The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series) (13 page)

“Have you given much thought about tonight? The others are going to scope out the camping spot in a few hours. I thought you might want to join in.”

Being reminded that in just twelve short hours she would succumb to the wolf, losing herself in the process was a complete downer. Taking a deep breath to control her raging emotions, she placed a hand on his arm, not at all relishing in the fact that she could feel his muscular curves, and looked up into his eyes.

“Can we not talk about that now? Later, sure, but not now. This is our normal moment. Just you and me getting coffee and looking for jobs. Normal.”

“What happens if a customer pisses you off and you lose control? What happens if you are asked to work the night shift on a full moon? What happens if someone sees you accidentally break something you shouldn’t be able to or sees you heal if you cut or burn yourself?”

“You couldn’t let me have a moment? Fine, we won’t get a job. But damn it, I wanted coffee!” She was fuming. He had ruined her moment. She could feel the sadness taking over and quickly left the shop, kept her head down and walked toward the long road that led to their house.

“Mackenzie! Wait!” She considered stopping, but then decided fuck it. He could chase after her if he wanted to.

~*~

Eventually, Geoff stopped calling her name and just walked behind her. She was glad he hadn’t tried to walk with her. All she would see was someone who was babysitting her. Was he even really her friend or was that because Margret asked him to pretend?

As soon as the thought slipped into her mind, she dismissed it. Margret wasn’t cruel. She wanted Mackenzie to have friends. She was doing everything she could to help Mackenzie adjust.

The snow crunched under her feet as she cut across the lawn instead of walking all the way around to the driveway. She knew that Geoff wouldn’t follow her. He didn’t like his pants to get wet. She couldn’t care less.

Her to-do list had three things on it. Go inside, get undressed, and relax in a hot bath to forget all that had happened in the last hour, and to ignore what was coming in the next few.

When she opened the door, she heard a bunch of voices coming from the dining room. Thinking it was a family meeting, she stuck her head in and saw only half the house. Margret was at the head of the table and along the sides were the oldest members of the house.

“Tonight stick with your pups. Do not let them kill anyone.” When one of the members gave a little cough to interrupt Margret, she realized that Mackenzie was at the door.

“Is Geoff back, too? Can you send him in and close the door behind you?” There was a smile on Margret’s face, but she knew that the questions were not really questions at all, but orders given out in a polite way. Nodding her head, she did as she was told.

The front door swung open, the glass rattling as the heavy wood struck the wall. Geoff stood in the opening, his face distorted in anger and his chest rising and falling in rapid succession. Mackenzie could tell he was pissed and trying to calm himself down. She really didn’t care, though.

“Margret is having some sort of meeting in the dining room and asked for you.” Turning to head up the stairs without waiting for a response, she felt a tug on her arm. She allowed him to turn her around, coming face-to-face with him, only inches apart.

“Do not ignore me like that again. All I was trying to do was to help you. You would be destroyed if another incident like before happened, and you know it.”

“How about you let me move on? You told me not to get hung up on it. To accept it as part of my new life, and as hard as it was, I was trying, damn it. I don’t need you to remind me the very first time I get to go out and be around normal people. You said I could control it. How the hell am I supposed to learn to control it without being in the situation to begin with? If you were there, you could have helped me. Or is that it? You didn’t want to be there? Was it so bad to be out having coffee with me? We might not have even gotten the jobs. I just wanted to try, damn it!” Mackenzie was just an inch from his face and shaking with her own anger. He stood there and let her get it all out. He never once moved or yelled back. Her yellow-green eyes locked on his brown ones that would change in a matter of hours.

They stood there, staring at one another; not a single word spoken after both had their say, for what felt like hours to Mackenzie, but was only mere seconds. Her eyes broke away from his just long enough to travel his features and land on his lips before darting back to his eyes. Wetting her lips, she hoped with all that was within her that he would take that moment to lean in and kiss her. She didn’t care that they had just been yelling at one another, all she cared about was the physical pull she felt.

Geoff lifted his hand slowly and traced a line along the side of her face. When she leaned into his touch, he brought his hand down, along her arm, leaving a trail of flames behind. Just as his fingers threaded through hers, a throat cleared behind them.

“Geoff. Cycle meeting. Now. Mackenzie, go get ready with the others. We will be heading out in the next hour or so.” Margret stood with her arms crossed and she definitely had the ‘mom look’ on her face. Geoff’s fingers disappeared from her hand and he walked off without as much as a goodbye.

Shaking her head and hoping she hadn’t just imagined the entire encounter, Mackenzie returned to her room.

Chapter 14

Hiking out to the meeting point in the snow, a full five miles through the woods, was actually much more enjoyable than Mackenzie thought it would be. She hadn’t expected to see Natalie and Teresa excited for the night. She couldn’t help but wonder how Natalie had gotten over the fact that Teresa was her attacker.

Attacker wasn’t the word the wolves liked to use when someone was turned and then actually cared for after. They preferred to say, “sire.” Teresa was her sire. They only call it an attack when the wolf does so with the intent of killing, then can’t finish the job, and just runs away. “Runs away like a little scared bitch” is how Teresa explained it. “We may not have control of what we do when we are wolves, but we damn well know what we are doing as humans.”

Mackenzie spent most of the day wondering if she would have been able to forgive her attacker if they had in fact stayed around to be her sire. She knew as well as any of them that she couldn’t control, or even remember, her time as a wolf. Maybe they couldn’t either.

A snowball hitting her back brought Mackenzie out of her thoughts and returned her to the family hike. Every member was goofing off and having a good time, almost as if none of them would be turning into giant bloodthirsty beasts in just a few hours time.

“Hey!” Looking over her shoulder, she saw Geoff trying to catch up to her. Mackenzie stopped moving forward and bent down to tie her shoe. While she was down there, she packed a tight snowball and as Geoff moved closer, she stood with her back to him.

“Mackenzie. Look, I need to talk to you.” Geoff had put his hand on her shoulder to get her to turn around, and when she did, she had a big grin on her face. “Oh, good. You’re not still mad.”

“Who said that?” Mackenzie lifted her hand so swiftly that Geoff didn’t have time to react and she smashed the snowball on top of his head. While he stood in shock for just a moment, she ran off laughing.

Joining in on the ongoing snowball fight gave Mackenzie a chance to forget what was coming and just enjoy herself. Natalie and Teresa teamed up with her and as soon as they broke through the last copse of trees to the large clearing, the girls started pulling fallen logs to the center while the rest of the group went on with their own tasks.

Within an hour, the pack transformed the clearing into a bonfire party and everyone was just enjoying life while waiting for the moon to reach its highest point. Mackenzie tried to join in on the fun. She tried to fill herself on hot dogs and hamburgers because Margret had confirmed her theory that a full human stomach could help with the cravings as a wolf. She played the silly games with the rest of her family, but every time she allowed herself to really enjoy what was going on around her, guilt slammed through her chest. How dare she enjoy life when she had already taken the life of another and when there was nothing to stop her from doing it again?

The watch on her wrist began to tick louder. Each passing second, each millimeter the moon moved in the sky sent waves of panic through her. The earth hummed beneath her feet. Every heart beat in the clearing, and that of the animals nearby, was louder. She was more aware of every distinct smell of the forest. Taking a deep breath, she tried to zone it all out.

“Hey, I’m with you tonight.” Opening one eye to look at Geoff, she sighed. Could she not get away from him? Hell, did she even want to?

“What does that mean?”

“Well, Margret likes to pair up those of us who can control ourselves with those who have yet to overcome that particular barrier. If things get out of hand, I step in and stop you.”

He had the power to stop her? Where the hell was he last time? He sure showed up quickly after the sun rose. Why hadn’t he saved whoever the hell it was she had killed?”

“You can stop me?” Mackenzie’s voice turned icy, but her eyes were burning. Squaring off with Geoff, her heart was racing and her muscles were contracting. She wanted nothing more than to release every bit of anger and tension into his face with her fists. Over and over again.

“Yes. Margret told me to. Said you couldn’t handle another accident.” He didn’t move away. Maybe he thought she was challenging him. She wasn’t. She wanted someone to stop her. She just wished he had stopped her before and was furious to find out he could have and didn’t.

“Where were you last time? You came through the trees so soon after sun up. You had to have seen what I was doing. You could have stopped me!” Her voice had raised a few octaves and they were earning looks from some of the pack. Before sobs could rack through her body at the memory of what she had done, Geoff’s hands were on her shoulders.

“I wasn’t all that close to you. You ran off. You were hunting and I didn’t know you and you didn’t know me. I wasn’t exactly ready to be chewed in half in case you were some wicked fighter and older than we thought. When I let you get ahead of me, I heard the screams. It was too late. Then the sun came up. I won’t leave you this time.”

Not knowing what to say to him, Mackenzie looked to the sky. It was almost time. Stepping away from Geoff, she began to undress. Modesty was a thing of the past and within minutes, the clearing was full of humans, naked and bathed in moonlight. All stared at the sky, waiting for the wolf to take them.

~*~

Howls filled the air as nineteen wolves padded around the clearing. Mackenzie was on high alert and took in the group with caution. With hackles raised, she backed up, keeping her eyes narrowed on the danger in front of her. There were others doing the same thing, but most were watching the retreaters. As the trees became denser and the clearing was no longer in view, Mackenzie turned on all fours and ran.

The thundering of her own heart only sped up as she pushed herself faster and faster. The earth easily moved under her paws and the wind sang as it whistled by her speeding body. The wolf that had taken over Mackenzie needed to run and play. It jumped against trunks of trees, using them as spring boards to cross long distances without touching the ground. Massive jaws clamped down on fallen logs that were thrown about, only to be chased. The ice-cold pond served as a pool and minor hunting ground as fish after fish were caught and eaten.

A snapped branch pulled her from her playful mood into protection mode. Her ears stood up and her head whipped around to look to the dark forest on the other side of the pond. Her eyes locked with another pair, and sniffing the air, she smelled another. A growl rose from her chest and she ran. She attempted to close in on the intruder, but with every twist and turn through the trees, she would lose sight of the wolf. She relied on her nose to track it down. 

Frustration pushed her harder, faster. She would catch it and she would kill it. Within moments she was on its heals. The wolf running from her stood no chance. She was ready to leap forward with her mouth wide open and teeth ready to strike when another scent invaded her muzzle. Something better. The smell was intoxicating. Planting all four feet to stop her momentum, she let out a loud howl. She told the entire forest that she was hunting and they better not get in her way.

~*~

The wolf she had been chasing just moments before had followed her. Her tail was being nipped and scratched at by the intruder on her hunt. Not wanting to ignore the call of the blood, Mackenzie pushed on, digging her claws deeper into the almost frozen ground, launching her further with each stride. Over and over, she did this until she was no longer in any threat of losing her kill. The wolf that had been following her was long gone and the scent on the air grew more potent with every stride.

Her prey sat beneath a large tree, covered in a heavy cloth, with a single lantern beside it. The wolf didn’t wait to inspect the area. She didn’t care that the lantern was lit when her large body knocked it to the side, and it didn’t care that as its jaws clamped down on the shoulder of her kill that a piercing scream filled the night air.

She didn’t feel the heat coming from the fire that had taken to the blanket at the feet of her and her prey. Not one of the victim’s fists that pounded into her side was enough to deter her as she tore flesh from bone, relishing in the tang on her tongue. The howl from the trees of the wolf she had beaten to the wondrous meal, alerting the forest to her destruction, only egged her on to finish her meal before having to defend it.

What did stop her was the rising of the sun.

Chapter 15