Christmas Moon (9 page)

There was a lot going on here that was unsaid, and it pissed her off to be kept in the dark. She’d been tempted to blurt out
stop it, I know they’re werewolves
, on the tour, but had bit her tongue. If it had been just her and Chloe, she would have said something, would have peppered her with questions, but she didn’t know any of these other women. They seemed nice enough, but she’d learned appearances could be deceiving. And weren’t Cain and Abel a prime example of that?

“You need to eat, baby.”

She smiled, knowing it was Abel, based on the endearment, before she looked up. Lifting the fork, she took a bite of the chicken salad and glanced around the table. The kitchen had been set up buffet style, and the other couples were drifting in and out.

The other twins she’d met earlier came in and sat a few chairs down. They were the only men in the two rooms that didn’t have a woman with them.
Mate
, she reminded herself. They made her nervous. Tall, thickly muscled, with cold eyes and closed faces.

Another couple came in and sat across from them. She looked up and found herself pinned under Trey’s gaze. Cain squeezed her hand, feeding her strength and support. Good thing, too, because while the twins scared her a little, this one made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. He was terrifying. How did Tara deal with that? She broke the gaze and looked at his mate. To be fair, she didn’t look the least bit cowed by him.

Abel nudged her with his elbow, and she took another bite of the salad, chewing to hide her smile. They were such mother hens. She sent them the mental image and struggled to hide her laugh when Cain choked.

He turned hot eyes on her, a slight twist of his lips. “You’ll pay for that one later, sweetheart.”

The image that filled her mind was out of her deepest fantasies. She was tied up, and a whip cracked the air. She sucked in a ragged breath, glaring when she saw them grinning at each other, and reversed the vision.

“That could go both ways,” she said sweetly.

“You know, I think I’m missing most of this conversation,” Trey said.

“You are,” Tara answered. “They’re telepaths. All three of them. I’d expect that from the twins. Bit of a shock in a human woman, though.”

“Cool. I could use a talent like that.”

Tara shuddered. “I doubt you’d want it. Ask Meg.”

He frowned. “True.”

“Ask Meg what?” The woman in question sat down next to Tara, who nodded at Delilah, Cain, and Abel. Darius took the chair next to Meg.
Her mate
, Delilah reminded herself.

“Telepaths. Trey thought it might be a fun talent to have.”

Meg snorted. “Not really.” She cocked her head and looked at Delilah. “I’ve never met another reader.”

Delilah couldn’t believe the turn the conversation had taken and was shocked to her toes. She’d always considered herself, her abilities, freakish, but the others were speaking of them like they were an every day occurrence. Well, maybe not everyday, but not so unusual. She didn’t feel any surprise from the twins, and she realized Meg was waiting for some response.

She shook her head. “I’ve never been able to read people before. It was always animals I could connect with.”

Trey grinned, and Darius laughed, tipping his tea glass at her. “We’re not exactly human.”

“Um, yeah. There is that.”

She wasn’t sure if she was ready to face that, yet, and was surprised someone had brought it up. Setting her fork down, she stopped pretending to eat and waited for Cain and Abel to finish. She needed to go back to their house and knew there was no way they’d let her go alone. She wondered if there was a way to go back to pretending to be normal.

“The rest of us aren’t either, exactly, you know,” Meg said, her gaze sharp, assessing. “Well, my cousins and I. And you.”

She started. Had she been so distracted she’d missed part of the conversation? “Aren’t what?”

“Normal.”

Tara grinned, lifting her glass to the other woman. “Normal is overrated.”

“Amen to that.” She turned back to Delilah. “Did anyone tell you we’re cousins? Me, Tara, and Summer?”

“No.”

“Ahh. Well, our grandmother was a witch. We inherited some of her talents. I’m the reader. Tara is wonderful with spells, and Summer dreams.”

Delilah cocked an eyebrow. She didn’t have to voice the question. Meg shrugged one shoulder. “The future. Sometimes the past. You can’t exactly direct that kind of thing.”

“And you, my dear,” Tara said, “will fit right in with the rest of us completely normal witches.”

“I’m not a witch.”

“Who’s to say your grandmother wasn’t?” Abel asked, and she realized he knew her story, knew much more about her than she knew about him.

That disturbed her, and she felt like the balance in this new relationship leaned much farther to their benefit than hers. What did she know about them really? Aware there were several people at the table who could apparently read her thoughts, she tried to control them, tried to wall up her emotions. No one gave her any looks or called her on her concerns, so maybe she was successful.

“Delilah,” Cain said softly. “Don’t cut us out like that.”

It did work, but she saw the hurt flash through his eyes, and she knew she couldn’t keep it up. She sighed. “Could we get out of here?”

“Yeah.”

He gathered their plates, and Abel took her elbow, helping her up. He led her through the kitchen and out the back door. When they were away from the house, she breathed easier and stopped, squatting down to scoop up a handful of snow. She compressed it into a ball then crumbled it, watching it fall to the ground through her fingers. Someone cleared his throat, and she looked up to see them watching her with odd expressions.

“What?”

“You act like you’ve never snow before.”

She grinned, stood, and dusted her hands off on her pants. “I haven’t.”

They exchanged a grin. “That’s a real shame, wouldn’t you say Cain?”

“Definitely.”

Something in that look, in their light-hearted attitudes, warned her, and she held her hands up and backed away.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” they said in unison as they bent over at the same time, scooped up handfuls of snow, and balled them together. She was quick to copy them and launched the first ball, hitting Abel square in the chest. He looked down and the white clumps falling off the front of his coat. When he met her gaze, it was with a mixture of disbelief and promise of retaliation. She laughed and took off running down the path, barely dodging three balls that zoomed by her.

She didn’t hear footsteps behind her and hoped they were giving her a head start. She grinned. No way. They would try to outflank her. She needed a plan, and a place from which
she
could ambush
them
.

She rounded a corner in the path and ducked behind a tree long enough to form several balls. Cradling them in the crook of her left arm, she readied her right for throwing. She could see the house in the distance and thought she saw a flash of movement in the trees to her right. One of the twins. She’d have to make a run for the house.

Crouched low, she took off running, trying to watch the forest on both sides. She sensed Cain before she saw him, threw on instinct, and got lucky. When he broke through the trees a few feet behind her, his hair was dripping snow. She laughed, thrilled at the impromptu game, and kept running, pumping her legs faster, glad it was something she’d done for years for fun.

She broke through the tree line into the clearing around the house and tried to run backwards to throw snowballs at Cain. He stopped, laughing, and held his hands up in surrender. Too late, she wondered where Abel was.

She squealed when he grabbed her from behind. She wormed her way out of the embrace, but he hooked his foot around her ankles, crushing her under him as they both fell on the soft snow. Her arms were free, and she stuffed two handfuls of snow down the back of his coat. He yelped, stood up, and jumped around to dislodge it. She should have used the opportunity to escape, but she was laughing too hard and winded from the run in colder, higher altitude air than she was unaccustomed to. She lay back in the snow and relaxed, watching her breath puff before her face.

“And here we thought you boys might have finally grown up.”

The voice was deep, masculine, joking, and definitely not Cain’s or Abel’s. She jerked into a sitting position, saw two men leaning against the porch railing, and felt her eyes widen. More twins? Abel held out his hand, pulling her to her feet, while Cain came into the yard. He walked up the stairs and nodded at both men.

“Dad. Pop. Y’all are early.”

“Your mom was anxious to get here.” The one who spoke shrugged, but the pause in the conversation was short.

“Well, boys, are you going to let us have a look at her?” the other asked.

They both looked at Delilah, and she fought the urge to squirm, feeling like she was being measured. Judged.

“Don’t,” Abel whispered to her before walking forward, tugging her along with him. On the porch, he let her stop and stand sandwiched between him and Cain.

“Delilah, meet our fathers. We call them Dad and Pop to keep them straight.”

She’d been having such a fun time, and here she was right back into the twilight zone. She looked at them both, trying to figure out how she was going to keep them straight, if she’d even be around long to need to keep them straight.

They looked like their sons. And wasn’t that a weird thought? She wondered which was the biological father but quickly buried the thought before Cain or Abel could pick it out of her head. She was certain no one in this crowd would consider it polite to ask. Anyway, how to tell them apart? They looked identical. Same build, same features, same eyes. Both bald. She wondered if Cain and Abel would go bald some day?

“Bite your tongue, woman.”

Cain looked incredulous as he lifted a hand to shove his hair out of his face, while Abel laughed. She grinned and shrugged. Who knew he was vain about his hair? His fathers saved him from her teasing.

“Delilah. It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m Zach.” He stepped forward and kissed her cheek. She was so surprised, she almost missed the other one.

“And I’m Steve. Welcome to the family.”

Family. She blinked back a rush of tears and uncertainty. She’d never had a family, and Steve’s words told her a lot of about the twin’s intentions. She just wasn’t sure if she could deal with it.

“Dad.” Cain’s voice was full of warning. Or maybe not. Maybe that wasn’t their intention at all.

“What?” Zack asked, his gaze disapproving. “You mean to tell us our boys are dallying?”

Cain was going to take exception to that, she felt it, sensed it as he shifted his stance and turned to more fully face the older men. She held her breath. She did not want to get dragged into the middle of a family argument. Or worse, be the cause of one. Thankfully, they were all interrupted when a woman stepped out the kitchen door on the other end of the porch.

“Y’all let her come inside. Good grief, she’s so cold she’s shivering.” She gave the older men a scolding glare, and they looked contrite.

But Delilah didn’t correct her. It wasn’t the cold that made her tremble. It was the uncertainty. She didn’t know where she fit in here, and she just wanted to escape. She shivered yes, but with the urge to run.

“Now way,” Cain said.

“Forget it, Delilah,” Abel added.

She huffed, broke free of their grasps, and went into the house through the French doors in front of them rather than walk down to the kitchen door. It was bad enough she wasn’t sure what was going on or how she really felt about what she suspected. Why did she have to end up with two men who couldn’t seem to stay out of her head? She hurried through the living room and up the stairs to the bedroom they’d assigned her, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed when no one followed.

* * * * *

“Shit.”

Abel rubbed a hand over his head, watching Delilah run up the stairs, while Cain ushered their fathers into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Cain answered softly even though they both knew their words would be overheard, the situation reported to their mother and no doubt dissected at length.

Before he could think about that, though, and how to deal with it, his mother wrapped her arms around him. “Abel. Did they run her off?”

“Yeah, Mom.” He glared at his fathers. Delilah was skittish enough without getting ambushed by his family. He fought back the urge to scowl some more and smiled at his mother. She wasn’t the cause of his current problems, didn’t deserve the brunt of his anger and frustration.

He leveled a glare at Dad. “Y’all weren’t supposed to be here until late tonight. And don’t try blaming it on Mom.”

Dad shrugged, sheepish. “You told us you’d found your mate. You can’t blame us for getting here ASAP.”

“She doesn’t seem very friendly.” Pop’s scowl was his usual default expression, but for the first time it irritated Abel.

“Lay off, Pop,” Cain said. “She’s new to this, and there are things she doesn’t understand, yet. She’s overwhelmed.”