Chapter 14
Janice sat on the porch staring up at the sky. She was waiting for the moon to rise. Kadir would come out then, body in the midst of his change. She already knew what to expect from him, but for her things felt strange.
She was calm. Calmer than she usually was during this sort of thing.
She’d abstained from Warren’s body for the past two nights, trying her best to build up that overwhelming reserve of power she usually used to corral her brother, but it hadn’t helped.
She could feel it, waiting under her skin in response to her anticipation, but it didn’t feel as wild and hectic as she was used to.
Meaning her power wouldn’t take over her mind tonight.
. . It would be her against her brother. Not her Instinct for Survival.
Janice just hoped she would be enough.
Deep within her, she felt her power twist and stretch as though waking from a long, deep slumber.
Janice took a deep breath, blinking in surprise when the back door of the cabin burst open.
She blinked several times, watching her brother drop to his hands and knees, chest heaving with his pain as she heard the telltale snaps and pops of his joints rearranging themselves.
The tearing of his muscles drowning out the peaceful silence of their forest home.
She cast a look out to the tops of the trees surrounding their home. She couldn’t see it yet, but knew the moon must be rising behind the thick curtain of forest.
Sighing, Janice stood, trying to stretch out some of the tension that had been riding her the past couple days. She’d be getting her exercise in tonight so being limber would always be wise.
A deep growl sounded before a howl split the air, shaking her to her soul. His transformation was complete. . . Her brother was asleep. . . And she and his Beast tended to have something of a love-hate relationship. . .
She heard the growl the large black wolf gave as it’s eyes landed on her.
She took a deep breath before turning her head to meet its eyes.
Blinking slowly, she felt a discomfort accompany the rise of power in her eyes.
She studied the black beast as she moved to step from the porch, her night vision trained on him.
She blinked again and her vision turned to infrared. Easier to see him this way.
The beast stalked slowly after her, keeping its body low to the ground as it kept in line with her.
“Hello, old friend.” She smiled slowly at the beast as she slid into her fight stance.
A long, sturdy side-oriented squat, with her arms extended.
Her leading hand was palm out, facing her adversary like a barrier.
Her following was open, reaching lightly into the forest at her back.
Her power swirled in her palms, sizzling up her fingers to her fingertips.
It was a stance she’d spent years cultivating, mastering to assist the fluid flow of power that rotated within her.
The beast’s low, threatening growl was the only sound on the quiet breeze that blew through the trees around their house.
Janice chanced a deep centering breath, feeling herself connect deeply with and draw from the earth as her eyes closed briefly.
Move. . .
The instruction came clearly and Janice swept her arm back and around as she dodged, leaning back so far her hands almost touched the ground. A blade of grass grazed her finger. She opened her eyes in time to feel the air displaced and see the black streak of fur fly over her.
He’d gone for her throat.
She moved before he had time to make a full turn, backing several feet away. She kept her eyes on him, watching as he prowled. She knew what his problem was with her. Knew why her brother’s beast would sooner kill her than maim her.
It was because she kept him chained. She kept him from exploring too far from home.
She kept him from hunting. She kept him from seeking another beast as a mate.
. . Because that was her fate. Just as her brother was for her, to keep her under guard and control, so she was to be for him.
A chain. A lock, meant never to be broken. . .
And yet she had found Warren—
The thought of the other man’s face brought a flustered frenzy to her power.
The disturbance so strong, she barely heard the command of the earth when the beast she faced caught her distraction and charged.
She dodged in time to miss the worst of the blow, but the punishment for her distraction was a single claw raked over her chest as she twisted out of the way.
With a strong palm and a wild burst of power, she struck the beast in the chest. There was a flash of brilliant electric blue and the large black wolf was flying away from her.
Janice’s chest heaved as she cut an uncertain look at her hand.
It had never been so smooth and distinct before.
Her power, when expelled at a large frequency, had always been more of an explosion, the strength and frequency of the bursts chaotic in a way that could be visibly seen.
. . But not this time. This time, it had been one single regulated burst, and it had come out far more powerful than she’d ever managed before.
Putting that aside for later, Janice hissed as pain stung at her from the rake wound. She was glad there wasn’t more than one, but still worried about how freely it seemed to bleed.
Turning her gaze to the beast gathering itself across the clearing, she took a deep breath. She needed to focus. The last thing she needed was to have to explain how she got claw marks on her face at work. Her chest, she could cover. Her face was another story.
Janice hissed as she looked in the mirror at the rake mark on her chest. The first night was over.
Thankfully, her brother had only managed to get close enough to strike her the one time. It was worse than she’d thought.
But that didn’t mean her chest and shoulder weren’t killing her.
The laceration was raised and swollen to the point of puckering.
What she wouldn’t have done for some of that fancy cleaning liquid and ointment of Warren’s right now.
It always healed wounds in record time, three days tops if the damage was bad, but the stuff worked on pain like magic, making it so she could almost forget that she’d been hurt. Not so with this one.
“Will you be okay at work today?” Kadir asked, twisting a sore wrist in his hand as he leaned in the doorway. She was pretty sure she’d accidentally sprained his paw while his Beast mind tried to take her head.
She huffed a sigh as she dropped her hands to the sink and looked back at him. “I’m sure I’ll be better than you, trapped in the house all day.”
He breathed a laugh and she could see a half-hearted smile in the mirror. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I think I’ll try sleeping today.”
Janice groaned loudly, lamenting the fact that she wouldn’t be getting much sleep the next two days. “I envy your mini-cation.”
He scoffed. “Oh, yeah. It’s a riot to turn into a mindless monster every full moon that’s hell bent on putting my sister in the ground.”
“That’s just because I won’t let him go out to play like he wants to. He sees me as an obstacle,” she said, turning her attention back to the wound near her shoulder on her upper chest. “I’m sure he’d be just as happy to incapacitate me as kill me. But the goal is to get me out of the way.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so fond of coming to and finding you bleeding all over the place.” He grumbled unhappily.
“Yeah, well,” she mocked, “I was only distracted for a second, so it wasn’t entirely his fault I got hurt.”
“It’s my fault, Janice,” Kadir argued.
“It’s not,” she said firmly. When he looked like he was going to argue the point again, she stopped him with a hand. “I know how to defend myself against your wolf, Monte. It’s been years since I was last injured by him. Relax.”
“So, in that case, should we be discussing why you were distracted, Bet?” He asked with narrowed eyes.
Janice dropped her gaze to the wound she was spreading ointment in so she could bandage it. “Depends on what you mean,” she said evasively.
“You’re never distracted, Bet. And unless we bleed you, you usually need to work out your energy at least two times a week to keep it from growing too rapidly out of your control.
” Kadir sneered at her in the mirror and she pretended not to see it.
“On top of that, you’re going out all week, spending odd hours out with a man we don’t even know, and you seem to be in better control of your power than before you found out about Sascha’s pregnancy, which sent you into a power induced panic attack that stopped your heart.
Which by the way, we still haven’t gotten an explanation for.
And you still haven’t told me when I can come up to your job to meet Sascha to make sure she’s safe.
What’s going on, Bet?” He growled lowly.
A warning. “You know better than to keep secrets from me when what you’re doing endangers us both. ”
He was tired of waiting. And she was honestly tired of keeping secrets from him.
Of sneaking around all the time. But a full moon was not the time to tell her brother about what she was doing in her life.
“I promise I’ll tell you everything I know,” she assured him.
She saw his shoulders relax and began bandaging her chest, “But not now.” He bristled and took a breath to speak but she kept talking.
“You’ll have to wait a week. It’s still too close to the full moon for you to keep from cold-cocking someone if the mood strikes you.
So give me a week to sort everything out and then I’ll explain when you have more of your head about you. Deal?”
She cut a glance at him to see him blink in surprise.
When he didn’t say anything, she nodded, checked the security of the bandage on her chest and nodded again, answering for him.
“Deal.” She turned abruptly with a flip of her hair over her shoulder.
“Now, I need to finish getting dressed so that I can go to work. You should get some rest. You had a hard night.”
Kadir gave her a surly expression as he turned from the bathroom, “Like I’m the only one. . .”
Janice huffed a sigh as he strode from her room, pinching the bridge of her nose. He was right. She had had a hard night. She always did. But at least she could still work during full moons.
She was really looking forward to that coffee Warren would be bringing by.
Kadir sighed heavily as he dropped into his bed.
His sister was a woman of secrets, that much he knew well. She had to be. Her secrets could be world changing after all.
Some of her abilities seemed almost like magic to him, but he understood that for her, it wasn’t like that. For Janice, it was a dark and terrible power she had. Something with the ability to save and take lives if she wasn’t careful about her desires.
She always had to be careful. . . but that didn’t seem the case of recent.
Recently, Janice had been more in control than Kadir had ever seen her. She’d been relaxed, at peace even. . . And she wore the smell of a strange man like a badge of honor.
Kadir was certain this strange man had something to do with it. It was almost as though the man lived with them, his smell was so stuck to the woman.
No amount of washing her clothes seemed to help either. It was as if the man’s smell seeped from his sister’s pores. And it was infuriating.
His sister shouldn’t be out gallivanting with some strange man they didn’t know.
For all Kadir knew, the man could have been sent by their family or the woman’s ex-betrothed.
Yet she didn’t see it like that. She refused to allow him entrance into her life.
. . Which was dangerous because he’d never had to ask before.
Before his sister would always volunteer information, understanding that anything one of them did affected the both of them. It was them. Alone. Against whatever the world had to offer. . .
Or at least. . . it had been.
Kadir rolled on his side, back to the door as his dark thoughts crowded in once more. Would she leave him for this man he’d never met? More and more it seemed she didn’t need him. . .
But he still needed her. . . could he do this all alone?
A knock sounded at the door and he ran a quick hand over his face, shifting to sit with his back to the headboard. “Come in.”
When Janice opened the door, his heart fluttered a bit. She held a long, rolled bandage out to him. . . As though she still needed her brother. “Can you wrap me up? I’m having a bit of trouble lifting my arm.”
He shifted to the edge of his bed and patted the space in front of him. A soft smile finding its way to his lips like hope. “Sure thing.”
She approached, handed him the bandage and sat with her back to him.
Then together, they worked at bandaging her chest and shoulder.
He’d hold it and pass it along for her to position and hold across her front, then she’d pass it back for him to do the same.
Around and around they went, covering one more secret that was theirs alone.
For at least one more moment, united against the world.