Shepherd's Moon (14 page)

I smiled and took his hand. “I know.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t hate it most of the time.” He smiled.

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t hate it. But someone needs to do it. And let’s face it—it takes a monster to catch a monster.”

His voice quieted. “Days like these and I start thinking of leaving…”

The statement stopped me cold. The thought of Billy leaving was not one that had ever crossed my mind. He’s been a constant part of my life since my first memory—he was my beacon in a world of fog.

As though he felt the fear that coursed through me, he caught my eye for a moment before turning away, unable to hold my gaze.

“Leaving what?” I asked, clearing my throat. “The job or the pack?”

“Both,” he whispered.

“Billy, you can’t…” I stared at him, my mouth suddenly dry. “We all think of leaving.”

“You don’t,” he said. “You just put up with whatever shit comes your way. Whether it’s the pack or Richard or just—life…”

That wasn’t exactly true, but I sensed the conflict in his voice and hesitated. If I said I thought about leaving, I would be seen as weak, but equal. If I said it never crossed my mind, I was a liar.

I chose to say nothing and continued walking.

“I would have left five years ago if you hadn’t been here.” His voice was almost a whisper.

“Maybe,” I considered. “But Brock would have hunted you down and dragged you home.”

He smiled, a sad smile that nearly broke my heart. “Brock hates me.”

“You’re a part of the pack,” I protested. “He doesn’t hate you.”

“That doesn’t mean he likes me.” He dropped my hand and reached down to pick up a stone, assessing its size and weight before skipping it half-heartedly across the pond. “I’m not so sure I belong here anymore.”

Now he was making me nervous. Of course, Billy was free to leave whenever he chose. But the thought of him leaving nearly made me choke. Taking a deep breath, I turned away, not wanting him to see the impact his words held. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a part of our pack—our lives.”

“I’m a part of
your
life, Alex.” He stopped and faced me. “And without you, there wouldn’t be anything to hold me here.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. There is a fine line between Shepherd and friend. I’ve always known that Billy loves me. And while I loved him in return, it was in a different way.

They say it takes everything you’ve done to get to where you are. But what happens when
where you are
isn’t where you want to be? And
everything you’ve done
seems like an almighty high price to pay?

“Billy…” I murmured gently, pulling my hand from his.

Taking a long look at me, he nodded resolutely and turned, leaving me to watch as he walked away.

At least he wasn’t going to argue the point. Shifters are far more difficult to read when they’re in human form and, most of the time, I don’t even try. Billy and I had grown up together though, and I pick up his thoughts as easily as my own. He’s always been a strong broadcaster and while I generally do my best to stay out of his head, he sometimes makes it very difficult. Emotions are much easier for me to pick up on, and Billy has a lot of them.

“Come on,” he said with a forced smile. “We’ve got monsters to catch.”

I nodded, pushing all the feelings between us to the back of my mind. Jogging after him, I breathed in the cool evening air praying that the recent awkwardness between us would eventually fade.

The moon hung low in the night sky, the bright light cascading through clouds and giving the night a ghostly feel. “Moon’s nearly full. The next few days are going to be bad.”

In a voice so soft I couldn’t even be sure if I was imagining it, I heard him whisper:

“When are they ever good?”

We pulled into our homes crowded garage, headlights flashing against four other cars and reflecting off the fenders of a Harley and two street bikes that were parked inside before I cut the ignition.

Brock sat on the steps of the doorway. Billy stepped around him without even acknowledging him, hurrying inside as the door closed behind him. I sat in the car a moment until finally Brock stood up, waiting for me to exit.

“Rough night?” he asked, brushing white chalky dust from his jeans.

“A previously adoring father turned psychopath and ate his family.” I shrugged. “Same old, same old.”

He waited until I closed the car door and moved through the maze of vehicles, then placed his arm against the wall, blocking entry to the house.

“What’s up with the coyote?”

I shrugged in silence and reached around his lean waist to push the door open.

“Do you mind?” I raised my eyebrows when he refused to move.

He studied me a moment, his face thoughtful, before he pushed the door open and stepped through, holding it open with his shoulder. “What’s going on, Alex?”

“What do you mean?” I tried to move past him.

“We’ve all seen a change in Billy this year. Why am I seeing one in you tonight?” he asked suspiciously, standing firm.

“It’s been a long night, Brock. I’m tired.” I shouldered him aside and entered the house, the door slamming closed as he followed me down the long hallway. Without so much as a look backwards, I shook my head.

“You know, you could cut him a little slack once in awhile.”

“What are you talking about?” he protested, following me down the hall. “I treat him like anyone else in the pack.”

“Come on, Brock…” I frowned. “You’re forever ordering him around like he’s still a pup.” Pushing the door of my bedroom open, I pulled off my jacket and tossed it on the bed, then removed the gun from my shoulder harness and set it under my pillow. “He’s trying to find his own place in the world. Let him find it.”

Jace had taken immense pride in handling the décor of my bedroom. The room, which was nearly the size of an average single-family home, served as my own little sanctuary and is the only place in my home that I could truly call my own. A king-sized canopy bed with 18” lodge pole pines as the base and canopy served as the centerpiece. White gauze-like material flowed from the ceiling to the base acting as a veil between me and the outside world. It’s the only place in the world where I can completely relax. In fact, the entire room had the ability to turn me into a slug.

When Jace first started shopping around for the room, his boyfriend Zack had argued that the bed was far too masculine for a woman’s room, but Jace had won out.

“Wood promotes personal growth,” Jace had explained to me. “The Chinese consider it to be one of the most important elements in the world. Wood flows to fire, fire to air, air to water.”

The design was supposed to inspire courage and faith, but I wasn’t so sure it was working. I didn’t feel much of anything except fear and disappointment in myself these days…

“Billy’s proven himself a thousand times over and you still let everyone in the house treat him like an outcast,” I told Brock.

“Wait a minute…” He shook his head, bewildered. “
Everyone
consists of Bren, Aida, Jace, and the jaguars, who I have no control over. Aida treats him like a son and Jace is his best friend.”

He was right.

“Well,” I stumbled, trying to think of an argument. “Bren is a pain in the ass.”

Brock shrugged. “At least he’s an equal opportunity pain in the ass. He hates everyone, not just Billy. So, what’s really going on?”

Frustration swirled through me. The feeling that I knew what was really bothering Billy collided with helplessness because I didn’t know how to fix it.

“We all need to know that we have each other’s backs. If we can’t feel that, then we’re not a pack and we can’t keep pretending like we are. I tossed my keys on the dresser and entered the bathroom to wash my hands.

“What do you want me to do?” he called out.

“No more criticism,” I called out over the running water. “No more posturing.”

Turning off the water, I reached for a towel.

“Come on, Alex — Billy’s tough. Posturing is part of being in a pack.”

“It’s not about how tough he is. I know how tough he is, Brock. It’s about him living in a home where he feels wanted. Lately, things have been different with him…” Hanging the towel up, I moved back to the foot of the bed.

He considered my words, then slowly nodded. “You’re right. Things have been different. But, that’s something you need to take up with Billy, not me.”

I fell back on the bed, immediately feeling some of the stress drift away from me. “You’re the alpha, Brock. I’m the Shepherd. We need to find a way to make everyone feel included and figure out how to make them a cohesive unit.” Turning my head, I met his patient eyes. “We need to do a better job.”

“And does this attempt to unite us all into one happy pack include Bren?”

I felt my face redden. All this talk of getting along and I was one of the worst for making people feel unwelcome. “You’re right. I’ll work on that…”

Reaching towards me, he pulled me to a sitting position and placed his calloused hands on either side of my face. “Okay, then. We’ll work on doing a better job.”

“Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around him as he folded me against him. “Did you save me any dinner?”

We made our way in silence down the long hallway when a black shadow streaked across the large room on our right. Brock and I froze, waiting as the younger of the two graceful jaguars leapt to the top of the 20-foot rock waterfall.

The large pond served as both the decorative feature of our living room and a giant nursery for two jaguar cubs and their mother. Built into the exterior wall, the large boulders of the falls separated the living room from the outdoor patio. The water was fed from a natural spring the house was built on and the water flowed down both sides, where the falls were absorbed into the massive natural rock grotto out back. Arched wooden bridges crossed the network of ponds, the large boulders forming natural wading pools and allowing plenty of access to quiet, private areas.

Jace had designed the water feature to help reduce stress amongst our pack, and while I had argued with him at the time thinking it would make our home look like the inside of a Bass Pro shop, I had to admit the end result was more than a little impressive.

Water always calms me — regardless of the day I‘m having. It didn’t, however, seem to have any effect at all on the young jaguar.

Brock chuckled and motioned to Tau. “He’s been doing this all day.”

My first instinct was to reach out with my mind to see why the cat was acting so erratically, but it only took a second or two to pick up on the giddy happiness that resonated from him. On the other side of the room, his twin sister lounged atop the large fireplace mantle. The underwater lights of the pond reflected against Pasha’s midnight black coat.

“Wow. They’re feeling better, huh?”

Neither of us could stop grinning as we watched Tau continue his sprints from one end of the huge room to the other, then back again—his sister watching him from above with a bored gaze. She yawned, the long white canines bright against her black coat, then resumed cleaning her sleek, black fur. At only a year of age, they were still under their mother’s care, which meant that Modnik was watching us from not too far away.

“It’s impossible to watch kittens play without smiling.”

Brock smiled and nodded. “Even I’ll admit they’re cute.”

“They’ll be shifting soon. Another few months and we’ll have two more humans running around the house.”

The biggest advantage of a shifter pregnancy is the ability to bypass the infant human stage. Somehow nature had made this simple accommodation for their already complex lives. Most Weres stayed in animal form throughout the pregnancy. It was just easier that way. The pregnancy itself lasts less than half the time as it would in human form, and deliveries were much easier on the body.

The tradeoff is that the longer a shifter stays in animal form, the faster they age. So while it would normally take many years for the twins to reach their teens, they could do it in their animal forms in half the time. Not only will the shifting come much easier, the aging will be miraculously slowed once they do it a few times.

Modnik preferred her animal form. In fact, I had never even seen her in human form and she’d been living with us for over a year. It made keeping an eye on a couple of rambunctious twins a lot easier, so I didn’t make a big deal out of it.

Humans frightened her. And rightfully so…

“She needs to start training these cubs soon…” Brock said sarcastically, despite his obvious amusement at the thought.

“They’re both out of control lately.”

“Soon,” I mumbled. “She’s still recovering.”

When we had found Modnik, she’d been a trembling, angry mass of wildness. Diego, the brutal leader of her Costa Rican territory, had kept her in a small cage for years. Most of her life had been spent suffering cruel beating and savage rape, being used as little more than a breeder most of her life.

Tau noticed us watching him and slowed long enough for his sister to descend from the ledge. Together, they cautiously approached us after several nervous glances back at their mother. Modnik snuffed a greeting, not even bothering to change position, but her approval was obvious. The kittens bolted towards us. Brock took a quick step back, despite himself. Laughing, I took a step closer and caught Tau in my arms. The jaguar cub knocked me into Brock, who caught us both.