The beasts within me kept pace as I crossed the length of the room and then back again. Over and over and over. The repetition kept me sane in a way that only Kit could do otherwise.
Right now, though, she was fast asleep and looking like an angel in the moonlight… or a devil. I never could decide. Our stint together, given over to our dark sides, had me leaning harder toward devil, though.
How she had managed to pull me out of that dark place, I would never understand. I’d thought for sure I was finished. That there could be no going back from everything we had done. That I had done. The deaths I was responsible for… no amount of cleansing could wash the blood from these hands, and that was just something I was going to have to live with.
Day by day. One step at a time. Control is king; never let it slip, or you’re no better than the rest. The long-forgotten voice of my uncle echoed through my head, his words more important now than I had ever given credit to.
As a kid, he’d seen me struggle. Not that he had done overly much to help—no one could. But those little gems of wisdom when he’d come to visit had stuck with me throughout my life.
My fists clenched and unclenched as I paced, unable to sleep for the third night in a row. Not the best setup for a big fight, but every time Kit dropped into deep sleep, my mind just seemed to hit turbo charge, running at a million miles an hour until I was so worked up I needed to do this. Pace.
“River,” Cole’s quiet rumble jolted me from my thoughts, and I jerked my head to the door. “A light aircraft just touched down on the edge of town. Looks like today is the day.”
I gave him a short nod, grabbing my shirt from the chair and silently slipping from the room. There was no sense in waking Kitten if there was going to be hours of bullshit first. The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, and she was far from a morning person.
“You and Vali been out flying?” I asked as we padded through the silent house. The ease with which the estranged brothers had taken to their new forms filled me with an unfamiliar feeling of jealousy. Just another thing I needed to deal with inside my own head.
“Yep,” Cole replied, not wasting words. “Wolves have been restless too.”
I sighed, peering up at the sky as we stepped outside. “It’ll be a full moon tonight. That’s probably got something to do with it.”
“Does the moon really effect your shifting?” Cole murmured, scowling up at the violet sky. “Seems restrictive.”
“Hell if I know,” I admitted. “I was a little busy on my mass murder spree last full moon, remember?”
Cole grunted. It was a noise that I knew roughly translated to, “Oh yeah, sorry dude. I forgot.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I shook my head. “I guess we will find out tonight anyway. I seriously doubt wolves would fight during the day. Not dramatic enough, is it?”
My friend snorted a short laugh. “These supernaturals sure do love being dramatic,” he agreed. “I’d guess they want the spectators a bit whipped up, too, to add to the atmosphere. Makes sense that he’s arriving in time for a full moon.”
“Bastard,” I muttered, meaning this English Alpha. He probably could have arrived two days ago, but Cole was right. He probably wanted to wait for the full moon to have all the local wolves in a frenzy of their own. If the full moon shit wasn’t all myth, that was.
The morning was cool and my skin pebbled in the breeze, but inside I was like an inferno. Like my blood was coursing with hellfire.
“Did you see how much backup came with him?” I asked Cole as the two of us made our way toward the little airstrip.
Cole shook his head. “No, just came straight to tell you. Left Vali to keep an eye on things.”
We didn’t speak again as we approached the small, white aircraft, but I quickly spotted Granny Winter and some of her lieutenants standing near it’s exit and clasping wrists with a group of strangers.
“Alpha River,” Granny Winter greeted me as Cole and I approached. “I figured your scaly friends would get you here sooner or later. Come and meet my guests.” She stepped aside so that I could approach the tallest man, who wore a heavy cloak. “Please meet my old friend, Alpha Cameron.”
“No introductions needed, Annaliese,” the hooded man chuckled with a crisp English accent. “River and I go way back.” He tossed his hood back and threw me a mischievous smirk. “Don’t we, nephew?”
My jaw just about hit the tarmac as I gaped. His sandy-blond hair and neatly trimmed beard framed a face not a single day older than when I’d last seen him—some twenty-odd years ago.
“Uncle Cam?” I exclaimed. “You’re—” I broke off with a bitter laugh. “Of course you are. Are you even my uncle?”
He gave a familiar shrug. “Technically, yes. Just a few generations removed.”
“Explains why you always acted like such an old stuffed shirt,” I muttered with a glower. “Did Mum and Dad know? About what you—we—are?”
Cam gave me a sympathetic smile, but I didn’t need his pity. My parents had died a long time ago, and I’d had plenty of time to make my peace with it. “Your Mum did,” he admitted. “But she wanted to keep you from this world. She never did believe magic would be restored, constantly told me the wolves were a dying race. Well, if she could see us now, huh?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I doubt this is where she thought I would end up.” I sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly, stuffing all the old memories back in their box. “So, I’m to fight you then?”
Cam grinned in his easy manner, and his eyes flashed with that canine reflectiveness which would have unnerved anyone who didn’t know we weren’t human. “You know it, nephew. I should warn you I won’t be taking it easy on you. There are a lot of responsibilities that come with this job, and I won’t be giving them up lightly.”
“I don’t particularly want them, if I’m honest, Uncle.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I can’t persuade you to give up just the one piece?”
“Sorry, kid. That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.” Cam clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a small push back toward town. “Come on, let’s get some tea and breakfast, and you can tell me all about how a skinny kid without a scrap of magic in him has ended up Alpha of his own little pack. Oh, do you have a mate yet? If not, I have plenty of eligible bitches in my pack you could meet.”
The idea amused me—mostly picturing what Kitten would do if Cam tried to bring any of these “eligible bitches” sniffing around. Cole must have thought the same because he covered a laugh with a cough as he fell into step alongside us.
“Oh, sorry. Uncle Cam, this is my best friend and Beta, Cole.” I introduced the two men, and they briefly clasped hands.
“Beta?” Cam repeated with a quirked brow. “Doesn’t smell like a wolf…”
“I’m not,” Cole grunted. “Not too fond of that doggy smell, either.”
Cam gave me an amused look, and I just shook my head. “Dragon,” I said by way of explanation. “Elitist bastards, the lot of them.”
“I heard that,” Vali snapped, coming to join us from the shadows where he must have been keeping watch. “Vali,” he introduced himself to Cam. “Also dragon.”
Cam accepted his offered hand, then gave me a curious grin. “Interesting pack so far, nephew. I greatly look forward to meeting the rest. But not until after food. Do you think there is anywhere for a full English here? I’m starved.”
I shook my head with a small grin. He’d always been my favorite family member when I’d been small. He was always so damn cheerful. Then again, one didn’t get to the rank he’d obtained within the wolves, or hold it for long, unless they had some serious steel in their spine. I’d be treading carefully around my favorite uncle until this challenge was over.
Granny Winter hadn’t been joking when she said the town really didn’t cater to tourists. There was only one diner option, and it wasn’t open yet. Granny offered to host everyone for breakfast, but we politely declined, knowing the sort of hospitality she’d offered to the rest of my so-called pack.
Instead, we ended up back at Vic’s house. Wesley was awake when we got in with Cam’s six pack members in tow and offered to cook for everyone. Thankfully, one of the boys had been to the grocery store the day before, so the kitchen was fully stocked. Within a short time, the smell of sizzling bacon was filling the house.
“Ugh, why is there so much coffee in this kitchen, River?” Cam asked in disgust as he hunted through the pantry. “Where is all the tea?”
Smiling to myself, I pushed him aside and fished my stash of Earl Grey from behind the coffee filters. “Here, they’re bags, but it was the best I could find.”
Cam sighed and accepted the box from me. “It’ll do. Better than that devil’s brew.” He jerked a thumb at the machine, which was happily brewing up a fresh pot of coffee and wafting the smell of toasted beans through the kitchen.
“Coffee’s almost ready,” Wesley observed. “Guess Kit will be up soon.”
My uncle gave us a bemused look. “Is this ‘Kit’ somehow magically linked to this particular coffee machine?”
Wesley coughed a laugh as he filled a big mug and prepared it the way our girl liked it before handing the whole thing over to me. “You’ll see,” he told Cam before turning back to his cooktop to flip his eggs.
Sure enough, mere minutes later an extremely sleep-disheveled, redheaded angel came scuffing her feet out of the bedroom and into the kitchen with her eyes barely open more than a crack.
“Morning, Kitten,” I murmured to her, handing over the prepared mug, which she took a long sip from before sighing in ecstasy.
“Good morning, sir,” she replied in a husky whisper full of sex and sleepiness. Before I could point out our guests, she’d wrapped her free hand around my neck and pulled me down for a long, passionate kiss. One that caused my pants to tighten to an uncomfortable level, considering my uncle stood a bare four feet away.
“Kitten,” I breathed when she released me to take another sip of coffee. “We have guests.”
She froze mid-sip and opened her eyes a little wider, then glanced around and spotted the unfamiliar faces. “Guests,” she repeated, looking down at herself and probably noticing how little clothing she had pulled on to come in search of coffee. “Bra and pants,” she muttered to herself and quickly scurried back into the bedroom we were sharing.
When the door slammed behind her, Cam barked a laugh, and if I had been any less in control of my emotions, I probably would have flushed red.
“That answers the question of if you have a mate,” he announced, clapping me on the shoulder with an almost fatherly pride. “She’s something, that’s for sure. Not a wolf either, though, is she?”
I shook my head. “Ban Dia,” I explained, not seeing any reason why I needed to keep that a secret. The whole bloody town knew anyway, so he’d find out sooner or later. “She’s why we need that amulet piece.”
Cam’s brows shot right up at this, and he glanced at the door Kit had disappeared behind. “What does the amulet do, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Glancing at Cam’s men in the living room, I hedged. “Story for another day, perhaps?”
As much as I trusted my uncle, I didn’t know his pack. Any one of them could be on Bridget’s payroll for all I knew, and I wasn’t about to go giving away our ace in the hole. If Bridget had no idea about the amulet, I’d prefer to keep it that way.
Cam understood and gave me a short nod. “Of course. Perhaps we can take a walk later, just the two of us.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed. “Now, how is that tea coming along? I’m parched here.”
My uncle grinned, turning back to continue making our beverages, when something must have occurred to him. “Don’t Ban Dia typically bond to three men?”
“Typically, yes,” I confirmed. “Why?”
“So, it’s you… and the two dragons? What are you, Wesley?” Cam poked Wes in the arm, and he glanced up from his cooking.
“Babdh,” Wes responded, clearly feeling the same as I did about secrets. “But Kit has six dianoch. No odd man out here.”
“Six?” Cam exclaimed, glancing between myself and my three present companions. “I’m looking forward to that walk later, nephew.” His heavy glare told me he was already stockpiling a million and one questions for me, but strangely, I was also looking forward to speaking freely with him.
It had been too damn long since I’d spoken openly with someone outside our team. It might be refreshing… until I needed to somehow fight him in the wolf form that I could barely maintain for a few seconds, that was.
Something told me it was going to be a long-ass day, and it had barely begun.
