Sharon's Wolves (Wolf Masters Book 10) (14 page)

“The trouble is that the spirit doesn’t speak, of course. And it’s never simple. So far we’ve seen an earthquake, a casino collapse, an avalanche, and a forest fire.”

“And how long does it take to get these answers?” Jackson asked.

Sharon shrugged. “Varies. Not too long. A week maybe.”

“And then what? And then we go on with our merry lives?”

“That’s the plan,” Cooper said.

“Why can’t it be simple? From what Cooper was telling me earlier, you saw the spirit thingie again in the middle of the night.” He lifted a finger to point at both of them. “And let me just reiterate how insane that was, while at the same time I’m glad to know you were both awake and running around naked in the woods while I was pacing in my apartment adjusting my stiff cock.”

Cooper chuckled. “Hey, man, that was your fault. You could have stayed last night, and we could have spent our time doing much more satisfying things together. And just for the record, when we run in the woods, we do have our fur on. I would hardly call it naked.”

Jackson shrugged. “Semantics. Anyway, why can’t it be simple? You’ve got earthquakes shaking us all day and night around here, some dumbasses doing too much fracking on a fault line, and a perfectly good black smoky aura to point out the danger. Seems cut and dry. Stop the fracking, the earthquakes stop, the aura goes away. We all live happily ever after.” He clapped his hands together. “Done.”

Cooper rolled his eyes. “I wish.”

“Why?” Jackson pushed off the island and resumed filling the dishwasher with pans and cups and utensils. “Who’s to say it isn’t just that this time?”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Probably whoever that is,” Sharon joked.

Cooper stood and winked at Sharon. “I have two sisters, a mother, and a grandmother who all have abilities as shaman none of us will ever understand. I’d bet anything, all or some of them are standing outside the front door.”

He strode across the room and didn’t even bother checking the peephole. Seconds later, he was proven correct. All four of the women in his family burst into the condo.

His sisters, Laurie and Melinda, had huge smiles on their faces and beelined for Sharon to undoubtedly pry her for information about her mating. His mother was calmer. She hugged him on the way by and softly expressed her happiness for him.

His grandmother, Mimi Bartel, had a furrowed brow and a stiff gait. She was all business. “Good,” she began, “at least I don’t have to start lecturing the three of you about the importance of not denying your fate.”

Cooper smiled as he shut the door, shaking his head behind his grandmother’s back. The woman was persistent in all things. She was convinced that each spirit sighting was extremely important. The tales of her interfering with each of her grandchildren’s matings were comical at best.

Sharon made her rounds, ending with Joyce and then Mimi. She reached back and snagged Jackson by the arm. “Mimi, Joyce, this is Jackson Wolf.”

Joyce smiled warmly at Jackson. “So nice to officially meet you.”

Mimi eyed him from top to bottom while Cooper fought to control his need to smile behind her. Finally, she spoke. “You live on the reservation.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jackson rocked on his feet, clearly thrown by Mimi’s scrutiny.

“Good,” she stated dramatically. “Welcome to the family. I take it they’ve been catching you up?”

“I’ve learned more in the last eighteen hours than the previous eighteen years, yes.” He smiled.

Laurie rolled her eyes. “Grandma, cut Jackson some slack. He’s here, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” She spun around to face Cooper. “How many spirits have you seen?”

“Three so far. Two last night here in the condo and one in the middle of the night near a fracking site.”

“Fracking site?”

“Yes. North of here. It’s on top of a fault line. I believe it’s causing the earthquakes.”

Mimi shook her head. “There’s more to it than that.”

Cooper was well aware. “I know. We’re trying to figure it out.”

Mimi started pacing. “You need to go back.”

“Back where?” Sharon asked.

“Wherever you went in the night. The fracking site.”

Cooper stared at his grandmother. He didn’t know her as well as his brothers and sisters did. And that was his own fault. His oldest siblings, Melinda and Miles, were half-siblings born after a rape. When they were three, his mother met her true mate, a Caucasian shifter, and she was essentially banished from the reservation. With no other choice, she left with Cooper’s father, Gene, and lived a few hours away for twenty-seven years before they were able to return.

Since that time, Cooper had only spent a few brief days with his newfound family out of some misplaced desire to buck the system and deny his fate. Now that he was finally where he belonged, all his efforts seemed absurd.

He turned his gaze to Sharon and smiled as he watched her laugh at something one of his sisters said, her face lighting up in a way that warmed his heart. Why had he put this off?

And Jackson. Jackson leaned against the back of the leather couch, eyeing Cooper for cues about all these women who had just descended on them on the first day of their mating. The man’s world had been turned upside down and inside out, and still he held his head high and kept his wits.

Cooper admired him, and he had to admit he already respected him too. As soon as he allowed himself to face his destiny, things fell into place. They would continue to do so.

“Cooper?”

He shook his wandering thoughts from his head and faced his grandmother again. Her small stature was nearly comical when compared to her huge personality. She pointed a finger at him and spoke as if she’d raised him herself and he’d better pay attention or she wouldn’t hesitate to put him in his place.

“I’m sorry, Mimi. Why do we need to go back to the fracking site? I saw it. It’s obviously the cause of the earthquakes. What more is there to know?”

“I don’t know, young man. All I can do is follow my gut. And my gut tells me there’s more to this than meets the eye. It isn’t as simple as it appears.”

He agreed with her. He’d said as much to his mates before the female wolves descended. But how was he supposed to interpret the desires of some black aura floating around in front of him?

“Mimi, come sit with us,” Melinda said. “Cut Cooper a break. He’s aware of the situation. You know it’s never easy to discern what the spirit wants.”

Mimi took her granddaughter’s advice and made her way over to perch on the couch between Melinda and his mother.

His mother’s face was tight.

“Mom, what do you think?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but I agree with the others. Something’s very, very wrong. Far more than a group of drills pumping gas out of the land. The hairs on the back of my neck have stood on end for several days, and the restlessness has increased in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Since the three of us met,” Sharon added.

“Yes. Probably since nearly that precise moment. It wasn’t an accident you all came together last night.”

Jackson stood behind the couch still, staring down at the women. “Do you all see the future or something?”

Laurie shook her head. “No. I wish. We just get a vibe sometimes. And when one of us does, often we all do. I’m not sure if it’s a curse or a blessing.”

“So this thing with the logging site that burned last fall. What was that about? Can someone bring me up to speed? I’m a little lost.”

Laurie smiled from her spot curled up in a chair across from Jackson. “In a nutshell, when my brother Sawyer moved here, he met his mates, Logan Masters and Amanda Williams. You know Amanda probably. She’s human and the sister of Jazmine’s girlfriend, Mary.”

He nodded. “Got it. Right. Amanda. I’ve met her a few times.”

“Anyway, the spirits hung around the logging site. You knew something was amiss because the three of them came to you to warn you about the site a few times.”

“Yes. They first told me to go check it out for over-logging and then called and told me not to go because it wasn’t safe. I stalled as long as I could and then went out there. But who cares about the stupid logging site? What does it have to do with anything?”

Cooper stepped closer to Jackson behind the couch. “It’s not so much the site itself that mattered. The spirits made themselves known near the site many times. In the end, I don’t think the aura cared about profit margins and greedy men with lofty agendas. What they cared about was preparing Amanda to be able to get down the mountain alone and preventing everyone at the site from getting caught in the wild fire that ensued.”

Jackson blew out a breath. “So it could be the spirits are warning about something we have no knowledge of instead of simply warning us to stop fracking and pay attention to the land.”

“Exactly,” Cooper said. “And that’s always the most frustrating part.”

“But we’ve already experienced several tremors in the last few days. Aren’t those usually indicative of something larger?”

“Usually.” Cooper nodded. “But that something isn’t necessarily obvious.”

“No matter how you slice it, we need to stop the fracking right now.” Jackson pushed off from the couch and paced the room next to Cooper.

“If it were that simple, I would have called a halt in the wee hours of the morning. But something like this requires a court injunction, and that takes weeks or months.”

“We don’t have weeks or months,” Melinda pointed out. “We have days.”

“I see.” Jackson rubbed his temples. “What do you suppose my role is in all this?”

Sharon lifted herself from her seat and came around to the back of the couch to step between Cooper and Jackson. She set her hands on Jackson’s chest and leaned into him.

Cooper watched as Jackson settled his hands on her lower back, his fingers resting over her ass.

“We don’t necessarily have roles. We’re a team. We just do what our gut says and hope we’re right.”

“And if we’re not?” Jackson asked.

“Then one of those black auras will put itself in our path and redirect.”

Cooper was impressed by how calm Sharon was under pressure. He was a damn lucky man. Stubborn perhaps, but lucky.

Melinda cleared her throat. “I think we’re missing something. There’s more.”

“I second that,” Mimi muttered.

“What else is happening in remote sections of this area? Besides logging and fracking?” Melinda asked.

“Hikers are starting to venture out as the paths get cleared,” Sharon offered.

Laurie spoke next. “Amanda mentioned there’s a biology research team from the junior college studying the effects of global warming on the species native to the local mountains.”

“Where are they located?” Cooper asked.

“Not sure, but I can find out.”

Mimi shook her head. “I don’t like this.”

Joyce leaned toward her mother. “How is it different from all the other times? I know I wasn’t here when Rebecca and Melinda mated, and hardly even Laurie, so I’m new to this, but hasn’t it always been the same thing?”

Melinda sighed. “Mimi’s right. Something’s different. The unrest is hovering in the air.”

Jackson tightened his grip on Sharon and turned to face the group. “I was just at the logging site above your family’s ski lodge last week, and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. What are you thinking? Another earthquake? Bigger perhaps? Maybe the spirits want us to get folks off the mountain.”

Cooper wasn’t buying it. That was too easy. But there was one way to find out. “We need to head to the logging site and wherever the biology research group is based. See if we get any sense of unrest or spirit visitors in the area.”

“Good idea,” Laurie said. “Let’s split up this afternoon and visit a few locations. Melinda and I can figure out where the biologists are and spy on that situation, see if anything seems off.”

Melinda shook her head. “I don’t think it will work that way. We can try, but I don’t think the spirits will necessarily make themselves present for anyone except Cooper, Jackson, and Sharon. This is their show to direct.”

“Perhaps. But it can’t hurt to try,” Laurie said.

Cooper redirected. “Listen, I think we need to focus on what we know. We have to stop the fracking. That means we need folks to understand the implications and demand the drilling stop.”

“That doesn’t sound like an easy fix,” Sharon pointed out.

“It’s not, but—” he snapped his fingers, “—we aren’t alone in this. Sharon and I saw two men standing inside the tree line last night watching the same scene unfold as us.”

“Hiding?” Melinda asked. “Humans?”

Cooper nodded. “Yep.”

“Did you know them?” She looked at Sharon, who had lived in the area her entire life. Cooper realized even though he hadn’t recognized the men, he didn’t know ten people in town yet.

Sharon shook her head. “Never seen them before. I can tell you they were taller than average. Dark hair, one short cropped. One in need of a cut. It touched his shoulders. Huge. I would remember if I’d ever seen them before.”

Melinda chewed her bottom lip for a second. “Maybe there’s hope then, others who are willing to stand up for what’s right.”

“What about protesters?” Jackson asked. “If we got enough people interested and concerned about the possibility of a bigger quake, maybe we could get the government to shut them down. I mean, it doesn’t matter if a quake is what we’re looking at or not.” He looked toward Cooper. “You said yourself the epicenter is under the fracking site. That should be enough to convince people to call for an injunction.”

Cooper’s mom nodded. “I can call the women I work with and rally them to spread the word.” His mother ran a support group that many women in the Native American shifter community attended to help foster higher tolerance of other races. After twenty-seven years in exile caused by bigotry, Joyce was an expert.

“I bet Jazmine would be willing to rally some families through her preschool. That would hit the non-shifting Natives,” Jackson added.

“I’m sure Mary would do the same with non-shifting whites,” Laurie said.

Sharon nodded. “That just leaves the shifting Caucasians, and my family will handle that easily. There aren’t a lot of them. They can spread the word through the lodge and the sheriff’s office.”