Howl Down the Moon, page 15
I’ve never seen flavors like that at the market, but there are online places you could order from if you’d like to have them again. I’m sure Slade would order you anything you’d like, or I can if you want me to.
It’s okay. I’ll ask Slade about adding some to the next order he puts in. I’m not sure how the whole address thing works since everything gets shipped to the village there.
Understandable, though I could always keep some for when we get together?
The way he said it, like he wasn’t certain Luka would want there to be a next time, led Luka to lick his cheek. I’d like that. Thank you.
Letting out a soft sigh, Rand turned and licked him back. Rubbing noses with him, Luka felt a warm surge of soft, hopeful energy that he eagerly returned.
What’s your favorite flavor? Luka thought, pressing his nose to Rand’s and shyly meeting his gaze.
Strawberry—hands down, especially homemade strawberry ice cream with big chunks of strawberries in it.
It sounded delicious. So much so that before he gave much thought to what he was doing, he licked his snout and Rand’s too, making the other wolf laugh and lick his face in response.
I take it you approve? Rand thought to him.
I’ve never had strawberry ice cream, but if it's anything like black cherry, then I’d love to try some.
Dad makes some every summer. You can try as much as you’d like then.
On the screen, a hand reached up from the water, sliding up a damp rock, and soon, one of the young humans was yelling to the others that the family who’d been chasing them had finally caught up and looked really pissed off. Meanwhile, another human was attempting to play an organ made of bones. Wrong notes made the floor fall out; right ones made a drawbridge lower a fraction. Heads pressed together, they watched, trembling with anticipation as the dramatic scene unfolded. Wagging tails bumped each other, clashing in celebration when the kids got over the drawbridge.
Curled together, they watched the rest of the movie, the gems, gold, booby traps, and bumbling family of thieves making for an exciting ending to a wonderful movie, especially when the kids succeeded in saving the home they loved.
I bet those were fun to build, Luka thought.
The booby traps?
Yeah.
Not sure I’d call them fun. Watching someone else get stuck in one might be, but how many times do you think they backfire before someone gets them right? Rand asked.
Isn’t messing up half the fun of learning?
When Rand drew back and stared at him, Luka was certain he’d said something stupid. Dropping his head on his paws, he busied himself with reading the movie credits, glad they were in fur so Rand couldn’t see him blushing. When Rand half sprawled over his back and licked his ears, Luka was confused.
You can laugh. It’s okay, Luka thought.
Why would I laugh?
Huffing, Luka wished he’d just get it over with.
Luka?
Way you looked at me, I figured I’d said something stupid again.
What do you mean, again?
Just that I’m not very smart. I don’t get a lot right, and I say stuff without thinking about it hard enough.
Rand licked the side of his face and ears, snuggling him close as on the television, a new movie started. The Last Starfighter.
Not true. What you said was very smart and very right. You can learn a lot from messing up. You can even discover something new. I’m the one who wasn’t thinking about it the right way. I always hated making mistakes, so unless I knew I could do it right, I might watch, but I wouldn’t try.
Were you afraid you’d get into trouble?
No, I think my parents would have loved to see me make a mistake or make a mess of myself. My siblings would charge through a mud puddle to catch a grouse, and I’d run home and beg for a bath if I got the smallest splatter of mud on me.
I loved playing in mud puddles. My folks would let us have bubbles when it was time to clean up. Sometimes they’d have to wash the grass stains out of my fur from where I’d spent an afternoon crawling through the tall grass and marsh reeds pretending to hunt.
What’s the first thing you ever caught?
Snickering, Luka thought back to the moment, shocked when he could look at the memory with fondness rather than a pang of wistfulness and regret. A snout full of mud and a very unimpressed toad that proceeded to try to eat me.
Wait, seriously?
Seriously. It leapt at me and ended up with my snout in its mouth. I whipped my head back and forth and couldn’t get it off. I put my paws on it to hold it down and tried to pull free, but that made it worse.
What could be worse than a toad dangling from your nose?
Half a toad.
Oh ick, ick, ick, no, just no, hell, no. Oh my god, how’d you get it off?
I didn’t. My dad did, laughing the whole time. Well, at least until my mom reminded him of the time a blue crab latched on to his lip and wouldn’t let go, and he had to run home to his grandmother to pry its claw free.
Laughing, Rand flopped back onto the carpet, waving his paws in the air.
He did point out that he got revenge on the crab after his grandmother threw it into a pot and boiled it, though Mom said his grandmother wanted him to go back and see if he could get a few more to latch on.
Now Rand was rolling with laughter, Luka right along beside him. He hadn’t recalled that conversation in years, but now, he could picture it and was giving serious thought to replicating the memory in one of his carvings.
Where would he have gotten ahold of a blue crab around here?
Don’t you mean where would a blue crab have gotten ahold of him?
True, Rand thought back, though it doesn’t answer the question.
My parents weren’t part of the Pacific Northwest Tribe; they were from the Gulf Coast pack. After the second time they were left homeless by a hurricane, they petitioned to relocate and were granted permission to come here.
Why not stay with the rest of the Gulf Coast pack when they joined with the Southwest pack?
I’m not sure. I was still too small to understand it all. I know we followed the gatherings for a little while before we got set up here a couple months before Lily was born. They were looking for their third, but they never found them.
That had to be difficult.
Yeah. They’d always get real wistful before a gathering and sad afterward. I’ve always wondered if there was a wolf somewhere trying to find their mates, not knowing that they’d died already.
Rand hugged him, wrapping paws around him and clutching him tight. To feel that loss for a little while hurt bad enough. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life with that kind of hole inside me.
Curling against him, Luka licked his face and neck, nuzzled close, and slid his snout beneath Rand’s throat, inhaling his scent. They stayed that way until Nathan called for him so they could go.
You’ll let me know how Slade reacts when he comes in?
I will.
I hope he’s okay with it. I enjoyed spending time with you tonight. Rand licked his cheek, rubbed his face against Luka’s cheek, and shifted back to skin before kissing him on the snout and hugging him close. I miss you already.
We can always talk, at least while we’re still in town. I’m not sure how well communicating will work when we go back home, but we’ll get better at it. Until we do, maybe I can get Slade to teach me to work the CB since cell phone reception is so spotty.
At least we won’t have to rely on carrier pigeon.
It’s a good thing too; one of us might end up eating them.
One final lick, then Rand let Luka go, saying his goodbyes to Slade’s mothers before he left, while Luka stretched out on his side to finish watching the movie, realizing something in those first few minutes after the SUV pulled away. Rand had just left, and he already missed him too.
Chapter Fifteen
TWO ANGER MANAGEMENT meetings and a single trip to the grief support group were not enough to handle rounding the corner at the clothing store and crashing into Dimitri. Snarling, Slade shoved the other wolf into a stone pillar, and when that didn’t make him feel any better, he grabbed Dimitri by the front of his shirt and slammed him into it again, hard enough that Dimitri grimaced and turned his head to the side, trying to bare his throat to show he didn’t want a fight.
Too bad.
After dragging him out the side door, Slade threw him down in the snow and aimed a kick at him that Dimitri barely rolled away from. He wasn’t as lucky with the second kick—that one caught Dimitri in the ribs, as did the third one. There’d have been a fourth, too, if someone hadn’t stepped in front of Slade and backed him off. Snarling, he drew back his fist to throw a punch when he realized it was Rand.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Slade growled.
“I was about to ask you the same thing!”
On the ground, Dimitri groaned, holding his side and grimacing.
“You just interrupted a long overdue ass-kicking,” Slade hissed.
“So challenge him if you’re so hell-bent on beating the hell out of him,” Rand shot back. “You sure didn’t waste any time challenging me, so why let this drag on?”
“Because him stomping the hell out of me in a challenge would mean he had to leave it alone afterward, and neither of us would know what to do with that,” Dimitri grumbled, struggling to one knee. His hair had escaped from its ponytail, several strands hanging in his face. His heavy panting was making a few of the hairs wave as he fought to catch his breath.
“Yeah, I know that feeling,” Rand mumbled beneath his breath, shrugging when Slade narrowed his eyes at him.
“You don’t know anything!” Slade snapped.
“Then explain it to me,” Rand challenged, keeping between Slade and Dimitri while Slade’s anger warred with his wolf’s desire to ignore his twin’s former mate and, instead, focus on his own.
Wait, when had that happened? When had he started to think of Rand as his?
“I was supposed to be one of his brother’s mates,” Dimitri said as he slowly stood, the pained look on his face telling Slade he was going to be feeling those kicks for a while.
“Oh.”
“Guess you’ve heard that story,” Dimitri said.
“Only that you and his other mate rejected him.”
“And got him killed!” Slade bellowed, making a lunge for Dimitri, who tripped over his own two feet trying to get away. He landed back in the snow, groaning after the fall jarred his body.
“I see those group sessions haven’t exactly clicked with you yet,” Rand said, maintaining his place between them. Slade could have gone through him, but his wolf didn’t want him to. It whined, telling him to lean in and scent Rand firsthand, the lingering smell of him on Luka having created a sense of longing he wasn’t ready to admit to yet.
“We never meant for that to happen!” Dimitri yelled, scrambling back to his feet, fists clenched at his sides, the look in his eyes… What the hell was he tearing up for?
“Maybe you didn’t, but you didn’t do anything to stop it either,” Slade growled. “You just went along with that heartless bitch! Terry loved you, you fuckin’ bastard, and you shit all over that!”
“You don’t think I know that? I loved him too!” Dimitri yelled.
“Then you should have told him that, instead of rejecting him!” Slade bellowed, lunging, only to once again find himself face-to-face with Rand, who placed a hand on his chest, right over his heart, the way Luka tended to. For a moment, Slade had to blink to be certain it was Rand and not Luka standing there in front of him.
Tears were flowing down Dimitri’s face, which he didn’t even bother to wipe away. “It was never supposed to be permanent.”
His voice was thick with emotion and choked with the tears that were beginning to freeze on his cheeks, none of which Slade knew how to handle. In the past, these encounters had always been swift and quickly broken up. A shove here, a punch there, some cursing as they were sent their separate ways.
“What wasn’t supposed to be permanent?” Rand asked when Slade didn’t, mostly because Slade was still trying to understand what the fuck Dimitri was crying about. Slade hadn’t finished hitting him as hard as he wanted to yet. He just needed Rand out of the way first.
“Rejecting him,” Dimitri said softly, letting out a long shuddering breath. “Kasey only said it because she wanted Terry to prove that he cared about her as much as he cared about me.”
Slade felt like he was the one who’d been hit—with a sledgehammer. Had Dimitri just admitted that Terry had gotten himself killed over a fuckin’ mind game?
“I told her not to do it,” Dimitri said. “I told her to just tell him how she felt. She did it anyway. I walked in on the tail end of it, and when Terry turned around, he went off on me as he stormed out the door. I wasn’t even sure what had happened. Then it clicked, and I went after him. I just couldn’t keep up with the car. I couldn’t run that fast. I tried to talk to him, but he was shielding, and he wouldn’t let me in. By the time I went back for a car and headed out to your folks’ place, he’d already wrecked.”
Slade needed to sit down. He didn’t care if it was in a snowbank. He parked his ass in the snow and ignored the cold seeping through his jeans. Dimitri sat several feet away, scrubbing at his eyes.
“I loved him. You don’t have to believe that. I don’t care,” Dimitri said. “You want to beat on me some more, have at it. I deserve it. I should have warned him, but I thought I had her talked out of it. I thought we were going to talk. That’s why I ran out and got food for us. So we could feed each other and listen with our hearts, not be snarly and snappy because our bellies weren’t full.”
“He wasn’t talking to you because he was talking to me,” Slade said, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He hated discussing that night, but after what Dimitri had just revealed, he couldn’t keep the words from pouring out. “He said you guys had rejected him. That he didn’t know what he’d done wrong. He was pissed at you for just standing there and for picking her over him when you guys were together long before your bond marks showed up.”
“I never chose her over him!” Dimitri growled. “I never would have done that to him!”
“Just tell me why Kasey felt he needed to prove anything to her!”
“Insecurity,” Dimitri said softly. “She’d see the way we looked at each other and how much time we spent together without her. We were trying to do better about that, but it was just a hard habit to break.”
His chest hurt. Slade stared at the snow in front of him, a warm presence at his side and fingers massaging the back of his neck. “I couldn’t get him to slow down or pull over. I told him I’d come get him, that we’d figure it out. He had the windows down, the music blaring. I could feel his anger right up until the instant he lost control.”
“I could feel it too. That was the last thing my wolf felt from him,” Dimitri said.
Slade shook his head, wishing anger had been the last thing he’d felt from his twin. “There was a brief flash of fear and then pain so bad I couldn’t breathe. I tried to push through it, but I spun out on Broken Gorge Road and sat there, frozen, until I couldn’t feel anything.”
“His anger was worse than being smashed with a crowbar,” Dimitri murmured. “I’d have rather you hit me a dozen more times than know I couldn’t do anything to stop him from experiencing that.”
Slade wished he’d hit Dimitri a dozen more times that night, but like there always tended to be, someone was around to pull him off. He’d wanted Dimitri to hurt as bad as he and his family had been hurting, only it sounded like he had been all along. So why was Slade only learning about it now? Unless he was just saying that stuff to keep Slade from choking the life out of him.
“If you went back for a car, why didn’t I see you on the road that night?” Slade growled. “I stayed with him until Doc Washington and Mr. Bernard came and took him away. You had more than enough time to make it out there, so what kept you?”
“The same thing that almost kept you from getting there in time to pull him out of the water before the river could wash him downstream,” Dimitri said. “I went into that hairpin on Andover way too fast, tried to drift, and the back wheels went over the edge and got stuck there. Sometime later, I don’t know how long, Sam Collins picked me up and drove me home. Said I was wandering around looking dazed and making no sense, so he figured I was high and dropped me off. Someone else saw the car and called for the wrecker. They towed mine to Emmerson’s right after they’d dropped off Terry’s.”
Slade jerked, recalling the car sitting a few feet away from Terry’s when he and his dad had gone to clean it out. The back end of Terry’s car had been as pristine as ever; it was the front that was a twisted wreck from where he’d slammed into the railing, but the worst sight had been the large, bloody hole in the windshield, where Terry had been launched from the vehicle and sent sailing over the railing to crash-land in the rocky river below. Looking at that hole, seeing his brother’s blood dried there, had left Slade devastated. Looking back now, he’d thought that other car had looked familiar, but the grief was so raw it didn’t register the way it was now.
“I’ve heard other wolves say that when a bondmate dies, they feel it like a part of them has died too,” Rand said softly. “Wolves have come into the clinic in shock, unresponsive, and completely out of touch with reality after that kind of loss. It would explain why Sam thought Dimitri was on something.”
Slade blew out a breath and ran his fingers through his hair. This was a lot to take in, but the desire to hurt Dimitri had bled away, and while he doubted he could ever look at Kasey again after knowing what she’d done, Dimitri truly seemed to be hurting as much as Slade was. One thing still nagged at him though.
“How can you stand to look at her, let alone live with her and raise a family with her, knowing she cost you someone you loved?” Slade asked. He felt Rand stiffen beside him, fingers going still on his arm. He could only imagine what he was thinking about the question, but that was something to deal with at a later time.
