“Is that better?”
I tested my vision. It still didn’t feel great but I could live with it. “Livable.”
“Sorry.” He stretched his arms over his head as he yawned, giving me a view of his stomach. I thought I might stop breathing. I’d never seen the abs of a guy my age before. I looked down fast, so I only caught a glimpse.
“I forgot about the eye issue. I’m going to have to find more of those glasses so when we move on, you can be outside during the day.”
I sighed. “Jason,” I sat up, “I’m not staying. Your dad is going to show me whatever it is he needs me to see and then I have to leave, remember?”
“No.” He shook his head, his blue eyes hardening. “I don’t accept that.”
“It’s not for you to accept.”
“Yes, it is.” He stalked over to the bed, glaring down at me. “You can’t pretend this doesn’t matter to you.” He motioned between the two of us to remind me that we were what this was. “I can feel it and you can, too.”
“Don’t badger her, she just woke up.” Luna’s voice cut between us. But it was the smell of the food Autumn held that really made me sit up.
I was hungry. Starved. I didn’t even care what it was. I just needed food in my belly as fast as it could get there. Autumn set the tray down and within seconds, I was spooning what I fast discovered was oatmeal into my mouth.
The three Kenwoods stood over me, watching. Jason’s scowl turned to amusement. I thought at my expense, considering I was eating like I’d never seen food before. Before long they were laughing aloud.
I put down the spoon and sat back feeling full and satisfied. It didn’t even bother me that they found my eating so funny. “Laugh away, wolves, laugh away.”
Autumn sat down on the bed. “Tell us about the boys you live with.”
Luna seemed to like that idea as she rushed to the other side of the bed to sit in the exact same manner. I’d never spent any time with identical twins before, and I wondered if this was common, the way they sometimes did things exactly the same without knowing it.
“Hell, no.” Jason crossed his arms over his chest just as his Dad had done the night before. “She’s not going to tell you about any boys she knows. She doesn’t know any anymore.”
Luna waved a hand at him. “Go. You’re hogging Rachel. She’s only been awake a few minutes. You were with her the whole time she was sick. Go bathe or something. We need girl time.”
“You can’t kick me out of my room.”
Autumn growled, and I sat back against my pillows. I wouldn’t have suspected she had it in her. I don't know why not. The first time I saw her, she had been eating Vampire…
Autumn looked at Jason. “You’re not Alpha yet, so don’t get all high and mighty with me, little brother. Luna told you to go do something for a while. Go do it. You’re crowding Rachel with your insistence on a relationship she isn’t sure she wants. Trust me. Out.”
He left with a grumble.
Autumn grinned at me, her green eyes sparkling. “Sorry about him. He can’t believe his good luck in finding you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so scared, as he was when you were sick. Now, he’s likely to pressure you because he doesn’t want to lose you.”
I cleared my throat. “Um, he’s your brother so I don’t know if I’m comfortable talking about this with you guys.”
I looked from Luna to Autumn and then back again. They both stared at me through unblinking eyes.
“Why not?” Luna patted my leg. “It’s been so long since we’ve had new friends. You can’t know what it’s like. No new people. Ever.”
“I do actually. The habitats are self-contained environments. Sometimes a person manages to come from one to another but mostly it’s the same people. All the time.”
Autumn sat forward. “Are there cute boys?”
“Some of them.” My cheeks got hot. I knew one in particular. I hadn’t forgotten Micah’s chocolate brown eyes. Jason’s blue ones warred with his in my mind, but you couldn’t undo a lifetime of feelings for someone else just because you met someone new.
“I wish I could meet some.”
“Maybe you will. Warriors come up all the time. You could whack one over the head and drag him home if he smells good.”
The sisters looked at each other before breaking out in hysterical laughter. Finally Luna spoke. “Generally speaking, we’re not allowed anywhere near you guys. God forbid you chop off our heads.”
“Good point. They might not know you were ‘good’ Werewolves.”
Luna stood up. “How are you feeling? Dad wants to move us but he’s worried you’re not strong enough to go see what he needs to show you and you won’t be for a while.”
“What does he want me to see?” This was getting ridiculous. I was supposed to have returned over a week ago.
“We don’t know.” Autumn stood up and walked to the window.
“Don’t open that,” I shouted, louder than I meant to, but I didn’t want that sensory assault again. That window was staying closed, if I had to guard it by placing myself in front of it.
“I won’t.” Autumn shrugged. “Sheesh.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “And I bet you thought she was the nice one.”
They both laughed at that remark.
Autumn and Luna were fun. There was no doubt about it. Being around them was a little bit like being with Tia, but with none of the ease of a lifetime of friendship. I never had to explain myself to her, and she would never have tried to talk to me about one of her brothers in that way. We’d both been embarrassed when she’d stumbled into the truth of my crush on Micah.
Yet she’d never made me feel badly about it. Out of all the people in the universe, I wished I could talk to her now. I wanted to tell her what was happening with Jason, what it had been like to almost die, and how I was questioning everything and anything I’d ever learned by spending all this time with people who were supposed to be monsters.
Except she wasn’t here with me. So I had to settle with figuring out how to get along with Jason and his family without her humor and advice. Maybe it would be some kind of growing experience. Whatever that means.
Andon knocked on the door and entered. I was glad I was dressed. Maybe it was a pack thing, but I might have liked a little privacy even if they didn’t care.
“We need to move. The patrol last night had to take down five Vampires. They know we’re here and they’re gunning for us.”
Seriousness fell over the twins’ faces.
Luna spoke first. “What about Rachel?”
“We’ll help her. Jason and I won’t shift. We’ll take turns carrying her.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t go with you anywhere. You’re supposed to be showing me something and letting me leave.”
My heart beat so fast I was afraid it might explode. I couldn’t breathe. I’d been counting on leaving. No, this wasn’t okay. I had to go.
“Rachel, calm down.” Andon’s tone was clear and decisive. He expected me to listen to him.
“I’m not freaking out. I don’t need to be told to calm down.”
And if I wanted to be upset, who was he to tell me I couldn’t be? He was just some man who was pretty much holding me hostage.
“I promise you, it’s not my intention to hold you with us indefinitely. If you were strong enough, I would say you could be taken now but we both know that you aren’t. I’ve given you no reason not to trust us.”
“Just the fact that you’re a wolf makes it hard for me to trust you. You do understand that, right?”
I knew it was a harsh thing to say. But I was sick to death of all the secrets and holding back the truth. They wanted me to be fine with the fact that they were Werewolves. I got that. I really did. Except my entire existence, everything I had thought and felt since the moment I was born, had been in relation to the idea that there were monsters that were bad. I was supposed to kill those bad things.
I couldn’t un
do that thinking. Not overnight, not in what felt like a moment’s notice simply because these people seemed nice.
“Girls,” Andon addressed the twins, “go help the pack take down the tents.”
As they left the room, Andon approached me. “Rachel, you’re so young. Back in my day, before the world changed and I didn’t change with it, girls your age weren’t even allowed to drive some places without an adult in the car.”
“Well, I’m old enough to do a lot of things, like be sent Upwards to fight monsters. Only, I’m living with a group of them instead.”
He sighed. “You’re going to have to decide if you can trust us. I can’t make that any easier on you. Only you know what your truth is, Rachel. Only you can decide who you will be and what you’ll believe.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “I promise you. Just a week more for us to take care of you. Then I’ll take you to see what I keep talking about and I’ll let you go home. Even though it might kill Jason.”
***
I’d bathed. Well, it was more of a sponge bath using water Luna brought me. I felt better. It’s amazing what clean hair could do for a mood. There was, however, still something I had to take care of. Something I had avoided doing.
I stood on unsteady legs and stumbled forward to the small mirror attached to the wall. Two large pins affixed the small mirror to its spot on the hard fabric of the tent.
I stared back at myself. For years, I’d thought I was ugly. I hated my red hair, hated my freckles even more. I appeared like an altered version of my mother, and most of the time not a good alteration.
But there I was, staring back at myself, butchered past the point of recognition.
One side of my face was swollen, red, and twisted with a cut I’d never imagined, even in my worst nightmares, having on my face. Warriors called their wounds battle scars and most wore them proudly. It was a nice way of getting through the pain of carrying permanent reminders of your battles on your body.
I reached up to touch the tender, angry skin where the Vampire had permanently left his mark. He was dead, but I would always remember him. Every time I looked in the mirror, part of him would be there. Every time a child shrieked in horror when I walked in the room, I would remember.
If I thought I wasn’t pretty before it was only because I hadn’t really understood the meaning of the words. I closed my eyes and tried not to cry. Alive was what was important. I needed to keep reminding myself of that fact.
I was a Warrior.
Warriors didn’t need to be beautiful or even pretty.
Strong arms came around me pulling me against a hard chest. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know who it was.
“Jason.” My voice shook. I was holding off the tears, I couldn’t do anything about the voice shaking.
“It’s going to get better. It won’t look so red forever.”
“Yes, it will. I’ve seen these wounds before; you haven’t. They always look like this. They never heal.”
He kissed the top of my head. “It’s small, barely the size of a dime.”
“What’s a dime?”
“That’s one of those things from before. It was money. Um, it’s the size of my fingertip. See? It’s tiny.”
I shook my head. It might look tiny to him, it was huge to me. “I know how big it is. I was there when the Vampire inflicted it on me using his own fingertip.”
I struggled in his embrace. I wanted to run away even though I had nowhere to go. Still, his kindness made me vulnerable, and I hated the sensation.
He didn’t let me go. “Rachel, let me hold you. I’ve never known anyone as desperate to be held as you, who resists it so much. Even in your sleep, you thrashed around if I tried to hold you too long.”
His words startled me, and I stopped trying to get away. Was it true? It made sense, considering how little I’ve ever been held. Dad didn’t exactly dish out the hugs and kisses. Carol Lyons used to hug me, but she was someone else’s mother.
“Ah…I’ve stunned you into submission.”
I shook my head even as I bit back my smile. “I’ll never be submissive, Jason. I don’t think I’m built that way.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I want my she-wolf fierce?”
I closed my eyes. This closeness to him made me feel warm, and maybe there was no harm in that.
Maybe.
“I’m not a wolf.”
He sniffed my hair, and I almost told him not to do that, except I’d sort of gotten used to it. It was just a Jason thing.
“You have the heart of a wolf. I can smell it.”
“Jason.” My throat closed as I couldn’t believe I was going to ask what I knew I was going to ask. “Am I uglier now?”
He pulled back. His blue eyes bore into mine with such intensity I had to look down. “Don’t you ever say that again. You are not ugly. Could not be ugly. You’re beautiful and that small mark on your face that you are obsessing about only makes you seem stronger. You lived through something most people will never understand.”
He pulled me up against his chest again. “Besides, you’re mine, and if anyone ever calls you ugly or even thinks it, I’ll tear them to shreds.”
With most guys, a threat was just that—a threat. But with Jason and his very real ability to do what he said he would do, I had to believe there was every chance he meant it. Which meant that I am going to have to go out of my way never to tell him if anyone ever did call me ugly.
I blinked. What was wrong with me? I wasn’t going to be around Jason long enough for that to be an issue. One more week and then home. That was what was most important to remember. Except the thought no longer made me as happy as it should. When had that happened?
All I wanted to do was close my eyes and let Jason be what he claimed I was. “His.”
“My turn to ask a question.”
“Okay.” I felt sleepy and I almost gave into the urge to fall asleep standing up in his arms.
“Is there someone else at home? Someone I need to know about? A guy who I’m competing with for your heart?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think you did. You never would have let me kiss you if you had. I asked if someone else had your heart, Rachel.”
A pair of chocolate brown eyes stormed through my vision, and I sighed. It would be easy to lie to Jason, to say that there wasn’t. Even if he could smell my deception, he might choose to ignore it for the sake of making things easier between us. But, he’d asked. So I was going to answer.
“There is somebody that I care a great deal about. There was never anything concrete between us. Just a feeling that there might be. A maybe, a someday.”
“And if I can promise you now? If I can promise you forever? It doesn’t push him from his place in your heart?”
Jason was holding back his anger. I could feel it in the tension of his muscles around me.
“You can’t promise me forever. You’re eighteen and I’m sixteen. Neither of has any idea what’s going to happen.”
“This would be easier if you were a wolf. You would understand what I meant when I said you smell like my mate.”
“Sorry, not a wolf. Just a scarred human Warrior trained to chop off your head.”
“Thanks for that thought, Rachel.” He laughed and some of his muscles relaxed. “Okay, we’ve gotta go. Get your jacket on.”
I looked down at the pajamas I wore. They’d been on my bed and I assumed they belonged to Autumn or Luna.
“You want me to put a jacket over my pajamas?”
“Are they pajamas?” He squeezed my behind and I gasped. He winked. “I hadn’t noticed. You’re right, you’re going to be cold. The Vampire destroyed your clothes. I’ll go see if Luna or Autumn have something you can wear. Take my jacket.” He let me go and handed me his coat.
“I can barely walk.”
This was going to be a problem if we were going to move.
He grinned in the lopsided way I’d
come to associate with him. “That’s why I’m going to carry you.”
“You can’t carry me all the way to wherever we’re going. Where are we going?”
“My Dad gets feelings about these things. He can hear it on the wind or something. I’m not sure. The wind doesn’t talk to me. But we go wherever he says we go.” He shook his head. “And I’m a monster, remember? I can carry you for days without getting tired.”
I grinned back at him. It was amazing how fast I’d gotten used to all this craziness.
And that made me really, really nervous.
Chapter Eleven
I’d been a little concerned about how Jason was going to carry me. Wouldn’t his arms get tired? But then I’d found out I’d be harnessed to his back. The others had shifted into their wolf forms and were dragging the tent bags behind them. Even faster than most humans, Jason couldn’t keep up with his pack on two feet, so we lagged behind.
He didn’t seem to mind it at all. I kept my dark glasses pressed to my nose as I periodically checked the state of the sun in the sky. Even though it would bring out the Vampires, I preferred nighttime.
Cold hadn’t proven to be a problem either. Autumn and Luna had bundled me up so much that I was actually sweating even though it was freezing outside. We’d been silent for the last hour or so, and I was drifting off into sleep when he spoke.
“I think it smells like snow out here.”
I blinked as I looked up at the sky. “I don’t see any.”
“No, sorry. I misspoke. What I should have said is that I think it smells like it’s going to snow. Tonight.”
“Is this a Werewolf thing?”
He shook his head and from my position behind him, I could see his blond curls shaking as he did so. I reached out and entwined one of his messy strands in my finger.
“Ouch, Rachel, that hurts.” He whined and I let go of his hair. It was too bad; I really liked playing with it, and from my position behind him, felt safe to do so. He couldn’t exactly reach me unless he unhooked me from his back.
“Seriously, smell the air. I’ve heard humans say they can smell a snowstorm, too.”