Touch of Gray 4 - Runaway Moon Page 4

  “From what Bryce has told me, you’ve had a pretty rough year.” He glanced toward the door before glaring back at me. “You want to tell me what that was all about?

  “Not really,” I said.. “I’m not exactly in the mood to discuss my feelings or my love life at the moment. My brother and my lover are out in the woods with a metric ton of lunar insanity pressing down on them, and I’ll be lucky to get them both back without injury.” I left out that I’d prefer any and all violence against them to come from me.

  “They’ll be okay,” he said, with a shrug. “The locals knew they were coming. Hell, there are packs from all over the place up here right now. The cops have had a hell of a time keeping the tourists out. Shifters have been camping out for a month now. It’s like Woodstock for big cats. You don’t have to worry about your family.”

  “All I do is worry about them,” I admitted.

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “You’ve got a hell of a mess on your hands with those two.”

  “I love them,” I said.

  “I know. I mean, Bryce has told me that. Maybe, if you’d come up once in a while, I’d have heard it directly from you instead of secondhand. You’ve asked this fella to marry you?”

  “Yes, and apparently, so has Bryce.”

  I swigged the last of my beer then went to get another one. The sun had fully set, and when I looked up into the sky, I was momentarily transfixed at the sight of the moon. It was larger than I’d ever seen it. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like full and red the next night.

  “It’s pretty spectacular,” Pops said from behind me. “Never seen anything like it. And tomorrow should be a hell of a show. With the blood moon, the eclipse, and they’re saying there might be an Aurora Borealis show to boot. Glad I got to live long enough to witness it.”

  “How will that affect the cats?” I asked, unable to keep concern out of my voice.

  “They’ll be fine, Cole,” he assured me. “No one’s going to get violent. Frisky, maybe, but they shouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “What have you guys been doing out here for the last two months?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Building a rocket to Jupiter,” he answered sarcastically. “What the hell do you think we’ve been doing? We’ve been talking. For weeks. About you and that boyfriend of yours and that fucked up dynamic you’ve had going on down there.”

  “Bryce is an asshole,” I said.

  “Well…yeah. I suppose he is. But I know he didn’t intend to poach Sebastian. That’s why he left.” Pops started lighting oil lamps around the kitchen. Apparently, old habits died hard, since I saw electric lights strewn around the place and in corners that had stood empty for decades.

  “No, he left because he’s a coward,” I retorted.

  “He left because he cares too much about you.”

  I snorted. Sure.

  “It’s true,” Pops said softly. “I’ve tried not to interfere. I stay up here, out of the way and keep my mouth shut. You boys don’t visit for years, and that’s fine. I like my quiet. But Bryce showed up here in a right state two months ago, ranting and raving about you and Sebastian and being a were-panther. It was all I could do not to haul my ass down there and smack you upside the head.”

  “Me! He’s the one—”

  “Quiet,” he interrupted. “I’m not saying he’s in the right. I’m saying he’s scared, and he’s hurt, and now, he’s not even human. It’s always been the two of you. Through everything, you’ve gone through you’ve had each other and only each other. Now, he’s got this beast inside of him, and he’s scared. Can you get that? He’s turned into the thing you’ve both spent your lives hunting. And you’ve got a shiny new toy that took his place, and he just doesn’t know where he fits in. He loves you. And he loves Sebastian. It’s all too much for him to take.”

  “So he abandoned us?” I shot back. “He’s scared, so it’s okay that he took off and left me alone to deal with everything? What the hell do I know about shifters? Fuck all, that’s what. But he left his clan, and they all turned to me as if I was their new alpha. They needed him. I needed him.”

  “I know,” he said sadly. “And that’s the problem. You two can’t live without each other. You’ve both survived so much shit, monsters and loss and violence. But you’ve dealt with all of it together. You don’t know how to exist without one another. I always told Calvin there’d come a day when he and Brie would regret how close they let the two of you become. I just didn’t realize they wouldn’t be around to see it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, unable to keep the frustration out of my voice. “We’re brothers. Why wouldn’t our parents want us to be close?”

  “Look, I’m not getting into this with you right now,” he said, rising to his feet and walking out to get more beer.

  I ripped at the label on my bottle, pulling shreds away from the glass as I stewed over his words. He was the one who’d started the conversation in the first place. He was as bad as Bryce. Always starting but never willing to finish. Quick to point out a problem but never able to provide his own solutions. Why was he suddenly trying to avoid talking about the topic he’d brought up to begin with?

  Pops came back and slid a third beer across the table to me. I caught it but didn’t open it. The roars and snarls issuing from the woods around us were setting my teeth on edge.

  “Do we have to put up with two more nights of this?” I asked.

  “Probably,” he shrugged. “Tomorrow will be the worst of it. The moon’s orbit being so close will make all three nights of the cycle feel like full moons. But they’ll be okay. There’s nothing in those woods that will hurt your pack.”

  “They aren’t my pack,” I retorted. “Those cats belong to my selfish, runaway brother.”

  Pops blew out another sigh and set his bottle firmly on the table. I glared back at him, unwilling to give an inch. I had every right to be pissed at Bryce, and nothing my grandfather said would change that.

  Silence fell over the table as we drank. Finally, he got up and grabbed a deck of cards, dealing out a game of Rummy as he’d been doing with me for thirty years. We played and drank and just enjoyed the companionable quiet. I’d missed him. Now that I was here, it seemed a shame I’d been away so long.

  We played for hours to the music of giant cats crashing around the woods, howling and occasionally laughing eerie human laughs. It had always wigged me out that the weres I’d met spoke in human voices. They seemed like cartoon characters.

  “What have you been up to? We haven’t really talked in forever,” I said as I shuffled.

  “Nice gear shift,” Pops said, with a chuckle. “I’m all right. Good health. Good spirits. Good woman.”

  “Yeah? Tourist or townie?”

  “She’s a snowbird,” he said. “Her name is Cadence, and she’s only here for the summer, though I’m thinking of trying to talk her into staying a while longer. Great sense of humor. When she found out Bryce got me hooked to the town grid, she ran right out and bought me a lamp and one of these stupid things.” He clapped his hands loudly twice and light flooded the cabin. “Stupid. But it tickled the hell out of her so I use it.”

  He looked happy. It had been a long time since I’d seen him smile the way he did while talking about his new girl. I was glad. We’d worried about him out in the woods all alone. He wasn’t infirmed by any means, but he was getting older and it was nice to know someone else was looking out for him. With us being so far away, it was difficult to get up to check on him in person as often as we probably should have.

  “Maybe, you should try to get some sleep,” Pops suggested

  “Can’t,” I said, getting to my feet and crossing the room. “I’m worried about Sebastian and Darla.” And Bryce. “Besides, I’ll never get any rest with that caterwauling going on.” I looked out the window but couldn’t see anything, even in the bright light of the moon.

  “Shit,” I said, smacking my forehead and looking around for a
clock. It was midnight already. “I left my packs out in the woods. I was so distracted when I got here I completely forgot. All my clothes, not to mention an armory, are just laying out there.”

  “It’ll be fine ‘til morning, Cole. The weres won’t mess with it, and no one else is out there.”

  “No, I have to go get it.” I didn’t really want to tell him I couldn’t sleep without my .45. It was like a security blanket. “The weres won’t bother me. I’ll just snatch up the bags and, maybe, head out to the tree house for the night.”

  “You got a piece to take with you, just in case?” he asked, ever the hunter.

  I held up the sawed-off I’d stowed next to his door. With a quick nod, I headed outside into the darkness. I hadn’t dropped my stuff far from the cabin so I knew it would only take a few minutes to grab them and find the fort Bryce and I had built when we were kids.

  The moon was bright enough I could see the outlines of the trees and larger rocks in my path. The sounds of howls surrounded me, but they seemed far in the distance, just carrying through the woods.

  “Cole!” Sebastian’s call from behind me startled me.

  I spun, gun pointed at him before I realized I recognized the voice. I raised the barrel quickly and smiled at the massive black panther with glowing blue eyes, sitting patiently on his haunches.

  “You almost got shot,” I scolded him. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “I had to get my bags and find my bed for the night.”

  He cocked his head like a dog trying to figure out if its owner had said the word treat.

  “I’m sleeping in my old tree house,” I explained. I pointed across the clearing of Pops’ yard. “I’ll be up there if you want to come to me in the morning. I understand if you’d rather be with your friends though. I won’t hold it against you.”

  A second panther came out of a copse of trees. This one was more sinewy and long. It blinked up at me, turned to Sebastian then back to me. I was pretty sure I knew who it was, but I didn’t want to offend anyone if I was wrong.

  She padded up to me, nudging my crotch with her muzzle.

  “Whoa there, Darla,” I said, pushing away her nose. “I’m a one pussy guy.”

  Sebastian snorted then trotted forward, using his large shoulder to push Darla away from me. She stalked off, her tail high in the air, running when she hit the clearing then disappearing into the night again.

  “Sorry,” Sebastian said. “I guess I’m not the only cat insanely turned on by you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, rubbing him gently behind the ear. “I love you, too.”

  He walked with me to find my bags then back toward the fort. I dropped to my knees in front of him and hugged him tightly before straightening again.

  “All right,” I told him, pointing in the direction Darla had taken. “Go play.”

  He knocked into me on his way past, and I couldn’t help wondering where Bryce was. Did he know I was out here? Was he just out of sight, watching me? Was he waiting somewhere for Bastian to come to him. Part of me wanted to call out to him, but now wasn’t the time to try to talk. He was busy, and I wasn’t in a great frame of mind. Maybe, when the sun was up, if he came back, we could sit down and try to figure something out.

  I climbed the wooden slats up the tree and pushed open the door. The moonlight illuminated the whole thing, and I could tell Bryce had slept up here recently. There was an air mattress with pillows and clean sheets, a battery operated radio and push light, and the whole place smelled like him. Suddenly exhausted, I collapsed onto the bed, burying my face in the pillow and inhaling the scent of my best friend, the person whose absence from my life had caused me fits for months. As much as I loved Bastian, he could never replace the piece of my soul that had been missing since Bryce had disappeared. I needed him, and I swore to myself, as sleep pulled at me, I’d find him and bring him home.

  Chapter Six

  For the second time in two days, I woke with a weight on my lungs. This time though, it was only one head resting on me, and it was a very warm, human face pressed on my chest.

  “Good morning,” Sebastian murmured.

  Sunlight streamed through the windows of the tree house, and the smell of earth clung to my boyfriend as he snuggled into me.

  “What did you guys get up to last night?” I asked, wrapping my arms around him and kissing his dirty forehead.

  “We ran and played and hunted rabbits, and it was great.” He looked up at me and smiled.

  “Good thing I brought your toothbrush,” I said with a laugh. “Sorry, I can’t get past dead bunny morning breath.”

  “Fair enough,” he said with a yawn. “I’m exhausted anyway. Do you mind if I crash for a few hours? Then I’ll get cleaned up.”

  “Sure, babe,” I agreed. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with a yawn. “Maybe nine? I’ve been here for a while.”

  I slid off the air mattress and tucked him in. He was already asleep by the time I slung my bags over my shoulder and climbed down.

  Pops was on the front porch, two steaming mugs on the table next to him. I dropped my duffels next to me as I flopped into a chair and picked up my coffee.

  “I don’t suppose Bryce had plumbing installed, too?” I asked hopefully.

  “Yeah, first thing he did when he got here. Brought in a contractor and built a full bathroom out back. I think he called the electrician when he got sick of cold showers and warm beer. You boys were always fine with it when you were younger. Not sure why you suddenly need to be all pampered up here now.”

  I snorted. Only my backwoods grandfather would think a hot shower was pampering. He’d been pissing in the forest and bathing in Lake Superior for fifty years.

  Honestly, I was grateful to Bryce for doing all of this for Pops. At his age, it would be easier on him to have at least a few comforts. And try as he might to pretend he hated it, I’d bet dollars to donuts he was thrilled with running water. If he really hadn’t want it, he wouldn’t have let Bryce do it.

  “Have you seen him yet this morning?” I tried to sound casual, but Pops’ look told me I’d failed.

  “Yeah, he showed up as soon as the sun rose. Cleaned up, got dressed and took off again. I accused him of avoiding you, but the little bastard flipped me off and didn’t say a word. Ungrateful wretch.”

  Yeah, that was Bryce. Selfish twat.

  “Do you mind if I use your facilities? I’m getting pretty ripe.”

  “Go on then,” Pops said, getting to his feet. “I’ll make some lunch.”

  “Lunch? What happened to breakfast?” I looked around, but it was impossible to gauge the time from the sun when it was mostly blocked by all the trees.

  “You slept through it,” he answered with a shrug. “It’s almost noon. Go get your ass in the shower. Once I start grilling, I have a feeling we’ll have a pack of hungry humans roaming around the yard.”

  Noon? Sebastian really needed to work on his time telling or he’d never get his backwoods merit badge.

  “Do you need me to run into town for supplies?”

  “No need,” he said, with a snort. “Those fuzzy bastards left me about twenty rabbits and two whole deer on the back porch last night. Worse than housecats with mice, I swear. Bryce helped me field dress ‘em this morning, so I just need to cut everything up and get it grilling.”

  “You know, cats generally bring prey to bad hunters,” I said, with a smirk. “Maybe, your grandson is trying to tell you something.”

  He reached out to smack me upside the head, but I dodged him, snagging my bags before heading through the house toward the addition I hadn’t noticed the night before. Opening the door, I found myself in bathroom nirvana. Bryce certainly hadn’t scrimped on the design. Everything in the room was white and black, a mix of marble and tile, with soft overhead lighting as well as wall sconces—in case mountain man wanted to get romantic with his new lady f
riend, I supposed.

  After peeling off my clothes, I turned on the shower and stepped under the spray. The pressure was amazing, and I just stood there for a minute, letting the hot water work out the kinks in my neck and shoulders.

  I wished Bastian was here with me. The shower was more than big enough for both of us, and it would have been nice to feel assured that he still wanted me. After he’d reunited with Bryce last night, I’d been afraid he wouldn’t come back to me. Waking up with him had been a welcome surprise.

  What was not a surprise was that Bryce was avoiding me. He’d been running for months. My presence here probably wouldn’t do much to change his mind about staying away. But hopefully, he’d at least talk to me, and I could convince him to come home. I sort of understood his need to leave, but it was time to man up and get back to work. Living out in the middle of nowhere worked for Pops. It wouldn’t work for my brother, as evidenced by the immediate need to add plumbing and electricity to the house. Hell, I hadn’t checked, but I was willing to bet there was satellite internet in the place now, too. He was a creature of comfort and wouldn’t be happy out here forever.

  I turned off the water and climbed out, wrapping a towel around my waist before digging through the cabinets for a razor. I found Bryce’s electric one and went to work weed whacking the three-day growth on my face. When I was recognizable again, I got dressed then headed out to help Pops man the grill.

  He hadn’t been wrong about the smell of meat drawing all the shifters. There were dozens of people in various stages of undress sitting on the lawn in small packs. Our clan was completely clothed and assisting Pops with the butchering near the house. Others were at the barbecue cooking. Another group was at the picnic table chopping up vegetables they must have pulled from the large garden Pops kept at the side of the house.

  I glanced around, but there was no sign of Sebastian or Bryce. No surprise there. Bastian was probably still crashed out, and Bryce might stay away until dark.

  “You’ll get whiplash looking for them,” Darla said, stepping beside me and bumping me with her shoulder. “I can save you something if you want to go to Sebastian. Or go find Bryce.”