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I’m getting comfortable here.
Sleeping on Peaches’ sofa, working from sun-up to sundown. Getting to know Charlotte and the pack, finding they’re just people. Spending every night after we’re done working sitting here on the front porch of the visitor center, listening to Charlotte play the fiddle.
I can’t believe I came here to hurt them.
It’s only been a week, but my time here has managed to warp everything I thought I knew about lycanthropes and the Heavenly Host. I thought the Angels had come to protect us, that lycans needed their guidance to keep themselves safe…but this place is heavenly in and of itself.
And there are children here. Happy, free children that don’t have to live with the threat of a blessing looming over them.
We don’t have that in Homestead. We never have.
Was I even happy all this time? IsEnidhappy?
“How about a drink?”
I glance up to find Reyes standing over me, his big shoulders casting a shadow on my face. I peer up at him and nod, accepting the mason jar he holds out to me. Condensation collects on the exterior, sliding over my knuckles as I relish the chill on my palm.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Moonshine,” he snorts. “We don’t get much else around here, and I prefer not to ask too many questions.”
I hazard a sip, finding that it isn’t actually as strong as I thought it would be. “Not bad.”
“Be careful,” he chuckles. “That’s how it gets you.”
I pass it back to him, and he turns to go, but I snag the leg of his jeans. “Hey,” I say. “You can stick around if you’d like. I don’t mind the company.”
He frowns. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” I say. He steps off the edge of the porch to settle in beside me, giving me more than enough room. “I figure you can’t be all that bad if you’ve been willing to help out all this time when you’re supposedly some big, important alpha.”
Reyes chuckles. “I see you’re learning the lingo…but I hate it when people call me that.”
“What?” I ask. “Alpha Prime?”
For some reason, the words catch in my throat. I’m not sure why, but saying them out loud reminds me how big he is, how close, how powerful.
This is why I don’t talk to him. Because he’s always working that fucking wolf magic on me, even when he isn’t trying.
“Yeah,” he says. He takes a sip of the moonshine himself, screwing the lid shut as he hisses out a breath. A few drops of it are trapped in his salt and pepper beard, and I lick my lips instinctively as my eyes settle on those drops. “You know, before all this, I was just a person. Not anyone particularly important. Just out of seminary and optimistic about what I would do with my life, but still running the earliest service for five people.”
“Surprised there were even five,” I say. “Catholicism had kind of fallen out of vogue, hadn’t it?”
He snorts. “You know just how to dig the knife in deeper, don’t you?”
“Sorry,” I shrug. “That’s just…who I am, I guess. Always has been.”
Reyes hums. “I can respect that,” he says. “But no—I didn’t always have a superiority complex. And this was somewhat of an accident. I didn’t think it would happen.”
“So how did it happen?”
“I was always a big guy,” he says. “And that’s what matters in the new world.”
I frown, staring out at the border wall and at the open prairie on the other side. “Do you miss being known for what you used to love to do?” I ask quietly. “You know…before.”
He sighs. “I don’t even know if I remember who I was before.”
We sit in companionable silence for a moment, passing the moonshine back and forth between us. I start to get a pleasant, hazy feeling that seeps into my skin, the booze making me soft.
