Queen Bitch of the Callowwood Pack (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

She lifted her head, scowling at the mess. The disarray of her table infuriated her. She wanted to wipe away the frightening words of her mother’s letter as if they were written on a dry-erase board. Her hands crushed the delicate paper into jagged shapes.

What am I going to do now?

What are you going to do? Go home, where you belong!

She hated that voice. It always came out when she tried to avoid some truth. It had always been a part of her, but lately it had become stronger, like an older, braver sister forcing her to face challenges from which she’d much rather hide. As new tears spilled out of her eyes, a snarl suspiciously similar to a wolf’s echoed across her thoughts, and anger swiftly followed.

Crying will get you nowhere.
It hadn’t gotten her anywhere with Terence the Rat Bastard, and it wouldn’t help her now. She had decisions to make, plans to set in motion.

But how could she think about going home when she didn’t even know what had happened to her last night? Was it only one night?

It couldn’t have been. Leslie said it was Tuesday. Three days?
Dread curled in her gut.
What if it happens again while I’m with my parents?

Holy shit! They’ll think I’m crazy and…and…

The scents of dirt and dried blood filtered into her awareness.

Shower! I need a shower!

She shot out of her chair and stomped to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her to keep out the hurt. The stench of the room almost bowled her over. When had her nose become so sensitive? It smelled like her bathroom needed as much attention as her body.

The water helped relax her, but the question of returning home ricocheted against the walls of her mind. Eighteen years had passed since she’d been back to her hometown of Callowwood for anything longer than a week or two. Eighteen years of trying to have an exciting life away from the small town in the middle of nowhere.

She’d found “exciting” all right. With a lousy husband and weird gaps in her memory, she’d had more than her fair share.

Dammit, she still had to go. Dad was dying, and Mom needed her.

And you need Jefferson,
that older Sister’s voice insisted.

The name of the man she’d crushed on since junior high froze her solid.

Memories of Jefferson Lightfoot pushed out the fear and grief, filling Julianna with exhilaration and unrequited need. She thought she’d managed to put the “guy back home” from her mind, but he’d never strayed far from her thoughts. Even now, as she closed her eyes, she could still see and hear him.

He had a rich, gravelly baritone voice that stole her breath, sliding over her like hot velvet. His green-gold eyes, almost like a cat’s, had heavy lids so he squinted all the time like a cowboy from spaghetti westerns. He seemed to see all the way down into her soul when he looked at her. Of course, if that were the case, he would’ve either come to take care of her desires or laughed at her for having them.

Reality smacked her hard, and she opened her eyes, letting the warm fuzzies slip away.

He didn’t want me.

That hadn’t stopped her from wanting him. Or shamelessly throwing herself at him.

Julianna had had a connection to Jeff ever since the day she saw him walking his younger sister home from school. She hadn’t known what “soul mates” were at the time, but she knew he was hers and she’d done everything but strut around buck naked to get him to acknowledge it. Unfortunately, he’d treated her with amusement and affection, completely unaffected by her tight clothes and swaying hips.

Embarrassment burned in her gut, and she tried to shove it away by scrubbing her body clean. Why hadn’t he taken any notice of her?

And now he can’t. Not when I’m going crazy.

Self-recriminations can wait until I’ve eaten. Dad would say nobody thinks clearly on an empty stomach. Awww, Dad.

Julianna shut off the shower and toweled dry, making herself focus on the here and now. She’d made her decision–she was going home. But she’d keep to herself. She didn’t want her weird gaps in time to affect her parents or anyone else in town.

Her stomach rumbled, and she dressed quickly, tracking down something to calm her body, if not her mind.
I need comfort food.
Chocolate and ice cream? No, bacon, sausage, and eggs.

The sun had burned off some of the clouds during her shower, and the waning moon appeared in the open bits of sky to the west. Julianna knew it was waning, knew it viscerally like she knew how to whistle or roll her tongue. She’d become more and more attuned to the moon’s phases as her thirty-sixth birthday approached.

So now I’m a lunatic.

Hysterical laughter burned in her throat, but she swallowed it as she prepared a large breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, and coffee. She sat down at her table, shoving aside the mail, and inhaled the scents from her plate in the weak April sunshine. Soft spring breezes rippled through the branches of the ponderosa pines outside her windows, and she wished they’d scour her heart free of sorrow. Her eyes returned to the moon peaking through the corner of one window, and she sighed.

The moon in Callowwood had always seemed bigger and brighter, a great, silent, comforting presence when things had gone wrong.

Where is your comfort now?

Julianna mentally shook herself, hoping to find peace in the simple actions of eating, but her mind returned to Callowwood like a compass needle. Growing up there, the summer days seemed to last forever until the indigo shadows of the mountains stretched across the valley. The evenings had been filled with cricket song, and icy white stars blazed from the inky curtain of night.

It had been perfect.

Then why did you run so fast and so far?
her Sister’s voice asked.

I needed more than just mountains and stars,
Julianna insisted.

Bullshit. You ran. You ran from
him
!

Does it matter? When I go back, I can’t see Jeff, not with my
issues
. Besides, he’s probably fat, married, with ten thousand kids by now. It
has
been eighteen years! He probably doesn’t even remember me, and he certainly hasn’t been
waiting
for me!

Julianna saw Jeff in her mind’s eye, his beard trimmed short and his delectable lips grinning at her. She’d wanted to kiss those lips so often her own mouth had grown tired from all the practice in her bathroom mirror. His nose was short and straight, and his brows overshadowed his eyes, giving him a mysterious, predatory look. He’d had short chestnut brown hair, and he’d worn a silver pendant in the shape of a wolf’s head surrounded by Celtic knots on a leather thong around his neck. His hands had been small with tapered fingers, but they had fit his body and she had often dreamed of them gliding over hers.

Julianna almost felt them gliding over her now.

She heard the tines of her fork scrape her empty plate and blinked. When had she finished all her food? Visions of Jeff had absorbed all her attention and made her ravenous.

Yeah, ravenous for hot, sexy male!

Stop it. He’s not mine and never was. I’m sure he’s found someone to marry by now. I should just forget him.

But fury rippled through Julianna at the thought of his disregard, and she growled as she stood, yanking her plate so hard the silverware clattered to the floor. She closed her eyes and fumed, her hands tightening on the plate. What was wrong with her? Why did it matter if he’d married or not?

Because he’s yours!
her Sister shouted.
You’re going back. You can claim him.

She groaned and stomped into the kitchen, tossing her plate into the sink. She gripped the counter edge until her knuckles turned white and fought the fury building inside her.

I can’t. I’m going crazy, and I have to help my parents. I don’t have time for Jeff.

Only because you’re a coward.

Why was she arguing with herself? She was going home to help her parents and she’d just deal with the weird problems of the memory breaks.

Her stomach lurched, and her shoulders slumped.

Her father’s voice, so strong and confident, echoed in her head.
Nobody gets anything done by moping. Pull yourself together and make strides, girl, no matter how small those strides are.

Using his advice as a shield against her distress, Julianna loaded her plate into the dishwasher and forced herself to focus on going home. She couldn’t just pick up and leave. She couldn’t do that to the staff she managed at the B&B, but she could call in sick to give herself a day to regroup. She spent the day packing and considering the fastest way to get her affairs in order to go home. By the time the cloak of night had descended, she collapsed on her bed in her PJs, too exhausted to even think. Sleep took her as soon as her head hit the pillow.

* * * *

Awareness came slowly, focusing into clarity from the darkness of subconscious. The scents of the evening enveloped Julianna—the heated concrete, burned oil from vehicles, mountain scents of fresh streams and cool trees. Darkness filled the valley, and the lights of the city obscured the stars, but the white-gold disk of the moon showed above the Sierra Nevada Mountains, its glow painting a tingling path of excitement down her body. She stretched her arms up to greet the moon in delight.

The air was cool enough to make her shiver, but the chill barely touched Julianna’s consciousness as she turned her gaze to the night-colored world. She’d be warm enough once she started moving. Her strides lengthened into a jog, stretching her muscles. The elation of being outside egged her on, teasing her with scents and sounds she’d never noticed before. When did ponderosa pines start smelling like vanilla? Why hadn’t she ever noticed the irises planted in her neighbor’s border garden? When had the family of raccoons moved into the trees by the retention pond? She pulled the scents in with great breaths, enjoying their tickling sensations in her nostrils. It was so exhilarating she threw her head back and laughed with sheer joy.

Julianna increased her pace, pushing herself faster until she pelted down the bike trail farther from her apartment. The moonlight washed over her, soothing the ragged edges of her life like a balm. Why hadn’t she ever noticed it before? It was almost better than sex! Well, better than sex with Terence.

Her breath sawed through her chest as a sense of unbalance gripped her. She needed to use her arms more, needed to feel the dirt on her hands. She turned sharply and dove off the path into the bushes, landing on her hands to scramble up the hillside. Branches from the shrubs caught at her clothes, and the scent of moist leaf litter filled her nose. But she couldn’t see clearly enough.

Julianna’s nose shot out in front of her face, her spine elongated from her buttocks and grew heavy with fur, and her fingers shortened and sprouted claws. Scents became sharper, her vision cleared, and the world intensified. Then the wolf inside her took over, threw back her head, and howled in jubilation at her new-found freedom.

* * * *

Julianna woke with a gasp and stared at the red numbers of her clock beside the bed, trying to slow her heartbeat.

Two thirty-seven a.m.

She’d been dreaming. At least she thought it was a dream. It had felt so real.

Was it a memory?

Please, God, tell me it wasn’t a memory.

Julianna held her breath, trying to figure out what she’d seen. A clear vision of hunting a lone raccoon surfaced, complete with the scents of blood and fear. She recalled the taste of the raccoon’s fury and desperation, and the texture of its fur along her tongue as it fought the grip of her jaws. Then she remembered the sweetness of its flesh as she fed from its warm belly.

Panic and dread swelled with her revulsion.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, horrified. “I’m a monster!”

Coming Home

Julianna stood beside her mother, Beth, and listened to the pastor drone on about returning to God’s side after a life lived righteously. The sun blazed over them, making the air too warm for black clothing, but she ignored the sweat trickling down her back as she waited for the service to finish.

Her dad lay in the closed coffin with a flowered wreath on top of it. Julianna tried to ignore the stench of his rotting body in the heat.
God, can’t anyone else smell it?
She glanced surreptitiously around at the other mourners. Most of the town of Callowwood was there to pay their respects to a man who had lived in the community for years. No one wrinkled their noses at the odor untouched by the scents of fresh lilies. She tried to focus on the flowers on the coffin rather than the reek coming from inside it.

Oh, Dad, I wish you were here.
Grief ripped at her again, forcing more tears down her cheeks.
Those bastards at the factory knew they were poisoning you and they did nothing but pay doctors’ bills and funeral costs! I wish you were here to make everything all right. Thank God you’re not hurting anymore.

Now she had one less person from whom to hide.