Wonder: A Soul Savers Collection of Holiday Short Stories & Recipes (8 page)

C
hapter 4

“Rissa,” Gray called after her, but she ignored him and ran for the woods. Within seconds, he stood in front of her, forcing her to stop.

Her breath caught as a mixture of emotions swirled inside her. Bewilderment because she’d been running as fast as she could in human form, which was faster than almost any Norman, and he’d not only caught up with her but had passed her. Anger at herself for being so stupid to get caught. Embarrassment because she’d had to sneak around and invade his house in the first place.

“You’re the one who’s been in the cabin?” Gray demanded, his voice filled with confusion and ... was that relief she heard?

Rissa didn’t answer. She looked over his shoulder, measuring the distance to the woods, where she could change and run away from here forever.

“Rissa,” Gray said, trying to capture her attention. When she still didn’t reply, he lunged forward and grasped her wrists in his large, warm hands. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Before she could respond, he pulled her forward, into his arms.

“Thank God I found you again,” he breathed as he hugged her against his hard chest. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I came searching but no one had seen you anywhere ... and I had no clue where you live. I came out here and found you—”

Rissa wiggled and squirmed her way out of his embrace. Once free, she stepped back two paces, and her head dropped.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I ... I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Now Gray remained silent. Rissa looked up at him through her lashes, her hands wringing together in front of her. He cocked his head.

“Rissa, are you ... are you homeless?”

She immediately dropped her gaze and stared at the brown grass which had gone dormant for the winter. How was she going to explain her life without giving everything away? There was no way. She needed to run. Now. Get as far away as possible and never return. Never see Gray again.

“My stepfather kicked me out of the house when I was 16,” she blurted instead, and before she could think about what she was doing, she told him everything. Well, sort of. In Norman terms, anyway. “A couple found me in a city park, about to starve to death—if I didn’t freeze overnight first. They took me in, like a foster kid, and they tried to make me like one of their own. But I never felt right there. They were ... wrong. We had different values, I guess you could say. I tried to run away several times, but even after I was of legal age, they kept finding me and dragging me back. I’d become more like their slave, and they never let me forget that I was indebted to them. A few months ago, I finally got away for good. I’ve been running and hiding ever since. And then you helped me, and you were so nice, but then ... then you were gone and that house, it was just sitting there empty and ...”

“Rissa,” Gray interrupted, his voice low and husky. Once more, his hands encased her wrists, and he pulled her into him in another hug. “Rissa, Rissa, Rissa. You’re always welcome in my home.”

Tears stung her eyes by now, and she pressed her face against his chest, refusing to let them fall. Her body trembled, though, betraying her emotions. He tightened his hold around her and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. She breathed his scent in, stronger than what had been left on the blanket, and once again, it tingled in her nose, but now almost pleasantly.

She couldn’t believe she’d told him all that she had, but she felt a sense of relief at letting it all out. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that the so-called family was really a werewolf pack, and that the values they differed on had to do with the sanctity of human lives and souls. He didn’t need to know the true horrors of her past life, but there was still a release in being able to tell him what she did.

“I was so worried about leaving you like I did,” he said. “I felt like a major douche bag, taking off like that. But something happened with the ... the family business, and my sister needed help. If I would have known, well—” He chuckled softly. “Well, I would have let you stay at my place. And I certainly would have made sure you had more food.”

“Why?” Rissa asked, her voice muffled against his chest. “Why are you so nice to me?”

Gray pulled back, just enough to look her in the eye. He raised his hand to her face, and she immediately missed his arm around her. At least, until his knuckles brushed lightly against her cheekbone and his thumb over her lip.

“Because there’s just something about you,” he said. “Something that makes me want to take care of you.”

Rissa swallowed. “I don’t need your charity.”

His eyes squinted. “Um, yeah, you do. You’ve been helping yourself to it.” He smiled at the flush that rose in her cheeks. “And I’m glad you do. I like it—taking care of you. Providing for you. I’m serious about not being able to stop thinking about you. I’ve been wondering what you’ve been doing, where you went, what I could have done to make sure you were okay. You don’t even want to know the anger I felt when I thought about how I found you—naked and dirty—and the visions that ran through my head about how you got that way. I couldn’t help but worry that you’d go back to that, whatever it was, and I didn’t have any way to get a hold of you to know. I really set myself off, worried about you so much, until I couldn’t stand it another moment. I skipped classes to come up here to look for you.”

“You really shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, I should have.”

“I was fine.”

“I see that now. But I wasn’t.”

She looked up at him with big, brown eyes. “Are you now?”

He smiled, bringing out his dimples. Then he gripped her chin with his thumb and finger and leaned in toward her. Without even the slightest hesitation, his lips skimmed over hers, sending a jolt down to her navel. The light kiss became firmer and then urgent. Their mouths parted, and his tongue slid into hers, tasting like cinnamon gum. The kiss went on until they were both left breathless.

“Come on,” Gray said, taking her hand and pulling her toward the house. “I’ll make you dinner.”

He skipped the next day of classes, too, and stayed with her through the weekend. Before he left, he made sure she had plenty of food for the week, and then he returned the following Friday. The weeks passed as the leaves fell, leaving the trees in the woods as naked as Rissa had been when Gray first found her. As naked as he left her in bed every Sunday afternoon. The days grew shorter, but seemed to drag on during the week, and the nights grew colder, but at least on the weekends they could snuggle under the blankets, sometimes outside on the porch swing as night fell, and other times inside by the fire. Thankfully, the full moon came during the middle of the week, and Rissa was able to run the woods those nights without Gray ever knowing.

“I tried to apply for a couple of jobs in town,” she told him one Friday night over dinner. She’d been worried at first that her old pack would find her, but they hadn’t come around since chasing after her over a month ago now. Maybe they’d finally given up. So she took the chance and walked to town, hoping to earn her own money so she could pay Gray back for all of his hospitality. “But, of course, they want I.D., and I don’t have any.”

“Hmm...” was his only response as he took another mouthful of the homemade spaghetti she’d fixed for him.

“I need to work, Gray,” she said.

“You do. You take care of this place for me.”

True. She’d been doing the cleaning and upkeep during the week so he didn’t have to when he came on the weekends. But that was the least she could do. She needed to pay him rent and buy her own food. And if he wouldn’t let her, she needed to save enough to be able to support herself elsewhere.

“I need a job,” she said again.

He swallowed another bite and considered her for a long moment. “Tell you what. Come to Thanksgiving with me on Thursday.”

Rissa’s heart skipped a beat at the thought, but her brow furrowed. “You’re changing the subject.”

He wiped the napkin over his mouth. “No, I’m not. Come to Thanksgiving with me. Meet my sister. I’ve told her all about you, and she’s dying to meet you.”

“Gray! You did not!” Anger flushed through Rissa’s cheeks.

He reached out and placed his hand over hers. “Relax. Not
everything
. The good things ... which is almost everything. She really does want to meet you. And she might have a job for you.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“It’s a great idea! Or do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”

He knew she didn’t. She didn’t have a family or a home to go to for the holidays. A month ago, she’d truly had nothing to be grateful for. Now she had Gray, though, and a roof over her head, clothes on her back, and food in her belly. But she knew in her heart this could never last. She had a certain lifestyle that would never change—one that a human could never know about. It would be hard enough to say goodbye as it was, but meeting his sister ... working for their family business ... that was getting in way too deep.

“I can’t, Gray,” she said firmly, then she rose to her feet and carried their dishes into the kitchen, needing to put space between them. He followed her in, of course.

“Please, sweetheart. Don’t make me go alone.” He walked up behind her as she stood at the sink and wrapped his arms around her. “I kind of already told her you were coming.”

Rissa groaned. “You didn’t.”

He pressed his lips against her neck. “I did. So please don’t make me go stag another year. Don’t make me look like a fool.”

He pleaded with her all weekend and called every day from his apartment in the city. When he came Wednesday night, she finally acquiesced. She didn’t exactly cherish the idea of spending the holiday with a group of strangers—their extended family would be there, too—but she hated even more the idea of missing a day she could have with Gray. And, admittedly, the idea of spending the holiday alone. Again.

As they pulled into the small town east of Atlanta, though, she immediately regretted her decision. She knew this place. It wasn’t all that far from Savannah. When Gray pulled his truck into the parking lot of a bar, her hackles raised. A dozen people poured out of the bar’s door, led by a woman with long, dark hair, wearing low-rise jeans and a tight-fitting button-down top. Rissa saw the obvious resemblance to Gray, and every instinct in her told her to run ... or to prepare to fight. That odd trace in Gray’s scent slammed into her like a wall of fire, so strong now that it seared her nose and lungs. The wolf inside her became alert. Grew within. Wanted out.

Amadis. Everywhere. She was surrounded.

“You set me up!” she snarled.

Ch
apter 5

Gray jumped out of the truck at the same time Rissa did while the others from the bar fell into formation in the parking lot behind the dark-haired woman, all of their eyes on Rissa. She scanned the area and found her point of escape—what looked like a forest about a hundred yards behind the bar. She just had to get past this Amadis pack, the bar and building behind it—

More Amadis wolves came from around the back of the building. Five men and three women, all dressed in denim, leather, and chains. No way could she outrun all of these wolves. Her head snapped toward Gray, her eyes wide and her nostrils flaring.

“
You
,” she spat. “How could you?”

“No, you don’t understand—”

“Oh, I understand all right. I see it all right in front of my eyes. I
feel
it.” She paused and narrowed her eyes. “How did I not sense you?”

“Are we doing this or not, Henry?” the woman who had to be Gray’s sister asked.

“Just ... just give me a minute, Sundae,” Gray said in response.

“
Henry?
” Rissa let out a dark chuckle, but then her voice rose as her body began to shake uncontrollably. “Was everything you told me a lie? Even your name? And you assholes accuse the Daemoni of being the deceivers!”

“Rissa,” Gray said, “I ... I wanted to help you.”

“Help me?” Her voice rose another octave, and her form trembled even harder. She wouldn’t be able to control the wolf inside her much longer. Her fingers ached from the growth of claws already protruding through her skin. “I don’t need your help! I don’t need your charity, and I certainly don’t need your fucked-up idea of a Thanksgiving feast.”

With no further warning, her human shape exploded. Were-goo rained to the gravelly parking lot with thick splats as Rissa shook her wolf-self out. Her hackles already stood high, her black fur from the back of her neck down her spine to her tail standing on end. She bent her head down low, twisted her ears back, and lifted her upper lip in a snarl, her now golden eyes sweeping over the group.

Several of the Amadis wolves, still in their human forms, began to tremble, but they didn’t break rank or formation.

“Don’t let them, Sundae!” Gray yelled at his sister as he threw her a look of warning.

Sundae raised her hand, and the others’ shapes stilled. Gray’s sister was apparently the leader of this pack. But wait. No, the others who’d come from the back of the building stood in formation behind another leader. A tall man with arms the size of Rissa’s human legs and covered in tattoos, exposed as he only wore a black leather vest with his jeans. Apparently, even the Amadis wolf packs looked like biker gangs. And here she’d let herself be taken right into the hands of two such packs. What, were they going to fight over her? Or kill her and then split the goods? Either way, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Gray took another step toward her. She growled and snapped at him.

“Rissa, please,” Gray said, holding a tentative hand out like a Norman does with a strange dog. “Listen to me. We don’t want to hurt you. We want to help you.”

She snarled again in response. Amadis don’t help Daemoni. She’d been warned since the day she was bitten that they wanted to do nothing but kill her kind. They’d told her of attacks like this, reminding her to always stay with her pack. She’d thought them full of shit, though. Just trying to scare her. After all, she was a werewolf. She could defend herself. Yet, here she was, in the middle of these two packs who had quietly moved into a circle around her. Effectively trapping her. Damn. She
hated
admitting that her old pack leader had been right all along.

“I’m not lying,” Gray continued, standing in the center of the circle with her.  “You have a good heart. You are a
good
soul. You don’t have to be part of the Daemoni.”

No, she didn’t. If she could get through this, she could go back to her loner status. Be apart from all of them. She’d known all along that getting involved with Gray was a mistake. Now she just had to figure out how to escape this nightmare.

She paced a few times, a low growl rumbling in her throat as her gaze scanned over the others who watched them carefully. Gray stepped in front of her, his own shape quivering as he tried to maintain control over his wolf.

“You can still be good,” he said. “You don’t have to be a murderer. You don’t have to hurt humans—I know you don’t want to. I know you don’t want to be one of
them
. You only have to let us convert you.”

The word ‘convert’ sent a chill up her spine, and the Daemoni in her rose. She growled loudly this time and snapped at Gray again, her elongated teeth cracking against each other.

“Please, don’t,” Gray pled, but she didn’t know to whom he spoke because four of the others had exploded into wolf form.

Another chill ran down Rissa’s spine. She became agitated as adrenaline shot through her veins. She paced in a circle now, around Gray, taking him as her hostage. The other wolves growled back at her, their own heads down and their ears back. She snapped at them. They snapped back. But Sundae and the other pack leader apparently kept control of their wolves. Rissa had to admit they did a better job at doing so than her old pack leader had. The Daemoni wolves would have torn her into shreds by now. Or, at least, tried to. They possessed no control.

And the only way she’d escape right now was if she owned who—and what—she really was: a Daemoni werewolf.

Unleashing the self-control she’d barely been hanging on to, she lunged at one of the Amadis wolves. Her claws sliced into its neck at the same time pain pierced into her own shoulder: fangs from one of the others. She couldn’t control the yelp.

“No!” Gray shouted, and the next thing she knew, a silvery-gray blur streaked to her side.

But Gray didn’t attack her. He didn’t defend his own pack members. He attacked
them
. And everyone else exploded into their wolf-selves, too.

Except Gray didn’t really attack. He only snarled and snapped at them, pushing them back. A white wolf with a black streak down her back and a bigger one, black and gray, growled in return as they sauntered forward. The others once again dropped into formation behind their leaders. Everyone but Gray, who still stood by Rissa’s side, his upper lip lifted, though he held the growl back.

Rissa could only stare in shock. This was nothing like how her old pack behaved. Not only would she be dead by now, but they’d be so hyped up, they’d be running off to find someone else to kill.

After several long moments passed, Gray’s body began to shrink. He morphed into his human form—his beautifully naked form—and turned toward Rissa.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said, and she whined in response, referring to the bite in her shoulder. “We’ll defend ourselves, but we don’t want to harm you. We
do
want to help you. But it’s up to you, sweetheart. Only you can make that decision. If you don’t want to learn how you can have a much better life than you’ve had, we won’t stop you from leaving.”

She backed away, testing them before she made a run for it. She had to get out of here. No way could she ever trust any of them. Not even Gray, who’d been lying to her for weeks. Of course ... she hadn’t exactly been truthful with him. But he knew what she was, and, somehow, he’d been able to mask what he was. No, she couldn’t trust him. No matter what her heart tried to tell her.

Nobody moved when she did. She took several more steps back, and still, they all remained frozen. Except Gray’s face—his eyes. Sadness and disappointment flickered in them. Did he really care?
No. He’s the enemy
. As she turned her body toward the forest without moving her gaze from him, she saw his face break. And her heart nearly broke with it.

Run
, she told herself, and she sprang into action, hurdled the wolves, and sprinted for the treeline, pain screaming through her shoulder from the bite. She’d barely reached the edge of the forest before she had to stop for a rest. As soon as she did, grief and regret filled her being, and she morphed from wolf to human. She sat against a tree on a carpet of fallen leaves and sobbed, the image of Gray’s crushed expression flooding her mind. When she stopped crying, conversation filtered to her sensitive ears as someone moved toward her.

“I’m sorry,” Gray’s familiar voice said, its tone heavy. “I knew she’d been running from them for a long time. I thought she was ready, that she’d want to.”

“Well, you probably blew any trust she might have had in you by having that warlock mask your scent.” The voice sounded like Sundae’s, from the small bit Rissa had heard from the pack leader.

“I had to, or she’d never let me get close. You saw her. She thinks we’re the enemy.”

“We are, little brother. In her eyes, we are.”

A long pause. “She’s not my enemy, Sundae. Not any of ours. She was practically starving herself to death, and I’m sure it’s because she can barely bring herself to eat a squirrel or rabbit. I just can’t see her eating a human.”

He paused again, giving time for Rissa to process their words. He’d been right about the eating a human part. That was the exact reason for leaving her old pack: they’d given her the ultimatum of devouring a Norman or being killed herself. She chose to run, even if that made her a coward, according to them. She didn’t care what they thought. They didn’t matter to her.

But, for some stupid reason, she did care what Gray thought. He did matter to her. She realized now that she’d allowed him to get under her skin much deeper than she’d known. He seemed to actually
see
her for who she really was.

Rissa squirmed to the side so she could see him now. Gray and Sundae walked along the back of the building that looked like a garage for motorcycles, from what Rissa could see. She remained hidden behind the tree trunk while watching them.

“I thought she was perfect for the Amadis,” Gray continued, his voice becoming even more forlorn, and his next statement came out so low, Rissa almost missed it. “I thought she was perfect for me.”

“Henry Grayson,” Sundae said, her tone firm like a mother’s as she turned and gripped his shoulders, “you need to go after her. From everything you’ve gushed about her over the last several weeks, she
is
perfect for you. And you’re exactly what she needs. Go get her.”

“But what if—”

“No what ifs! Go now,” she barked. “And that’s an order from your alpha.”

Gray stared at his sister for a long moment, then his human shape was gone, replaced by the beautiful silvery-gray wolf. The magnificent beast took off for the forest, galloping straight toward Rissa. Her heart flew into double-time as she watched his majestic form run toward her. After her. To claim her. To make her his. And she suddenly realized that’s what she wanted more than anything. She wanted to be Gray’s mate. Even if that meant being Amadis.

Actually, she dared to admit, something deep down in her heart wanted that, too.

She stepped into the wolf’s path, and he plowed into her, knocking her on her back. He immediately became human again, laying on top of her, both of them naked. He pushed himself onto his hands and locked his elbows, taking his weight off of her. He opened his mouth to say something, but Rissa wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him back down until their lips crushed together.

After rolling around in the leaves together until their bodies were spent, they became wolves again and ran for the Amadis pack. A few younger pack members were outside, tossing a football between them. When they saw Gray returning with the raven wolf next to him, they ran inside. Sundae came out with a big grin and a pile of clothes in her arms.

The two packs gathered inside the bar, ready for a Thanksgiving feast. The entire bar and two pool tables were laid out with the biggest spread of food Rissa had ever seen. As they waited for Sundae and some of the others to bring out the last items, Gray took his new mate around to introduce her to the others, never letting go of her hand. She learned that his sister’s pack had teamed up with a pack from Florida, the reason there were two packs in this small town. The Florida pack was led by the big man named Trevor. It appeared he and Sundae were mates, too.

After they filled their plates and sat down, Trevor led everyone in prayer. Rissa’s body stiffened, but Gray wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

“Relax,” he whispered into her ear. “You’re right where you belong.”

As Rissa looked around at these badass wolves who were also kind and caring, she knew Gray was right. She’d found a pack she could be a part of and had even found her mate. And for the first time in six years, she had something to be thankful for.