Accepting the Moon: Prequel (Moonrising Book 1) (9 page)

“No!” he shouted as he rushed toward her, but stopped in his tracks when each one of them began to shift back to their naked, human forms. They enclosed Mena and the fallen male in a tight circle and then they all dropped to one knee and began to chant, their heads dropping low in respect for their pack leader and the fallen warrior in her arms as she cried great tears of sorrow.

Phoenix wanted to comfort her himself, but he knew this to be a pack tradition. No matter the great plan of Mena‘s to make the vampires and werewolves allies, he knew he wouldn‘t be welcome. Not yet.

“You think she‘s going to be okay?” Jaxon‘s voice broke through Phoenix‘s concentration, and he found that he was smiling as he nodded.

“Yeah. I think she will be just fine.”

“It‘s going to be quite the experience getting along with our enemies now. Do you think this was meant to happen all along?”

The pack began to stand and then they parted down the center. Mena was talking with a tall male, and then the guy bent and picked the body up from the pavement and cradled him to his chest, like a sleeping child.

Mena looked up and their eyes met. Even through her grief, she smiled at him.

“Yes,” Phoenix said. “I do think this was meant to happen… all along.”

Sharp January winds whipped my dark hair around my face, tangling the tresses and briefly blocking a reality I didn‘t care to face from my eyes. However, the cutting breeze wasn‘t what was chilling me to the bone. The icy gusts were actually quite warm compared to what I was being forced to deal with on this day.

Marc‘s funeral.

Over a hundred people crowded around the green canopy that covered the pastor, a dozen or so close friends and family members, including myself, and a coffin holding a dead werewolf pack leader.

Of course, Marc was no longer a werewolf. I had taken his life, as well as his position of pack leader, after he bit me and infected my body with lycanthropy. In other words, I was supposed to grow fur, two additional legs, a long snout, razor-sharp teeth, and howl at the moon every four weeks.

Keep the dog jokes to yourself. It hasn‘t happened—yet.

My predicament wasn‘t burying my husband, though; it was that I had to act like I actually gave a damn about the man that lay, still and lifeless, in the box in front of me. I had never been a very good actress, and lying had never come naturally to me, like it had Marc, so saying I was a bit nervous was an understatement. I just prayed the people who didn‘t know who my husband really had been would overlook my odd behavior as my own way of grieving. Nobody did it the same anyway.

Most of the warm bodies at the cemetery were my pack. The rest were lawyers and their spouses, people who worked at the firm and maybe a few—very few—family members.

I could tell a dozen or so of the seventy-eight pack members hated me and what I had done to their previous pack leader, but the majority seemed elated with the change in leadership. I hadn‘t had time to talk with any of them much; I had accepted the moon on Friday, and the funeral for Chris, the werewolf who had challenged me and lost, had been on Sunday morning, and now Marc‘s ceremonial occasion was today, Monday.

I was expected at the courthouse the following morning to give a statement to the press about how Marc was such a stand-up guy and always put others‘ needs before his own, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda—

I know what you‘re thinking. Why would they ask his wife to do something like that so soon after his death? That was actually my doing. Waiting a whole week wasn‘t going to happen. I needed it all behind me. Dead. Buried.

I stared at the beautifully crafted oak wood box in front of me, and thought,
Literally, I need you buried.

I had changed so much in the past three days that I almost didn‘t know myself anymore. I knew it was
her
, my wolf, inside me, giving me strength mentally as well as physically.
She
had that whole ‘no nonsense’ attitude about life: if you can‘t do anything about it, then don‘t worry about it.
She
actually blocked that particular emotion from my brain, refusing to let me feel concern over things that were out of my hands.

Like Marc.

Like Chris.

I had murdered them both. Of course, both occurrences had been in self-defense on my part, but I doubted any judge would see things my way if I was ever accused. I couldn‘t tell the truth, and I didn‘t believe even my wolf was a good enough liar to keep us out of prison.

We couldn‘t go to jail. We
wouldn‘t
go. There was no possible way to hide my wolf from the system; my blood was tainted and different from any human‘s blood.

As it turned out, the coroner who had examined Marc and Chris, was one of my pack members, and had labeled Marc‘s death as homicide, and the pack had removed all his belongings from his body, so that it appeared he had been robbed before or after the murder occurred. The examiner wrote Chris‘s death off as a vehicle accident fatality. They put him behind the wheel of his own vehicle and shoved a shard of glass through his chest where the dagger had punctured his heart, and then rolled the vehicle off a cliff. I was sure glad the coroner wasn‘t one of the few who didn‘t like me.

“Don‘t look, but we got company—the bad kind,” Daryn, a pack member, whispered by my ear.

I struggled to keep my eyes focused on the pastor as he went on and on and on about how God had taken Marc from this earth, ‘too early, much too young,’ the pastor said. That was crap; I had taken Marc from this earth, and if you asked me, it was much too late.

I couldn‘t fathom who Daryn imagined to be the bad kind of company. I had thought vampires were the only enemy to werewolves, but I had formed an alliance with the Master Vampire of Montgomery, Alabama, and it was daylight to boot, so he couldn‘t be talking about Phoenix or any of his clan.

“Who is it?” I whisper-shouted over my shoulder, but Daryn didn‘t answer.

“Mrs. Hoke?”

Startled, I looked up to the pastor who was now standing in front of me. He smiled kindly and bent at the waist to take my hand. “I am deeply sorry for your loss, Mena. Marc is at peace now. Take comfort in the fact that he is with his creator. May the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit fill you with comfort and peace that passes understanding. I am always here for you and your family in this time of despair, so please do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything. Go in peace, my child, and be comforted by the love of your God. I know Marc is smiling down and watching over you.”

I just bet he‘s smiling,
I thought, but what I said was, “Thank you, Brother Thomas.” The idea that Marc was watching me gave me the heebie-jeebies, and a chill skittered up my spine. Could they not bury the body already?

I forced a small smile and he nodded, then walked away to greet one of Marc‘s uncles who had sat beside me during the services.

I took that as my cue to stand up and find Daryn, but when I turned, I was face to face with the city‘s homicide detective, Alex Rhodes.

Company—the bad kind. Crap!

Alex gave me a sympathetic expression as I slid my sunglasses into place over my eyes. “Mena, I‘m so sorry to hear about Marc. All of us down at the precinct were blown away by the news. We‘re here for you. If you need anything at all, please don‘t hesitate to call me.”

I sighed in relief, and my mouth curved up into a genuine smile. Alex and Marc hadn‘t exactly been friends. Marc had been a defense attorney, so the criminals the cops locked up, Marc had set them free. And he had been damn good at his job, too. I, however, had never had any problems with Alex; he had always been kind to me.

“Thank you, Alex.” It was all I could think of to say, because the wolf inside me seemed to be mesmerized by the detective‘s hazel eyes, strong jaw line and that perfectly tousled brunette hair of his. I swear I thought she was drooling.

Embarrassed because I was staring at him, I tried to look away, but she wouldn‘t let me. I was happy I had remembered to put on my sunglasses; the hungry eyes of my wolf had to be showing.

No!
I scolded her in my thoughts.
Not only is Alex off limits because he‘s a detective, but he‘s human! I‘m supposed to be in mourning and you want to hump his leg! No. Sit down and let me get rid of him. He is dangerous to us.

A shudder rippled through my body, and I could tell she wasn‘t at all happy with the way I had stood up to her, but I could feel her pouting and knew she was going to let me have my way—at least for now. I made a mental note to avoid Alex Rhodes at all costs.

“Can I give you a ride home? I—”

“Mena, the car is ready,” Daryn‘s voice interrupted, and I could feel his anxiety as he moved into my personal space, the overgrown male crowding Alex in the process.

Alex observed him a moment and then casually took a step back, his hand coming up to offer an introduction. “Alex Rhodes. I don‘t believe I‘ve seen you around Montgomery. Were you a friend of Marc‘s?”

Daryn eyed the outstretched hand and, instead of taking it, he brushed my lower back with his fingers and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me to him possessively.

I was in too much shock to respond. What the hell was he doing?

“Not really. Marc was my boss,” Daryn said.

Those hazel eyes shifted from Daryn to me, and then Alex lowered his arm and nodded, seeming to understand something that was not true, that Daryn and me were dating, and going public with it at my late husband‘s funeral. No! That‘s the last thing I needed on the front page of the Daily Independent tomorrow, the same morning that I was to give the press release.

I lifted the heel of my left foot and casually placed it on the toe of Daryn‘s boot, then transferred the weight of my body onto it, aiming to cut one of his toes off if I was lucky.

Daryn‘s body went rigid and his arm dropped from around me.

I smiled at Alex as Daryn limped away. “Sorry about that. He‘s my cousin and very protective of me. I guess he thought you were trying to make a move on me at my husband‘s funeral.”

Oh, God! Where had that come from?
I rolled my eyes as my wolf sniggered.

Alex took a cautious step back from me and gave me a sheepish grin as heat flooded up his neck. My wolf liked that. She liked that a lot.

Despite my wishes of staying away from Alex, my wolf forced my hand out to touch his arm. “Don‘t worry about it, Alex. I know you were only offering your condolences. Just ignore him.”

He chuckled lightly as he scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. My wolf followed every move he made and encouraged me to notice that his ring finger on his left hand was free of any jewelry.

Of course, I already knew Alex was single, but him being unattached to anyone wouldn‘t help my wolf get her way, and I reminded her again that he was a detective—
the detective—
working Marc‘s murder case. She didn‘t understand that this guy would lock me up and throw away the key if he found out I was the one who killed Marc. It wouldn‘t matter if he had developed feelings for me.

“I, uh—call me if you need anything, Mena. I mean that… anything at all.” His eyes narrowed and darted to the retreating Daryn, but he said no more on what transpired between the three of us.

My wolf resisted when I went to take my hand from Alex, but I caught her off guard and took a step back, well out of reach from the man. I gave him a small smile as I nodded, and then I turned and walked toward the line of vehicles.