Chapter 14

"She must've really knockedhim good," Dawn said as she opened Kyle's eyes and checked them with a penlight as he lay on a couch in the Glenwood packhouse. "He's out, but there's no actual trauma to his head, no bruising. I think the only danger he's in right now is whatever danger he's brought upon himself." She turned off the light and straightened up.

Kyle wouldn't harm anyone in his current condition, but Pierce's wolf had yet to calm down since finding him at Holly's place. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "What do we do with him?"

Rex came around to stand at his sister's side. "I can't help but think of the night I met Lori."

It seemed like an odd time to reminisce about such a thing, but Dawn nodded. "I was just thinking that, myself. It's not really all that different of a situation, is it?"

"Aunt Dawn? Can I do it?" Ava, Max's teen daughter, stepped hesitantly forward.

Dawn lifted an eyebrow. "You know how important this is, right? I'm not saying that to intimidate you, just to remind you of the stakes."

"I know, but I really think I can do it," Ava said, swallowing a little. Since discovering the abilities she'd inherited from the wolf-witch bloodline of the Glenwood females, she'd been eager to practice and develop her newfound skills whenever she could.

"Yeah, so do I, kiddo. Come on over here, and we'll mix the tincture." She brought Ava over to a table at the side of the room, where they began working with tiny glass vials of various liquids.

"I can't say I understand how it all works," Rex admitted to Pierce, "but we won't have anything to worry about from this guy once we're done with him. They'll wipe his memory of the whole thing, and he won't have any idea that he's ever seen a shifter."

"Good." Pierce looked down at Kyle, his jaw slack and his eyelids still. His chest rose and fell regularly, and he looked like he'd merely fallen into a deep sleep on the couch. His bright white hair made him look much older than he had earlier that night. "Will it wake him up?"

"No," Dawn said, returning with Ava at her side. "When we did this with Lori, it was a very short and recent memory we were working with. We have to go further back with Kyle to make sure he's forgotten everything about us. I added a little something extra to make sure he gets a thorough nap. He'll need it anyway, and it'll give us some time to get him the hell out of the packhouse. Come on, Ava. Let's do it."

The two of them arranged themselves near Kyle's head. Ava dabbed a bit of oily liquid from the little vial onto her finger. She slowly rubbed it back and forth across Kyle's forehead, her lips moving as she recited words that Pierce couldn't hear. Her finger made a grid pattern across his skin, slowly gliding back and forth, up and down, until she'd covered his entire forehead.

Dawn sat attentively next to her, listening to Ava and watching the patient. When her niece was done, Dawn pressed her hands on either side of Kyle's head. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, and a pulsing green light illuminated her palms. It swelled out to her fingertips and radiated over Kyle's skull. The light disappeared when she took her hands away and opened her eyes. She smiled at Ava. "You did it. Great job."

"Thanks," Ava beamed. "I never thought I'd get a chance to actually try it."

"You're talented, sweetheart." Rex held up his palm to give her a high five but spotted the oily residue still on Ava's fingers. "I'll owe you one."

Ava waggled her fingers at him and stuck out her tongue before she headed to the bathroom to wash up.

Pierce turned to Rex. "I'll ask Holly where he was staying, and then we can take him back there."

"Good start, but we'll probably need more than that," Rex suggested. "The guy's just had his memory wiped from the past week. I think we have to create a little backstory for him. Maybe there's some other news story he would've stayed in town to work on. We can print out some information and plant them at his place."

"You're the Alpha." Pierce headed upstairs. He and Holly had hardly spoken to each other on the ride over there. That awkward tension between them had only become more unwieldy with so many of his other packmates surrounding them. He hadn't liked the idea of just leaving her at her place, though.

"Pierce." Joan turned to him as he came up out of the basement and passed through the kitchen. She stood at the stove, just taking a kettle off the burner. The retired Luna of their pack, Joan still served the Glenwoods as a wisewoman and an oracle. She turned to him with a sympathetic look. "How are you doing, dear?"

"I'm fine. I'm just tired. This has been—" he rolled his hand through the air as he tried to think, "—a lot."

"I know." She took his hand between hers, her fingers cool and gentle. "You've got a special connection with that sweet woman outside, don't you?"

Pierce's eyes flicked to the sliding door. He could see Holly out there at a table with several of the Glenwood women. That connection Joan spoke about tugged at him even now, reminding him that even having one wall separating them was too much. "I do."

She nodded. "Perhaps it isn't any of my business, other than the fact that I worry about all of you as though you're my own children. I only wonder if there's anything I can do to help. I know the incident with this journalist has made things difficult, but I think something more is putting a wall between the two of you."

He pulled a deep breath in through his nose. Pierce didn't want to have the mate debate yet again with yet another person. He could tell her about how he and Holly lived on opposite sides of the country and had their own lives. He could tell her that it was simply too late for them and that if things had happened differently, they might be able to work it all out. Instead, his mind wandered to a part of his issue with Holly that he hadn't yet been able to wrap his head around. "There seems to be a lot keeping us apart, but there's one aspect that I honestly don't know how to handle."

"What is it?" Joan asked, eager to help.

"She's not like us," Pierce admitted. "She's a shifter, but she's a bear. If we were able to figure out all of our other differences—which I honestly don't have much hope for—we'd still have that as a problem. I don't mind it, of course. I think she's beautiful. It's just that…I'd want to follow our pack traditions. I don't know what might happen if I were to mark her."

"Ah, I see." Joan's long beaded necklace tinkled softly as she let go of his hand and poured hot water from the kettle into her mug. "Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you." What he'd like was a magic spell that would've made him meet Holly twenty years earlier, back when they were young and the world still felt malleable.

Joan reached for the jar of honey. "Fate acts in very mysterious ways. It's something we have to think about a lot since it's so closely tied in with our way of life. That doesn't always make it any easier, though, especially when it seems like it's beating the hell out of us."

He let out a grunt of agreement. "It's good at that."

"Yes, it is, but I still think it's acting in our best interests." She slowly stirred her tea and then set the spoon in the sink. "It has a plan for us."

Pierce thought about his mother dying so young and his father's house burning down. He thought about how Holly had been in Eugene once a year for several years, yet he'd never met her until now. Then, even once he did meet her, he wouldn't get a chance to be with her. "Sorry to say it, but this doesn't seem like much of a plan."

"That's because it's much greater than anything we can possibly fathom," Joan explained. "It's bigger than us, much bigger. Our little brains simply can't comprehend something as vast as the way we're all interwoven."

"But has a wolf ever marked another species before?" Pierce pressed, ready to get back down to brass tacks. If the result would be something terrible, there was no point in working out their other issues. "Do you know what might happen?"

"Not from experience, no," the older woman admitted. "Perhaps we could see if there's any other information we can tap into."

Joan reached up and put her warm hands on either side of his face. She smiled up at him as she tipped her head back. Her hazel eyes suddenly went cloudy, and her shoulders slackened. She blinked a moment later, and her eyes returned to their natural color. "Follow your heart."

"What?" Pierce had occasionally experienced Joan"s oracular talents before, and he'd been expecting something much more cryptic.

"Follow your heart. Those exact words in that exact order," she confirmed as she dropped her hands to her sides.

He shook his head. "I thought that's what I've been trying to do all along."

She grinned at him. "Then I suggest you keep trying. I'm going to read a bit and then go to bed, but you know where I'm at when you need me."

Joan left him alone, and Pierce headed for the sliding door.

"She wasn't kidding," Angela said. "Sasquatch actually does make his appearances pretty regularly around here. I have to admit I'm pretty amused that Tiffany was able to use him to throw off the scent for the rest of us, though."

"Hey, we've got to do what we can, right?" Stephanie said. Facing the house, she was the first one to see the door open. "Hey, Pierce. Everything going okay?"

"It's mostly taken care of," he replied as he stepped out into the night. "I just need to talk to Holly for a second."

Angela looked at her watch. "And I've got to get home and into bed."

"Same," Stephanie agreed. "I wouldn't have even been out this late if it hadn't been for an emergency call at the office. But I have a long day of doggy acupuncture and massages ahead of me, so I'd better turn in. It was nice to meet you, Holly."

"Thank you. You, too." She waved her fingers at them as they left.

Pierce waited until the door had closed behind them. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

"Not at all." The moon cast her in a gorgeous glow, illuminating her skin and brightening her eyes despite how tired she must have been. "Everyone in your pack is so nice. What's happening with Kyle?"

He settled into the chair next to her. It pleased his wolf to be so close, but it also suited him not to have to look into her eyes for this entire conversation. Nothing between them had been easy, and it didn't seem to be getting any better. "You clocked him good, but he'll be all right physically."

"Physically?" she asked.

Pierce nodded. "Dawn is a very talented woman, as are many in the Glenwood bloodline. She's more than just a skilled nurse. She and Max's daughter Ava were able to wipe his memory. When Kyle wakes up, he won't know a thing about people like us."

"Oh." She chewed her lip for a moment. "That's wild, but it's actually kind of a relief. I didn't know how we were going to stop him."

"We won't have to worry about him now. We just have a little homework to do." Pierce told her about Rex's suggestion of a new article.

"I'm sure I can come up with something," Holly promised. She folded her hands in her lap and shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable. "Listen, Pierce. I really am sorry for all of this. I thought I could deal with Kyle on my own and keep our secret from being exposed. I can see now that I should've just told you about it."

"It's all right," he replied. "I know you were just trying to protect me, too."

"Yes, although you seem to need a lot less of that than I do," she remarked.

He smiled despite himself. "I don't know. I saw the way you walloped him."

She turned to face him. "You actually saw it?"

"Through the window," he confirmed. "Next time you shift inside a house, you might want to make sure the curtains are drawn."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," she promised with a laugh that quickly dissipated. "Can I tell you something?"

She could tell him everything and anything. As long as they were close to each other and she hadn't yet gotten on a plane for Massachusetts, he would sit and listen. "Sure."

"There's another reason I didn't tell you I was staying in Eugene other than believing I could safeguard you from Kyle."

He licked his lips and waited, not knowing what to expect.

"It was just too hard," she admitted after a moment, her voice thick. "It was too hard to spend time with you when I knew it was so limited. I made excuses to myself that I deserved to have a little fun, but I was really only teasing myself. I knew I'd only fall for you more than I already had, but then I'd have to go home."

Her words poured over him just as the moonlight did. They couldn't fix what'd happened between them, but they were a greater comfort than she could know. "I understand. It was hard for me, too. I guess that's why I was so upset when I found out you were still here. I knew the reality of our situation, but I didn't like thinking that I'd missed out on any time with you. It would be painful later, but I still wanted every second with you that I could get. I still do. I know we're different, but we've got a bond I don't think we can deny at this point."

She looked down at her lap. "Maybe we're not that different, after all."

"You're right. I was also more than ready to clock Kyle," he replied. It was a serious talk, but he felt a desperate urge to lighten the mood. Once Kyle was taken care of, she'd have no reason to stay. She'd be gone, and he didn't want their last moments together to be so somber.

"I'm sure, but that's not what I mean." Holly picked at the hem of her shirt. "I started to wonder a few days ago when I realized how off I felt. I just didn't feel like myself at all. I wasn't clearheaded, and I wasn't thinking things through. My mind felt completely blocked. I was so quick to anger, and I couldn't control myself. That irresponsible shift of mine that you saw tonight? That's not me. That's not something I would do. I don't think I'd ever hit someone, either."

He leaned forward, turning his head to the side to see her face. "It was a pretty hard night for all of us."

"No. I never would've shifted in front of Kyle if I could help it, but once I did, I knew for sure." Holly looked up. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and he thought he saw tears of concern in her eyes. "Pierce, I'm pregnant."

The last bit of air in his lungs drifted out on its own accord. He was glad he was sitting down, or he might've gone crashing straight to the deck. There were many things they needed to discuss, but this wasn't a conversation he'd been imagining he'd have. "You are?"

"And before you ask, I'm sure. I could sense it when I shifted." She twisted her fingers together in her lap and chewed her lip again. "I don't even know what to think about it. I'm forty-three years old. At this point, I hadn't thought I'd ever start a family."

And yet they had. Their one night of passion had been the beginning of an entire life. Joy flushed through his body, mixed with instinctive pride and elation. He wanted to run back into the packhouse and tell everyone. But when he saw how uncertain Holly was about the whole thing, it hollowed him out. "We should talk about this. We'll figure out how to handle it all."

Holly frowned as she swiped at the corner of her eye. "We should, but I don't think I can right now. I need time to process all of this. I need time to even think about what questions I have, if that makes sense."

Dozens of them were already flooding his mind. "It does. We'll figure this out, Holly. I promise."

"How can you be so confident when we haven't managed to figure anything else out yet?" She wiped her face again.

There was nothing he wanted more than to pull her onto his lap, hold her close, and feel her in his arms. He wanted to press his cheek to her head and feel the softness of her hair, to entwine his fingers around her hip and never let her go.

But he'd give her the time she asked for. He'd give her anything. "I just know."