Matt: Tales of the Were (Redstone Clan Book 5) (7 page)

“Thanks,” she said briskly, wrapping her mantle of false bravado back around herself. She walked away from the smiling werewolf and around another giant machine and then…

She was in the center of a ceremonial circle. Not just a circle formed by big yellow machines, but something that had been set up with torches at every cardinal point and an altar at the center.

And at the altar, stood the priestess Marc had tried to get Morgan to talk to many times in the past. Hilda. The priestess who served the entire Northern California region since her predecessor’s death. It was too much territory for one woman—or so Marc had insisted many times.

That little fact had worked in Morgan’s favor. Hilda hadn’t had enough time in Napa to track Morgan down and make her talk. And no way was Morgan going to seek out the woman with the spooky gray eyes to bear her soul. Some things were just too damn painful to rehash over and over. It was bad enough that Marc knew most of what had happened to Morgan. And Morgan was fine now. No reason to go raking up old trauma for shits and giggles.

Hilda saw her as the rest of the gathered
weres
turned to look at Morgan. They were standing in concentric circles. The outermost circle was made up of burly male werewolves, like the guy who’d been guarding the perimeter. The inner circle held Jenny’s family, plus a few younger male wolves who looked like teenagers, probably just starting to work with the older men on the construction crews.

At the center, directly around the altar, stood Hilda, Jenny and Matt.

And everyone—
everyone
—was now looking at Morgan. Talk about making an entrance. Morgan cringed inwardly.

“Good, you’re here. Now, we can begin,” Hilda said in a cheery voice, as if every set of eyes in the entire gathering weren’t sizing up the newcomer. “Come over here, Morgan. You’re taking one of the cardinal points to represent the Brotherhood.”

It was mid-afternoon, so it was obvious that none of the vampires could attend this particular ceremony, though she was pretty sure they’d come at dusk to do whatever Hilda might ask of them. Morgan hadn’t quite thought far enough ahead to realize that the priestess would be involved in this. Morgan had foolishly believed this was going to be like a human groundbreaking ceremony, with speeches and shovels of dirt flying for photo ops.

What it really was, was some kind of mystical, magical mumbo jumbo with fire and altars and cardinal points…and a priestess. Morgan should have seen it coming, but maybe it was a touch of willful blindness on her part that hadn’t let her think things through. These homes were being built for shifters. Of course there was going to be more to the story than simply digging a little dirt for the cameras.

Resigned to her fate, Morgan made her way through the silent rings of shifters, heading for the altar.

“Good to see you again, Morgan,” Hilda said quietly as she approached. “I’ve given you the South for Fire.” Hilda nodded to a spot, opposite Matt. Morgan hadn’t looked straight at him, yet, and avoided it, now, but they would be standing opposite each other, the altar between them. “Matt is Earth. I’m Air, and Jenny is Water,” Hilda continued. “I chose these designations for each of us because of your unique natures. Jenny is the mother energy. She has learned to flow and adapt like water, and her strength builds slowly but is nearly unstoppable.”

Morgan privately thought Hilda was giving Jenny a bit of a pep talk with those words. Morgan looked at the female werewolf and saw her take heart from the priestess’s comments. Hilda was, no doubt, good at her job, but Morgan had never given the woman a chance to try on her. Morgan silently hoped Hilda wasn’t going to turn that analytical gaze on her next.

Morgan breathed a little sigh of relief when Hilda picked on Matt instead.

“Matt is Earth, because like the earth, he is strong and supportive. He is deeply rooted and stable. He has seen and done much and has remained firm and unyielding.” Morgan resolved not to look at Matt, instead focusing on Hilda. She was caught by those eerie gray eyes when Hilda turned to her. “And you, Morgan, have been through fire. You know its pains and its triumphs. Your spirit lights our way.”

Hilda released her, turning away, and Morgan fought not to droop. Thank the Goddess that was over. She counted herself lucky to have escaped a more thorough explanation of the
fire
she’d been through. Morgan didn’t know how much Marc had told Hilda, but it was clear her guardian had blabbed at least a little bit to the priestess. Darn it.

Hilda told them all to hold hands, and Morgan was glad she wasn’t directly next to Matt. She didn’t have to hold his hand—just the priestess’s and Jenny’s. What followed was a lot of chanting and words that Morgan mostly tuned out. She had never been big on ceremonies and had never been involved with the shifter side of religion all that much. Her mother had taught her to respect the Goddess, but that was about it. In fact, Morgan had never met a priestess before Marc had introduced her to Hilda.

Morgan woke up a bit when she felt the buildup of power. Her senses crackled as Hilda’s words seemed to draw strength from the slowly moving circles of shifters. The elements seemed to answer Hilda’s call as Morgan swore for a moment she could feel the fire of the torches burning through her and into the hands she held, circulating and returning, then collecting in Hilda to be redirected into whatever magic she was working.

Morgan felt the earth shake slightly under her feet as the altar stone began to move downward. Her gaze shot upward, meeting Matt’s without her conscious permission. His topaz eyes held her mesmerized as wind whipped up around them. And then, rain splashed them as a tiny tempest concentrated its power just within the circle and focused on the altar stone. Water coalesced on it and rolled down its sides as it moved downward into the straining earth.

Suddenly, it pushed into the ground at their feet with a final, reverberating bang, and then, the tiny storm lifted, and the daylight shone down on them, once again. Morgan was left stunned, saying nothing as Hilda finished up her chant and dismissed the power she had collected, putting it into the stone.

Morgan took a good look at the stone and realized it wasn’t really an altar, at all. It was a cornerstone. A highly magical one now.

Once again, Morgan had had no idea that shifters did such things. They’d just laid the cornerstone for one of the main buildings in the project. Something Matt called a Pack house. Being unfamiliar with werewolf society, Morgan wasn’t quite sure what such a thing might be used for, but if they were starting the new community with this structure—and putting that much magic into it—it had to be pretty important.

The circles of shifters broke up, and someone moved the torches over to a small group of tables where refreshments had been set up. The ceremony quickly turned into a little party, with Jenny’s family mixing with the construction crews as if they were old friends. And they probably were, Morgan realized. They had moved from Las Vegas to Napa only in the past year, leaving behind their wolf Pack and wolfie friends for this unknown situation.

“You all did really well.” Hilda’s bright voice came to Morgan as she watched the werewolves. She was still standing in her place by the stone, as were the others. She felt a little sluggish, but she guessed that probably had to do with the magic that had just been flowing through her. “You might feel a little residual tingle, for a few hours,” Hilda cautioned, “but you all played your parts like pros. The cornerstone is set, and set well. This is a really great start for the new community.” Hilda turned to Jenny and walked with her toward the refreshments.

Morgan was glad to see the priestess go. Hilda made her uncomfortable.

And speaking of uncomfortable… Matt moved to stand directly in front of her, his arms folded, his gaze almost…hurt? No way. She had to be imagining that.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he accused. There. That was more like it.

“I’ve been busy,” she replied, reminding herself to stand tall. She wasn’t going to let anyone—especially him—see her as weak.

Matt just eyed her for a moment, then sighed and backed off a bit. “Okay. Whatever. Look, we need to work together. There are things we still have to do to make this project happen.”

“I’m at your disposal for this project,” she repeated the party line. Atticus had said as much, and she would do the work he paid her to do—but no more.

“Fine,” he ground out, then switched modes to strictly business. Good. She could handle that. Couldn’t she? “I think you need to organize a meeting with the ecological protest group. We need to show them what we have planned and get them on board, if at all possible. We don’t want any more bad press.”

He had a point. And, if she’d been thinking clearly at all the past few days, she would have already done it. Damn. She’d been walking around in a daze since that night. She really had to get a grip.

“All right. I’ll work on it tomorrow and call you with the details once I have something. Can we give them a tour of the new property?”

She began walking, and he followed her, even though she wasn’t heading for the refreshments. No, the sooner she got out of here, the better. She couldn’t handle all these
weres
. She was a loner and wanted to keep it that way.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. We can have some of the trails laid out by tomorrow, so they can see what we’ve got in mind.” He seemed to be thinking as he walked. “And I’ll do up some renderings that’ll showcase the wild space. We can probably give them a nice little packet with environmental impact numbers and all kinds of design specs for the public spaces. That ought to impress them.”

“Sounds good.” They were at the perimeter of machines, and Matt’s steps began to slow.

There was no way she was going to stay here one minute longer. He’d just have to deal with her by phone.

“I’ll call you as soon as I have something. Bye.” She turned and fled.

She had a feeling he was watching her every move, but she couldn’t stop herself. She had to get out of there now. Or ten minutes ago. Yeah, ten minutes ago would have been better, but she’d settle for now.

She scrambled to her car and started that sucker up as soon as her ass hit the leather seat. Within moments, she was headed down the road as fast as she dared. She’d had about all she could take of
were
togetherness for one day.

* * *

Matt spoke with Morgan only once, briefly, two days later. She’d managed to set up a meeting with the eco group for the next day, and he cleared his afternoon to spend with the self-proclaimed eco warriors.

He wished he could’ve gotten more time with Morgan, but she was shutting him out completely. He figured it was his past coming back to haunt him, but he’d given it a lot of thought, and he really couldn’t see how he could’ve done anything differently. If she was going to be upset with him for having been with Christy—which is what he believed to be the cause of her avoidance—there was nothing he could do to change the past. He’d had his reasons for answering Sebastian’s request to let Christy feed from him, and they went a lot deeper than just momentary hedonism.

If only he could explain to Morgan. If only she’d give him a chance to tell her why he’d chosen to do what he’d done.

But she wouldn’t even give him the time of day, right now. He figured he’d give her a bit of time to cool off before he pushed his luck any further. He’d be in Napa for some time yet, working on this project. Grif had asked him to stay until things were well underway, and Matt planned to be even more conscientious than usual on this particular job. Anything that would keep him close to Morgan.

Hell, he could always come right out and tell Grif why he wanted to stay in California a while longer. He knew his brother would give him free reign—especially if Matt hinted at a possible mating—but he really didn’t want to deal with the teasing or the grief he would get from his four older brothers if they realized why he was so keen on Napa all of a sudden. Not to mention the humiliation if he didn’t manage to talk Morgan around and had to go home empty handed.

Matt went out to the site of the proposed nature reserve early, policing the site for trash and scouting the perimeter. He wanted everything to be perfect for the eco guys. The small but vocal group could cause a lot of trouble for them if they decided to launch a media campaign against the project.

Everything could still get put on indefinite hold if the human community turned too much attention on the project. Matt didn’t want that to happen, for any number of reasons, not least of which was because he didn’t want to disappoint Jenny. The poor woman had been through a lot in recent years. She was finally finding some happiness again, and Matt wanted to make sure she was as comfortable as he could possibly make her.

The housing project would do that. Which was why he had to make it happen. Forget all the money and time invested in this project already. What really mattered most in life was people. And Jenny and her tiny Pack of females were good people. They deserved a fresh start in a comfortable, safe place. Matt would move heaven and earth to give it to them.

By the appointed time for the meeting, Matt had gone over every inch of the acreage set aside for the preserve. He’d met the local wildlife, which included some skittish deer, a few raccoons, possums, a skunk family, and assorted squirrels. There was also a wide range of birds, from a predator hawk pair, what he thought was probably an owl’s nest, and many, many smaller birds from woodpeckers to chickadees. He’d found the natural stream that ran through the property and the small pond that was home to a few ducks.

He thought he had a pretty good handle on the wildlife and the lay of the land. He’d take the eco nuts on a tour and point out all the natural beauty of the spot and give them precise details about the small changes they would make to mark off trails for the humans who wanted to partake of the natural beauty of the spot. He had it all planned out, with little presentation folders Irma had helped him prepare for each guest.