Читать книгу Hidden in Plain Sight - Amy Lee Burgess - Страница 6

Chapter 2

The small, light green leaves adorning the maple trees on either side of the winding country road danced in the spring breeze.

I watched them from the car window, mesmerized by their peaceful beauty. Vaughn sprawled out across the backseat, his nose buried in a book.

Murphy drove the car, but I knew he enjoyed the spring scenery every bit as much as I did.

“We’re nearly there.” He aimed a smile in my direction.

Easton, Vermont was about halfway between Stowe and Waterbury, perched on the edge of the Little River State Park. The park was Maplefair territory. One other pack, Snowmoon, resided in Vermont—the state was rich in parks and forested land—but Little River was Maplefair’s. They didn’t go to the state park Snowmoon favored and Snowmoon didn’t come to theirs. It wasn’t forbidden, just ill-mannered. Packs were territorial and one of the duties of the Regional Council was to sort out various territory complaints and challenges as they arose.

“I haven’t seen Jossie in ages.” I spoke my thoughts aloud to include him, but Murphy had never met anyone in Maplefair and had only the slightest idea who I was talking about.

“Yeah, it’s a terrible long way between here and Boston,” he remarked and distracted me from the spring wind. His smirk was sarcastic. He was angry at Jossie for not coming to see me during the past two years I’d been living in Boston.

“Murphy, I took myself away from the Pack,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, I know that, but that doesn’t preclude people taking some time out of their lives to say hello once in a goddamn while.”

Vaughn, the coward, was acutely aware of every word we spoke. I could tell he was listening because he didn’t turn the pages though he hadn’t looked up from his book.

“I barely spoke to her when I was in Riverglow.” I was defensive even if a small part of me wanted to agree with him. “I told you we had that falling out. After that first Christmas card, we still didn’t really see each other much. Maybe the occasional phone call. We’d see each other at Regionals if we went. We didn’t always go.”

There were a few reasons, but the primary one was because of my wolf. It had been unspoken but true. My wolf had never been one to follow the leader and before I’d started to bow out of them, Great Hunts at Gatherings had probably been logistical nightmares for Grey, Elena and Vaughn.

Beside me Murphy made a disparaging noise in his throat and, for a moment, I thought he might lower his window all the way and spit, but he didn’t. He kept driving.

“You’re going to be nice to Jossie, right? She is Alpha,” I lectured him and he gave me an indignant look.

“I’m always nice,” he protested then he laughed. “I’m always civil. At least at first.”

I sucked in a deep, heady lungful of air and saw the dented red mailbox we’d been looking for at the end of a long dirt driveway.

Murphy turned in and the Prelude bounced along the rutted length of it for at least a quarter mile until the trees cleared. We saw a large, rather ramshackle farmhouse—two stories with an additional wing built on, as well as a lovely wraparound screened porch. Through the screens I saw lots of bright white wooden rocking chairs and a small glider.

The barn had been converted into a garage but only one bay was open, and that one was filled with sawhorses and tools rather than a car.

A dusty black Ford Explorer was parked in front of the closed bay, a baby stroller positioned by the porch steps.

Murphy parked behind the Explorer and we got out. As he and Vaughn went to the trunk to get our luggage, I moved closer to the porch, drawn by the stroller. Kathy hadn’t mentioned that Jossie and Nate had a baby. It was possible—they were Alphas.

Bright yellow daffodils waved in the breeze from a small flower garden in front of the porch. Clothes flapped on a line erected near the additional wing. Baby things hung next to adult-sized garments.

I was about six feet from the porch steps when I heard the growl.

Murphy and Vaughn heard it too and, from the corner of my eye, I saw them turn.

“Stanzie, get inside the porch.” Murphy’s voice was urgent but soft. The fact he didn’t yell sent alarm bells jangling down my spine. He had a better view of the woods behind the house and barn than I did. My view was blocked by the addition.

Before I could get to the porch steps, a dark gray wolf materialized from around the corner of the farmhouse, hackles raised, lips wrinkled back from sharp teeth.

It was the biggest wolf I’d ever seen.

I looked at him and ignored Murphy’s frantic pleas for me to get inside the porch.

“I think it’s Nate,” I told him. “It’s somebody Pack definitely.”

“I figured that out myself. Please get inside the porch, Constance.”

When Murphy called me Constance, he was either scared or mad. I knew I shouldn’t ignore him, but felt compelled to point out the facts.

“He’s Pack and so are we. He won’t hurt us. It’s against Pack law.”

Everyone knew we weren’t allowed wolf-on-human violence. Even my poor wolf before she’d started to evolve had known it was wrong to bite—even wolf to wolf. Not that she hadn’t bitten Murphy’s wolf anyway.

Wolf-on-wolf violence was only punishable if severe injury or death resulted. There was a certain leeway allowed if the odds were balanced.

There was no leeway involved in wolf-on-human violence. If Nate bit me, there’d be an investigation at least by the Regional Council and more than likely the Great Council would send an Advisor too.

Because of our laws and the strong indoctrination we all underwent as both wolves and humans, I thought I was safe even though he shouldn’t have growled, not after he picked up my scent and realized I was Pack.

The big wolf continued to growl. In fact, each time we spoke, his volume got a little louder. He kept his tawny-gold eyes fixed menacingly on me.

“I’m Pack,” I told him, uncertain of how much he understood. My wolf would probably have heard just so much gibberish because she was used to thinking in words, not hearing them. Murphy’s wolf might have understood spoken words. I’d never thought to ask him.

“Stanzie, please, I’m begging you.” Murphy was only a few yards away but it might as well have been a continent because there was nothing he could do if the wolf attacked me except watch. Vaughn’s face was white with dread.

For the first time I felt fear, and didn’t like it. We didn’t fear our own kind. At least I never had until the conspiracy had been unmasked. Just because we were near strangers didn’t mean Nate should go all territorial.

I took a small step for the porch stairs and calculated how close I would need to get before I could make a break for it and which way the door worked. If I guessed wrong whether the goddamn door opened inward or outward, I was fucked. Who the hell was I kidding? I was probably fucked no matter what I did. Wolves were way faster than people. By the time I made the stairs, he could leap across the space between us and knock me down with ease.

“I don’t think I can make it, Murphy. I’m afraid if I run he’ll attack me.”

“Shit,” was Murphy’s less-than-helpful response. “I’m gonna slam the trunk down. When he reacts to the noise, get the hell inside.”

“What about you?” I started to say but the trunk slammed and Murphy yelled something in Irish. The wolf didn’t take his eyes off me.

Unfortunately by the time I processed that, I’d already sprinted three of the six feet between where I’d stood and the porch steps.

About a half second before he brought me down, I sensed his leap and tried to cover my head with my arms, but it was no use.

Murphy screamed my name. So did Vaughn. I tensed and waited for the agony as the wolf’s teeth tore into the soft parts of my arms, but all I felt was hot breath on the back of my neck. And then a slobbery tongue in my ear.

“Oh, fuck me,” I muttered into the dirt beneath my mouth as I tried not to choke on it.

The wolf continued to lick me until I rolled over, then he swiped my face. I gave him my throat because he was an Alpha male and he took it in his jaws, but did not break the skin.

This was how it was supposed to go. A little unorthodox since I was still in human form, but this was acceptable Pack behavior. He asserted his dominance and I acknowledged his leadership.

“I told you.” I used the male wolf’s broad shoulders to brace myself as I got to my feet. His fur was thick and soft and he smelled like he’d been rolling in leaves. Twigs and leaf bits stuck in his fur and I began to brush them out with my fingers.

Murphy and Vaughn rushed over to us. Murphy looked ready to explode and Vaughn wasn’t far behind.

“This is bullshit,” declared Murphy as the wolf wagged his tail at us all. His tongue lolled out of the side of his half-open mouth. By wolf standards he was smiling. He made a chuffing sound, almost like a sneeze—the lupine equivalent of a laugh.

“Now you’re making fun of us. Bad wolf,” I lectured, but I couldn’t help my smile. I patted his head and he gave a happy yip before he trotted off toward the clothesline.

“I’m glad one of us is amused because I’m about ready to kick his ass.” Murphy’s dark eyes glinted dangerously. Vaughn did not look remotely amused.

The screen door banged open and we swung around to confront a petite woman with long chestnut hair and huge brown eyes. She wore a green-and-white floral print sundress and her feet were bare. A small black wolf’s head was tattooed on her left shin. I’d been with her when she’d gotten it at a Regional Gathering when she was sixteen and I was fifteen. She’d dared me to get one too but I was too chickenshit my father would find out and kill me.

A baby who looked about a year old balanced on her right hip. She clutched at her mother’s arm with one chubby hand. The other was curled around a small stuffed bunny.

The woman’s gaze traveled over all of us and registered several emotions from happiness to wariness. When she fully focused on Vaughn, her face froze.

“Hey, Jossie.” He raised a hand in greeting.

Jossie Wilbanks bit her lip and, for a moment, I didn’t think she would reply. Just as she opened her mouth, Nate Carver walked from behind the clothesline where he’d shifted back into human form.

“Sorry about that, we didn’t expect you until later this afternoon.” He’d dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt that smelled of the fresh spring breeze.

I’d forgotten what a giant of a man Nate was—at least six six, probably taller.

His light blond hair was buzz cut close to his scalp. Brown eyes fringed with thick lashes were his best feature. He was not handsome, but he had something that attracted people to him. He was open and friendly, charismatic, with a sense of humor. He’d shown that to us in wolf form.

“He was looking for Bethany.” Jossie rushed into speech. “In fact, the whole pack is going to shift tomorrow and scour these woods if that’s all right with you?”

I was a little surprised she asked our permission, but then I remembered we were Advisors to the Great Council and, even though we were not Alphas, we had power. It was an interesting thought.

“I think that’s a good idea.” Murphy’s eyes were appreciative as he gazed at her. Pack men were drawn to Alpha females with babies. Somehow the sight of a nursing mother made them both protective and aroused. She smiled at him, but held the baby like a shield between her and the world.

“Stanzie, it is so good to see you!” Jossie turned her gaze to me and the spring breeze carried a hint of her scent to me. Lavender soap and the faint tang of citrus shampoo. No perfume.

“Have you really been in Boston for the past two years? Is what I’m hearing from Councilor Manning true?”

I nodded.

“Why didn’t you let anybody know you were so close? After I found out Riverglow cast you out I called your parents to see if they had any contact information and they said they didn’t. I know you were exiled, but only by Riverglow. The Councils cleared you. Why didn’t you want your friends around you? I would have gone crazy alone if I’d been you.”

I didn’t answer because I had no answer.

Jossie, astute at reading expressions, frowned, and her eyebrows slanted together ominously. “They lied, didn’t they? They knew all along where you were.”

Her words hung there in the space between us.

“We don’t really talk much anymore, Joss,” I whispered. I thought of the monthly calls I’d made when I had been exiled. The messages I’d left they’d never returned. Then there were the three messages I’d left in the past three months since Murphy, Vaughn and I had taken up residence in Boston. None of those calls had been returned either.

“Nobody falls faster or harder in a pack than the child of a founding family.” Nate was the one to break the uncomfortable silence. “You’re what, fourteenth generation?

“Fifteenth,” I said.

“And you threw it all away to join Riverglow?” Nate gave a low whistle. Vaughn’s mouth got small but he didn’t say anything. Riverglow wasn’t his pack anymore.

“I’m fourth generation. Doesn’t mean shit to most packs, but I still get the pressure to keep the pack going. You’re Mac Tire now, right?” Nate was relentless. “If that doesn’t impress your family, nothing will. This your bond mate?”

I introduced them. Murphy’s hello was not very warm but Nate didn’t seem to notice.

“Mac Tire your birth pack?”

Murphy allowed as it was.

“So what generation are you?”

After a moment’s thought, Murphy said, “Thirty-one.”

Nate burst into laughter. “Well, that makes me and Stanzie look just plain silly, doesn’t it? Thirty-one. Jesus. You descended from a founding family?”

“No way.” It was Murphy’s turn to laugh and not very politely. “The founding families left are on the fiftieth generation at least.”

That put the pack’s inception more than twelve hundred years ago.

“We don’t have packs anywhere near that old here in the States,” said Nate after a moment’s respectful silence as he absorbed the history.

I was flabbergasted myself. I’d known Mac Tire was old and I’d known it was Murphy’s birth pack, but I’d never known it was that old, nor did I realize that Murphy’s family had been in the pack for centuries.

“Mayflower’s the second-oldest in the country, Stanzie?” Nate looked to me for confirmation.

“Third,” I said. “The Jamestown pack is older by a couple decades and then there’s Spiritwolf.”

“Now there’s a pack that’s old. You’d think there’d be more Native American packs, wouldn’t you, but there’s not.”

“Because our ancestors came from Europe and did to their packs what the Other Europeans did the Native American tribes. Conquer and divide. Take their territory.” Vaughn’s tone was derisive.

“Hey, if you can’t protect your land, you don’t deserve to have it.” Nate walked to the porch steps. “Get your luggage and come on in. Joss, looks like we need two spare rooms made up instead of the one. Unless you three are a triad now?”

He turned back to look at us appraisingly.

Vaughn flushed. “Nah, we’re not a triad.” For some reason he wouldn’t look at any of us, especially Jossie.

* * * *

Dusk settled around the eaves of the old farmhouse a little bit at a time. Incremental shadows crept across the dirt drive and the flagstone path that led to the porch where we all sat with glasses of wine.

Jossie rocked her daughter in one of the wooden rocking chairs while I snapped the ends off a bowl of green beans that had been grown in the back garden last summer and frozen until just today.

Murphy and I sat on the glider and, while I snapped beans, he gently propelled us back and forth, careful not to jar the bowl in my lap.

We’d unpacked our things in an upstairs bedroom with strange angles and wallpaper older than both of us put together.

Vaughn’s room was across the hall—full of even more eaves and angles but his walls were painted a soothing moss green.

Jossie, Nate and Heather slept in the addition on the ground floor.

They’d slowly remodeled the farmhouse since they’d moved into it after they’d bonded ten years ago.

“This is nice, Jossie,” I said as the dusky shadows crept closer and a whippoorwill began a plaintive song from the pine tree near the barn. “A lot different from Boston.”

Jossie smiled. Her daughter, Heather, rested in her lap and faced the front of the porch. The glider sat to the side so Heather had to crane her neck to keep me and Murphy under her wary gaze.

I snapped a green bean in half and gave her a little smile, which made her eyebrows lower suspiciously.

Murphy was getting a real kick out of the baby’s attitude. He blatantly flirted with her, but she was having absolutely none of it, which secretly tickled me. Here, at last, was one female who wouldn’t succumb to his Irish charm.

Vaughn stretched his legs out in front of him as he slouched in his rocking chair, wine glass perched on the wide arm rest near his hand. He hadn’t said anything since we’d gathered on the porch, just looked out the screen at the gathering darkness. I wondered what he was thinking about. Callie? Peter? Jossie? A combination of everything? Or maybe nothing at all.

Nate bustled back and forth from the porch to the kitchen to fetch more wine, a plate of cheese and crackers, and put on a jazz CD then adjusted the volume so it didn’t interfere with the desultory conversation. He couldn’t keep still and brimmed over with vitality and energy.

Jossie had always been energetic, but Nate took it to all new heights. How she managed not to go crazy with his frenetic movements was beyond me. He never sat still for more than three minutes before he jumped up to get something or to start another project.

“Want some beer, Liam?” Nate offered right on schedule. He’d sat for two and a half minutes. I’d timed him. “I brew it myself. Got a little home brewery in the basement. I’m sure it won’t compare to what you’re used to in Ireland, but it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

Murphy’s wine glass was still half-full, but he agreed to try the beer because he was a nice guy and Nate had a puppy dog look of expectancy.

Nate leaped to his feet and, in his excitement, nearly forgot to duck his head on the way in the front door. Luckily he remembered at the last second and avoided a possible concussion.

“God, he’s tall,” I shook my head. “Does he ever sit still, Jossie?”

Murphy smothered a laugh and gave me a gentle nudge in the ribs with his elbow. Sure I was being rude, but Jossie and I went way back. The bad blood between us seemed distant and meaningless on this twilit porch. It was almost like old times when we’d been teenagers together.

“No,” said Jossie with a martyred sigh. “He’s constantly in motion.” For some reason she blushed and was quiet for a small beat of time that intrigued me. “One project after the other. That’s why I’m thankful for this old farmhouse. You should have seen it when we moved in. The roof leaked in twenty different places, some of the floorboards were rotten and the plumbing was practically nonexistent. He did it all himself mostly. What he didn’t know how to do, he taught himself. I thought he was crazy when he wanted to live in this place just because it was on the same road as most of the Pack’s houses and near his great-grandmother, but now I’m grateful.”

“He’s done a brilliant job,” Murphy said. “I like to do a bit of renovating myself, but my meager talents mostly run to the cosmetic side. Painting, putting in new cabinetry and fixtures, that sort of thing. Plumbing and roofing are way out of my range.”

“You could learn.” Nate reappeared with a pitcher of beer and five glasses. Apparently we were all going to drink beer. “It’s not that hard.”

Murphy grinned and watched him pour a frothing glass of dark beer. I stared at it doubtfully.

“I filtered it three times. There shouldn’t be any bits floating in it.” Nate laughed at my expression.

I grimaced at the thought of bits. It wasn’t that. It was just the fact that he’d made it. I was leery of someone Pack who made things to eat and drink that I hadn’t watched them prepare. Kathy Manning was an exception, but I’d spent time with her and watched her cook. The prickling of unease made me realize how paranoid I had become since I’d uncovered the plot buried within our Pack.

Nate held the first glass out to Vaughn. At first I didn’t think Vaughn was going to take it, but after he and Nate exchanged a look that excluded the rest of us, he accepted the glass. Jossie kept her head down and rocked the baby, but I could see the nervous flutter of the pulse beat in her throat.

Nate filled a second glass and gave it to Murphy.

Murphy had no qualms. He gulped down a mouthful without blinking. When he didn’t immediately expire, and a pleased smile spread across his face, I accepted a glass, aware of Nate’s genial amusement. He didn’t know about the conspiracy, so he was still convinced I was worried about floating bits of hops.

The beer was dark and nutty, not bitter precisely, but not what I was used to tasting when I thought of the word beer. Nate still smiled, but now he was also a bit defensive.

I took another sip and then another. I didn’t like it as much as Murphy obviously did, but it was a taste I could get used to. Eventually.

Vaughn sucked his down too. Beer was like mother’s milk to that guy. He always had a least three different kinds in the refrigerator. He set aside his nearly full wine glass and embraced the beer with gusto.

Nate watched all our reactions and seemed satisfied. Two seconds after he refilled both Murphy’s and Vaughn’s glasses, he sneaked an inevitable look at his watch.

“Have I got time, babe, to go visit Grandmother Emma?”

Jossie gave him a smile that made her look almost like the teenage girl I’d once been great friends with.

“Be back here for six. Dinner will be on the table. We’ve got to discuss things, Nate.”

“I know, but Emma’s lonely. Plus I think there might be a storm tonight and I’ve got to make sure all her windows are closed.” Nate waved at us all as he leaped down the porch steps. I heard the garage door trundle up and he reappeared on a motorcycle, his blue helmet flashed in the last of the dying sun—then he was gone up the dirt drive back to the road.

“Emma is his great-grandmother by blood, not just a grandmother in the pack,” Jossie explained. “She and her bond mate founded this pack. About twenty years ago, there was a terrible family feud and to this day the only blood family member Emma will talk to is Nate. One of the reasons we took over the farmhouse is because she’s only two miles up the road in the closest house to ours. Most of the pack lives on this road, but farther down in the opposite direction.”

Vaughn’s fingers tightened around his beer glass as he became very still.

Jossie shot him a confused look and burst into speech as if to cover up for a faux pas. “All this area was a farm once. This is the actual farmhouse. Everything else is newly built within the last hundred years or so. After founding Maplefair, Nate’s great-grandparents worked on the farm. When the farmer died, he left them the land Grandmother Emma’s house is built on plus a few other parcels. The rest of the pack lives on those lots. We build as we need to. He’s a good guy, my bond mate.”

She spoke almost as if she thought we believed otherwise and I frowned.

“Makes a hell of a beer,” Vaughn raised his glass in appreciation, but somehow the accolade fell short.

“Hear, hear,” seconded Murphy and they both downed half the contents of their glasses.

I took another tentative sip and tried not to shudder. Eventually seemed a long time away.

* * * *

After dinner we gathered back on the front porch by common consent. More beer was poured, but Jossie took discreet pity on me and implored me to help her drink a bottle of wine. As she was breastfeeding, she could only have one glass and she didn’t want to waste it.

Heather nursed while Jossie rocked, her head back so she could stare up at the ceiling fan, which was festooned with a cobweb that seemed to mesmerize her.

Murphy and I had the glider again and we sat thigh to thigh. Once in a while he’d look at me with that infatuated expression and, every time he did, I felt strange and giddy inside.

Vaughn slouched in his rocker, head tilted while perhaps he listened to the chorus of crickets outside in the shrubbery. We sat in near darkness save for several votive candles in stained glass containers hung from nails along the porch wall. The only electric light came from two spotlights on the barn, trained down on the cars parked in front.

“How long has Bethany been missing?” Murphy asked out of the comfortable, candlelit darkness. Everyone sat up a little straighter as the peaceful lassitude of the porch seeped away and frustration and mounting anxiety began to replace it.

Jossie stopped rocking. “Her mother said she saw her sleeping in bed on Wednesday night. She and her bond mate had a romantic dinner date planned for Thursday night, staying overnight at a hotel. They do that once or month or so. Bethany’s door was still shut Thursday morning when Gina and Ron had to leave for work, and Gina said Ron pounded on the door and told Bethany she’d better get her butt to school, but Bethany didn’t answer and he didn’t push it. They’re pretty sure she was there, though.

“Gina texted Bethany on her lunch hour to remind Bethany she and Ron were not going to be home that night. Bethany texted back that she remembered and to have a good time. Gina and Ron went to work on Friday straight from the hotel and got a phone call about eleven that morning from Nancy, the woman who home schools all the pack children. She has a son two years older than Bethany, the two are pretty close. Boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Councilor Manning told us how Cody and Bethany have been kept apart since they shifted together at the Regional,” I said. Both Jossie and Nate looked dismayed.

“No matter how many times you tell them, you can’t get some teenagers to understand about shifting together.” Jossie shook her head. She looked at my guilty expression and belatedly seemed to remember I had once been one of those teenagers. She flashed me an embarrassed grin and I smiled in response, and waited for her to go on and tell us everything.

“Nancy called because Bethany hadn’t shown up for class Thursday or Friday. She’d gotten a text from Bethany saying she was sick. She hadn’t thought anything of it until Cody told her that he hadn’t heard from Bethany since Thursday morning and he was worried. They were only supposed to be in supervised contact, but of course they got around that.

“Cody told her he’d driven past Bethany’s house on Thursday night but hadn’t been able to get anyone to answer the door. He’d held back on telling anyone because they weren’t supposed to be in contact, but he finally broke down and begged his mother to call Gina and Ron.

“Gina ran home from work. Bethany’s room was empty. The bed was unmade. Her pajamas from Wednesday were on the floor. It looked to them like Bethany had run away while they’d been at the hotel. But if she didn’t go to Cody, where?

“They came to us to ask us if we’d seen Bethany. We called the Regional Council after we made sure no one in our pack had seen her. By then it was Friday night. Councilor Manning called me back to tell me to keep her apprised of what was going on meanwhile to look for Bethany at bus stations and local motels and malls, which we’ve been doing. Nothing. Tomorrow we’re going to have a hunt and search the woods where we all usually shift because maybe...” Jossie’s voice faltered. Bethany knew the woods much too well to be lost. Perhaps she was hurt and couldn’t move, but that didn’t seem likely. But then neither did suicide.

“We’ll find her if she’s out there,” Murphy vowed after a moment of sympathetic silence.

“I don’t understand why she did this. She wouldn’t have left without telling Cody anything. Those two want to bond together when they’re old enough. That’s only three years from now. Not so long to wait. I don’t see why she would run away. There’s no reason for it.” Jossie bowed her head. Heather stopped nursing to stare. She reached out a chubby hand and patted her mother’s cheek as if to reassure her.

Jossie took Heather’s little hand in her own and brought it to her mouth to plant a kiss on her daughter’s palm. For the first time I saw the baby smile. When she did, she looked just like Jossie.

“Don’t give up hope, Jossie,” I whispered, sick to my stomach at the thought we might find Bethany’s dead body and have to bear witness to the death of all her dreams.

* * * *

The rain struck the windowpanes of the farmhouse bedroom in angry little spats. Lightning crackled in the sky around the barn. The air seemed to sizzle. I held the curtains back with one hand, the palm of my other pressed flat to the cool glass.

More than anything I wanted to shift and run the way my wolf used to. Only I knew she wouldn’t run if I shifted, she’d try to find the words for rain and lightning, and stand there in the wet darkness, fur soaked, as she tried to figure things out. Running and playing would be the last things on her mind.

I’d watched the storm for maybe fifteen minutes before Murphy stirred in the bed behind me and realized I wasn’t there anymore.

“Stanzie?” He whispered my name, and struggled to see me in the darkness. Lightning flashed and he saw me by the window. “What’s the matter, honey? Bad dream?”

“Yeah,” I admitted and watched the rain pound down on our Prelude parked in the yard below.

“About Callie?” He probed, but gently. His voice was soothing and encouraging. I hadn’t discussed Callie’s suicide with him. I’d avoided the topic altogether with him and he’d waited patiently for me to bring it up for three months now. Every once in a while he opened the door a little to get the discussion going, but I closed it. Every single time.

“No,” I told him.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Murphy?” I took a deep breath and held it for a moment before I released it. “Do I make my parents sound like monsters?”

“They do a good job of that all on their own. They don’t need your help,” he declared and I bit my lip.

“All you know about them is from me.”

“And from Vaughn and Jocelyn and from them themselves. Three months, Stanzie, we’ve been living in Boston, and them only a few miles down the road. Not a phone call, not a fucking postcard, not as much as a single acknowledgment that you’re around.”

“I was fifteenth generation. You don’t leave your birth pack when you’re fifteenth generation. At least not in New England you don’t.” I don’t know why I defended them but I did.

“You did.” He sounded proud of me. Because he didn’t understand.

“Come back to bed.” Murphy patted the empty space beside him on the mattress. “We’re going to shift in the morning and we need to be well rested for that.”

“It’s raining,” I protested. “All the scents will be washed away.”

“Not if she’s still out there somewhere. We may not be able to pick up a trail, but if we spread out across the woods, we could still find her.”

I didn’t answer or move.

“We have to do something, Stanzie. Her parents have looked two towns over, checking all the motels, bus stops and train stations and they haven’t had any luck. She hasn’t bought an airline ticket in her name. She didn’t bring clothes. All she has is what she was wearing and her purse, which had maybe ten dollars in it. She’s got to be out there somewhere, maybe hurt and...”

“Maybe she’s dead. Killed herself.” My voice was too shrill. Murphy pushed back the covers and got out of bed to come to me. As soon as he was close enough, I threw myself in his arms, which surprised us both, but he hugged me back after only one missed beat. When he felt me shaking, his embrace got even tighter.

“Murphy, I don’t want to shift. I’m afraid to shift in front of a whole pack of people. Especially if it’s raining. My wolf doesn’t know the word for rain. It’s never rained since we’ve started shifting together and she doesn’t know the word. All she’s going to do is sit there and let it pound down onto her until she knows the word for it.” I buried my face in his neck. I didn’t know if he could even understand me because my voice was muffled and choked with fearful sobs.

“So she sits there for a few minutes and thinks of the word. Then she can move on.” Murphy combed my hair with his fingers and, despite my agitation, I was soothed a little.

“She won’t know what to do.” I shook my head in denial. Memories of Regional Gatherings in the past pecked at me. Derisive comments about my wolf. The condescending laughter. Worse, the looks of pity.

Murphy kissed the top of my head. “I’ll tell you what to do and you’ll tell her. The same as it’s been since we started shifting together, Stanzie. All that’s going to happen is we’re going to gather in whatever place they use and we’ll all shift together. We’ll...”

“Will it be like a Great Hunt? Will we all have sex first? In the same room?” I interrupted because I wanted to know every detail.

“Yes,” he told me. “You know that’s part of the Great Hunt, the group sex part. It bonds us all through scent and pheromones. You and I will be together the whole time, I won’t leave you. After we’re shifted, we’ll familiarize ourselves with her scent. There’ll be some of her clothes, probably the sheets from her bed, things with her scent on it. The Alphas will lead, we’ll cover the woods and if she’s there, we’ll find her.”

“Someone has to watch the baby. I can do that,” I said and he sighed in my ear.

“You represent the Great Council. How are you going to do that staying here and watching the Alphas’ baby? One of the teenagers in the pack will watch the children.”

I hated the Great Council for a moment, resented being a fucking Advisor and despised having to be in the spotlight. I loathed the idea that if I didn’t shift, I would make Councilor Allerton look bad because I was damned if I would do that. Not after everything he’d done for me.

“Is Vaughn going to shift?” I asked. Murphy kissed my ear lightly.

“I think he’s planning on it. He can be with us if you want him to. After we shift and before if you like. He knows your wolf. Your wolf knows him. Would that make it better?”

He meant a threesome with Vaughn. He would do that for me. By Pack standards that wasn’t a big deal, it was done a lot. But by Murphy standards that offered something he probably didn’t really want to do.

“Maybe after we shift,” I said and he kissed my ear again, this time gratefully.