AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How do you not hate me?” Benny said bewildered. “I took everything from you!”
A Black woman, Karen had been part of a multi-generational construction business in Georgia, Abby remembered. Before. Before Stefan offered her a season at Wolf Harbor. Abby knew it hit her hard, not to be a part of that, to not watch her grandsons take over the business and see them flourish.
Karen had made a new life here —she was part of the construction work, and her skills were valued. They had laborers. But she had brains. Karen had been one of the women Cujo had brought back from Jedediah Jones’ home in Bulgaria. Was that right? She thought so. There were so many stories. She should know though, Abby castigated herself.
Abby did know that nightmares woke Karen up often, and when they did, she often slept on Benny’s porch in wolf form. Sometimes, Abby could feel Benny as he would wake up, realize she was out there, and open the door to let the wolf inside.
Karen didn’t try to respond to Benny self-accusations, she just kept rubbing his back, as if she was comforting a child.
Another woman came down the same bank. Olivia. Abby recognized her energy as much as anything. That and her stride. Dominant as hell, and she was on a mission tonight. Abby looked around. People were coming from all directions, drawn by either Benny’s distress, or her own alarm, she wasn’t sure.
Olivia stopped a few feet away and met Abby’s eyes. “It’s time we dealt with all of this,” she said. “We need healing, Alpha. The women do. And so do the wolves of Wolf Harbor.”
Abby closed her eyes briefly. “Now?” she said. “Right now?”
“Right now,” Olivia said firmly. “Call them all, Alpha. Call them to the Beach House. It’s time for a Truth and Reconciliation process of our own.”
Abby nodded. She eased Benny into Karen’s arms, confident that the woman would hold him tight.
She opened her links. First she found Jake, and he was already on the beach, heading toward her. She could feel his grim worry. And then she tugged lightly on Okami’s strong bond, the one that felt like a river to her. Okami was already awake.Come, she said. And Yui and Emiyo.
She felt his assent.
And then she called the inner circle. They were mostly on the move already, she realized. She directed them to the Beach House. Cujo had followed Olivia out the door. Mei Tanaka was on the island tonight — Abby wasn’t sure why. King Davis woke easily. She sent a picture of a horde of people descending upon him at Beach House and felt his alarm. And then he was scrambling to get up and throw on clothes. Abby wasn’t sure, but she thought Emma might be with him. Such an odd couple, if she was right. But Emma was very private, and King was too young for her to feel comfortable prying into his life.
Little stopped her from prying truthfully, but he was too much like one of her students, she guessed, albeit a very competent one.
She pulled on her link with Pete and Maria.Come.
She kept a separate set of links for the women, and she gently tugged them all — opening the weir gates, she thought. And that was a gift from Benny, the visualization of water control gates, that allowed her to function with her mental map and all the links that populated her head. She knew now that many shifters, even born shifters, didn’t survive her gifts. That she had was due to this man, tormented by things she barely understood.
Many of the women were already awake and heading here, she realized as she looked at that map. Drawn by their own connections to Benny, she thought. She roused the rest, gently, making sure not to trigger nightmares for them.Come,she said simply.Beach House. Benny.
She had a direct link to Stefan Lebenev. She carefully did not call it a leash, although it kind of was. He needed so little from them all: the warmth of a pack at his back, a link to an Alpha that actually understood him.
How could she not? She knew dozens of researchers just like him at the university. Bright, erratic, focused on their project beyond all reason. She gave him that connection and understanding. In return, he usually didn’t go haring off into the unknown without giving her a heads up.
Usually.
But he wasn’t alone tonight either. And if Emma and King were an unexplainable couple — the prim English teacher from Oakland and the very young Navy brat from the Whidbey Island pack— it was nothing on the relationship between the Texas widow and the wild-eyed scientist. She shook her head. She didn’t know what had made Marilyn Abbott seek out Stefan. And she knew even less about why Stefan had allowed her to connect with him. They didn’t live together, but at least once a week, she felt Stefan’s pleasure at a knock on his door.
And when that happened, she tightened down that link — not a leash, she chanted — because she wasn’t a voyeur. An exhibitionist? More than she would have ever thought. But not a voyeur. She felt Jake’s amusement as he caught that thought. She smiled at him over her shoulder. Now that he was where he belonged, at her back, she too started down the beach toward the hotel.
Fitting that they would hold this gathering here. Jedediah Jones had built this monster of a house so that he could have the luxury he was accustomed to during his one-week stay every four months. He’d come here, host a party for the powerful shifters of the region, collect the women who had been recently turned to shifters, and leave again.
Why had he needed a house so large that they could remodel it and make a boutique hotel out of it — open only for shifters at this point —she couldn’t understand.
Sarah had taken responsibility for Benny. They were sitting together on chairs in the main living area behind the patio where Abby spent most of the summer and fall, until the rain and wind had driven her inside. But this room was nice too —a big space full of tables covered with white table cloths where King and his crew served upscale meals to the hotel’s guests and to those who got tired of the buffet at the lodge.
Sarah was talking to Benny in low tones, as they sat facing the big fireplace. Benny was hunched over, shivering, and didn’t look responsive.
Abby swallowed her worry and focused on Olivia who was talking to King and Emma. King was nodding his head. Abby went to join them. “Coffee,” she said firmly.
Olivia smiled at her. “Already on the list,” she said. “We’re talking about how to set up the room.”
Abby looked around. More people were arriving. Okami, Yui, and Emiyo arrived with Rose and her baby. William Bellamy came in with them. He wasn’t a part of this, not really. But he was there because Rose was there, and he was her protector. They staked out a couple of tables to the south of the fireplace. When Mei showed up, with Carlos at her back, they joined them. Cujo leaned against the wall behind them, like a looming shadow in his black sweats.
“A stand for Abby to talk from in front of the fireplace,” Olivia said. “And then a set of six seats behind a protective railing to the north of it. Six is the number, right?” Olivia gave a wry smile to Abby.
