Wolf Moon (8 page)

I turned to leave, but
Jackson hopped the side of the gazebo with ease and stopped me. “You’re not a
horrible person,” he said, surprising me. “You lost someone, and that pain is
indescribable. There’s a part of you that’s left void,” he continued, turning away
from me and scanning the trees in the distance. I watched him, still tensed and
wary. “And sometimes it feels like the only way to fill that void is by
distracting yourself with something else…some
one
else.”

“You sound like you’re
talking from personal experience,” I blurted out.

Jackson shrugged, turning
around and leaning against the railing. “About fifteen years ago—when I
was turned—I lost my wife and seven-year-old son.”

I gasped, slapping my
hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“Not something I go
around advertising,” he said monotonously. “We were out at a movie one night,
and on our way home, the car somehow got a flat.” He laughed humorlessly.
“Pissed me off, too, because we’d just had the damn things replaced. I was out
changing the tire when I heard glass shatter and my wife and son screaming. I
stood up and saw two men hauling my family out of the car.

“At the time I had no
idea what I was seeing. I figured they were just some common criminals…but
their teeth…”

“Vampires,” I whispered,
and Jackson nodded.

“I charged them, but they
were so fast and strong. I was too late. My son and wife were dead before I
reached them, their necks snapped and bleeding out from where they’d been
bitten. I tried to fight the men, but they quickly overpowered me. I finally
just gave up and was about to accept my fate when three large wolves came out
of the woods and an all-out war began.”

I was hanging on his
every word, my heart hammering and my breathing heavy.

“I got caught up in the
struggle between them all, and somewhere along the way, I was bitten. Marcus
didn’t mean to, but in the thick of it, he’d smelled them on me and mistook me
for one of them. He knew the second his teeth penetrated my skin what he’d
done.

“By the time the fight
was over, Marcus shifted and took care of me. None of what he said mattered to
me in the wake of my family’s murder. All I wanted was to join them.”

“I’m so sorry,” I
whispered, shaking my head as I fell back down to the bench.

“No need to be, kid. It
was a long time ago.” Jackson crossed the gazebo and sat next to me. “Anyway,
my point is, sometimes the grief just gets to be too much and we need to be
able to shut it off in order to function. You’re not a horrible person for
doing that. If you didn’t, it would eat you alive.”

“H-how…” I sighed. “Maybe
this is stupid, but how long before the pain stopped?”

“Stopped?” Jackson
offered me a surprisingly kind smile. “The pain never stops, Brooke. You’ll
never forget those you’ve lost, but you have to remember the good times you
shared instead of how they died. And while the grief you feel is very, excruciatingly
real, they’re gone. It’s not an insult to their memory to seek solace in the
arms of an old lover. It’s an insult to
not
go on with your life.”

His heartfelt attempt to
empathize with me left me breathless. In that one moment, I felt closer to
Jackson than I’d ever dreamed possible. To know that he’d gone through
something eerily similar to what happened with David connected us in a way I
couldn’t describe.

Jackson patted my
shoulder and then stood up. He was just about to leave the gazebo when I called
out to him. He turned around, eyebrows raised quizzically. “Yeah?”

“Why did you do it?” I
asked, and when I saw the confusion in his eyes, I elaborated. “Why did you…bite
me?”

“Bite you?” He was silent
for a minute, looking somewhat nervous, shocked, and unsure of how to answer.
“Brooke, I didn’t…” He exhaled heavily before catching and holding my gaze.
“Believe me when I tell you that what happened to you was an accident,” he
finally replied. “What you have to understand is that when we’re in our wolf
form—particularly when a vampire is near—we’re disoriented and
sometimes we make mistakes.”

As he explained this, I
recalled the feeling he described. I’d experienced that confusion both times
I’d shifted and a vampire’s scent had filled my head.

Before he could leave, I
stood up. “I’m sorry David shot you. You’re not as bad as I thought you were.”

Jackson laughed and shook
his head. “Truth be told, I didn’t even feel it. Anyway, I’ll leave you to it,
kid. Have a good night.”

“You too,” I called after
him. “And thanks.” He turned to me. “For the talk.”

I sat there for a few
more minutes and reviewed everything he’d told me. Deep down, I knew that what
happened to David wasn’t my fault, and Nick had been telling me the same thing
time and time again, but that didn’t negate my guilt. I still needed time to
work through my grief. My heart needed time to heal, even if it remembered and
craved how easy it was to be with Nick and turn off everything else.

God, how I wanted to turn
it all off and just lose myself in anything but this empty feeling.

By sundown, the sky above
the mountains looked like it had been lit on fire with shades of orange,
yellow, and pink. It was so beautiful, but the temperature dropped
significantly despite its magnificence, so I decided to head back.

As I crossed the little
bridge, the wind picked up and cut through my wool sweater, and I experienced
the chill of a Canadian winter for the first time. I picked up my pace,
watching my footing every step of the way to avoid any patches of ice, and when
I reached the back corner of the house, I looked up to find Nick waiting for me
in the front.

I offered him a nervous
smile and continued toward him. When I reached him, I stopped and looked up
into his eyes. “I’m sorry,” we both said at the same time before lightly
laughing. I opened my arms and wrapped them around Nick’s waist, and he did the
same, holding me and kissing the top of my head. The emotion behind this
gesture was obvious, but he had promised not to push, and I appreciated it.

I shivered when another
snap of wind picked up, and Nick turned us toward the front door, keeping one
of his arms wrapped around me. “Come on, let’s head inside. Dinner will be
ready soon, and I’d like to talk a bit more before that happens.”

We headed inside, and as
we climbed the stairs and headed for our room, the door next to ours opened,
and Roxy stepped out, dressed in the tightest pair of jeans and a low-cut red
sweater. She eyed us as we walked past, but Nick didn’t seem to notice her. His
focus was solely on me…

And I could see just how
much it pissed her off as we stepped into our room and closed the door.

A
fter putting my things
in the empty dresser drawers and hanging any clothes that required it in the
ridiculously oversized walk-in closet, I sat in the middle of the bed with my
legs crossed. Nick had changed the bedding—I didn’t know where the other
stuff was, but this set was a beautiful array of rich brown and gold with deep
red accents. It smelled like fresh laundry, all detergent and fabric softener.
Way better than naked, horny werewolf skank.

I
still had a few jealousy issues to work out.

For
the first time since we arrived, I got a chance to really admire Nick’s room.
It was huge—which shouldn’t have been too surprising given the impressive
size of rest of the house. Two deep red armchairs sat in front of the windows,
facing inward with a table in between them, and there was a fireplace across
from the foot of the king-sized bed. There was a fair-sized
ensuite
bathroom that had a Jacuzzi tub and a shower stall that would put all others to
shame. It literally took up half the room and had no glass door. Instead, there
were tile walls built up about three feet on either side of the central
entrance before curving up to the roof. I didn’t get a good look at it yet, but
both sides looked to have regular showerheads, while the middle had one of
those pricey waterfall ones that also had ten additional
high
pressure
heads beneath it. It looked intense and like it would surely
hit every square inch of your body. I didn’t know why anyone would ever really
need
one of those, and I couldn’t fathom
how much something like that probably cost, but I was definitely going to have
to give it a try.

Nick
stood at his dresser, putting the last of his clothes away, and when he was
finished, he joined me on the bed. “I am sorry that you had to find out about
Roxanne like that,” he said softly, sounding nervous to be bringing it up
again. “We were never serious, and it hasn’t been going on that long.”

“Nick,”
I interjected. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“I
know. But I want to be honest with you.” He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck
as if to relieve tension. “I’ve told you how I feel, and I’m pretty sure you
know what that means. I’m willing to wait until you’re ready—whenever
that is—but I want all the cards on the table. No secrets, remember?”

A
knock at the door interrupted us, and while I initially thought that maybe it
was Roxanne coming to interrupt us—not that we were doing anything, really—my
nose told me it was Corbin.

“Mom
said dinner’s ready,” he announced through the door before taking off.

Nick
stood up and held out his hand. “You ready?”

Smiling,
I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. Before we left the room, he
laced his fingers with mine and looked down at me. “There’s no need to come up
with an elaborate story,” he explained quietly. “Everyone knows about you
already, so we just need to tell them that we found each other again and
decided to give it another try.”

“Everyone?”
I asked, stunned.

Nick
smiled, his cheeks turning pink. “I’ve talked about you a lot over the years.”

“So, we’ve reconnected
and decided to be together,” I repeated.

“Correct.”

Understanding, I nodded.
“Okay then. Let’s do this.”

We walked into the dining
room together, and while not every seat at the elaborate table had been filled
yet, there were several new faces. The head and foot of the table remained
empty—something told me they belonged to Marcus and his wife—and
there were two to the right of the head that remained empty. Nick led us to
them and sat in the one at the corner while I took my place next to him.

Across from Nick sat Jackson,
and I offered him a small, appreciative
smile which
he
responded to with a slight nod. Vince was seated next to him and a blonde woman
with dark brown eyes sat across from me. She offered me a warm smile.

“Hi,” she said in a light
and airy voice. “I’m
Layla
.
Vincent’s
wife.
You’re Brooke, right?” I nodded. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You too,” I expressed
honestly as Corbin and the dark-haired girl from earlier walked in with a few
covered casserole dishes. They looked somewhat alike, so I deduced them to be
siblings.

Nick leaned over, his
hand resting on my thigh and making the skin beneath the denim buzz. I pushed
the feeling away and shifted my leg until Nick pulled his hand back. He looked
a little hurt, but he tried to mask it as he started introductions. “That’s
Colby. Marcus’ seventeen-year-old daughter.”

The two of them set the
dishes on the table, then went back to the kitchen for more as Marcus walked in
next, carrying a huge platter of ham. Directly behind him was a graceful, chestnut-haired
woman carrying another.

“And that’s Miranda,
Marcus’ wife.”

Her hair was stylishly
cropped to her chin, framing her narrow face, and her hazel eyes were bright
and cheerful—like a mother who was happy to have all of her children home
for the holidays.

A knot formed in my
stomach and slammed around uncomfortably. Nick noticed and gave my thigh
another gentle squeeze, drawing my eyes to him. This time, I didn’t pull away.
I welcomed the affection if it meant I could focus on something other than how
much I missed my family. “You all right?”

I opened my mouth to say
something as he brought his hand up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
It was another small gesture, but it relaxed me, and I laid my hand over his,
leaning into the touch. I did it to keep up the guise, but the familiarity of
the act was all too clear. “I will be,” I replied softly. “Just missing my
family, is all.”

There was a sound of
disgust behind us, and I didn’t have to turn around to see that it was Roxanne.
Her jealousy polluted the air almost as much as the perfume she’d apparently
bathed in. I don’t know what came over me, but I reached out and ran my fingers
through Nick’s wavy, sandy-blond hair. I loved how soft it was, and now that it
was longer than he used to wear it back when we were dating in college, I
reveled in its texture. Even though I didn’t mean for it to happen, I imagined
tugging it during a passionate moment, and immediately blushed.

“Have I told you yet how
much I love your hair like this?” I asked him, noticing through my periphery
that Roxanne took a chair kind of kitty-corner to me, next to
Layla
.

Nick smiled broadly, his
blue-green eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “Oh yeah?”

I nodded, inhaling deeply
as a fresh burst of his pheromones washed over me like a warm wave as I teased
the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck. I really did like it this length,
but I felt horrible that he was enjoying this more than I’d intended. He wanted
us to keep up this pretense, but it felt like I was leading him on. It wasn’t
right.

Chair legs scraped across
the floor to my right, and someone sat heavily in its seat.
A
cold shiver of dread wormed up
my spine, my skin tingling with awareness
as I slowly turned around. Next to me, sat an older man in jeans and a t-shirt
beneath a leather vest. His arms were bigger than my thighs—not that this
was a huge accomplishment given my slender build—but they were at least
twice the size, veins bulging out all over. His jet-black hair was straight and
pulled back into a ponytail. Everything about him
screamed
“intimidating,” especially his brown-black eyes.

Without thought, I
gripped Nick’s hand as this unfamiliar face eyed me up and down, his tongue
darting out and licking his bottom lip hungrily. Nick threaded his fingers
through mine and addressed the man. “Karl. Didn’t know you were going to be
back already.”

His eyes lingered on my
chest a little longer than I’d have liked before he lifted them to Nick.
“Accomplished our mission in Ottawa, so I came back. I was particularly keen to
return when I learned of our newest addition here.”

There was a low rumble in
Nick’s chest, and my breathing picked up; this was what Nick warned me about.
This was why I was supposed to appear mated to Nick.

“She’s cute. Looks
feisty.”

I quickly averted my
gaze, looking to Nick who was silently trying to assure me I had nothing to
worry about. It didn’t really work, but I thankfully wasn’t able to dwell on it
too much when everyone else sat down for dinner. Marcus and his wife joined us
at the table soon, bringing with them a couple more dishes, and then Corbin and
Colby followed, also adding more food to the feast before us. It seemed like an
outrageous amount of food, but I deduced with twelve of us it was an appropriate
amount, especially if they ate as much as I had been lately.

Colby and Corbin sat down
across from each other, and Colby looked ecstatic to be next to Zach. Their
mother stood at the foot of the table between them and Marcus stood at the
head, looking around at each of us proudly. All eyes were on them as they
looked at each and every one of us, and then her eyes found mine.

“First off, Marcus and I
would like to welcome all of you home. I can’t tell you how empty this place
feels with so many of you away for long periods of time,” she said. “The
Ontario situation was handled, thanks to Karl and the Ottawa Pack. They did an
excellent job tracking the strays that needed to be held accountable for their
actions.”

Confused, I turned to
Nick, and he nodded back to Marcus’ wife. I had no doubt he’d tell me later.

“I’d also like to welcome
our newest member to the Pack,” she said. “Brooke, we’ve all heard some
wonderful things about you, and we’re so very happy to have you finally join
us. While I understand the circumstances weren’t typically ideal, know that
this is your home now, and we want you to feel comfortable here. If you need
anything, please let me know. We’re all very much indebted to you for the way
you handled yourself in Arizona.”

“Thank you,” I replied
with a soft smile, unsure what else to say.

“She’s right,” Marcus
interjected, drawing everyone’s attention. “Some of you may not know this, but
Brooke single-handedly disposed of
Gianna
.”

I shook my head,
embarrassed at having been made the center of attention. “N-no. Nick was there.”

Smiling and patting my
hand, Nick refused to take any credit, so Marcus continued. “You’re a valuable
asset to our ranks, Brooke. We’re happy to welcome you with open arms. You and
Nick seem to work well together.” There was a pause. “Now, we’re still dealing
with a little bit of backlash since the fire in Alaska. It’s not as bad as it
could be with
Gianna
and that sadistic freak she
sired gone, but she had rebuilt her ranks since the fire in Alaska. We need to
track the rest of her coven down and execute them before things get out of
hand.”

I couldn’t help myself,
knowing the “sadistic freak” he was talking about was Bobby, and a low growl
started to build. It alarmed several at the table who hadn’t been made aware of
my connection to this entire situation.

Marcus seemed surprised
by my reaction, but instead of calling me out, he looked between Nick and me.
Nick placed his hand on my back and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Breathe.
You’re going to hear a lot of things about him that you’re not going to like.
Remember what I told you: he wasn’t the same man you once knew.”

His breath fanning my
skin had this strange calming effect over me, and I inhaled shakily, cutting
the growl short, and dropped my eyes to my lap. “Sorry,” I mumbled, clenching
my hands together and channeling all of my anger into that. My fingernails bit
into my palms until the sting was all I focused on.

“It’s all right,” Marcus
responded. “I understand you have a past with him, but he’s caused this Pack a
lot of grief over the years. Mates have been lost, children murdered…” I
gasped, looking back up, then at Nick who’d failed to yet mention this.

“I told you,” he said
quietly, eyebrows knit together with worry. “There’s still so much you haven’t
learned.”

“And there’ll be time to
prepare her,” Marcus continued as Miranda took her seat after rounding the
table and filling everyone’s wine glasses. “But in the meantime, let us all
enjoy this amazing feast that my beautiful wife and daughter spent all day
preparing for our reunion. Welcome home, boys, and welcome to the family,
Brooke.”

At Marcus’ orders, the
women dished up first. I followed their lead and dished up a substantial, yet
reasonable, amount of the various foods. Ham, potatoes, salad, fresh dinner
buns, and roasted vegetables covered my plate, and when the women had finished,
the guys took their turns. They took slightly more, but that was to be expected
in any normal situation.

Once everyone started
eating,
Layla
cleared her throat. “So, Brooke,” she
said, opening up the conversation. “Vince told me that you were a police detective
back in Scottsdale?”

I nodded, swallowing the
bite of potatoes I’d just taken. “I was,” I replied, the knot in my stomach
tightening again. “I, uh, took a leave of absence.”