9
I hated thinking it, but November in Massachusetts was the ugliest month I'd experienced here so far. Whereas October had been full of different hues of fallen leaves and was fragrant from the abundant harvest of our pack gardens, November was its cold, barren sister.
The trees were mostly naked now, the air was hurting morning skin with its icy teeth, but there was no snow to provide a clean slate to the world each morning.
Overall, the weather wasn’t helping my mood. I’d done a bad thing. When Isaac stayed with us last weekend, he told us that Father would be visiting him again and invited Dominic and me to join them. And I just... ignored the invitation.
The whole day, my stomach churned with unease, and I kept glancing at the door, half-expecting Father to burst in and berate me for disrespecting him. But lunchtime came and went, and no one came.
The unease turned into misplaced disappointment. Of course, I’d known Father would never come to see me, even when he was only 40 minutes away, and yet, as it turned out, I still hoped he’d come after me, at least demanding to know why I hadn’t joined them. Like I'd told Nana once, I could know that something was true and still not fully believe it. The heart and the mind didn’t always cooperate that well, at least not in my case.
All I got for my worry was a bunch of mistakes on a budget form. I didn’t have any correction fluid, so I made my way to the assistants’ office, but no one was there. Then I knocked on Dominic’s door, but he was absent as well, so I let myself in. The office smelled like him, and I immediately felt better about everything.
No matter how things were between us, our bodies would always respond to each other. Charlotte was attending a class on mates and labor as part of her midwifery studies, and she told us that the proximity and touch of your mate during contractions (and in general) lessened your pain. Physical pain, I amended mentally.
I sank down in his chair and stroked the armrests, thinking of the countless hours his body must have spent here.
Correction fluid, right. It was right there, in the bottom drawer, next to the picture of the two of us that I’d gifted Dominic for his birthday. It was just so carelessly shoved in there, face-down.
My mate chose to enter his office right as I was cradling it in my arms like a poor, abandoned pup. In two long strides, he was next to me. I could see from his face that my emotions were seeping through my coat.
“Give me my photo back, Penelope.”
“No,” I said as I stood up. “I’ll keep it on my desk if you don’t want it.”
“I do want it.”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s not meant to be in a drawer.”
“It’s mine and it’s my business what I do with it.”
I gingerly set it back into its drawer and slammed said drawer shut. I then looked at Dominic with all the anger I could muster at him, at my father, at my wolf for still wanting him. My wolf didn’t care about the photo. She only cared about feeling his hand wrapped around my wrist. I yanked it away from him, and I know he let me do it.
Making all those mistakes on the budget form hadn't taught me anything, which I promptly proved by getting Wite-out all over my sleeves in the process of erasing them. I wasn’t too upset; Nana always said that most things came out in the wash and that soaking first helped.
She’d always said it with such a pointed look that I used to believe this particular piece of advice transcended the concept of laundry, but I couldn’t conceive a tub big enough to soak my mating in. Instead, I wished I had a huge bottle of Wite-out, which I could spill all over my life and start over.
◆◆◆
“What do you get the male who has everything?” Lynn whined as we meandered through the mall, looking for holiday presents, before going back to the house for our sleepover weekend. Dominic was away again, and I didn’t even ask where to this time. Hank trailed behind us for protection. It was a huge human mall, and he said this was part of his job, so we let him.
“I told you, just get a set of lingerie,” Grace volunteered the same helpful advice she’d been doling out the entire afternoon.
“I see a certain pregnant she-wolf is experiencing one of the nicer side effects of pregnancy,” Charlotte teased, and Grace pressed her lips together, hiding her smile. “Don’t be embarrassed. Semen softens not only the cervix but also the heart.”
I whipped my head around to see whether Hank was close enough to hear and hissed, “Charlotte! Stop discussing semen in public!”
“I see which little prude will not be buying lingerie this Christmas,” she teased.
I indignantly replied, “I will not. I’m getting Dominic a mechanical puzzle set.”
“Well, that’s one way to blow his mind,” Lynn laughed, and I joined her.
I didn’t feel any pressure to change who I was with these females. They knew me, and they accepted me for who I was – and I did the same with them.
“God help your mate, Charlotte, you’re gonna suck the life out of him,” I said, and when they were wheezing with laughter, it hit me. “Not like that, oh my God, I didn’t mean it like that!”
“You’re not wrong,” Mira said as she wiped tears from her eyes, “but I’m just glad that I heard you talk about sucking something.”
“You're all shameless,” I mumbled, but there was no bite to it. “Change of topic. Have you all sent in your RSVPs for the Thanksgiving feast?”
“Yes,” they said in unison, and Charlotte tacked on a half-mocking “Luna” at the end of hers, and I stuck out my tongue at her.
“This is the biggest project I’ve undertaken as Luna so far, and I’m equal parts excited and terrified,” I admitted as we left yet another store.
“I can’t even imagine,” Lynn said. “You should know I’m watching you and taking notes for my future.”
“Well, I hope your notes will not say do things differently from Penelope ,” I grimaced.
“Are you kidding me?” she stopped in front of me, and so did all the other females. “You’re doing so many things, and you’re doing them so well, especially for someone so young. You should be proud of yourself, seriously!” Lynn said with the same conviction she used to argue with Prof. Bell in class.
I pulled her into a quick hug. Maybe I should be proud of myself.
“Is Anthony still meeting us for dinner?”
“Yes, he’s hanging out with Isaac and Rowan, so they’ll all be here at 6.”
“We better hurry up then.”
◆◆◆
“Do you think we have enough pies?”
Lilian just heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Luna, you know I love you,” she said, clearly holding on to the last of her patience, “but we calculated, and checked, and compared the number of pies to the number of RSVPs, and we still made ten more than necessary, so I think we’re good.”
“Okay,” I took a deep breath. “I’ll go help with the decorations now.”
Almost all of my friends came early to help the younger pack members decorate the huge communal dining room at the main pack house. Mira and Margaret would be joining us later.
The one I missed the most was Isaac, who had gone back to Uinta to celebrate with the pack he’d one day lead. I’d packed my holiday presents for friends and family in Utah, as well as my latest letter for Nana, in the trunk of his car to avoid paying the shipping fees.
Anthony was busy taking photos of the groups working and closeups of the decorations and would continue working throughout the evening.
Even Dominic was here, currently frowning at a pumpkin which had, judging by the face he was making, offended him greatly. We had one more hour before the party, and almost everything was done, but I couldn’t relax.
The door suddenly busted open; whoever pushed it had used all their strength and clearly damaged the wall it hit. It was Margaret, and she was in tears. All of us females ran over to her, but Dominic got there before us and stretched out his arms to stop us from approaching.
“What happened?” he growled at her in his deepest Alpha voice. “Is someone chasing you?”
She shook her head and just sobbed harder.
“Dominic, let us talk to her,” I pleaded, but he shook his head.
I could see the fur covering his hands as his wolf was pushing him to shift. Margaret wordlessly held out a letter to him. When he finished reading it, he turned to us, his face revealing nothing.
“You can talk to her now,” he said and handed me the letter.
“Read it,” Margaret rasped between sobs.
Dear Ms. Cranch,
my mate and I are not readers of your magazine, but I recently found a copy of it in my daughter’s belongings, and I quickly deduced which question in that month's column was hers.
Our Olivia was the female who'd asked for advice regarding her mate, who had been in a long-term relationship with a widowed she-wolf and had fathered a pup with her.
You asked her to let you know what she had decided.
Our beautiful, strong, determined, proud daughter decided she’d come back home with us, so she was going to ask the King to command her mate to stay away from her.
That worthless piece of garbage somehow learned of her plans - he must have been watching her - because the very night she told us her decision, he ingested wolfsbane and set the house where she was staying with her cousin on fire. My Olivia is gone forever.
My niece barely made it out alive, but in a way she was lucky, because her mate immediately felt her pain and rushed over to help her. She’s currently in a coma, hospitalized at our home pack, and her mate is in Royal prison awaiting trial for killing our daughter’s mate at the scene of the arson.
The trial will, I’m sure, be just a formality, but I don’t know if my niece will take her mate back (if she ever wakes up). There is perhaps too much bad blood between them now.
My Olivia is in the ground and my wolf has lost the will to live. So have I. Why is it that she was the one to pay for the mistakes of a couple who should have known better? Now she is dead, and the pup is fatherless, and me and my mate are pupless. Everyone lost.
Please tell me it gets better somehow.
A lost father
Someone took the letter from my hands, and the tears wouldn’t even let me know who. Lilian and Dominic herded all of us into a back room, where we spent the next hours just holding each other, crying, and talking about life. Margaret was inconsolable. She kept trying to get words out, but she couldn’t.
In the end, Doctor Vera came and took her away. I had no idea who had called her. None of us ate or left the room for the rest of the night.
In the following days, everyone from the pack who saw me stopped and said it had been the best Thanksgiving feast Greylock had ever seen. I didn’t know what to tell them.
◆◆◆
The room was too bright. It took me a moment to realize that everything outside was white. Finally, snow! My wolf was jumping up and down at the prospect of playing in it with her mate, and it made me smile. Those two were what Anthony referred to as “couple goals.” I sometimes wondered where he got all these expressions from, but mostly, I was busy laughing at his antics.
It would be nice to laugh today. Isaac and I were turning 23. On our birthday last year, I woke up in my room in my father’s house in Utah, wondering what my next birthday would be like – whether I’d be somewhere else, whether I’d be mated, what my life would look like.
My life was both better and worse than I’d imagined it, and that was messing with my head. I heard Dominic moving downstairs, and it surprised me since it was already 10.
There was a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen island, and it was beautiful.
“Happy birthday,” he said, not meeting my eyes.
What was he uncomfortable about?
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“The flowers are for you,” he jerked his head at them really romantically.
I pressed my lips together in order not to laugh.
“I also got you a loom and different kids of thread. I didn’t know what you use so the lady at the store suggested different things,” he continued.
“A loom?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Yeah,” he still wasn’t meeting my eyes. “For your rugs and shit,” he said, and I automatically warned, like I would Isaiah, “Language, please.”
He grinned like it was the funniest thing on earth, “Sorry.”
“Well, thank you. I do like weaving and I’ve been missing it. This is very thoughtful, Dominic, thank you,” I said, and I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t know how.
Luckily, he hugged me first.
“You’re welcome. Do you have any plans today?”
“Yeah, I’m having lunch with Isaac in the city, and then the females are coming over for cake later.”
“Like a party?” he asked, and I couldn’t contain the laugh that burst out of me.
“Only if sitting and eating cake is considered a party.”
“Did you two have big birthday parties growing up?” he asked, still holding my waist.
My heart was beating against his chest.
“Not really. The pack would sometimes celebrate Isaac’s, and Nana would always make a cake for us, but never a full-on party. What about you?”
“Before Dad died, yeah. After that, not so much.”
“That must have been hard,” I sympathized.
“I gotta get to work now,” he said and broke the moment. “Have fun today,” he said and gave me a brief kiss on the lips before leaving.
Happy birthday to me.
◆◆◆
The two dozen zucchini muffins and three dozen carrot cupcakes were cooling in the living room, two of the five lasagnas were in the oven, the homemade granola was in ten glass jars on the kitchen island, the 10-quart crock-pot was filled with fragrant venison stew, and every surface in the house was littered with freezer-friendly silicone bags and glass storage containers waiting to be filled. Meanwhile, I was sitting on the floor, filling small paper bags with a mixture of nuts and dried fruits.
“What's all this?” Dominic inquired, standing in the doorway.
He was home too early for a Friday.
“My friends’ finals are starting next week, so I’m prepping some food for them.”
“All of this?” he seemed incredulous.
“Yeah, they will be very busy studying and preparing, I want to make it as easy for them as possible. The nuts are for snacking, as are the muffins. The stew and lasagna will be freezer meals, easy to just pop in the oven when they’re hungry. And the granola can be breakfast, with some yogurt and canned coffee, both of which I’ll pick up from the store on my way there.”
“On your way where?”
“I’m delivering these. To Isaac, Charlotte, Lynn, and Anthony.”
“Doesn’t Anthony have anyone else to help him?” he said darkly.
I frowned at him, “He doesn’t. And his roommates are pigs. The poor pup will starve.”
That seemed to placate him a bit.
“This is very nice of you,” he said pensively. “It’s admirable, really, that this is what you choose to spend your time and money on.”
“I like making people feel good,” I said, feeling oddly defensive.
So what if I was trying to get people to love me?
“I love that about you,” my mate said, surprising me more than I thought possible. “I can drive you to campus if you want, I’m done with work for today.”
More surprises.
“Sure, just mind-link Hank then, tell him to enjoy his day at home.”
The deliveries went well, but Elliot hadn’t been lying when he told me not to talk to Dominic while he drove. I had completely forgotten about that, seeing as I was almost never in the car with my mate.
Instead of talking, I used the time to observe him as he drove. His thick, long fingers were gripping the wheel so tightly that it made me wonder whether he had any residual trauma from Cassie’s accident. I noticed he was still biting his fingernails.
He looked like he could use both a haircut and a shave, but I loved him more like this: somewhat rugged-looking, unkempt. Who would have thought? I remembered how that stubble felt against my swollen, needy -
“Penelope, please,” Dominic closed his eyes, and I looked at his face, startled. His jaw was tight, and his brows were drawn. “Can you not think about that while I’m driving?”
“Sorry, my mind wandered,” I said as I felt my face heat. I’d let go of the coat again, and I kicked myself for it.
“I’m not complaining,” he winked. Another surprise. “Just don’t do it while I’m driving.”
I just nodded, and for the rest of the way, I counted how many yellow cars we passed.