Wolf Moon (35 page)

Nick released the arm of
the one—but not before having done some damage to it—and whined as
the vampire squeezed. His legs kicked, and his neck flailed as he tried to
reach around to stop his attacker.

I sped up. I needed to
hurry, and I needed to take them all by surprise. I turned left and stayed
hidden in the shadows for as long as possible before taking a sharp right. The
growl that had been building since I caught the scent of Nick’s blood finally
escaped, and I launched myself into the air. I turned my body in mid-flight, my
jaws open wide and eyes locked on the vampire who clutched Nick to his chest.
Nick and the coven noticed me, but it was already too late for them to counter
my attack.

I felt the impact as my
mouth wrapped around the vampire’s head, and the three of us fell to the
ground. Nick was released as I tightened my jaws, and the vampire screamed. His
hands reached up and tried to pry me off of him, but with one shake of my neck,
his head was torn clean from his body. The taste of death and congealed blood
coated my tongue, but I didn’t have time to focus on that; the four other vampires
had their sights set on me, and Nick was down a leg. Beside me, he stood as
tall as possible, ears pinned back and teeth bared, but I knew he wouldn’t be
able to hold his own with a broken leg.

Thankfully, he wouldn’t
have to.

The rest of the Pack came
barreling from the trees just in time, and the nine of us took on the four vampires,
disposing of them within minutes. As soon as the last vampire turned to dust
beneath me, it’s almost black blood still dripping from my teeth, I turned and
watched Nick fall to the ground. Not only was he exhausted,
but
he was covered in his own blood. Beyond his broken leg, I hadn’t noticed the
cuts and tears on his body.

His eyes were open, but
barely, and his breathing shallow. He wanted to let them close, but I couldn’t
let him. I nudged him with my nose and licked his cheek. He huffed, and it
looked like he smiled a little as he regarded me with gratitude.

Soon, a hand was on my
shoulder, and I growled from being startled. It was just Miranda.

“Let me take a look,” she
said, kneeling next to Nick, completely naked.

He whimpered as her hands
moved through his soft brown coat and down his broken leg. When she grabbed
above and below the fractured bone, I held my breath. Nick wasn’t going to like
this.

She yanked once, and the
howl he released was excruciating. It made my stomach flip with nausea. I hated
seeing him like this. Even though I knew she was only trying to help, my ears
flattened against my neck and I growled at her as I stepped over him protectively.

She nodded once and
backed away. I leaned forward and started to lick the blood from Nick’s leg. As
the fur shifted beneath my tongue, I noticed his wounds already starting to
heal. Would he be able to shift back right away? How would his arm be when we
returned to the house?

That was when I
remembered my parents.

With a gasp, my head
snapped back in the direction I’d originally come from. Were they okay? Would
they question the two wolves stalking around the house? What would I tell them
when I brought Nick back beaten and broken?

Nick groaned beneath me.
I must have been lost in my thoughts for far longer than I thought, because
when I looked back at him, he was human again. His skin was covered in gashes
that were slowly healing. His forearm was bruising, and was clearly broken, but
he was able to walk. Marcus and Jackson, also naked, stepped forward and helped
Nick to his feet.

As they held him up,
Jackson looked down at me. “Your clothes are a couple hundred yards from the
house. You want to shift back now or wait? We need to get him somewhere to
dress his wounds ASAP.”

I was too shaken to shift
back just yet, so I walked alongside them for a bit, always looking back to
make sure Nick was okay. He was lucid and walking, but he did have to rely on
Jackson and Marcus to stay upright. We found Nick’s clothes first, and he
pulled them on as quickly as possible. His shirt gave him the most grief, and
he needed someone to help him with the buttons. Jackson manned up. Nick thanked
him, and it was one of the first times I noticed the animosity between them
seemed thinner. Maybe Nick forgave Jackson for what he did to me that night in
Chaparral Park.

By the time we found my
dress, I was calm enough to focus on shifting back. Surprisingly, changing back
into my human form was easier than it had been in the past. I took pride in it
for a brief moment before pulling on my blue dress and heading toward Nick.

He looked relieved to see
me, and let me throw my arms around his neck. I was mindful of his arm as I
whispered my relief against his neck. “Thank God you’re okay,” I said, tears
burning my eyes as I clenched them shut. “I’m so glad I found you.”

“I told you to stay,” he
murmured, threading the fingers of his good hand through my hair and pressing
his lips to my shoulder repeatedly. “Always so stubborn and reckless.”

I pulled back and held
his face in my hands. I looked him over. “I
felt
you,” I mumbled. “You needed help.”

“She’s right,” Marcus cut
in. “They’re getting good at covering their tracks. They had us going in an
entirely different direction. If Brooke hadn’t gone after you, we might not
have made it in time.”

I swallowed the lump that
had formed in my throat from the mere possibility that something could have
happened to Nick had I not arrived in time to help him. Sensing my distress,
Nick pulled me back toward him and held me. He kissed the top of my head, and I
melted into him. “Reckless but intuitive. That’s my girl.”

“You should get him back
to the house and bandage him up,” Roxanne said from behind us. “He needs to
rest.”

I nodded before something
occurred to me. “The window,” I said aloud. “It’s completely shattered. We
can’t stay there.”

Marcus stepped forward.
“I’ll call into the city and see if I can make reservations at a hotel there.
I’ll call Nick’s cell with the information. The two of you should stay with
them until they leave the country. Keep them safe.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I
whispered, glancing up at Nick again and back at Marcus. “For everything.”

After leaving the Pack in
the woods, Nick and I walked around the house and entered through the front
door. Mom and Dad came running as soon as we stepped over the threshold, and
threw their arms around me, knocking Nick and me back a step.

When they pulled back,
they noticed the grimace on Nick’s face before they noticed the blood seeping
through his white shirt.

“Dear lord,” my mother
whispered. “What happened?” Then her gaze found me. I knew I must have looked
rough. I was likely covered in dirt and a few scratches. There could very-well
still be vampire blood on the side of my lip that I would have to try and pass
off as my own from getting in a fight, and my hair…good grief, my hair was
probably tangled and standing on end.

“The guys who broke the
window took off,” Nick explained, sounding even rougher than before. He needed
rest. “I followed their tracks, but they’d hidden in the bush and jumped me.
They caught me by surprise, and had me beat…until Brooke showed up.” He gave me
a gentle, yet affirming squeeze around the shoulders. “She kicked ass and saved
me.”

“Well, someone had to be
the hero,” I quipped.

Mom reached out, her
thumb grazing the side of my mouth. I tasted the foul vampire blood as the
flakes hit my tongue. “Are you okay?” she asked me.

“Fine. One of them hit
me,” I lied. “Let’s get Nick onto the couch. We’re going to make some
reservations at a hotel in the city and we’ll all stay there tonight. It’ll be
safer.” I nodded toward the broken window. “And warmer.”

By the time we got Nick
comfortable, his cell phone vibrated on the coffee table; everything was set
up. Marcus was able to get two suites with adjoining doors at The Fairmont
Palliser hotel in Calgary. It sounded expensive. I’d have been happy with just
about anything, as long as it was safe.

Mom grabbed the first aid
kit from the bathroom upstairs, and she helped me dress Nick’s wounds. Nick was
able to hide the fact that his arm was broken from my mom, but he had a hard
time steering her away from all the old scars that littered his body. She eventually
bought the story he fed her about having a rough time in the years that
followed Bobby’s death and getting into a lot of bar fights just to feel something
other than grief.

Once Nick’s wounds were
all patched up, I packed our bags while Mom and Dad packed theirs, and then we
headed out to Nick’s truck. Nick was about to hop behind the wheel, when I
stopped him.

“You can sit up front
with me,” I agreed, “but I’ll do the driving.” He looked ready to argue, so I
lowered my voice. “I can’t risk you hurting your arm further. Just help me navigate…please?”

Nick conceded with a nod.
“Of course.”

Soon, we were on our way
into Calgary, and as I pulled onto the main highway, Nick chuckled softly next
to me. Curious, I acknowledged him with a quick glance. He nodded toward the
time on the stereo. It was ten past midnight.

He took my right hand and
brought it to his lips. “Happy New Year, Brooke.”

I inhaled deeply, trying
to remember the resolution I so desperately wanted to keep.
This is my life now,
I told myself.
It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.
It’s going to be what I make of it.

Even though we’d just
been through yet another life and death situation, I smiled and threaded my
fingers through Nick’s. “Happy New Year.”

M
y parents tried to pretend everything was fine, but their fear and
confusion thickened the air in the truck like smog. I knew it wasn’t their
fault, and I certainly couldn’t blame them for feeling this way. My only real
concern was what kind of questions were going to follow the silence.

After checking into the
hotel, the four of us rode the elevator to the top floor and found our rooms.
Once Nick was settled into bed, I knocked on the door that adjoined our rooms.
My mom opened the door, and I could hear the water running behind the closed
door of their bathroom.

I walked past her and
over to their window. The lights in the city were bright, and I could hear the
loud base from the music of a nearby
night club
. It
was doubtful my mom could hear it; my range of hearing went for miles.

“How is he?” she asked. I
watched her reflection in the window as she perched herself on the edge of the
lone king-sized bed.

“Resting,” I replied,
readying myself for what was to come.

“And you?”

“Worried.” I turned my head
to the side, glimpsing my mother through my periphery. “About you.”

The bathroom door opened,
and my father stepped out, his face buried in a towel as he dried it. As he
pulled the terrycloth away, I noticed his complexion was pale and his eyes held
questions I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Silence filled the room,
none of us knowing what else to say or how to bring up the giant purple
elephant in the room. I couldn’t tell them the details of what happened
tonight, but they did deserve some kind of explanation, didn’t they?

Dad sat next to Mom on
the bed, both watching me expectantly. My heart thundered, blood pulsing
through my veins thick and heavy.

“What happened tonight?”
Dad finally asked. “You just…took off.”

I shrugged, unable to
meet their scrutinizing gazes. “You saw what those thugs did to the window.
Nick needed help. There were five of them and only one of him.”

Another
pause
while they looked at one another. “Your father tried
to go after you,” Mom confessed, surprising me. “He was stopped by two wolves.”

I made a note to both
thank and scold Colby and Zach. I was grateful they kept my father from tailing
me, but they should have been more careful.

“Are you…
”
I began. “Are you okay? They didn’t…?”

Dad shook his head. “It
was like they were intentionally standing watch and not there to hurt me. Like
a couple of guard dogs.”

I could practically see
the investigative wheels turning in my father’s head. “It was late and dark,” I
tried to argue. “I’m sure they were just passing by and gave you the once-over
before realizing you weren’t what they were after.”

He wasn’t buying it, but
he didn’t dig any further.

“Nick was pretty beat up.
He going to be okay?” my father inquired further. He was using the tone he used
when interrogating a suspect and it made me uneasy.

“He’s resting now,” I
responded, crossing my arms in front of me as though they could protect me.
“He’ll be fine, though.”

Dad released a sigh,
almost as though he was finished dancing around the subject. “Look, something’s
going on…has been for a while. What your mother and I can’t understand is why
you refuse to talk about it.”

“It’s…” I paused. “It’s
complicated.”

“
Un
complicate
it,” he demanded. “I
think we deserve to know. We were in just as much danger as you were tonight.”

He was right; they were
in danger tonight, and while I wouldn’t have let anything happen to them, they
were still put in the middle of this damn war that had been going on for
decades. I heaved a sigh. “I can’t,” I confessed. “But believe me when I say I
want
to.”

Dad stood up and crossed
the room. “What are you mixed up in here,
Brookie
?”

“Dad, I promise you, it’s
not as bad as it looks…and after tonight, things will go back to normal.”

His eyes narrowed like he
was analyzing my words for the truth—that these intruders would never
bother us again because we’d disposed of them for good. Part of me hoped he’d
figure everything out on his own, because then I wouldn’t be held responsible
for letting the secret slip.

But, if he did figure it
out, would he be able to handle it? It was hard to say.

His eyes held mine, and
it felt like he was boring his way into my head, trying to find the answers
they both so desperately sought. I could feel myself beginning to crack under
the pressure of his stare, and I just opened my mouth when a deep, scratchy
voice to my left startled me.

“She’s safe here, Mr.
Leighton,” Nick said, resting against the adjoining doorframe. He tried to make
it look like he was casually leaning, but I could tell he was using it to stay
upright. He needed to be in bed.

“Safe?” Dad shouted,
thrusting his finger behind him at the door. “You call what happened back there
safe
? Look at yourself and try to
feed me that bullshit line again, son.”

“Look,” Nick said,
pushing off the
door frame
and stumbling slightly as
he held his broken arm to his body, “what happened tonight was…” He stopped to
catch his breath,
then
looked my father dead in the
eyes. “Well, I won’t say it was a one-time occurrence, but it was the last.”

“How can you be sure of
that?”

Conviction buzzed off him
even before he spoke, and his eyes held Dad’s almost dominatingly. “I just am.”

Dad seemed to pick up the
meaning, but instead of being as
horrified
as a Police
Captain should be, he seemed almost…appeased. His jaw clenched and then relaxed
before he sighed. “It’s late,” he said, his voice a little softer than a minute
earlier. “We should turn in. Maybe talk more over breakfast.”

Nodding, I turned toward
Nick as he headed back into our room. The second I closed the door behind us,
he stumbled, and I only just made it to him in time to let him lean on me until
we made it to our bed.

“What were you thinking?”
I demanded, brushing the hair off his now-sweaty forehead. “You were supposed
to be in bed.
Resting
.”

Nick chuckled. “It
sounded like you needed a little help.”

“I had it under control.”

“I didn’t want you to
have to lie to them any more than you already have,” he continued as I helped
ease him back on the bed. He leaned back against the headboard and winced as he
brought his arm against him.

“It still hurts, huh?”

Nick shrugged his good
shoulder. “Only when I move.”

With a quiet giggle, I
shook my head. “Then stop.”

“I’ll be fine.” He
readjusted himself until he was lying down comfortably.
Or,
as comfortably as possible.

I rose off the bed and
rifled through my bag for my toiletries bag. “I’m just going to go change and
clean up, and then I think we should try to get some sleep.”

By the time I finished up
in the bathroom, Nick was snoring lightly on the bed. I crawled beneath the
covers, and within seconds, he turned toward me and gingerly draped his injured
arm over me. I snuggled into his embrace.

“Is everything really
going to be okay?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “What if there are
more of them?”

Nick’s lips grazed my
shoulder. “With
Gianna
and Bobby gone, the others are
too new and weak to assemble an army against us. We took out five of them
tonight. That diminishes their numbers substantially. I’d be willing to bet
they plan on getting the hell out of dodge the first chance they get.”

I took comfort in his
words and let the warmth of his embrace lull me to sleep. I looked forward to
living my new life without having to constantly look over my shoulder…

And that life started in
the morning.

The day after the attack,
I expected my parents to grill Nick and I further, but they seemed to have
dropped the subject entirely. I was grateful for this, but I didn’t let my
guard down completely either; I continued to expect the conversation would come
up at a later time. Something told me they were still trying to figure things
out for themselves so they knew exactly what questions to ask.

Nick was also moving
around a little better the following morning. His arm was still pretty sore,
and he had a hard time changing his shirt the next morning without my
assistance, but his cuts were all healing quickly. Knowing he wasn’t going to
have to suffer longer than necessary made me extremely happy.

In order to fill our
days, Nick and I took my parents around the city. On our last night together,
Nick made reservations for us to have dinner in the revolving restaurant that
was located in the CN tower. It was remarkably
breath-taking
,
and I felt it was the best way to spend our last night together.

With the coven taken care
of, I was finally able to relax. By the end of the meal, I was feeling pretty
tipsy from the wine, so Nick drove us back to the hotel, and I wound up collapsing
on top of the duvet in my dinner clothes. Nick chuckled, pulling my shoes off
and tossing them to the floor. His fingertips brushed my ankles, and I giggled
before passing out. As far as I could remember, I wasn’t even able to find the
energy to change and get under the blankets by myself.

At some point in the
night, a woman’s cry startled me awake. My eyes snapped open, and I sat
upright, straining my ears. It was after two in the morning, and my head was
still a bit foggy from the wine, so I started to question whether I’d heard anything
at all. Maybe it was just a dream.

“Brooke?” Nick groaned
beside me, pushing himself up on his good arm and looking up at me through
groggy
eyes. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head and ran
my fingers through my hair. “Nothing. I thought I heard something.” I shrugged.
“It was probably just a dream.”

I was just lying down
again where there was a dull thud on the wall behind me. It rattled our
headboard slightly, and my heart skipped. Panic raced up my spine, thinking maybe
the coven hadn’t given up and were coming for us. It didn’t take me long to
remember in my groggy state that the room on the other side of that wall belonged
to my parents…and it took even less time to recognize the sounds coming from
next door as those of pleasure and not fear.

My panic was chased away
by nausea as I sank back into the soft hotel bed, pulling my pillow over my
head to muffle the sounds. It didn’t work, unfortunately, and I was forced to
listen to my parents’…
activities
in
Dolby Digital surround sound.

Damn that werewolf
hearing. It sure was handy when you needed it to be, but a pain in the ass in
situations you cared to ignore.

“Everybody does it,” Nick
said, trying to make me feel better about what we were being forced to listen
to.

I yanked my head from
beneath the pillow and glared at him. “That may be so, but they’re my parents,
and I don’t need to
hear
it. Gross.”

Nick laughed, rolling
onto his back. “We could give them a run for their money,” he offered, placing
his good arm behind his head as he leaned against the headboard.

I knew he was
kidding—or, at least, I hoped he was—and I picked up my pillow and
hit him in the face with it. “You’re twisted.”

Still chuckling, Nick
grabbed the pillow from me and nodded his head toward the bathroom. “In all
seriousness, why don’t you go have a quick shower.
”

“It’s two in the
morning,” I argued.

“I know, but it’ll muffle
the sounds, and maybe relax you a little.”

Nick was right; the
shower muffled the sounds from next door just enough to make me put it out of
my mind, and when I was done, I curled up in bed and let Nick trace curly-cues
up and down my back and shoulders while I traced his pattern of scars. It was
something he used to do to put me to sleep when we’d first gotten together.
These small, familiar acts continued to tie me to him, and I sighed in contentment
before finally drifting off again.