She rested her forehead against his chest. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Gideon stroked her hair. “There’s nothing wrong with you, sweetheart. It’s natural for you to be upset over your mother’s death, and all things considered, I’d be surprised if you weren’t more than a little edgy about going back home.” He put his hand under her chin and lifted her head. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Kiya.”
“I love you.”
“I know.” Cupping her face in his palms, he kissed her gently. “I love you, too, sweetheart. Believe that if you believe nothing else.”
“Are you ready?”
Kay closed her suitcase, then looked across the bed at Gideon. “I guess so.”
She had put this moment off as long as possible, but it was time to go. Her mother’s funeral was tomorrow afternoon. Gideon was going to transport them to their favorite bed-and-breakfast in Bondurant tonight. If they didn’t hurry, it would be dawn before they arrived.
They had made love several times last night, clinging to each other in silent desperation. She knew the risk she was taking by returning to the pack, but, regardless of the consequences, it was something she had to do. If she stayed away from her mother’s funeral, she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life. But, like she’d told Gideon, it was more than that. It was as if the pack, the land itself, was calling her home.
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
“Gideon, we’ve been over this a dozen times.”
“I know.” Rounding the end of the bed, Gideon pushed a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. He had tried every argument he could think of, but there was no changing her mind. Resigned, he picked up her suitcase, then drew her body close to his. “Ready?” At her nod, he said, “Here we go.”
Kay experienced that odd queasiness in the pit of her stomach, the disorienting sense of moving rapidly through time and space.
Moments later, they were in Bondurant.
“This place is starting to feel like home,” Kay remarked, glancing around the now-familiar room.
“Yeah.” Gideon put Kay’s suitcase in the closet, then drew her into his arms. He hated the idea of her going home, but there was no point in bringing it up again. She knew how he felt.
“When the pack runs, it’ll probably be late.”
“I’ll look for you somewhere in the hills near the river,” Gideon said. If her father got her back into the compound, there was no telling if or when she would ever get out again. At least he didn’t have to worry about Verah hunting them down this time.
Knowing their time together was growing short, Kay held him tighter. “Where will you spend the day?”
He shrugged. “I’ll find a place, don’t worry. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I will.”
Gideon grasped her arms. “If I had any sense, I’d tie you to that bed and keep you there until tomorrow night.”
“Gideon… .”
“I can’t help it! Dammit, Kiya, this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done!”
She glared at him. “I think you’d better go.”
With a sigh of resignation, he drew her back into his arms. “All right, you win. But if your father locks you up again, I don’t know how the hell I’ll get you out of there.” Which wasn’t entirely true, as long as Kusuma Ila was on his side. If not for the witch’s promise of help should he need it, he would have locked Kay up in one of his lairs and to hell with the consequences. He could live with her anger, but he didn’t think he could live without her.
Relenting, Kay said, “I’ll be fine.”
Gideon nodded. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a hundred dollars and pressed the bills into her hand. “Go rent a car,” he said, smiling. “And buy yourself a big breakfast.”
Shoulders slumped, she rested her forehead against his chest. How did you stay mad at such a man?
He glanced out the window, his skin prickling with dawn’s approach. “I’ve got to go.”
“Be careful.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
Drawing her body up against his, he kissed her, a long, slow kiss that made her toes curl inside her shoes.
And then he was gone.
Kay stood there a moment, her fingers pressed to her lips, before changing into her nightgown and crawling into bed. She lay there, staring up at the ceiling for a long time, wondering where Gideon had gone to spend the day.
Wondering if he was right and she was making the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter 35
Kay took a deep breath as she got out of the rental car and walked up to the entrance of the house. She was surprised by the rush of unease that filled her as she opened the door. For a moment, she was tempted to turn around and drive back to Bondurant just as fast as she could, but the same instinct she had felt before propelled her forward.
She paused in the entryway, listening to the muted sound of voices coming from the living room. She quickly identified them—her father, Greta, Brett, Victor and his parents.
Closing her eyes, she took another deep breath, smoothed her hand over her skirt, and entered the living room.
If she hadn’t been so nervous, if the occasion hadn’t been so solemn, she would have laughed at the startled expressions on the faces of everyone present—and none more so than her father.
“Kiya.” He closed the distance between them, hesitated a moment, and then embraced her. “I knew you’d come to your senses and return home where you belong.”
She didn’t see any reason to tell him she wasn’t there to stay. That news could wait until later. “Where is she?”
Russell inclined his head toward the dining room.
With a nod, Kay went to pay her last respects to her mother.
The casket was white and expensive. A blanket of dark red roses covered the closed portion. Baskets of flowers and plants filled every corner of the room, overpowering the air with their fragrance.
Kay blinked back her tears as she gazed at her mother. How old and frail she looked, her face almost as pale as the white satin lining.
“I love you, Mom,” Kay murmured. “I’m so sorry for everything. Please forgive me for coming back here, but I had to see you. I had to say good-bye. I know that you’re happier wherever you are now, happier than you ever were here.”
She tensed as her aunt Greta came up behind her.
“I’m glad you came home, Kiya. Your father’s been worried about you.” She paused. “And Victor, too, of course.”
Kay dashed the tears from her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Victor. Not now.”
“All right.” Greta lowered her voice. “Are you sure it was wise to come home?”
Kay looked at her aunt, surprised by her words, but before she could respond, her father entered the room.
“It’s time,” he said quietly. “The pack is waiting for us at the cemetery.”
With a nod, Greta took Kay’s hand and led her out of the house and into the backseat of the waiting limo.
Moments later, her father, Brett, and Victor’s family joined them in the car.
The drive to the cemetery was silent, save for the sound of Greta’s weeping. Kay refused to cry in front of her father for reasons that weren’t altogether clear, even to herself.
There had been only a few funerals during Kay’s lifetime—one for a woman who had died in childbirth, another for a young boy who had drowned, the last for a baby girl that had lived only a few days. Kay had heard rumors that the baby had been horribly deformed.
The cemetery was located in a meadow ringed by tall cottonwood trees, which were considered sacred—not only by the Lakota, but by other tribes, as well. The Lakota always used a cottonwood tree for their Sun Dance pole. It was said by the old ones that it was from the shape of the cottonwood’s leaves that the People learned to make their tipis.
Most of the pack’s dead were entombed in the pack vault located several yards away. The graves of those who had been buried were located inside a fenced square of ground not far from the crypt. There were fourteen graves here. The date of the oldest was 1826.
Kay walked carefully between the headstones to the site of her mother’s grave. Burials were rare among werewolves; most were cremated. But her mother had requested a Christian burial, and though there was no church service, the minister from the Methodist church in Jackson had agreed to officiate at the graveside service.
Kay listened as the reverend spoke about the afterlife, then read from the Bible, his voice filled with conviction as he said, “‘I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’ Let us pray.”
Kay bowed her head, finding comfort in the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer.
“‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven …’”
After the prayer, the members of the pack came by, one by one, to offer their condolences to the family, until only Kay, her father, Greta, and Brett remained.
Kay’s tears came as, whispering, “Good-bye, Mom,” she laid a bright red rose on the top of the casket.
She flinched when her father put his arm around her.
“I know you’re still angry with me,” Russell said, “but we need to stick together now, more than ever.”
Kay nodded but said nothing.
“I realize that you and Victor have a lot to work out between you. I suggest that the two of you have a long talk after the pack runs tonight.”
She nodded again. After the pack ran tonight, she would never see any of them again.
Back in the compound, Kay went straight to her room and locked the door. She removed her shoes and hung the black dress in the closet. She would leave it behind when she left here, because she was never again going to wear it or anything else she had worn to the funeral.
Clad only in her underwear, she glanced around her room, which held little other than her bed, a chair, a desk, and a few stuffed animals left over from her childhood. Some of her things were still at Victor’s. Well, they could stay there. She didn’t want anything to remind her of him or of this place, either. She would never forget her mother, of course, but she was going to do her best to erase every other memory from her mind. Whatever happiness she had known here had been tainted by her father’s treachery and her mother’s death.
Standing at the window, she watched the sun set the sky on fire in blazing shades of crimson as it slipped behind the distant mountains. It would be dark soon. In spite of the sorrow that engulfed her, she felt a rush of excitement at the thought of running beneath the moon. Her skin tingled. Her heart beat faster. Even knowing it was impossible, she felt that she could change now, even though the moon had not yet taken command of the sky. What would it be like, to be able to change at will? To run wild and free in the meadows and mountains whenever she wished, the way the Alphas did?
Feeling suddenly fatigued by the day’s events, she stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes. She would rest for just a moment.
She woke to the sound of someone knocking on the door. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was.
“Kiya?” her aunt Greta called. “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. Are you ready?”
Sitting up, Kay ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll be right down.”
She removed her bra and stepped out of her panties, her thoughts briefly turning to Gideon. Where had he spent the day? Was he nearby?
Wrapping a towel around her nakedness, she went downstairs to join the others on the patio.
She glimpsed Victor standing to one side. She intended to tell him not to follow her, but, to her surprise, he kept his distance.
While she was puzzling over that odd state of affairs, her father shifted. Kay dropped her towel, her body transforming from human to wolf in the blink of an eye. The suddenness of it took her by surprise. Usually, she had to concentrate for several moments before completing the change, but not tonight.
She ran after her father and sailed cleanly over the fence, her exhilaration growing as she ran through the night, quickly outdistancing the rest of the pack, including her father. She basked in the feel of the damp earth beneath the sensitive pads of her feet, the myriad scents carried to her by the wind, the beauty of the night as seen through the wolf’s eyes.
She glanced over her shoulder, her tongue lolling in a wolfish grin. She was in the lead, followed by her father and Victor, who were running side by side. She didn’t see any of the other wolves.
What had happened to the rest of the pack?
She slowed when her father and Victor veered to the left and disappeared from sight over a low hill. Her ears pricked forward when a warning bark she recognized as her father’s pierced the night. She skidded to a stop when she heard the sharp report of a gunshot followed by a high-pitched whine.
The ensuing silence filled her with apprehension. She lifted her head, her anxiety growing when she scented blood on the wind.
Throwing back her head, she howled for the pack, then raced toward the place where she had last seen her father and Victor.
When she topped the rise, she came to an abrupt halt, unable to believe what she was seeing. Her father, slowly shifting from wolf to human, lay on the ground. Victor knelt beside him, one hand pressed against her father’s chest. A few feet away, a middle-aged man lay sprawled on the ground, his throat ripped out. A rifle lay beside him.
Kay ran down the hill, shifting to human form as she went. “What happened?”
Victor looked up at her, his cheeks damp with tears. “I don’t know,” he said. “It all happened so fast. That man came out of the brush and shot your father. I … I killed him before he could fire again.”
“My father … is he—?”
Victor nodded. “I’m afraid he’s gone.”
Kay shook her head. “No. No, he can’t be.” She pushed Victor’s hand away, her own searching for some sign of life, and finding none.
She sank back on her heels. She had just buried her mother, and now this. Had she known, on some primal level, that something like this was going to happen? Was that why she’d been drawn home? Because she needed to be here?