The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series) (11 page)

When the last seats filled, Margret cleared her throat. The room fell silent and every pair of eyes was on her.

“Today’s family meeting is in celebration of a new member joining our pack. This is Mackenzie Duncan. She was alone and confused, and we are just very grateful to have found her when we did. She was turned by a stray and has been tempering without any guidance. I hope you all will help her with any questions she may have, advice you may feel compelled to give, or listen if she needs to talk. Mackenzie has endured two cycles, and I hope before the next full moon that she will be better prepared. Let’s all take a moment to welcome her to our home. Mackenzie, dear, please stand.”

Margret touched her shoulder and she knew she had to abide. Being the center of attention was never her thing. She stood but looked to the table instead of at her fellow “brothers and sisters.”

What surprised her was when she heard all the chairs screeching and looked up to see a line forming in front of her. One by one, each member came up and hugged her, welcoming her. It wasn’t until the last member came up, that her heart beat frantically in anticipation of his arms around her. Geoff.

Unfortunately for her, she was surrounded by super hearing Werewolves and she got more than a few knowing grins. One of them just happened to be Geoff. With his arms around her, she felt him breathe in deeply, then whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry, I have that effect on a lot of women.”

His arms vanished and the heat he put off evaporated as he stepped away to take his seat. Margret smiled brightly at Mackenzie then she herself enveloped her in a hug. Despite her previous embarrassment, she truly felt like she found a home.

“Teresa and Natalie will show you around and explain the chore rotations. The girls will show you were my office is, but you are not to go in there unless you are requested by me. Do not let anyone in here try to pull a fast one. No one has the authority to send you into my office. They did that before, only it backfired since our pup didn’t get in trouble, they did. Isn’t that right, Max?” The glare Margret sent in Max’s direction was playful, but his ashamed face told Mackenzie that when it happened, she was not in a playful mood.

The meeting was dismissed and a few people hung around to say a final word to Mackenzie before going back to whatever it was they were doing.

Teresa and Natalie took her by the arm and led her down the hall. Not only did she learn the ins and outs of the house, but she was filled in on all the members as well.

Chapter 12

Before even opening her eyes, Mackenzie could hear the bickering between Natalie and Teresa. In the two weeks she had been staying at the house, she learned quickly that she didn’t need an alarm. Natalie was very much an early riser and was up by seven sharp every morning. Teresa, however, was very much NOT a morning person and preferred to stay up late, sometimes not turning her light off until close to three in the morning. The bickering and the noise level became Mackenzie’s alarm clock.

At night, Natalie slept like a log, there was very little that could wake the girl up. Teresa was able to shower and blow dry her hair, watch TV, and through it all, Natalie snored away. However, Teresa was the opposite. The minute Natalie began getting dressed, the noise would wake Teresa up. Mackenzie was just glad she knew how to pretend to sleep when she didn’t want to get dragged into what seemed to be a continuous feud.

The noise level at night did bother her. She actually asked Teresa to keep it down on the third night when she worked up the courage to do so. She was, after all, the intruder. The conversation went well and since then Teresa had tried to keep it down. Mackenzie was used to early mornings and she could never hear Natalie anyway. It was the arguing that sometimes grew to screaming that usually woke her.

When the crash of something against the wall sounded through the room, Mackenzie decided to stop pretending to sleep. She had found that while Natalie hadn’t conquered her overly active happy feelings, Teresa hadn’t conquered her temper. If it escalated any further, she might be separating a fight instead of just an argument.

“Can you two knock it the hell off? T, if you had just let her get dressed instead of yelling, you could be back to sleep by now. Nat, if you had taken your stuff into the bathroom last night, you wouldn’t have woken her up. How is it that you two have been rooming together for so damn long and haven’t figured this shit out yet?” Mackenzie’s rant came without even getting out of bed. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and then stared at the two who stood there, looking at her, completely dumbfounded.

“Whatever, I’m going back to bed.” Teresa crawled back under her covers and proceeded to block out the light with her pillow.

“I’m going for a run, want to come?” Natalie asked with a smile. At least she didn’t hold the little rant against her.

“Nah, tomorrow for sure, though. It’s been a while since I ran just for fun.”
As opposed to for my life or in fear,
she added mentally.

“Sure thing,” Natalie whispered when a groan came out from under the pillow of Teresa’s bed. Rolling her eyes, Mackenzie stood and gathered her things to get ready in the bathroom. Once she was awake, there was no going back to sleep and she knew it. It was her day to dust and vacuum the living room, which as it turned out, was a completely different room than where the boys were playing their games. The living room had a television and a big sectional couch as well as a wall filled with bookshelves. Pictures adorned the walls, all of the pack members from each of the house locations were in one photo or another. She hadn’t looked at each one in detail, mostly just the ones with Geoff. She hated that she searched out those specifically.

Padding down the stairs, she could hear that some of her new family was awake, but most were still sleeping. When she got to the living room, she decided to wait on the vacuuming out of respect for those still in bed and grabbed a dust rag.

She took extra care to dust the pictures with Geoff in them. She told herself it was because they were extra dusty, but the throat clearing in the background told her she was busted ogling again. She couldn’t help it. It was as if he called to her.

“I’m pretty sure my face hasn’t been as dust-free since that picture was put up.”

“There was a smudge. I was trying to get it off.”

“Want some help?” Before she could say no, he had grabbed a rag and started dusting at the other end. In no time, they met in the middle and the job was complete.

“Thanks.” Mackenzie took the rag from his hand and put them in the cabinet below the bookshelves. When she stood, she saw one of the old tomes with the title Lycanthropy.

Mackenzie fingered the spine, wondering if she would look silly opening it up. She was surrounded by Werewolves and had yet to ask anyone any more questions. Not even Teresa and Natalie, who had become her best friends in the house.

“That’s a good one. Some of it isn’t actually rubbish. But if you want to know the facts, you should really ask someone. There isn’t a single book that gets it all right.”

“Why not? Why wouldn’t one of use write one? I mean, it would be super helpful to be able to Google ‘Why am I turning into a hairy beast once a month’ and not have a bunch of PMS Websites pop up.”

Geoff laughed loudly, his eyes crinkling as his head fell back. The flutters in her stomach that were always present when he was around magnified and she had to look away.

“Because we want people to think we’re myths. Can you imagine what the world would do if they knew we were real? Every unsolved murder, every violent crime, everything would be blamed on us. They would want to study us. Hell, they might even force people to change by injecting our wolf saliva into their blood stream. It wouldn’t be pretty.”

Geoff moved to the couch and sat down, looking to Mackenzie as if he were inviting her to join him. She finally moved her feet in his direction when he patted the cushion impatiently. Looking back toward the hallway, as if she were actually contemplating leaving, she sighed and sat down, on the other end of the couch. She was hoping the distance would keep his grass and pure man essence from penetrating her senses and turning her into a giggling fool.

“Seriously? I won’t bite. Well, at least not for another two weeks. Unless you want to see me change on demand. Some girls like that, I hear.” He grinned as if he were the funniest thing in the world, but Mackenzie just couldn’t bring herself to find the humor in the beast. The last time she bit—her whole body shuddered as she remembered the resulting carnage.

“I’m good here.”

“Fine. Then I think I will move over there. I really don’t want to have to yell.” Geoff stood and moved his seat about two feet from where Mackenzie sat. “There. Now, ask away.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” She really didn’t. She had been studying mythology for years, but she was so confused about what to believe and what to chalk up to human fears and imagination.

“How about the first thing that pops into your head. We don’t have to go in any specific order.” The first things that popped into her head were all questions about Geoff. Not the impression she wanted to give off, but damn it, she couldn’t help herself.

“How old are you? Like for real. Margret said we live a lot longer than humans.”

“We do. Ten times their life spans. I’m afraid if I tell you, you will want to run away. Think I’m some old man.”

“Yeah well, I guess you just have to tell me and find out if you’re right or not.”

“I’m two hundred forty.”

“Holy shit.”

“Are you running yet?”

“No. Just damn. Two hundred and forty! But you look like a young man. How the hell does that work?”

“It’s the healing properties of our blood. The constant healing keeps us looking younger longer. I appear to be in my twenties, but I have been around a long time. Within our pack, you will find a wide range of ages, from you, being the new baby in the house, all the way to our pack leader. Margret is over four hundred years old.”

“Wow. What about kids? Do you have any? I mean, two hundred and forty years is a long time to go without starting a family, or you know, accidentally starting a family.”

“Why, Mack, I think I should blush! Are you asking if I have had the company of a woman in my bed?”

Geoff may have said he should blush, but she was the one who flamed red. She hadn’t meant to ask that. Who would assume he hadn’t been with someone in that long!

“No! Of course not! Forget it, never mind.”

“I’m just giving you a hard time. No, I have no children. I have enough responsibility keeping the pups in line.”

“But, I mean, if there are born Weres, it is possible though, right?” She hadn’t realized how badly she wanted a future family until that moment. There were no small children in the house and if the ages were as diverse as Geoff said, did that mean there were no parents?

“It is possible for some. Born Weres can have children with each other and every offspring would carry the Were gene. If a male, born or bitten, impregnated a human woman, the child wouldn’t be a Were. They would have extra abilities, like faster reflexes, better hearing, and eyesight, things like that. A male human can impregnate a born female Were and the baby has a fifty-fifty chance of carrying the gene. Female bitten wolves are barren. They can get pregnant, but when they turn each month… it just can’t survive that. ” He wouldn’t look at her. Mackenzie was glad for it, too. The tears in her eyes were threatening to overflow. She could never be a mother. She would never have children. Another thing to add to her list of things she lost because she walked down the wrong fucking path.

“But why?” her voice was barely above a whisper, “Why can a born have children but I can’t?”

“It’s in the DNA. When a woman is born a Werewolf, her body is different on a cellular level. It has something to do with the uterus and its shape and durability. When a woman is bitten, it doesn’t make her exactly like a born. I’m not sure why.”

Mackenzie sat in silence. A minute passed. And then another and another.

“Are you all right?” His voice caressed her before she felt his hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t answer him. Truth was she wasn’t really sure if she was okay or not yet. She knew she wasn’t able to verbally answer without losing it.

“Gimme a minute.” Standing and moving over to the bookshelf, she took a few deep breaths, hoping to calm herself down. When that didn’t work, she started grabbing whatever was within reach and throwing it across the room. She heard things smash, and cursing coming from the hallway as her antics brought other members from the house to see what the commotion was. The only thing she heard that helped stop her tirade was Geoff’s voice telling them all to go away, to give her time to let out her emotions.

When she stopped throwing things, the empty bookshelf became a resting place for her forehead, and a really good place to hide her face from Geoff.

“Better?”

“Actually, yes. So, never? I can never have kids?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So then why the hell do I still have to have a damn period each month?”

“Um...maybe I should get Margret.”

Even through the harsh reality of the situation, she had to laugh a little at his awkwardness. Apparently, his many years on the earth still didn’t desensitize him to that of a woman’s natural biology.

“No, don’t. I just, I need to sit.” Mackenzie pushed away from the shelf, stepping over the disaster that lay on the floor, and sat back on the couch. When Geoff sat next to her again, she didn’t try to move away. When he grabbed her hand and gave it a supportive squeeze, she refused to read too much into it.

“Do you want to ask anything else? Or should we just maybe clean this up?”

“How about both?” She stood before he could answer and began collecting the books from the floor. As she arranged them back on the bookshelf, she heard Geoff leave the room and return a few moments later.