head. “No, don’t worry about it. It’s really early, and you’ve been traveling. You should sleep in.”
Rylie might as well have said nothing at all. He leaned against the door—a casual gesture that she knew was meant to communicate that she wasn’t going anywhere until he was done with her. “Why don’t you want your mother to visit?” Abel asked. “Is it because you don’t want her to know who you’re dating?”
Rylie’s cheeks flushed, and the heat burned all the way down her neck to her chest. “I live with a bunch of werewolves, Abel. And I’m the leader. Everyone practically orbits around me all day and night, and that’s not even during the moons. Jessica is going to notice something
funny is going on.”
His gaze cut straight through Rylie. “Did you send her a wedding invitation?”
“Abel…”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” Rylie said, hugging her arms tightly around her ribs. “I sent her a wedding invitation when I planned on marrying Seth.”
Abel pushed off the wall, bringing him dizzyingly close. “You don’t want to tell her that you’re not with Seth anymore.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You don’t want to tell her you’re with me.”
Rylie’s frustration spilled over with a low growl. “We’re not really together, are we? I mean, Summer, Abram—they were an accident.” His mouth dropped open with shock, but she kept talking before he could say something that would make her feel guilty. “We’re mated Alphas, but it’s not like you’re my boyfriend.”
Abel bristled. “You said you love me.”
She did. God, did Rylie love him. Her heart ached with the weight of it, like she needed to grow twice the size of her beast to contain so much emotion. That wasn’t the wolf. A wolf didn’t yearn like that. It was entirely her human side.
And yet…
“I don’t want my mom to know anything important about me,” Rylie said. “You’re important, Abel. Really important.”
Abel grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her roughly against his chest. Rylie had been a werewolf and Alpha longer than he had, so she was stronger, but his body mass was so much greater that it put them on equal footing. With her fingers splayed over his pecs, she could feel the pounding of his heart.
It thrilled her inner wolf to feel that excitement in him. A heart beating so quickly meant adrenaline, and so many interesting things could cause that reaction. Fear. The hunt. Lust.
His smell was overwhelming. The rich smell of testosterone rolled over her, tinged with the odor of fur. It flooded her mind with images of distant mountains. Chasing deer. Catching, killing, eating.
