In Spirit and Truth (In Spiritu Et Veritate Series)

by Reed, Zoe

  “How come? She’s so pretty!” A look of slight shock lit my mother’s eyes. Maybe I really was being paranoid and she was just trying to find something to talk about.

  “I don’t know Mom, she just doesn’t,” I told her, and smiled at the compliment to Camille.

  Because Camille’s with me. I wished I could say it. Wished I could tell my mom about how happy Camille made me, but every time I really considered it my heartbeat picked up and my breathing shortened. Eventually I’d let them know.

  “Okay sweetheart,” she said, and after sitting there for another minute in thought she got up and kissed me on the head. “I’m going to make dinner, I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

  With a smile I closed the door behind her and finished unpacking the last box. By the end of the night I had finished unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning the horse stalls, helped my uncle do the dishes and even managed to vacuum the living room. I felt rather productive by the time I was ready for bed, but before turning off the lights to lie down I stood at the light switch and looked listlessly around the room.

  Something was holding me back. I’d been spending so much time with Camille that now, when she wasn’t around, I knew I’d have a hard time getting to sleep. Especially since they were all out doing patrols, and maybe even putting themselves in danger. I had no way of knowing. As I looked around I noticed a maroon jacket of Camille’s hanging with a couple of my own on the coat hook next to the door. How I didn’t realize it was there before was beyond me.

  I grabbed the jacket off the rack, and as I did a crinkling from the inside caught my attention. Safety-pinned to the inside of the jacket was a note from Camille. ‘To snuggle with. On those nights I can’t be there. –Cami’. I grinned and took the jacket with me to bed. I hadn’t the slightest clue when Camille had put it there, or even how she’d known it would come in handy, but I was glad she did. As I crawled under the covers I laid the jacket over a spare pillow at my side and draped an arm around it.

  Laying my head down on the edge of it I took in a deep breath of the scent that saturated the jacket. Camille didn’t have a strong scent. She didn’t wear any perfumes and as far as I could tell all her soaps were very lightly, if at all, scented. But still, the jacket smelled like her. A pure scent, distinct yet subtle, that I felt more than I smelled. Just like her eyes, her scent painted a portrait of her character. It was an aroma that instantly made me feel safe and warm. An aroma that inspired a profound comfort unlike any I’d ever felt, and I fell asleep easily as it flooded my senses.

  The next morning I walked into math to find that our teacher had turned us loose for the period to study for a test we had coming up. I scanned the room until I found Luna and sat in the desk next to her.

  “Hey, Kyla,” she greeted me with a smile. “We hardly ever do anything but lectures in here, sometimes I forget you’re in the same class as me.” I laughed and nodded in agreement while I pulled out my textbooks to make it look like I was studying. “I haven’t really talked to you much about everything. Are you really taking it as well as you seem to be?”

  “Um, yeah, I am. I always knew something was different about Camille so it didn’t surprise me too much when I found out about you guys.” My reminiscent smile faded, and as everyone in the room focused on studying I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I did kind of freak when she told me about that farmer though. I didn’t want her to know it scared me, but honestly, it kind of did.”

  “Yeah I understand.” Luna nodded distractedly as she disappeared for a moment in her thoughts. “But, you know you have nothing to be scared of. Camille loves you more than anything I can think of. She would never hurt you.”

  A small, shy smile crept across my lips. Camille had never verbalized her feelings, so to hear someone else say it was shocking. “She does?”

  “Yeah, she really does,” Luna laughed. “But don’t tell her I told you that. She’d kick my ass. To tell you the complete truth, what Camille did, it’s not uncommon. Which probably doesn’t make you feel better, but the difference with Camille and most others is that she really almost died of guilt afterward.”

  I looked down, feeling guilty for thinking even for a split second that Camille hadn’t felt unease about what she’d done. I should have been more sympathetic about it. She had trusted me with that hard information and I’d responded as though I couldn’t handle it.

  “I’m a horrible person,” I said with a sigh. “I probably made her feel so bad when she told me.”

  Luna shrugged and then leaned forward a little so no one else could hear her over the dull buzzing of voices in the room. “I think you reacted how anyone would have. The thing you have to remember about Camille is, yeah she’s tough and she won’t think twice about killing to protect someone she loves, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t really affected by it.” Luna took note of the somber mood that had fallen over me, and trying to lift my spirits playfully bumped me with her elbow and smiled. “Your girlfriend’s just a big marshmallow.”

  I giggled as a smile spread across my face. The word marshmallow had never crossed my mind to describe Camille, but now that I thought about it, it was perfect. “She is, isn’t she?” I agreed.

  The teacher noticed Luna and me having too much fun and cleared his throat at us. Giggling at a mocking look from Luna, I turned back to study for the rest of the period, and that was the most eventful class of the day. For some reason, since Julian had been taken, the days seemed to pass by increasingly sluggishly. The mutts had a fresh supply of adrenaline and now they’d remain invisible until they needed more.

  The fact that one of us had been taken, even though we didn’t act like it, was on the back of all of our minds. It hung over us like that ominous gray cloud you can see coming before a rainstorm. Like that split second before I’d fallen off the barn ladder. When time stopped so I could feel the blood flee every muscle of my body and I went cold. So I could feel and know in my gut that I was about to fall to my death. I could tell that this slowness was the calm before the storm.

  We all worried about Julian, and with each day he didn’t return the tension grew. If Jonathan, his dad and Gleeson were able to take a six-foot Pack werewolf from right under our noses, then nobody was off limits. That was what worried me the most. The fact that the mutts couldn’t be found meant they couldn’t be predicted, and when they were ready they could get their hands on anyone they wanted to.

  Friday rolled around still without any sign of Jonathan or Julian. By that time it had felt like weeks passed and I had to double-check my phone calendar when the bell rang at the end of the day. The whole week Jonathan hadn’t shown up, which hadn’t particularly shocked any of us. However, now that it was the weekend I could spend more time at Camille’s house and feel like I was making myself useful instead of sleeping at home while all the wolves were out on patrol.

  “When’s the Alpha coming? Eli?” I asked as I followed Camille to the car after school.

  “Sometime tonight. He’s a good guy, and he’s done a lot for the Pack, but he doesn’t totally trust humans. So I’m worried it will be awkward, you know, that you know everything.” Camille finished the sentence tacitly, making it clear she was uncomfortable with the topic.

  “I don’t have to hang around if you don’t want me to. I’ll understand.” Arriving to the car before Luna and Niko, I leaned my back against it and pulled Camille’s body to mine.

  She kissed me on the forehead, smiling as I slid my fingers between hers. “No, I want you around, but we’ll see how he is. If it’s weird, we’ll go to your house?”

  As I nodded, Luna and Niko arrived at the car. Luna waved to me and before jumping in the backseat patted her sister on the back. “Hey marshmallow.”

  Camille looked at her sister confusedly, and seeing that I was laughing along smiled and shook her head. “Glad you guys have inside jokes.”

  I gave her a mischievous kiss on the cheek and slid into the back seat of the jeep. When we got to her ho
use about ten minutes later I followed her into the kitchen where we made a snack of fruit salad and sat at the table to do homework. Though we sat close, neither of us said much. By the way Camille was answering simple questions intermittently it was clear she was thinking about things besides homework. Most likely that thing was Julian, or the fact that the Alpha was coming soon.

  Every once in a while I would see her eyes shift my direction, and then a second later return to her book. One of these times I gave a playful glare to see if she was just looking for a distraction. But she smiled and returned her eyes to her book like she had each time before. Something was on the werewolf’s mind, more so than usual. It had to be the fact that the Alpha was coming, but what about him was making Camille so anxious?

  In an attempt to get Camille’s mind off of whatever was bothering her, I gave her a tender kiss on the cheek and then leaned my head on her shoulder. “How’s homework?”

  She rested her hand softly on my thigh in acknowledgement and leaned her head against mine. “It’s fine. Not too exciting.”

  That was all she said before she sighed and just left her head rested on mine. So she didn’t want to talk about it. I would just have to wait and see if I could figure out myself what was on her mind when the Alpha arrived.

  “Hey you know there’s a bunch of scary looking guys coming onto your porch?” Kyla had gotten up from doing homework to get a glass of water, and as she looked out the kitchen window she pointed.

  I stood and walked to the window to see three large men about to knock on the door. “That’s the Alpha.” I waved for her to follow me as I went to open the front door for them. “Eli.” I opened the door and smiled at him.

  The werewolf my father’s age grinned when he saw me. He didn’t look much older than the last time I’d seen him. There wasn’t a speck of gray in his mahogany hair, and his bright hazel eyes were still filled with youth.

  “Camille, my God I haven’t seen you in a few years and you’ve grown so much.” He hugged me like an uncle would, and I gladly hugged him back. He was of average height, and although he wasn’t bulky his body was muscled and rock solid.

  Once he released me from the hug I brought Kyla forward to introduce her. “Eli, this is Kyla. Kyla, Eli.”

  “The human?” Eli asked, and I saw the slight flare of his nostrils as he took in her scent, an action that Kyla most likely wouldn’t have noticed. The smile slightly faded from his face as he stuck out his hand for her to shake, and I nodded an affirmation. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Kyla.”

  Kyla smiled and nodded as easily as she could, but I could feel the tension radiating off of her. It was probably my fault for making her so nervous about meeting him.

  Luckily my dad came excitedly around the corner. “Eli, old friend!”

  Eli strode past us to greet my father, so I was left to introduce Kyla to the other two werewolves. “Kyla, this is David.” I pointed to the largest man I recognized as the Beta wolf.

  I’d met the black haired, blue-eyed Beta before. Though the last time I’d seen him he didn’t have the large scar that stemmed from his right ear to his jaw.

  The other werewolf I hadn’t yet met. He was young and had to be around our age. He was tall, tan and lanky, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and looked like a poster boy for some surfing brand.

  “We haven’t met.” I looked at him questioningly.

  He flashed a white smile and stuck out his hand, shaking mine and then Kyla’s. “William. Or Will. That’s up to you.”

  “Camille.”

  “Kyla.”

  We each shook his hand and politely introduced ourselves. I then stepped back to let David and Will in the house and once they were in, followed Kyla back into the kitchen. I grabbed an apple and sat at the table, carefully watching Kyla sit down across from me. Now that Eli was here I wondered what extra things we’d be doing in order to find Jonathan. More so than that, however, I wondered what Eli would say about Kyla being involved. Surely Julian had told him, but it was far from customary to allow a human in on such a big secret.

  Luna walked in and sat at the table next to me, distracting me from my thoughts. “Oh my God. Did you see Will? I want me some werewolf.” Both Kyla and I laughed but didn’t say anything. Kyla was focusing too much on her homework and I was still thinking about the situation.

  Not getting much of a response from either of us, Luna looked at me questioningly, one eyebrow raised as she glanced from me to Kyla. The way she looked at me, I realized the silence could have seemed like Kyla and I were upset with each other, so I quickly shook my head. In order to give an explanation of my own silence I quietly pointed at Kyla, tapped the tattoo on my arm and then threw my thumb toward the door, mouthing the word ‘Eli’. After a second of thought Luna nodded in understanding.

  With an exaggerated sigh she resumed the topic of Will to try and relieve some of the tension that filled the room. “He’s a good looking piece o’ meat. I think he goes to the private school up in Oregon near the Pack.” Then with another, but this time suggestive, sigh she added, “I love me a man in uniform.”

  Kyla looked up from her homework now and laughed. “You know, I was getting hungry a few minutes ago, but I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

  I chuckled and nodded in agreement. “And Luna, isn’t he like three feet taller than you?”

  Luna glared at us. “That’s an exaggeration. Besides, size doesn’t matter. Well, in the height department anyway.”

  Both Kyla and I made disgusted faces. “Yeah okay we’re out of here!” I stood up and tossed my apple in the garbage, with Kyla standing up to follow me. “We’re going to watch a movie. You can come as long as you don’t talk about Will.” I stopped to think about what I said. “You know what, why don’t you invite him? That way you don’t have to talk to us at all.”

  Unsure of whether to stick her tongue out at the insult or smile thankfully for the invite, Luna just shrugged and ran off to fetch the new werewolf.

  “I’ve never seen that side of Luna before,” Kyla said, laughing as she followed me out of the kitchen.

  I shrugged, having seen it plenty of times. “Luna might look all innocent and sweet. Don’t let it fool you. I bet she’ll have the poor guy wrapped around her finger by the end of the night.”

  Making our way to the living room I popped in a movie and cuddled up next to Kyla on the couch across from the television. Minutes later Luna walked in with Will and sat down on the other couch at a right angle from us. As Kyla and I tried to watch the movie we could hear Luna and Will talking and giggling and sure enough, halfway through the movie Luna had managed to snuggle herself right under Will’s arm. I nudged Kyla and nodded in my sister’s direction with an I-told-you-so look on my face, to which she laughed and shook her head in disbelief.

  A minute later I leaned forward, about to get up before I stopped and turned to Kyla. “I’m going to get a drink, do you want something?” I asked, to which Kyla nodded. Getting up I quietly left the living room and made my way to the kitchen. “Eli. Hi.” I greeted the werewolf sitting alone at the kitchen table.

  Despite the wary look on his face, he managed a smile and patted the seat next to him. “Camille. Sit down.” I did so and folded my arms on the table. The anxiety I had been feeling all day returned now that I sat with him. “Are you a senior now?” I nodded. “You’re getting so grown up. Your father’s my best friend, I would have loved to see all of his children grow.”

  I smiled my timid response. “He doesn’t talk about it, but I know it was hard for him to leave. He loved being so involved in everything.” As my father’s best friend, Eli had been close with my siblings and me growing up. I had never been uncomfortable around him before, but now I sat there, wondering when he’d say what I’d been waiting for all day.

  “Yes, but he knew his priorities. He made the right choice.” Eli leaned back in his chair, setting his hands in his lap. “So, Kyla, Adrian tells me you guys are romantically involved.�
�� Blushing slightly, I nodded. This was it. This was what I was waiting for. “How’s she doing with all of this?”

  “She’s actually doing really well with it,” I assured him eagerly. This was my chance to make him okay with Kyla, especially her as a human. “She’s been a big help. It was her that took the pills out of Jonathan’s backpack so we could figure out what they were.”

  Eli nodded, a tiny smile showing his approval. “What about being a werewolf? Have you discussed it with her?”

  My heart dropped, but I took a deep breath to try and reassure myself. There, he said it. That wasn’t so bad. “I’ve mentioned it. She hasn’t denied the possibility, but I think for now she’s happy with being human.”

  “Have you told her how highly it’s recommended?” Eli asked, and the corners of his mouth turned down unhappily.

  “No,” I admitted shyly.

  The ‘recommendation’ was about a step away from being a requirement. I hadn’t mentioned to Kyla the likelihood of her having to become a werewolf out of fear of scaring her. From what I knew, any human who’d known about werewolves had willingly been Changed, but I didn’t want to think about what would happen if she never wanted it.

  “I haven’t said anything. She knows the dangers, both with being human and with being a werewolf. When she’s ready she’ll let me know.” I tensed myself, half expecting Eli to be offended by my last sentence, by me putting my foot down. When it comes down to Pack hierarchy, if the Alpha makes a suggestion, you take it as an order. But I would never force Kyla to give up her life, no matter how hard anyone breathed down my neck.

  Thankfully Eli stood up and stretched. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your movie. I’m glad to see you’re happy with her.”

  I smiled my thanks, and when he walked out I got up to get the drinks I’d come for in the first place. That conversation wasn’t half as bad as I’d thought it would be, and I didn’t know why I had been stressing about it all day. I’d known Eli my entire life. I had to have known he wouldn’t force me to Change Kyla. As I rummaged through the refrigerator for some sodas I heard a soft pair of familiar footsteps coming toward me.