Beneath a Blood Moon (52 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

During the month I ran wild with Sanders, I had been aware of our puppy as more of an afterthought than a reality. I came to the conclusion wolves were simply better equipped to handle carrying puppies than humans.

As a wolf, meat went down easily and stayed where it belonged. As a human, my stomach wanted nothing to do with what I ate. While I was eating, my stomach cooperated, tricking me.

Hell began about twenty minutes after I finished my lunch. Determined not to waste three glorious salmon, I fought my growing nausea. The thought of riding in a car was enough to make me want to throw up. The drive was worse, and it took every last bit of my willpower to control my stomach.

I resorted to leaning on my mate, burying my nose against his shirt, and breathing in his scent. He wrapped his arm around me, drawing circles on me with his fingertips.

An hour after leaving the lodge, we reached a three-storied house surrounded by forest. A carefully manicured front lawn was hedged by thorny bushes while rose vines climbed up trellises flanking the front doors.

“Roses are Richard’s conceit,” Sanders informed me before sliding out of the car. I sighed, swallowed several times to control my stomach, and got out. Joining me, my mate slipped his arm around my waist, ducking his head to nuzzle my throat. “These roses have quite the story behind them, to say the least.”

“They sure do,” Wendy agreed, leaning against the car to stare at the front door. She pointed to the trellises. “Many of them are eight years old. Richard planted them one weekend when we were in Florida. There were some flowers there neither one of us were overly fond of but were too lazy to remove. When we came home, the trellises were installed. We found a single rose vine, carefully caged so nothing would get at it. Every time we’d go anywhere for more than a day or two, the sneaky rat would come over and plant another rose. He even coerced the alarm company to cut the video feeds of the front yard so we couldn’t tell who had done it. Within six months, the whole front bed was done as well as part of the hedge.”

Snorting, Desmond shook his head. “That drove me nuts for years. I actually thought you were the one behind it for a while, Sanders.”

My mate’s eyes widened. “Me?”

I breathed in my mate’s scent, and my wolf’s amusement surged at the satisfaction she detected.

Narrowing his eyes, Desmond glared at Sanders. “Why do you smell so smug?”

“I’m just wondering why you thought I was involved.”

“Oh, I don’t know—maybe because you run a landscaping business? That may have had something to do with it.”

My mate sniffed. “I work on ponds and overhauls for overly rich snobs like you, Desmond. I do not specialize in shrubberies.”

I poked my mate in the side. “You’re a gardener?”

When Wendy and Desmond burst into helpless fits of laughter and my mate sighed, I wondered what I had said that was so offensive and funny.

“Landscaper,” Sanders replied in a pained voice. When he smiled, the scent of his satisfaction strengthened. “Richard was the mastermind.
I
was the one who cut the video feeds to your alarm system. While I took pity on him and assisted in his efforts, I only did it to make certain he was long gone before you returned home. He even took commercial flights so you couldn’t sniff him out—or have one of your neighbors report a Porsche in the area. They’re so used to seeing me around they didn’t think twice about me bringing my truck over. They probably thought I was working on your pond or babysitting your house while you were out of town.”

“You sly dog,” Desmond growled.

“I might have more roses in my nursery waiting for spring to be transplanted.”

“What did he do now?”

My mate frowned, and his scent was marred by his worry. “I hope they’re okay,” he muttered, and I wasn’t sure if he had heard Desmond’s question.

Sighing, Desmond reached over and clapped my mate’s shoulder. “You just can’t go an hour without worrying about something, can you? Of course I called someone to take care of your greenhouse, Sanders. I’m well aware you need those plants for the spring. I may have a black thumb, but I know someone has to take care of your flowers.”

“Gardener,” I teased, nudging my mate with my elbow.

“He found a Damask variant. It reminded him of Nicolina, so he had to have them for his garden and decided yours needed them as well,” he mumbled, staring at the roses with a faraway look in his eyes.

“And he’s off in work land,” Desmond said, sighing. “Don’t worry, Sara. He’s probably inventorying every single plant in his greenhouse, doubting I was competent enough to hire the appropriate person to care for them. Sanders,
relax
. Yes, you were gone a month, but I wouldn’t risk your livelihood like that. If the person I hired screwed up any of your plants, I’ll replace them.”

“The fish,” he said, fidgeting. Before I could secure a hold on him, he headed towards the side of the house.

Desmond slapped his forehead. “Sanders, my koi are fine. All of them. I even fed them yesterday. Will you stop?”

Ignoring our Alpha, my mate disappeared around the corner of Desmond’s large home. Spitting curses, Desmond followed. Baffled by Sanders’s behavior, I stared at Wendy. “What’s going on?”

Wendy sighed. “Not long after Sanders started his landscaping business, Charles decided to help out a bit by hiring him to redo our property. I love Charles, but he can be excessive at times. He decided he wanted a koi pond. But he didn’t just want koi, he wanted hand-raised koi. Thanks to Charles, Sanders ended up with a side business in water gardens to go with his regular landscaping. If you want great koi, you go to him. I think it has something to do him with being an Alpha; he’s simply incapable of neglecting baby
anything
, even fish.”

“I like fish.”

“You can’t eat his koi, Sara.”

“In aquariums. I like watching them in aquariums,” I corrected, faking a dainty sniffle. “Unless he keeps pet salmon, that is. If he does, we will have a problem.”

“He does not keep pet salmon. By the way, if you still feel like you need to throw up, I’ll show you the bathroom while they are busy talking about the fish. They’ll probably be out there until one of us goes and fetches them. It’s probably for the better.”

Whether the distraction had helped or the worse was over, my stomach was mostly behaving itself. “You knew?”

“You should have seen me with the twins. I puked before I even got around to eating anything. It drove Charles to the brink of insanity, which had a certain amusement value. Sanders still isn’t thinking all too clearly, otherwise he would have noticed. He probably hasn’t gotten beyond the idea of having a puppy of his own yet. I’m sure it’ll click soon enough.”

“It’s not really that big of a deal, is it?”

“It’s really that big of a deal. I have no idea how you being an Omega will affect things. You’ll find out next month how difficult and unpleasant it is to try to resist transforming with the full moon. It gets worse with each month, too. Most bitches don’t make it through two months of resisting, and that’s with their Alpha helping. Too many Alphas simply aren’t dominant enough to stop the transformations. Unless I’m mistaken, the other Omegas are all male. Omegas are damned useful for helping bitches through the full moons, but packs with them don’t let them leave to help other packs. They won’t risk their Omegas for any reason—even to help puppies survive. I’ll have to ask Charles, he’d know. Come on inside. I’ll make you some tea. It should help a little.”

The outside of the Desmond home was gorgeous, but the inside was far better. Instead of the opulent wealth of the Plaza, they picked their luxuries for comfort, and the leather couch was worn in places. Fur clung to the carpet, and one arm had seen use by a cat. I stared at the claw marks, pointing at it in astonishment. “A cat? You have a cat? Cats get along with our kind?”

“We had a cat. She belongs to our younger daughter, and she now lives in Yellowknife, terrorizing any Fenerec who fail to worship her,” Wendy replied, grinning. “Nicolina hates cats. I’m convinced half the reason she tries to kill Charles every visit is because she’s still angry Lisa got to keep Cindy. Try not to get on Nicolina’s bad side. She doesn’t understand how to let grudges go. To answer your question: no, typically cats don’t like us. We raised Cindy from when she was an abandoned newborn, so she probably thinks she’s a Fenerec.”

The kitchen was smaller than I expected in such a large house. It was separated from the dining room by an island surrounded by stools. At Wendy’s invitation, I sat. “You have a really nice house.”

“Thank you. Charles wanted something larger, but I liked the yard. We have a hundred acres of forest in the back, which is wonderful for hunting.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Ah, some sixty years now.”

I sucked in a breath. “Sixty years.”

Wendy didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

Setting a kettle on the stove, Wendy snagged a stool and sat across from me. “I keep forgetting how much you have to learn. Fenerec can live a long time. A lot of the puppies don’t live more than ten or twenty years, but those who do survive tend to live hundreds of years. There’s a bitch out east who is almost two hundred years old now. Charles and I are both older, but very few people know that. Sanders is getting up there, too—part of the reason why he’s such a strong Alpha. He’s been in Seattle for at least forty or fifty years. A couple of Fenerec in both the Seattle and Yellowknife packs are over a hundred, but not many. We just don’t live as long as we used to.”

“Why not?”

“There just aren’t as many wild places left in the world, Sara. We’re human, but we’re wolves, too. There just isn’t enough room for all of us, and when the survival of the fittest comes into play, it’s not just the strongest wolf who lives. People notice when we don’t age. We often have to move around, change identities, and take steps to make certain we aren’t noticed. Most Fenerec screw that up. The Inquisition helps, but it can be hard.”

“But you’ve been here for sixty years.”

“We keep to ourselves and drive long distances to go to the grocery store. We try not to go to the same place too often, and keep a low profile around Normals—or a high-profile and schedule our own inheritances and change identities. The local witches help out, too. It’s not uncommon for them to open stores for Fenerec, since it makes it easier for us to integrate. Charles can teach you a lot. Since you’re interested in business, Richard and Charles will be great resources for you—Nicolina as well. Sanders prefers working with his hands rather than his head most of the time.”

“How does he manage landscaping? Won’t people notice he looks so young?”

“Large jobs for wealthy clients. He’ll design and implement the grounds. While he’ll sometimes maintain them for Inquisitors, he usually subcontracts to Normals. The Normals he hires he trains well, and when they start noticing his longevity, he encourages them to make their own way—or makes arrangements for them to get a job offer they can’t refuse. He’s careful, which is why he’s still alive. You’ll get used to it.”

I doubted I would, but I nodded and smiled because it was expected of me.

Although there was a basement in the house, it only contained a generator and several huge freezers. I gawked at the wasted space and marveled at the vast quantity of frozen food the Desmonds kept in their home. I helped Wendy carry several large packages of meat up the stairs.

“This should be enough to feed your mate and have a little left for the rest of us,” Wendy said, narrowing her eyes as she considered the piles of paper-wrapped food littering the kitchen island. “Maybe. Are you hungry?”

Shaking my head, I sorted through the packages to discover they were all labeled deer. “Deer?”

“Charles and I sometimes come across a herd in our woods. If we bring down extra, we dress and clean them, and into the freezer they go,” she explained, filling the sink with cold water. One by one, she submerged the packages to thaw. “You’ll probably be hungry again by the time this is done. Do you like stew?”

“I guess I’ll find out,” I replied, wondering if deer would taste anywhere near as good while I was a human as it had when I had been a wolf. “Can I help?”