Wolf Moon (6 page)

“She came after me the
next night, said she knew I was behind the attack on her nest, and when she
found me…” Nick sighed heavily. “She had me beat, but it wasn’t enough to take
my life. She said I took something of hers, so she would take something of
mine.” A pause.
Another lane change on the interstate.
“In seven years, I’ve purposely stayed away from serious relationships in hopes
I could eventually find the courage to tell you everything and try to win you
back. She gleaned that from my thoughts and came after you.”

Everything Samantha had
said the night she met her end was all starting to make sense. She said they
wanted me alive—but why? Maybe the plan was to turn me. The thought made
me wretch. Was my being bitten a blessing in disguise, then? Perhaps I should
have been making peace with it instead of holding it against Jackson.

“I know you must hate me
after learning what I had to do, Brooke, but you have to believe I would never
do that if I thought he had a chance at rehabilitation. I brought you up to him
several times when we’d cross paths, but he didn’t care that you were his
sister. He
wasn’t
your brother
anymore,” Nick concluded.

Having tied a few threads
to this entire situation together, I let everything simmer a minute. There was
still a part of me that had trouble believing that my
brother
had been alive all this time and was as monstrous as Nick
made him out to be, but there was nothing I could do to change that now. Did I
resent Nick for not getting in contact with me sooner about all of this? Maybe
a little, but having come face to face with two vampires in the last week, I
could understand why he didn’t involve me.

“So, what happens now?” I
whispered, slowly glancing over at Nick. “
Gianna’s
gone, so am I safe?”

Nick sighed. “I don’t
know. She’d always been one step ahead of us, and she would have gotten to you
that night in the park if…” He let his sentence hang, unfinished.

“If I hadn’t been
bitten,” I concluded. “Yeah, I already came to that conclusion.”

Silence.

“I’m still so sorry,”
Nick spoke
up,
his voice holding more remorse than it
should considering he wasn’t responsible. “You didn’t ask for any of this, and
here you are, stuck right in the thick of it. You’ve lost so much.”

“True,” I replied, still
hurt but trying to work it out in my own time. “But there’s nothing we can do about
it now. I’m in this with you, so no more secrets.

Nick nodded. “No more
secrets.”

W
e were making pretty decent time until we hit Montana. In those nine
hours on the road, the visibility had dropped thanks to a building blizzard.
The bikes had to go, but there was no way we could continue to drive the cars
in the storm either. Nick pulled off the highway and we took a little detour to
Great Falls. We found another Hampton Inn, got three rooms between the six of
us—same arrangements as last time—and they looked up a company that
would rent them a vehicle large enough for the three bikes. Vince would drive
when we were ready to leave, and there was a depot in a city near the manor
where they could drop it off.

We all enjoyed a nice
dinner in the hotel restaurant before retiring for the night—compliments
of the Pack credit card. Yeah, who knew that was actually a
thing.
Apparently Marcus was pretty well off. Nick told me he was “independently
wealthy”—whatever that meant—and incredibly stock market savvy.
While some members of the pack held day jobs, whenever they were on assignment,
Marcus, as Alpha, footed the bill and took care of his own.

The wind was strong,
whistling as it blew past the windows, and even with my increased vision, I
couldn’t see past the blowing snow as I stood in front of the window. All the
weather networks said this was going to last a few days. Hopefully it was
accurate and didn’t last any longer, because the full moon was in nine days,
and I could already feel the tension forming in my muscles.

There was still a strain
between Nick and me. I really was trying to understand everything he told me,
and I didn’t
want
to be upset with
him. I mean, as far as I knew, Bobby had died seven years ago, so why should it
really
matter?

I told myself it mattered
because he was still my brother, and he was out there for seven years and I had
no idea. But Nick did.

Yes, I understood why it
was kept from me. Instinctually, I believed everything Nick told me because it
was hard-wired into my now-altered DNA to believe vampires were pure evil. My human
emotions, however, still wanted to acknowledge that he was my twin brother, and
that bond should trump any level of malevolence.

I stood in front of the
window,
arms crossed, and stared at the flurry of white that
obstructed my view of the city. I shivered as another blast of wind whistled
by, and when the door behind me opened, I turned to see Nick walk in with my
bags. But his were absent.

He set the black duffle
on the bench along the wall and turned to me. He looked defeated. “You going to
be okay?”

Confused, I asked, “What
do you mean?”

“I was going to crash
with Corbin and Zach across the hall.” He paused, scratching the back of his
neck. “I figured after this afternoon, you wouldn’t want to be around me more
than you had to be.”

I exhaled softly, sitting
on the end of the king-sized bed. “Am I happy about what you told me? Not
particularly. But I think I get it. You did what you had to do, and I know that
couldn’t have been an easy choice to make.”

Still silent, Nick stood
before me, staring and waiting for me to continue.

“I don’t…I don’t want you
to go. I’m scared that if you do, something might trigger my next shift,” I
confessed, standing back up and walking toward him. “I can feel it, Nick. With
every day that passes, I feel my body preparing itself. You have this way of
keeping me calm. Of centering me.” Tentatively, I wrapped my arms around his
waist and laid my head on his chest. It felt forced, but soon his warmth caused
me to melt against him. “Please stay.”

Releasing a breath and
sounding relieved, Nick’s arms encased me and he pressed a light kiss into the
top of my head. “I’m here for whatever you need.”

I changed into a pair of
shorts and a blue T-shirt while Nick grabbed his bag from across the hall.
After he changed into his sleep pants, we sat on the bed and watched
television. Around midnight, and well into our second Pay-Per-View movie, I
heard soft snoring to my left. Glancing over, I noticed he had fallen asleep,
so I turned the TV off and tried to relax my mind enough to do the same.

All the tension had just
left my
body,
sleep finally in my grasp, when I felt
the bed dip behind me and a heavy arm drape over my waist. The warmth from
Nick’s body enveloped me, and I sighed as he pulled me closer to him, holding
me firm. He mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out, and a tingly current
buzzed beneath my skin as I relaxed in his arms and fell asleep.

Sadly, it didn’t take
long for the nightmares to find me again.

I
was back in Scottsdale, in my living room, and David was there with me, lying
on the ground with the window above him shattered and the curtains blowing in
the breeze. The sound of him choking on his own blood was all I could hear. It
overpowered my own pulse, the cars on the street, the sirens… The blood was
warm and sticky against my hand. His breathing was rough, eyes terrified.

He
knew what I was, and it terrified him.

With a sharp gasp for
air, I sat upright in bed, sweat pouring down my forehead, and my hands
death-gripping the blankets to my chest. Each intake of oxygen burned and my
lungs struggled every time. My eyes were focused on the soft light coming in
through the narrow slit between the closed curtains as I struggled to take in
my surroundings and remember where I was.

The Hampton Inn in Great Falls.

A hand on my back
startled me, and a defensive growl built in my throat. When I remembered Nick
had fallen asleep next to me, I cut the growl short, running my fingers through
my hair. “Sorry,” I whispered hoarsely, my mouth suddenly dry.

Nick stood up, his
flannel pants hanging low on his hips and showing off a few more faint scars.
One on his right hip caught my attention, but he pulled his pants up as he
opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water from it. He opened and brought
it over to me, and I took a swig while he sat next to me, rubbing my back.

This one small gesture
took me back to when he’d do this when I wasn’t feeling well. He was always so
considerate. I should have known something was wrong with him and he wouldn’t
just leave me the way he did without a valid reason.

“Bad dream?”

I nodded, holding the
bottle in my lap as I picked at the label. My eyes stung as I tried to keep myself
from crying.

“David again?”

The first of several
tears fell, and I swiped it away quickly. “Always,” I rasped. “I never should
have left that night. Had I just stayed and tried to work things out with
him—”

“No,” Nick interrupted.
“This
wasn’t
your fault.” He placed
his fingers under my chin and gently coaxed my eyes to his. “Do you understand
that?”

I remained silent,
because I didn’t agree.

“Yes, she was there for
you, but you can’t keep blaming yourself.” A heavy sigh. “I know this probably
won’t help, but even if you’d stayed there, I have no doubts that everything
would have played out the same way.”

He was right; it didn’t
help, and it most definitely wasn’t what I needed to hear.

“I know you loved him,”
Nick continued gently, using his thumb to brush more of my tears away. “But he
wouldn’t want you to hold yourself responsible, would he?”

Once again, Nick was
right. I sniffled, shaking my head. “No, I suppose not. But it doesn’t change
the fact that he’s gone.”

“You’re right,” he
agreed, his eyes soft and compassionate as his hands gripped mine. I let the
feeling of his thumbs moving over the back of my hands numb me to the pain that
ripped through my gut, but I also felt guilty for allowing it. “I wish I could
find a way to go back and make it so none of this ever happened to you, but I
can’t. What I
can
do is remind you
that
Gianna’s
dead, and that she can’t ever come
after you or your family again. Hold onto that and know that I plan to do
everything in my power to help you get through this.”

There was a conviction in
Nick’s words that made me
want
to
believe him, but I found it difficult. I’d gotten used to so much disappointment
over the last month. Hitting dead-end after dead-end on my first homicide
investigation made it difficult for me to see the possibility of a positive
outcome.

Unable to hold it back
any longer, I sobbed. Nick took my water bottle and set it aside so it didn’t
spill on the bed, and then he pulled me into his arms. My grief had always been
there, teetering on the edge while I sought revenge for what happened. But now
that I had nothing to keep my mind occupied, it overwhelmed me, pressing down
on me and making it difficult to breathe.

Nick held me, allowing me
to cry on his shoulder. It was the nicest thing he could have done, because
there was something cathartic about letting my emotions finally
take
the lead. I’d been keeping it all bottled
up,
refusing to let myself succumb to them completely, and I
appreciated his silent comfort. I lapped it up like I needed it to survive.

Slowly, the sobs ebbed,
my entire core aching, and Nick lowered us to the bed. He continued to hold me
as I tried to catch my breath, and I closed my eyes as he ran his fingers
through my hair. Falling back asleep was difficult, though. It wasn’t until
after Nick pulled me closer, resting my head on his chest as his fingers
trailed lazily up and down my back, that I was finally able to find the peace
that only sleep could bring. It was restless, though; the dream I had—the
memory—recurred every time I closed my eyes. What happened that day would
continue to haunt me, and I could feel my grip on reality slipping every time I
woke up in a cold
sweat.
I knew that it was supposed
to be a good thing—my remembering. It was supposed to be a way to accept
what happened and move past it, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like it
was the beginning of the end for me, and I tried to will it all away.
To forget once more.

The storm lasted three
days. Three long days of being cooped up in the hotel. We made the best of the
situation, though. The Pack spent some time in the pool. Nick and I were invited,
but I wasn’t really up to faking a good mood, so I declined. Nick made a quick
appearance and was sure to tell me about Corbin and Zach showing off their most
impressive cannonballs. I was sort of sad I missed it, but Nick assured me that
it was something they did at the manor too.

Yeah. Apparently my new
home had an indoor pool, too.

The tension in my body
continued to grow as the moon became fuller, so I got up early and ran on the
treadmill every morning to help ease the feeling. I still had six days until I
would be forced to shift, but I could feel it teetering on the edge. I was
certain it would only take one small incident and I’d explode, so I decided to
exhaust myself in hopes of avoiding that particular scenario. I wasn’t sure if
it actually worked that way, but I was willing to give it a shot.

Sensing my boredom on the
second night, Nick headed down to the little, and extremely over-priced, gift
shop and bought a deck of cards and various candy bars. We raided the
minibar—even though I argued, saying it was too damn expensive—and
we played cards, ate empty calories, and drank ourselves stupid.

Not too stupid, though
;
unlike the other night, I didn’t throw myself at him in a
moment of weakness and desperation. He had other ways to keep me distracted,
and I was grateful for his friendship. Especially when he’d made his feelings
for me crystal clear. And while I could admit to my own feelings toward him
reigniting, I wasn’t ready. Nick accepted that.

To be honest, I wasn’t
sure if I’d ever be ready, and when I was, I couldn’t promise that I would be
ready to move on with Nick—what if our time had passed? Only time would
tell, I suppose. In the meantime, we would return to the manor under the guise
of being a happy couple and go from there.

When I woke up on the
third day to see the sun was actually shining and we could see the outside
world instead of the blowing snow, I was elated. We still had approximately six
hours on the road, so I headed down to the gym to get a run in. My cabin fever
had peaked and this had been my only outlet while we were snowed in.