Chapter 20

20

I eyed the fuel gauge on the dashboard as my truck rumbled through Monroe and into the woods for the second time that week. Since I lived and worked in the same place, I didn’t usually drive much—or budget much for fuel. The amount of cash left in the GAS envelope wouldn’t fill the tank. My life had grown very odd this week.

“Tonight, we resolve this. One way or another.”

Except that I could only hope to resolve part of my problem. There was still that case.

I’d hoped Bolin would return with it before I left, but he’d texted that he needed to wait for his father to get home to open the safe. I appreciated that it was being stored in a good place, but I’d hoped I might be able to take a look at it through wolf eyes before leaving to meet my family. Maybe I could have learned something new about it, something that might have given me an advantage if I had to deal with pack members who didn’t want me to survive tonight’s hunt.

Since I hadn’t told my mother for certain that I was coming, I hoped my cousins wouldn’t have time to plan anything. A part of me wished they wouldn’t be there at all, but they were the reason I was going. They were the ones I needed answers from.

“One way or another,” I repeated softly.

Tonight, clouds hid the moon, but I could still feel the call of its magic as I approached the long driveway that led to my mother’s cabin. Before turning in, I stopped the truck and dug into my pocket, pulling out the locket that I’d almost hurled back at Duncan. Instead, as I’d seen the witch do in the vision, I grasped it and tilted my face toward the night sky in the direction of the moon. Because of the clouds, I couldn’t see it with my eyes, but I sensed its presence. Always.

A faint charge of magic swept through me, making my insides buzz and gooseflesh rise on my arms. For a moment, I felt amazing—almost invincible . But all too soon, the sensation faded, and I questioned whether the locket had done anything.

I hadn’t wanted to come up here to hunt with my cousins without a plan, but I hadn’t been able to think of much. Other than the locket, it wasn’t as if I had a stash of magical artifacts that could protect me. Nor could I have packed guns under a trench coat. As I’d learned long ago, clothing and items disappeared into the ether during a werewolf change. If I wanted to shoot my cousins, it would have to be as a human, and then… Then I’d have to worry about more than the family’s ire. What happened as a wolf tended not to be punishable by human laws, since they didn’t acknowledge that our kind existed. But in the world of humans… things were different. Repercussions were different.

Sighing, I put the locket away, hoping the magic had done something . I also hoped I wouldn’t need it, that the hunt would go better than expected.

“Wishful thinking.”

I drove up the driveway, the window cracked, allowing in the night scent. It had stopped raining, but the air still smelled of damp foliage and earth. It was invigorating and, under different circumstances, I might have looked forward to this.

When I reached the cabin, wolves who’d already changed were meandering through the area, and men and a couple of women lounged on the porch. All sets of eyes, lupine and human, turned toward my truck. My memory dredged up names for faces I hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. Some of the younger faces I’d never seen.

When I spotted Augustus, I had to resist the urge to turn the truck around and hit the accelerator. As I reminded myself, he was the one I needed answers from. Hopefully, the presence of the rest of the family would force him to be civil—or at least not attack me without provocation. But it was hard to be certain of that, especially when I thought the young man next to him on the porch, his elbows propped on the railing, was one of the people—the then wolf —who’d helped attack Duncan.

Given recent revelations, I felt less guilty now about my family attacking Duncan. I almost wondered if they’d known he was up to no good. That didn’t, however, explain Augustus trying to kill me .

There was no sign of my mother, not yet. The lights weren’t on in the cabin. Did she intend to hunt with us? She was the only one I could be fairly certain wasn’t plotting against me.

I parked next to a couple of trucks, no doubt belonging to other pack members who lived in the city most of the time and came out for hunts. When I turned mine off, I had to wipe my palms on my sweatpants before getting out. The idea of undressing in front of this crowd didn’t appeal, but some of the men on the porch were already removing their clothes as they glanced toward the cloudy sky.

The young and affable Emilio trotted down the steps to the driveway, waving for another man to follow him, one who looked similar aside from a shorter haircut and less baby fat on the face. An older brother?

“Hi, Luna. Glad you could come.” Emilio lifted a hand in a wave, or maybe to pat me on the shoulder, but it diverted toward the passenger door of my truck. Grinning, he opened it and sniffed the interior. “Did you bring any more giant salamis? That was amazing, but my brother and his wife stole most of it.”

“We just wanted a piece of it.” The older sibling held up thumb and forefinger to demonstrate the size of the piece.

Emilio shook his head and held out his arms to demonstrate a piece larger than the original salami had been. “You can’t use wolf fangs to bite off a piece . You took most of it.”

“I had to. Tanya is trying to get pregnant. She needs nourishment. Also, she’s huge as a wolf and can kick my ass if I don’t treat her right.”

“ Most people can kick your ass,” Augustus grumbled from the porch, watching our exchange through narrowed eyes.

“I did bring some summer sausages.” I delved into the seat well to hold up a large gift box that had done even more to deplete my budget this month than the need for extra gas. Next pay period, I might have to start an envelope labeled WEREWOLF brIBES. “Enough for everyone who wants some.” I eyed Augustus. “Even those who don’t deserve gifts.”

His lip curled in a sneer—or maybe a snarl .

“Perfect!” Oblivious to our glares, Emilio grabbed the gift box. “I’ll dole out the sausage fairly.”

“Sure you will.” His brother peered over his shoulder as Emilio opened the box.

A couple more men walked off the porch to investigate its contents. Several wolves with nostrils twitching in the air also wandered over.

At least some of the family might think more kindly of me if I brought gifts every time I visited .

Augustus jumped off the porch, shoulder muscles flexing against the fabric of a black T-shirt, and walked toward me. I tensed and, for a fleeting moment, wished Duncan were there, standing at my side to face my cousin. But no, I couldn’t wish for that. Duncan’s betrayal stung me even more than that of my cousin. He’d accepted a job from my loathsome ex. Augustus was only trying to kill me. Maybe it wasn’t logical, but that seemed like a lesser crime.

My cousin stopped in front of me, looking me slowly up and down.

“You’ve heeded the call,” he stated.

I almost asked how he knew but remembered the white wolf who’d spotted us before dawn and had shared the word—the howl—of our hunt. By now, the whole pack probably knew. It was also possible that Augustus could smell or magically sense the change in me.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

Augustus lifted his arm, and I tensed, prepared to spring away. My blood heated, tingling in my veins, the wolf ready to be unleashed.

But Augustus thumped me on the shoulder. “Good. It’s about time. Your mom is relieved.”

He looked and pointed toward the front of the cabin.

I eyed his profile. Did his words mean he wasn’t after me anymore? I couldn’t believe that my use of the potion and refusal to change had been the only reasons he’d attacked in the first place.

“Can we talk for a few minutes, Augustus?” I asked.

Maybe I could learn what I needed without going off on a hunt with him.

The front door opened before he replied, and the white wolf I’d seen the night before padded out of the cabin. Lorenzo. My mom, still in her human form, came out after him. Her shirt was half unbuttoned. I didn’t know if that meant she’d just had sex—did seventy-year-old women with cancer still feel the urge to have sex?—or simply that she was prepared to change and hunt with us. The latter seemed more likely. That , I trusted, werewolves would do until the day they died.

“Later,” Augustus replied and walked away, tugging his T-shirt over his head. Recent wounds marred his back, the blows that Duncan had landed on him.

As more people tugged off their clothes, tossing them on trucks and the porch railing, a woman in her late twenties walked over. She glanced toward the guys—and wolves—delving into the sausage box, and I thought that might have been what brought her over, but she stopped in front of me. Wearing a UW hoodie and with her black hair swept back into a perky ponytail, she looked like a college student.

“Hi, Luna. Do you remember me?”

“Uhm, sorry, I don’t.”

“This might help.” With a self-deprecating smirk, she stuck her phone out, tapped the photos app, and held up a picture of a black-haired toddler wandering around with pudgy legs, as revealed by a lack of pants. “My mom posted that on Facebook recently to mortify me and use my kindness against me— I was the one who scanned her old photo albums so she would have digital copies. Anyway, that’s probably about how I looked the last time we met.”

“Jasmine?” I guessed.

“Your niece, yup.”

“I thought my half-sister—your mom—and her husband left the pack to return to the Old World. That’s what I heard.”

“Oh, they did. Back in the day.” Jasmine waved dismissively. “But they’ve been back for ages, and I finished school here. There are more wild mountains and forested lands left here, and they liked the hunting better. Also, there were job opportunities for software engineers. Dad’s a big geek and works in game development in Redmond.”

“A geeky werewolf sounds great.”

“Mom thinks so.” Jasmine winked. “She’s a real-estate agent now and kind of knows about you because you work for the Sylvans. She’s kept tabs on you for your mom. We almost went over to see you a couple of times but weren’t sure… Well, nobody was sure if you wanted to see the pack.”

“I didn’t think the pack wanted to see me .”

Wistfulness filled me. After my cousin’s attempts on my life, it was hard to feel that my instincts had been wrong, but I wished I had known at least some of the pack didn’t resent me, that we could have stayed in touch. In light of Mom’s illness, I especially wished I hadn’t waited so long to check in on her. But would the family have let me get close?

I glanced at Augustus, but he was naked now and down on all fours, on the brink of changing. I looked away.

“Some care more about people’s choices than others.” Jasmine waved again. “ Some know we need all the help we can get to ensure the pack— all packs—survive into the future.”

“Yes,” I said.

My conversation with my mother came to mind, her bringing up the loss of the ability to spread the wolf magic through bite and how our kind were dwindling.

“I need to talk to you about something when we get a minute.” Jasmine glanced toward the sky, as if the moon were an hourglass, sand ticking down until we all had to change. In a way, it was. I could feel it compelling me, calling to the wolf. Maybe she did too. “It’s about?—”

A growl came from the trees beside the driveway, and Jasmine stopped.

Emilio hadn’t changed yet, but he was engaged in tug-of-war with a wolf who had. He had the gift box tucked under one arm while he gripped a foot-long sausage with the other. The wolf had its fangs sunk into the other end, growling as it tried to pull the prize free. They were both growling.

“I said I’d divvy it up,” Emilio said. “With a knife . You can’t just tear it in half and take off with that much. You’re an animal .”

“You’d think they didn’t have the ability to go to Walmart in human form and buy their own sausage logs,” Jasmine said with an eye roll.

“I got the gift boxes from a farm store,” I said. “Grass-fed meat without preservatives, so they’re probably a lot more appealing than the typical grocery offerings.”

“Probably? You’re not sure?”

“I didn’t buy any for myself.” A touch of embarrassment warmed my cheeks, and I didn’t confess that I couldn’t afford to purchase expensive stuff, not for myself, except maybe for a special occasion.

“Because you don’t crave good meat? Or because…?” Jasmine gestured vaguely at me. Apparently, my niece’s family keeping tabs on me meant she also knew about the potion. I sighed, wishing that had remained a secret.

“I crave it. Also rich dark chocolate and fancy espresso made from high-quality beans. It’s tough maintaining a budget when you have expensive tastes.”

Jasmine laughed. “Tell me about it.”

The friendly laugh made me relax an iota. Maybe there was hope of reestablishing a relationship with my family. But would I have to stop taking the potion permanently for them to accept me? I doubted the pack would welcome a mundane human who’d forsaken the way of the wolf. There was, after all, a reason we hadn’t spoken in so long.

I didn’t know if I could stop taking the potion. What if I lost it as a wolf and killed again? Someone innocent who didn’t deserve such a fate? Even after all this time, the past haunted me .

Another growl came from the side. Emilio fell on his backside as the wolf won the tug-of-war and took off with the entire sausage.

Emilio didn’t land hard and rolled to his feet quickly, showing easy athleticism, but it didn’t matter. The wolf was already gone.

“Looks like Benito already had a successful hunt for the night,” came my mother’s dry voice from the porch.

Though the words seemed to be for everyone, she gazed over at me. Most of the pack had changed, and more than a dozen wolves also gazed at me.

My anxiety and damp palms returned. The night before, I’d changed successfully and had no trouble hunting, no pain in my joints or limbs to indicate my advancing age. But what if I couldn’t do the same tonight? When it mattered?

Mom removed her clothes, draping them over the railing with others.

“Time to go.” Jasmine stepped back to do the same. “We can talk after. Don’t go home right away, okay? It’s important.”

“Okay.”

I would have liked to learn whatever she had to say before the hunt. Might she be a resource who knew what had prompted Augustus to turn into an asshole?

But, after tossing her clothes on the hood of my truck, Jasmine stepped away.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I almost ignored it, but I’d been waiting for a text from Bolin, and it was his name that popped up on the screen, the message slipping in on the one bar of cell signal.

Uhm, I lost the case, Luna. A big burly guy with some magic about him jumped out at me when I got to the apartments. He beat me up and stole it. I’m at the ER getting stitches.

I stared in horror, distressed that Bolin had been hurt—from the description, the aggressor could have been another werewolf— and dismayed that he’d lost the case. Even though it had never been mine, I’d hoped… Well, I didn’t know. That it could help me with the pack, I guess.

When I dialed Bolin to apologize for the attack and make sure he would be all right, the signal wasn’t strong enough for the call to go through. I tried texting, but the phone informed me that the message couldn’t be sent. I bared my teeth at the screen.

Augustus, in his wolf form, padded past. I glared, more determined than ever to get answers from him.

A few feet away, Jasmine threw her head back, a lupine howl coming from her throat as the change took her. Other werewolves who’d already turned also threw their heads back and howled at the sky.

The clouds parted enough to allow a silver beam of light through. It gleamed on the hoods of vehicles and in the eyes of the wolves.

A surge of power swept through me, the moon magic demanding that I change, demanding I let the wolf come forth to hunt. The magic was so intense that I barely got my phone put away and my clothes off before the change took me.

Soon, I stood on all fours in the driveway. My mother and the big white wolf led the way into the woods, and the pack fanned out behind them.

More howls serenaded the night. The hunt had begun.