Promise the Moon (Lorimar Pack Book 1) Page 10

  “Very new.” Still-in-the-package new. “I’m doing a favor for a friend. This isn’t a hobby in the making or anything.”

  Perhaps sensing my unease, he changed lanes in our conversation. “So Aisha pledged to Lorimar?”

  “Sort of. It’s not a full induction.”

  “I’m surprised Cord offered her sanctuary. Didn’t Aisha try to kill Camille?”

  “A few times,” I admitted. “Cord didn’t offer her anything except a stay of execution. Aisha is here because Cam extended an olive branch.”

  “Why would she do that?” He puzzled over it. “Why would Cord let her do it?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Too bad I barely had a penny to my name. “Aisha is Nathalie’s pet project, no pun intended. As long as she doesn’t stage a coup or plot to overthrow Earth with the deserters, I get to pretend she’s not here.”

  “It was brave of Camille to offer her a second chance.” He gazed deep into my eyes when he said, “We all deserve at least one, right?”

  Pretending exhaustion, which wasn’t much of a stretch, I turned my face into his shirt to avoid his eyes and his question. Second chances were rare, and people who used them well even rarer.

  He carried me into the rental office, leaving the front door propped open for Abram. The door to Enzo’s makeshift lab stood wide, magical implements scattered across every available surface. Once inside, he settled me on a battered club chair before liberating a white sheet from one of the boxes he had yet to unpack. He wrapped me up like a tortilla before kneeling in front of me, whipping out a penlight and starting his exam. After working alongside Miguel for so many years, the guy was more than qualified to perform the basics.

  “Your eyes are dilated.” He pocketed the light and rested two gentle fingers on my wrist. “Pulse is elevated.” He wrangled a stethoscope out of an unpacked box and pressed the cold metal to my back. “Breathing’s labored.”

  “None of that sounds great.” The words slurred around the edges as I slumped against the back of the chair, embracing the darkness behind my eyelids. He pinched my arm, my eyes popped open, and I yelped. “What was that for?”

  “Stay awake.” He rose and crossed the room to riffle through another box. “Your symptoms mimic that of a drug overdose. Warg metabolisms being what they are, I doubt that’s the culprit. Poison is a better bet. There are plenty of fae herbs that not even warg healing can counteract.”

  “What are you saying?” Imminent death perked me upright.

  “You’re beta.” He lifted a clear glass jar filled with small stones. “You’re doing the job of two alphas. Is it possible someone in the pack wants your position? Or wants theirs?” He grunted, unscrewing the ribbed silver lid. “If they can’t beat you head-on, they might fight dirty.”

  I slumped in my chair for different reasons and thumped my head against the back. “The Lorimar wolves wouldn’t sugarcoat it if they wanted my head on a platter. Even if they tried, it’s hard to hide that kind of intent when you’re in each other’s heads so often.” Wolves get twitchy when the pecking order is off, and our pack had been chill until the Stoners arrived. “The others? The pledges? I don’t know them well enough to eliminate suspects. One of them might have alpha aspirations.” I groaned a pained sound. “I don’t want this to be true.”

  “That’s because you’re a good person.” He spoke with conviction about a topic beyond his grasp. “You don’t want this to resolve so that someone you trusted betrayed you.”

  “I’ve never been betrayed by someone I trusted.” Sure, people I loved had let me down. Love and trust, they weren’t mutually exclusive no matter how ideal that arrangement might sound. “I’d like to keep my streak going.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed then.” Using a pair of slender tongs, he removed a reddish stone from the jar then resealed it before returning to stand before me. “Place this under your tongue until it dissolves.”

  “It’s a rock.”

  “Yes, it is.” He pressed it against my lips, the rough surface warmed by his hand. “A magic rock. Now say ahhh.”

  Against my better judgment, I let him place it under my tongue then sat there while the dirt-and-moss flavor dissolved like a throat lozenge. By the time it was nothing but grit in my mouth, I had a firmer grasp on reality.

  “Dell?” Abram’s voice banged on my mental door.

  The volume made me wince. “Present.”

  “Moore said you’re hurt.”

  “I’m something all right. Enzo is treating me but…” I hated to say it—to think it—after he’d defended me against Moore and cared for me, but pack was pack. Getting help from Enzo without bargaining away my firstborn ahead of time felt like breaking a taboo. “I wouldn’t mind a second opinion.”

  “I’m almost to you.”

  Clever Enzo, who had been studying my face, came to a realization. “Does that mean the bond is online for you?”

  “Yes, it does.” I grinned with the relief of it. “That stuff gives a whole new meaning to rock candy, you know that?”

  He humored me with a laugh. “Let’s try this exam again.”

  I sat there like a model patient, and this time he withdrew seeming pleased with the results.

  “Well, I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “Hit me, doc. I can handle it.”

  “You weren’t poisoned or drugged. You were bewitched, which is sort of like being hexed, except it’s more of a natural fae gift than a witchy one despite what the name implies.”

  “Come again?” Maybe I was wrong, and I couldn’t handle it. “Bewitched?”

  “Enchanted? Is that better?”

  “How was I exposed?” Wasn’t that the kind of thing a person remembered?

  The run home.

  The chipmunks.

  The…something.

  I was drawing a blank.

  “Enchantments—” he humored my preference, “—are usually seen or heard.”

  A foggy memory heavy with the musk of chipmunks tickled the back of my mind, there and gone before I could grasp it.

  “Dell?” Abram’s voice boomed through the entryway.

  “In here,” I called.

  Abram prowled into the lab like he owned the place instead of he and Enzo being equal tenants. The witch took one look at the warg’s mistrustful expression and stepped a respectful distance away, trading positions in a move so smooth as to have been choreographed.

  “I don’t see any obvious signs of trauma.” Abram checked my eyes and pulse before drawing back to conduct the frank physical examination Enzo had carefully avoided. “How do you feel?”

  “Pretty good, all things considered.” I cut my eyes toward Enzo. “I think he beat you to the punch.”

  An indecipherable expression crossed Abram’s face. “Is that right?”

  Enzo spread his hands. “There’s no debt between us.” He made sure I heard that part. “I’m here to help, and there were no limitations placed on what I could and couldn’t do in service to your pack.”

  That was just the opening I needed, and I wedged myself right in there. “So, in theory, you could help with the O’Malley case?” I eyed the jar of rocks behind him. “You broke an enchantment on me. Do you think you could break one on, say, a parking lot?”

  “That sounds like glamour, not an enchantment.” He pursed his lips. “Some areas of fae magic overlap Earth magic, but glamour is uniquely fae. It’s the hardest area of their magic to crack, but I can try.”

  “Good deal.” I made as if to stand.

  Abram pushed me back down.

  “Not tonight, though.” Enzo checked the heavy silver watch on his wrist. “Wards go up at midnight, which is in about an hour and a half. I need to get in position.”

  “Oh really?” That intrigued me enough not to feel the swell of disappointment that my crusade would have to wait. “Which ward?”

  “Both. The one around the RV park and t
he one around the lake.” He smiled at my shock. “I work fast, and I work hard. I’m here to do a job, and I’m not going to laze around just because Miguel isn’t here to crack the whip.”

  “It’s not that,” I rushed to correct him. “That must take a lot of magic. I’m impressed, not doubting you.”

  The Garzas had earned their reputation. I knew that. I just hadn’t realized how closely Enzo was walking in his powerful brother’s footsteps.

  “Sorry.” A flush tinted his cheeks. “The chip is on my shoulder, not yours.”

  Abram frowned as he glanced between us then offered me his arm. “If you’re sure you’re okay, Dell, then let me walk you home.”

  I accepted his help getting to my feet, relieved to find the floor beneath them solid. The worst of the jitters had worked themselves out of my system. “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, Enzo. We’ll talk strategy then.”

  “Sleep well.” He offered a half wave. “Do me a favor and let me sleep in, okay?”

  “That I can do.” I tipped my chin. “I’ll pick you up after my lunch break. How’s that sound?”

  “How about you pick me up and then we go to lunch?” he countered.

  “Enzo…”

  “You’ll have to explain what we’re up against, and I’ll need to refill the well after tonight.”

  Abram glanced aside, hiding a smile.

  “Fine.” I jabbed a finger at Enzo. “Friend lunch, right?”

  “Right.” He beamed like he’d just won the lottery. “See you tomorrow.”

  Abram let me keep his arm for balance. I was steady on my feet, but the wolf happily soaked up the contact, so I held on. Once we got a safe distance away, he quit hiding his smirk. “He’s pulling out all the stops, isn’t he?”

  “It looks that way,” I grumbled.

  “A lot of guys have adopted his strategy with great success.”

  “What strategy is that? Hang around and make themselves indispensable until the girl finally says ‘What the heck? You’re already here. I might as well mate you?’”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m not in the mating frame of mind.” Marrying—binding?—whatever it would be with a witch. “I’m not even in the dating or boyfriend frame of mind.”

  “Isaac,” he said solemnly.

  The sound of that name ripped a gash from collarbone to navel that should have purged all my internal organs on the ground for the scavengers to feast on at dawn.

  “Yes,” I said hoarsely.

  “The true curse of the warg is that we give our hearts so easily, so assuredly, with no guarantee our devotion will be returned.”

  I forced myself to read his expression. “You believe in soul mates, I take it?”

  “I do.” He seemed to need a moment. “I think all of us have a perfect other half, I just believe that because of our heightened senses or perhaps our animalistic natures, we recognize them faster.”

  “And when they don’t recognize us?” I asked, a sharp edge to my voice. “What then?”

  His expression grew distant. “Then we give them time and space and pray that one day they might feel the same pull as we do.”

  “You’re saying you don’t think it goes away.”

  “For wargs?” He shook his head. “No. I don’t think it does.”

  “What about Bessemer?” Our former alpha had burned through several willing females.

  “His first mate died in childbirth.” He cut me a glare that said I already knew this. “He’s broken. He’s been that way for a long time.”

  “No argument here.” I exhaled a hiss between my teeth. “Though I’m not certain that’s the root of his issues.”

  Meemaw had chosen to stay in the Chandler pack, even when things went south, out of respect for the founders. Except Cord was Elsa and Terry Chandler’s grandson—not Bessemer—so it was Lorimar who continued their legacy, in my personal opinion. One day, when the dust settled, I hoped to offer her a home here.

  “Some people bounce back,” he said conversationally. “They marry or whatever the custom of their partner dictates.”

  “I really don’t want to have this conversation right now.” Or ever. “Isaac—” fire spread through my chest at the mention of his name, “—is always going to be a part of my life, because Cam is my alpha, and he’s her cousin. He may not visit often. He may not visit ever. But I see him in her, and I hear her talk to him, laugh with him, and it guts me that he’s moved on in a way I can’t. At least not so fast.”

  Abram patted my shoulder. “You’re strong, Dell. Stronger than most realized.” He squeezed. “A year ago, would you have imagined yourself here?”

  “As a beta under alphas I respect?” It was as close to a fairy tale as I had ever heard. It was my childhood dream come true. My dearest wish granted. “No. I was so broken, all I thought about was surviving today so I could get up and start all over again tomorrow.”

  “And yet, here you are.”

  Unsure where this was headed, I agreed. “Here I am.”

  “Cord thinks of you as a sister. Isaac is Cam’s cousin. Her favorite. Those are strong opposing forces.” His hand dropped to his side. “You’re going to have to think long and hard about how much of this ache you allow Cord to see when he returns home for good. Otherwise the tension might cause strife between them.”

  I shot him a startled glance. “You don’t think Cam told him?”

  Abram burst with laughter. “She probably prefers her cousin’s head on his shoulders. At most she might have admitted you dated and things didn’t pan out. I doubt she told him your wolf chose him as her mate.” The sky held his attention as we walked. “She’s not a warg. She may not understand it. Hell, she may not know it. Her relationship with Cord is complex, and she may be unable to parse his devotion to her from species traits.”

  “Cord doesn’t believe in soul mates either,” I interjected with no small amount of glee.

  “He didn’t until he found Cam.” Abram smiled back, all teeth. “Ask him again when he gets home. I dare you.”

  Grumbling under my breath seemed the best response, so that’s what I did.

  Now that he mentioned it, I hadn’t considered Cam’s quiet acceptance as anything more than that. I appreciated the distance she gave me to lick my wounds, but Abram had me wondering about her composure over the incident.

  The bottom line was plenty of men had held power over me. None of them had broken me. Not one of them had so much as scratched the surface. So why was this one man so different? What about him had me questioning what I knew about wargs and soul mates and happily ever afters?

  How sad was it that—for a fraction of a second—I considered tattling? Like running to Cam with the burden of my heartache might somehow fix it? The last thing I wanted was him showing up out of obligation or a misplaced sense of responsibility.

  Wargs didn’t die from broken hearts, damn it. They didn’t.

  Dark crimson pooled on the knotty pine planks. A pale figure dressed in a long ivory gown, a wedding dress cut in the cape style popular in the seventies, lay stretched across the floor. The bodice had been sliced clean to her navel, and the butchery didn’t stop there. A knife protruded from the gaping hole blackening her chest, smudged fingerprints on the handle. Her arms rested limp at her sides, both hands soaked in the blood she had used as ink to pen her epitaph.

  Death smoothed the lines so often pinched in her face. A fading smile curved her lips.

  My father’s name was written in blood at her elbow, a final accusation, along with dozens of names I had never heard.

  “Momma was weak. I am not,” I murmured my favorite mantra under my breath.

  Abram slowed his pace. “What was that?”

  Great. Now I was talking to myself. It had taken my mother years to work up to that point. “I said I’ll speak with the alphas when they get home. Secrets fester. They cause rifts between alphas and their seconds, and that’s not going to be us.”

  Abram nodded. �
��That right there is how I know you’ll survive this. You’re too stubborn to curl up and give in.” He pulled up short when we reached my RV, and he noticed my deck. “Besides, your broken heart has increased your productivity threefold.”

  I shrugged in agreement. “A girl has to occupy her time somehow.”

  “Until you accepted the O’Malley case, you filled your hours waiting on the nightly hunts.” He mused, “It seems you had some aggression in need of working out.”

  I didn’t correct him, because he wasn’t wrong.

  “Zed thinks I’m too distracted to notice I haven’t been hunting deserters with the pack the last few days.”

  “You’re kind to give his poor nerves a break.” He chuckled. “That’s part of what makes you an excellent beta. Not only your physical strength, but your emotional fortitude. Your heart.”

  My gut roiled at the mention of that particular organ so soon after thinking about how I had found Momma in the cabin where I grew up, but I was an old pro at shoving those memories into the soles of my feet then stomping on them.

  The mention of Zed tempted me to ask Abram about his prognosis, but that information fell under patient/doctor confidentiality, as well as under the “ask to his face” friendship rule.

  Two years ago, Zed fell in love with a human woman. He bonded, hard and fast. She was killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light while she was crossing the street. Meredith passed before things got serious, at least on her end. But Zed was all in from the first smile.

  Sitting at his bedside while he wept and pined and starved himself reminded me so much of holding vigil over Momma while she chose manic self-destruction—taking me along for the ride—over recovery that I had to bully myself into returning to him each night.

  Watching him suffer… The similarities almost broke me. So I gave up my spot on the sidelines. I said “eff that” to those who figured he would get over it if given enough time. I forced him to get up, brush his teeth, eat, run with the pack, and otherwise go through the motions of living until he slowly came back to life.