Midnight Whispers - Paranormal Romance (13 page)

“Bryce and I
thought the easiest way for you to become comfortable with the villagers is to…
get to know them.” Leah took Kyra’s hand and pulled her forward. “They’ve
promised to give you a chance,” she murmured, “because they love Bryce and want
him to be happy. So be sociable. I’m sure you learned how back in the London
tearooms.”

The reminder
dissipated some of the fear tunneling through Kyra’s chest—Leah was
right. She might be in the wilderness instead of a drawing room, and these
women might be wearing muslin instead of silk, but the basic idea was the same.
Drawing in a breath, she pasted a polite smile onto her face and allowed Leah
to begin the introductions.

The
introductions were made, the names of women young and old whirling through
Kyra’s brain too fast for her to be able to get ahold of. There were several
wooden tables set out, heaping with food, and they all seated themselves,
rotating places so that each of the women would be able to talk to her
individually.

Soon Kyra no
longer had to keep a firm expression plastered on her face—though these
women were here to judge her, most of them were kind despite their fear of
humans. Kyra relaxed as she answered their questions about who she was, where
she came from, what did she think of Bryce… and on it went. She was glad that
someone had the foresight to bring along pitchers of cider—she would have
lost her voice if she hadn’t been able to wet her throat.

Eventually
she started turning the tables a bit, asking questions of the women, and trying
to find out more about them. She learned that for the most part they led simple
lives, which was partly because they were forced into isolation for their own
protection. They were allowed to hunt with the pack, for they were shifters as
well and couldn’t resist the call any more than the men, but otherwise they did
not venture out of the village. To amuse themselves they indulged in arts and
crafts—pottery, sculpting, painting—as well as music and dancing,
often holding little competitions or festivals.

Mira, one of
the younger women around Kyra’s age, made beautiful jewelry from colored stones
she had her husband bring back to her during his forest treks. She gave one of
her pieces to Kyra—a leather necklace with a dark purple pendant in the
shape of a heart. Another woman, an older one, pressed a small clay pot with
black and white designs painted on it into her hands. Several of the women
decided to show off their musical talent, three joining their voices in song
while two accompanied them with a harp and flute. Kyra didn’t recognize the
music they made, but it was uplifting, folksy, and made her feet itch to dance.

She wasn’t
the only one who felt that way because many of the women left their seats to do
so, joining hands with their friends and family as they danced. Kyra noticed
some of the men, who had been conspicuously absent, had started to appear,
warily at first as they tossed glances toward Kyra, but evidently they decided
that if their women weren’t going to be bothered by her, they wouldn’t either,
and joined in.

Bryce stepped
in front of her and pulled her to her feet with a grin. “You can’t be sitting
here moping around while everyone is dancing,” he told her as he led her into a
lively step.

“I wouldn’t
dream of it,” Kyra told him with a smile. The dance was unfamiliar, but it
didn’t take her very long to pick up on it. Soon she was jumping and whirling
with the best of them, roses in her cheeks as her eyes sparkled with laughter.

She took
Bryce’s hands in hers as the song changed to one not quite as fast. “I can’t
remember the last time I had this much fun!” she confessed. “The women of your
village are not nearly as frightening as I thought.”

Bryce arched
a brow. “Is that so?”

 Kyra
smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You and Leah have taught me that just
because we are different, doesn’t mean we are nothing alike.” Her face
softened. “I’m sorry it took me such a long time to see that.”

Bryce
grinned, then leaned in and gave her a long, deep kiss that left her
breathless.

****

A few days
later, Kyra was bustling around the cottage getting some last minute things
done when there was an urgent knock at the door. Her heart jumping in her
chest, she rushed to the door and opened it to see Brian, Jake’s brother,
standing in the doorway, cradling her aunt in his burly arms.

“Oh God,”
Kyra whispered, stepping back to let them in. Her aunt’s eyes were closed, her
face ashen, and it looked as though she was barely breathing. “What happened to
her?”

Jake followed
in behind him, his brows drawn together with concern. “We don’t know. She
seemed fine one moment, and the next she just collapsed. The doctor is about an
hour away, and we thought it might be a good idea for her to be home, in her own
surroundings while we wait for him.”

“Of course.”
Kyra found that she was wringing her hands, and forced herself to
stop—she needed to be strong. “Let’s get her settled.”

She led them
down the hall to her aunt’s room, where she was placed on the full sized bed.
Kyra touched her hand, which was icy, and then pulled back the flowery
bedspread and covered her with it. “We need to find more blankets for her,” she
told the men. “She’s far too cold.”

They heaped
her with blankets from the linen closet, and Kyra found a bed warmer hanging
near the hearth to use. They hadn’t made use of the fireplace yet as she’d
arrived at the tail end of summer, and Kyra had never learned how to light one,
so she asked the men for help. Jake went out to the side to grab the wood, and
between the two of them they soon had a decent fire going. It took awhile, but
they were able to scrape enough embers from the heart to fill the warming pan,
and they slipped it between her aunt’s blankets.

Her aunt
began shaking almost immediately, her teeth chattering with cold. Alarmed, Kyra
took her hand and held it close to her body, murmuring words of comfort. “It’s
alright, Auntie. I’m here.”

Eventually
the shakes died down, and her aunt slipped into a peaceful sleep. Kyra refused
to leave her side, and the men stayed with her, watching over her solemnly. It
felt as though they were sitting by someone’s deathbed, and Kyra had to fight
back the tears—she refused to believe that her aunt was dying.

But when the
doctor arrived and did his examination, he told them the prognosis wasn’t good.
“If she’d come to me even a week earlier, there might’ve been something I could
do for her,” he told them. “But as it stands now, she’s fading fast. The best
thing to do for her right now is to make her comfortable.”

Kyra wanted
to scream, to rage against the doctor and tell him it wasn’t true; that he was
lying, that her aunt would get better. But she knew he was just trying to do
his job, and so choked down the words and thanked him. He gave her a
sympathetic pat on the shoulder, gave her a list of instructions, and told her
he would come to check on her daily.

Brian told
her he needed to get back to the farm, and bade her farewell as well. But Jake
stayed behind, and they simply sat by her aunt’s bedside for a long while,
watching her sleep.

“Kyra,” Jake
said eventually, “I think it might be good for you to get some air.”

Kyra shook
her head. “I can’t leave her,” she said in a voice choked with tears. “After
everything she’s done for me, I can’t leave her side.”

Jake came
over and gently put his hands on Kyra’s shoulders. “You’re breaking down,” he
told her, “and you won’t be of any use to her that way. We don’t need to go
far, but I think that if you just came outside and cleared your head, you’d
feel a bit better.”

Kyra started
to dig her heels into the ground as Jake pulled her from the chair, but in the
end she relented—she didn’t have the will to fight him. She allowed him
to put an arm around her and lead her out to the front porch. The crisp fall
air, sweetened with sunshine and grass, came to tease her nose, but rather than
lifting her spirits it only sank them further. How could it be that it was such
a beautiful day outside, while her aunt lay within, dying?

“It’s all my
fault,” she said brokenly, allowing her legs to fold beneath her so that she
landed on the bench with a thump.

“Kyra, you
couldn’t have known—” Jake began.

“But I did!”
she shouted, whirling to face him with sparking eyes and hot bursts of color in
her cheeks. “I’ve noticed these past few weeks that she’s been paler and less
energetic. She’s been taking a lot of naps and not looking like herself, but
I’ve been so preoccupied with… with…” Kyra bit off the words before she
confessed the truth to Jake; much as she wanted to get it off her chest she
couldn’t betray the shifter clan like that. “I’ve been so blind and selfish. I
should have made her go see the doctor when she refused. I should have put my
foot down and told her not to spend so much time running herself ragged. The
stress took too much of a toll on her.”

Jake wrapped
his arms around Kyra and pulled her close. She hit his chest, fighting, but he
simple tightened his hold and stroked her hair. “Kyra,” he whispered as she
dissolved into violent, heart-wrenching tears. “It’s alright. Let it all out.”

She cried for
a long time, fisting her hands in his shirt as she soaked it with tears. If he
noticed or was uncomfortable about it, he didn’t say so; just rubbed her back
soothingly and rocked her. Eventually her eyes went dry and she was left with a
raw emptiness she wasn’t certain was much better. But, she did feel a bit
lighter, a bit steadier.

Pulling back,
she mopped her face with her hand. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’ve put you in
an awkward position, and treated you terribly.” The smile she gave him was
watery. “I seem to have a knack for that.”

“I’ve never
yet ended up in a place that I haven’t been put there by myself,” Jake said,
brushing away stray tears from the corners of her eyes with his thumbs. “And as
for right now, I’m exactly where I want to be.”

He leaned
down and laid his lips against hers, and Kyra froze. But it was a soft, sweet,
gentle kiss, made for comfort rather than passion, and she was so desperate for
comfort that she leaned in without thinking about it. He smelled of hay and
sunshine and stale sweat from when he’d been working in the fields, and his
embrace was warm and comforting—like Bryce.

Bryce.
The
name was like a cold splash of water dumped onto her head, and she reared back
in shock. Oh God. How could she be sitting here, kissing Jake, when Bryce had
just kissed her the day before? Was she really that kind of woman who juggled
two men?

“Kyra?” Jake
asked, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “What—”

He reached
for her and she scrambled back hastily. Hurt flashed in his blue eyes and guilt
slapped her across the face. “I—I’m sorry,” she said shakily, smoothing
her skirts down. “I just can’t do this.”

“Kyra, it’s
alright. You don’t have to—”

She shook her
head. “Please. I just need to be alone right now.” Trembling, she pressed her
fingers to her lips. “I’m sorry.”

She ran into
the house.

****

Kyra spent
the night by her aunt’s bedside, listening to the wolf howls outside the
bedroom window. She knew that between the mating call and her aunt’s condition
there would be no sleeping tonight. A headache throbbed directly behind her
forehead, and neither the tea she sipped nor the palm pressed against her
temples helped very much.

Why had she
reacted so strongly against Jake? Now that she was removed from the situation,
she didn’t quite understand it. Certainly she’d spent a lot of time with Bryce
and had kissed and touched him, but she hadn’t made a clear decision in her
heart between either of them. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to kiss Jake as
well? How was she supposed to make a decision between the two if she wasn’t
even willing to give Jake a chance?

Was it the
mating bond that pulled her away from him? Or had her heart already decided?
She wasn’t certain, but she did know the guilt had been overwhelming. It didn’t
seem fair to Jake, since she was spending so much time with him, to treat him
this way. And yet she hadn’t been able to help it.

She agonized
over a flurry of thoughts until the sun rose, and then went out with a heavy
heart to do the morning chores. Trenching herself in the familiarity of
routine, she made breakfast for two, but picked listlessly at it as she wasn’t
very hungry, and knew her aunt really wasn’t going to be in any shape to eat.
In the end she tossed the eggs into the pigpen and the bacon into the chicken
coop, too tired to really appreciate the irony.

The doctor
came by to check on her aunt, who hadn’t moved from her sleep. He said that she
appeared to be stable, but couldn’t give an estimate as to how long she had or
when she would wake up, if ever. The Bennets stopped in to visit her, as did
the Whitakers, though Jake was conspicuously absent. When she asked Amelia
about him, she’d simply gotten a shake of the head and been told that he seemed
to be in deep thought, and told them to go without him. Amelia then asked if
she could have a private word with Kyra, who reluctantly relented, knowing that
with so many people crowded around her aunt’s bed, there was really no excuse
to stay by her side.

“If it were
any other woman,” Amelia began as they walked through the tall grass, “I
wouldn’t have thought much of Jake’s behavior this morning. But I’ve never
known Jake to pass up an opportunity to spend time with you, and I’m concerned.
I know that he was here yesterday when he and Brian brought your aunt home. Did
something happen?”

“I—”
Kyra shook her head, the words caught in her throat. She didn’t really want to
tell Amelia about what had happened yesterday, but didn’t really see any way to
avoid it. “He kissed me.”