“I ran all the way back to the wood in our territory and waited for them to find me. Before dawn, I heard the fight and realized my mistake. My own guilt had made me blind. No one thought for a second it was me. They all knew it was him. No trial. They didn’t even let him change or read out a sentence.
“Zacharias led the pack to hunt him down and murder him all because of worms’ news. Death penalty. No questions asked.
“I chased them into the field. I had to change, tell them what had happened, make Zacharias stop, explain it was me he wanted. I couldn’t catch them unless I stayed in fur. By the time I reached them, I was in the pack. I couldn’t tell them anything. I could only fight for his life. And fail. They’d decided to end me too—me fighting back against a silver like that, plenty of a record behind me anyway. Isaac stopped them. I’d crushed Zacharias’s leg and he wasn’t the only one hurt. They backed down from Isaac. Zacharias was afraid of him—a new foreigner who Diana had invited in, verge, not even a real member of the pack.
“It didn’t matter, I thought, sure I’d die anyway. I hardly remember them bringing me back. If I lived at least I could tell Diana what had happened, that they were wrong. I had to clear his name. He did plenty that none of us were proud of, but he never bit a worm pup. He wouldn’t have done that.”
Jed stopped for a time, staring at the mountains.
“First I stayed in fur for months, healing, refusing to come back. Then … when I could talk … I didn’t. I never told Mum. I never told Zar or Diana or Zacharias. I didn’t even have the balls to leave the pack like I wanted to. Much less admit the truth.
“So … that’s what you were wanting to know. And that’s … how it feels to be caught between two worlds. But I have to be. I don’t have a choice to say, ‘No, thanks, I’ll just stay in fur for the rest of my life.’ Part of my life has to be skin, part of your world. And you … being with you…”
He turned a full circle, pushing his hand through his hair again, dropping it, looking at me.
“The chance to be with you makes skin bearable. It’s still hard for me when you say I have to be in skin, or you want me to change. To me that’s … it’s like… I don’t know how to explain.” He rubbed his temples.
“Like if a worm went to a really posh London restaurant, hundred pounds per dinner, right? And the waiter brings out the plates and they’re immaculate. Works of art, feast for the senses, steak and lobster and caviar and wine. And you sniffed and said, ‘I’m not eating that. Bring me toast.’ Which is like … what the fuck? Right? Then they bring you toast and you’re all, ‘Great, this is tops.’ Just what you’d wanted. But it’s hard for anyone else to believe that because it’s just a fucking slice of toast. So … that’s how I feel when you say you want me to put on skin. It doesn’t matter the context for me. It’s sending back steak and asking for toast.
“It’s not like that for you. You’re seeing things differently. So … to you … it’s like toast really is tops. I can’t understand that. But I can try to … be all right with it. To respect it, like you said. At the same time I think, maybe … you’re not understanding how strongly I feel about this. When I say ‘repulsed’ by being in skin, that’s not even a strong enough word. It’s only that being with you … it’s the first time I’ve thought there’s a place for skin. Maybe there’s a reason for it after all—a good side. To touch you in skin and to share something with you … to see a possibility of something more than just a loathsome, naked shell that serves no purpose…
“I can’t… I’m not explaining this well. It’s that … I have to spend part of my life in skin. I thought I’d meet total wolves last night. Instead, they ran from me. I don’t have options. But with you … if it was with you … I wouldn’t… It’s different. It’s…”
He paced away and returned to me, chest rising and falling, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“I don’t want toast instead of steak. But if I could have a steak alone or be with you and have toast … I’d rather be with you.”
Breathing hard, muscles tight, he faced me, his expression pleading, almost desperate that I would understand without his having to struggle any more.
I set down my cup and stepped forward to embrace him, a hand at his back, another sliding up his neck to his hair, pulling his head down to my shoulder.
Such a primate, not canine, thing to do. Even so, Jed returned it, hanging on tight, both of us breathing deeply, my tears soaking into his T-shirt, as we stood for a long time in the morning sun.
Chapter 42
The six wolves, still absorbing the news from home, groggy from having just been woken in a Boise, Idaho, parking lot in the middle of the afternoon, took their seats quietly at the long table.
I addressed our waitress. “Seven buffets, seven waters, and a regular coffee, please.” With her gone, I faced them. “You know how this works, right? You take a few slices at a time, then go back. Don’t carry off the whole tray. There will always be more, so just keep getting seconds as long as you want. If anyone starts to feel sick, though, you need to stop. Preferably stop before that point, but up to you. That’s the all-you-can-eat part.”
They followed me from the table to gaze at the long buffet. Spaghetti sauce, pasta, and cheese, minestrone soup, loaded baked potato soup, garlic bread, then a vast spread of pizzas: veggie, cheese, pepperoni, everything, Hawaiian, meat lovers; mixed in with dessert pizzas like chocolate chip and cherry pie pizza. At the far end was a cold area: bowls of mixed salad and dressings, lemon bars and brownies, fruit salad and chocolate and vanilla pudding.
“It doesn’t matter how many times we come back for more?” Zar asked uncertainly, lifting a plate at my indication.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“They’ll always refill it?” Kage asked. “There’ll be more?”
“Always more.”
They nodded, yet still hesitated, perhaps suspicious, perhaps just wanting to abide by the local customs and see how it was done. They watched me and an older couple who each took a slice and returned to their table.
I filled a bowl with minestrone, a plate with salad and a slice of the everything pizza, and gestured them in.
I suppose we ended up stripping the place of about thirty pizzas when all was said and done—including sweet ones, though they steered clear of lemon and chocolate. Desserts were hit sparingly, the rest of the offerings not at all, besides a few soup samplings. A $70 meal that by rights should have cost more like $500. I left a big tip.
Despite the emotionally rough earlier part of our day, pizza offered salvation. I’d rarely seen my pack so collectively happy, so in agreement, as they were leaving the Northwest Pizza House—still with several hours of August daylight remaining for the rest of the drive to Portland.
By the time I followed them outside from a bathroom stop, they were all sitting on the sidewalk along the red building, other than Isaac, who had waited for me.
All eyes were shut, at peace with the world and each other. I recalled feeling like they’d been stoned after feasting on the elk. Kage, leaning into the side of the building, patted it affectionately.
“Love this country,” he murmured, offering the red siding a dopy grin.
“Cass?” Zar smiled vaguely up at me. “Do they have these in Portland?”
“Northwest Pizza House? I don’t think so. But they have excellent food. Everyone ready to go?”
“Can we lie down?” Jason blinked like I’d woken him.
“If you have enough floor space. But I’d much prefer if you wore seatbelts.”
“Front,” Andrew said.
“Why should you—?” But Kage yawned. He couldn’t even be bothered to argue with Andrew.
I waited for them, spending as much time as I could on my feet, while they made their sluggish ways back to various seats. Andrew remained sitting on the curb and leaned against my legs for support when I stepped close enough. Having verbally secured his shotgun seat, he was in no rush.
> “Well, Belle? How’s it going?” His voice was smoothed off around the edges as if by a few beers.
“How’s what going?”
“You tell me.”
I looked down and he smiled sweetly at me, blinking amber eyes against the sunlight behind his sleek glasses.
A good question after all, wasn’t it?
“Things are … scary, changing, honing in. We’re going to find who we’re looking for. First, I’m going to break this scry interference. We have new information to think about, new understandings, now…” I stopped myself saying anything about Peter, or Welsh or northern wolves. “So things are going well, at least in some ways … right?” I cocked my head.
“Funny, where you find your focus to answer, isn’t it?” He still smiled, leaning into my legs like a puppy waiting for attention.
“How did you think I’d answer?”
“The loves of your life? Personal challenges? ‘New leads’ in your own experiences last night?”
That was what he was thinking of in the midst of everything in the past twenty-four hours? It made me wonder what he’d seen in his journey. I didn’t ask.
“I’ve been selfish enough lately as it is. And now wasting extra days for Portland, dragging you all along, just for me to take care of personal business when we need to get back to England as fast as possible. This whole trip has been far too much about me: me slowing you down, me causing problems in the pack. I don’t need to bore you with musings on my personal life.”
“Never bored, darling. I’d venture even to say never a dull moment in your personal life.” He arched an eyebrow. “But don’t beat yourself up. What is it that you’re going to do in Portland that’s all about you? Tell me one thing you mean to accomplish there that has nothing to do with us. That you would be doing for yourself regardless of ever having met us.”
I blinked, slowly shaking my head.
“You have strange ideas about ‘selfish,’ darling. Whatever you need, even if it were true that it’s a personal matter just for you, we’re here for you. No need to apologize for taking up space.”
“No, I suppose…” I sighed, looking to the van where Jason, elk antler in his lap, was settling on the floor in the back with Kage and Zar in the seats. Only Jed remained impassively in the spot he’d staked out from the first night, all the others rotated.
“Yes?”
I looked down.
“You didn’t finish the sentence, Belle.”
I wasn’t going to tell him that I needed to do a little research on useful strategies to help someone who was dealing with self-loathing issues. Or any other relationship musings. Which brought me back to another point. Another member of my pack whom I suspected I was failing, yet wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
“Andrew?” I met his eyes again. “How about you? How are things?”
I had no idea where he’d gone from the gathering last night. He’d returned only after Zar, Jed, and I were back with the coyotes—Jed in fur, Zar still tense after he’d broken Jed’s nose. Andrew, on the other hand, had been perfectly normal. Although, of course, we hadn’t had a chance to talk.
“First rate, darling. Can’t complain. Might be a couple days before I can look a pizza in the face but I’ll get over that.” He stood.
I followed him to the van, where I stopped with him at the passenger door.
“That’s not what I mean,” I said quietly. “You know that.”
Andrew met my eyes. He still smiled faintly. “Time to go, Cassiopeia. Time’s wasting, show on the road, and all that. Let’s stop this war before it gets any more out of hand.”
Maybe we still could. If we hurried, if we fought back fast enough and smart enough. For the big war at least; for the external war. What about the dozen internal ones? What about our own battles, our own demons?
I looked through the open doors to Kage trying to help Jason get comfortable, Zar snatching a few minutes to read—though not many luxury items like books had made the cut into our bags—Isaac holding his phone but rubbing his eyes instead of looking at the screen, and Jed, wool ball in his hands, stroking his thumb over it, eyes unfocused.
I looked at Andrew.
When I persisted in not speaking, he cocked his head. “What is it? Don’t you want to go home?”
“I just want to make sure you’re all safe and well … in all possible ways.”
“Oh, we’re jolly good. After all, we just made a local eatery change its whole dining policy.”
“We probably did.”
“Home, darling. Yours, then ours. Let’s save shifter kind first. Then you’ll have more than earned the right to trouble yourself over our mental and emotional wellbeing all you fancy.”
“Can I do it without being patronized?”
Andrew took both my hands in his. “What do you think?”
I laughed. Only a bit. Still, it made me feel lighter. “You’re right. Partly, anyway. Time to go home.”
Dear Moonlight Pack
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Moonlight Journey: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 6) Page 28
