Hyena Moon (13 page)

She could feel Rafe staring at her, but Lenore didn't want to look up. She could feel the lump forming in her throat. She tried to get a handle on her emotions; breaking down in tears or running from the room wouldn't help her. She kept her eyes on her pizza and tried to steady herself.

Rafe's hand took her plate from her. "Here, let me get that for you." His voice was soft, so that only she could hear it and mellow, like a shallow, slow river. She let him take her plate and followed him back to the couch. When she was seated, this time next to him, he handed it to her.

"Thanks." She was grateful and surprised. Rafe hadn't done anything to express an interest in her existence before. She felt a flush of pleasure at his attention, even though it was small and probably based out of politeness, or maybe a sense of pity. She gave him a smile to show how much she appreciated his small act of kindness.

She picked listlessly at her slice, hunger gone. Lenore wondered what Cormac and their parents were deciding. She was angry that she didn't get a say in it; it was her summer they were discussing. It wasn't fair that she didn't at least get to express her opinion. Then she realized that she had already expressed it--which was how she came to be in Miami. She dropped her chin in her hand and tried not to sigh.

After a few tense minutes which Lenore spent shredding the crust of her pizza, Cormac returned. He looked stern and she figured that she'd be packing her stuff this evening. He leaned down and spoke to Kess and Finn quietly, too softly for her to hear. Then he turned to her.

"I'm not sure how you did it, but you got lucky, kiddo." He scowled, eyes darting to where she sat beside Rafe and she wondered again what was going on between the two of them. "Mom intervened for you. You can stay for a little while and we'll see how things go."

Lenore's mouth opened, but words didn't come. She looked at Cormac with shining eyes, hoping that he'd be as happy as she was, but he just looked very tense. Kess was watching him with cautious eyes. She couldn't believe her mother had stepped in and convinced her dad to let her stay for a few weeks. It was more than she dared hope.

Rafe's voice whispered in her ear, making her shiver in delight. "Welcome to Miami."

Chapter Seventeen

Rafe walked out of the house onto the deck. It was late afternoon and he thought he'd go for a swim while it was quiet. Everyone else was occupied with indoor pursuits, as the day's temperature soared into the 100s. He figured if he slathered on the sunscreen he could stay out for maybe an hour before his pale skin and the heat forced him back inside.

He stopped when he heard a splash, but it was too late. Lenore, Cormac's sister, had seen him. She was bobbing up and down in the middle of the pool like a very pretty cork. He stopped, unsure whether to go back in or stay where he was.

"Hey!" she called, waving to him. "Come on in! It's like a big bathtub in here."

Caught, he laid his towel on a chair and began to shuck off his t-shirt. He didn't like showing off his body--he was self conscious of how skinny he was and of other things--but when he looked down, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he couldn't count his ribs. He'd been allowed to eat his fill here and had been gaining weight and muscle. It was nice not to feel like he was being starved.

He dropped his t-shirt and made a running leap into the water, setting off a huge splash when he landed in the deep end. When he surfaced, he slicked back his hair, pushing it away from his face. He flipped around in the water and found Lenore staring at him.

"So you're a werehyena?" She sounded curious, but not put off by it.

He was startled at her directness. She seemed a lot more relaxed than yesterday. He knew he didn't know the whole story of what she was doing down here, but Cormac's phone call and the news she could stay had worked a remarkable change in her. "Um, yeah?" Cormac must have told her about him. He wondered what else the werewolf had said.

"Don't you know?" she teased, obviously amused by the question in his answer.

He smiled, feeling the scars on his face crinkle. "Yeah. I mean, yes, I am." This was the first time he had gotten a chance to be alone with her for more than five minutes. He kept expecting her brother to burst out of the house at any moment and bundle her away from him.

Lenore's head disappeared as she dove beneath the water, then she popped up closer to him. He had to fight the urge to swim away; he wasn't doing anything wrong, and he had a feeling she'd just swim all over the pool after him.

Lenore pushed her wet bangs out of her face. "How long are you staying here? My parents said I could stay for a couple of weeks, but I'm kind of hoping I get to stay a little longer. It's so boring up there. How about you?"

Rafe was confused and amused. She spoke fast, not really letting him answer. He was surprised Cormac hadn't warned her away from him. Hesitant, he asked, "Didn't your brother say anything to you about me?"

Lenore rolled her eyes in that special way teenage girls had. Teresa hadn't done it much since she had mastered the art of the snarl ages before, but he'd seen plenty of his classmates do it. "Oh, he said something. I don't know, I stopped listening when he got to the 'Be careful around Rafe, blah blah blah, could be dangerous, blah blah blah Lenore blah blah.'" She looked up at him from beneath thick lashes jeweled with water and Rafe felt something tighten inside him. "I can make up my own mind about people. I'm pretty sure my brother thinks I don't have the brains God gave a goose."

Rafe laughed, spreading his arms wide. "Do you think I'm dangerous?"

She gave him a measured look. "Too soon to tell yet. You don't give off a danger vibe. And you haven't answered my question."

"Oh, right." He treaded water as he tried to come up with an answer that wouldn't sound pathetic. "Not sure how long I'll be here. Still trying to work some things out."

"Where are your parents?"

He stiffened and looked out at the yard to buy a little time. She didn't know what she was asking, and Cormac hadn't told her anything. He forced himself to relax. "My dad left years ago. I was staying with my mom until she dropped me here." There, that didn't sound so bad.

Lenore looked confused. "But I thought your mom didn't get along with Kess. Why would she..." Then she stopped short, as if realizing that maybe she had stepped a bit too far. "Sorry. Maybe Mac's right and I don't have any sense."

"No big deal." Rafe shrugged. He found it wasn't. It was the truth. His mom had left him here with her enemy and there was no use in denying it. Pretending that he was an ordinary houseguest still wouldn't alter the fact that it looked like his mother didn't want him anymore. "You can ask me whatever you want."

"Really?" She cocked her head. "You're probably going to regret saying that."

He smiled again; he couldn't help it. She was as cute as one of those tiny Cadbury bunnies on the commercials around Easter time. "Probably not. I said you could ask anything. I never said that I'd answer."

Her answer was a solid wave of water that hit him smack in the face. He brushed wet hair from his face and went on the attack. He tracked her by the sound of her giggles, splashing huge gouts of water in her direction. She shouted and launched a counter attack, turning on her back and kicking water at him. He tried to grab a slick leg, but couldn't hold onto it.

"Oh, you're going to be like that!" Lenore's voice was breathless. She kicked more water in his face, and then dipped underwater.

He felt her hands on his leg and then she snatched him beneath the pool's surface. He kept his eyes open and saw her watery grin. She kicked off the bottom and headed up for air. He followed her, exploding upwards with a gasp.

Lenore swam over to the side of the pool and rested her arms against it. "Gotcha!"

He joined her at the side, content to let the sun beat down on him. He closed his eyes, feeling lazy and slow. He didn't want to think about anything other than the now. The water of the pool lapping against his skin. A pretty girl actually talking to him like he wasn't a complete freak of nature. The feeling of eyes on him...he opened his eyes to find Lenore staring intently at him.

She jerked when he caught her. "I'm sorry," she said, pointing at his back. "But how did you get so many scars?"

His torso was liberally decked with scars from hyena claws and teeth. They traced over his back and chest like a road map, detailing the routes of his many failures, the first among them being born male. This was the other reason he didn't like going shirtless. Rafe knew what it must look like.

But Lenore was born into a family of weres. She had to at least be familiar with what were scars looked like. The burn of embarrassment faded beneath her open gaze. He knew that she wasn't asking to make him feel bad. He answered simply and honestly. "Family stuff. My mom and sister don't exactly believe in fighting fair."

"They're werehyenas too?" Her eyes narrowed as she tracked the silvery paths of claws and teeth.

"Yep." When he saw how serious she was, he lifted his head up. "Hey, it's not a big deal."

"I don't understand." She gestured at all of him. "How could they do that to you?"

Rafe turned around so that his back was to the pool wall. Of course, that just meant she could get a better look at the scars on his chest. He wondered if she might ask about his face. Maybe the pool hadn't been such a great idea. "Don't the weres in your family have dominance fights?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. Everyone just obeys my dad--he's the Alpha. And Finn, Burke, and Cormac are really close. They may play rough, but they'd never hurt each other."

"You're dad is the Alpha? Wow." Rafe paused, watching the play of the sun on the water before asking his next question. "What's it like, not changing when your family does?"

Lenore's mouth turned down in a half-frown. "It wasn't bad when Severin was around--he's my other brother. He never changed either. But when he left..." she let the words hang in the air.

"So it's just you, all by yourself, when they go out for their change?" He couldn't imagine it; his family might not be the most functional, but they always changed and went out hunting together. He couldn't begin to guess what it was like to be left out of it.

She shrugged one shoulder. "It's not a big deal--or at least it didn't used to be. My friend Wyatt used to come over and keep me company. But he's a werebear and he has to get that under control before he can come over during his moon phase, so sometimes, yeah, I have to stay by myself."

Rafe's eyes widened. "Wait, you're friends with a werebear?" He hadn't even known they existed and he'd certainly never met one. He was dying to ask some questions, but he didn't think now was the best time to interrogate Lenore about one of her friends. Especially when he was more interested in getting to know more about her. He told himself that this might be useful information, but he knew that wasn't why he wanted to talk to her. "North Carolina doesn't sound boring at all." He smiled at her.

She snorted, letting him know what she thought of that comment. "What about you? Is where you used to live so different from here?"

He pursed his lips as he tried to think how to describe his home and family. Rafe began slowly, but the words came quicker once he started to talk. "Where I'm from is nowhere near as nice as this place. My mom is the head of our pack--kind of like your dad is the Alpha to his. With hyenas, the females are usually stronger so they lead the rest of us.

"We live in a small house, my mother, sister, and me. It's in a town a couple of hours from Miami. It's pretty poor and crappy which is why I think my mom is so obsessed with moving us all here. I don't know--I never saw anything wrong with it." He hadn't, at least not until his mother told them that they should.

He caught her watching him out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to look at the yard. "What?"

"So what's it like for you here?" There was something in her tone, something that he couldn't identify. He didn't know her well enough yet to read each nuance in her voice.

Rafe pushed away from the side, needing to move. He hadn't thought about what it was like here for him--he'd been too focused on figuring out why he was here. Now that he did think about being in Kess' house, he realized he liked it. He felt safer here than he did at home, as strange as that sounded. He had enough to eat. No one was whaling on him on a daily basis. He even thought he might be able to call Finn a friend. Maybe.

It twisted up inside him. He felt like he was betraying his pack somehow.

He couldn't tell Lenore any of this. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Not if he wanted her to...like him.

He tried to put on a casual smile, one that hid his divided loyalties. "It's good. A lot different from what I'm used to." That, at least, wasn't a lie.

Lenore nodded in agreement. Then she pulled her knees up to her chest and pushed another gush of water at him. "Rematch!" she shouted before diving underneath the surface.

Chapter Eighteen

Lenore wanted to go out. She'd had a couple of days at the house, but now she wanted to see the sights, stretch her legs, and actually get to look around Miami itself. Kess' house was nice and the pool was lovely, but this might be her only chance to visit and she didn't want to waste all her time indoors.

So the next morning when Finn was off for his daily run on the beach, Lenore decided she'd go with him. She ran the idea by her brother, who was functioning as her keeper while she was here--something neither of them were thrilled about. He’d surprised her by okaying it. She met Finn at the car, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts covering up her bikini, surprised when he didn't get in right away.

"Who are we waiting for?" Lenore knew Cormac wasn't joining their cousin and Kess was meeting with a few of her clanmates in one of the private offices.

"Here he is." Finn nodded his chin at the door that led from the garage into the house. Rafe was coming through it, dressed for running.