Honesty (5 page)

Taylor could see genuine concern in Lark’s eyes and she didn’t feel like it was necessary to be fully honest. That was the point of starting a new life, right? You could put the past behind you.

“There’s not much to tell. I lived with a few families here and there. Got to see a lot of interesting places. Then my mom showed up and adopted me.”

Smiling broadly, Lark said, “I can’t imagine how happy you must have been.”

Taylor made an effort to smile. “Yeah. It was something else, all right. Apparently, while I was growing up, my mom went to college, got married, and even had a daughter with her husband.”

“Wow, so you got a mother, a father
,
and
a sister?”

“Yup,” Taylor said, craning her neck back to feel the cool breeze on her forehead. “Every foster kid’s wet dream.”

“Taylor?”

“
Hm?”

“What’s a wet dream?”

Taylor laughed and shook her head. “Forget I said that. Hey, want to go wash up?”

They bathed together in the shallows
of the lake. The early morning was overcast, but the faint blue light helped to ease some of Taylor’s trepidation about being in the dark water. When they were done, they grabbed some strawberries from the field and headed back towards the cabin. After having some time to relax and soak, all she wanted was to get some rest.

It was a little brighter out as they arrived at the cabin. Taylor noticed what looked like a small box on the porch
. Lark surged ahead of her, picking the box up and sniffing it with a huge grin.

As she stepped onto the porch, Taylor realized it wasn’t a box. It was a wicker basket, and it was full of blueberries.

Taylor took one, tentatively popping it in her mouth as Lark crushed a handful into her own mouth. The juice was sweet and she couldn’t believe how good it was to be eating something besides strawberries.

“I love these things,” Lark said through a mouthful of berries.

Taylor chewed a second blueberry. “Where did they come from?”

“There’s a grove on the mountain,” Lark said, nodding back towards Halcyon. “It’s really hard to get to, but there are a bunch of these bushes there. They’re usually gone by this time of the year
, though.”

“Maybe Glenn brought them,” Taylor said. She tensed as Lark sniffed the air.

“There’s no scent that I can pick up. My nose kind of sucks, though. My ears are really good. I’m definitely best at hearing things. Way better than a wolf.”

Taylor only half-liste
ned to Lark as she prattled on. The uneasiness she’d been feeling for the past few weeks had returned. She didn’t think the blueberries had come from Glenn, but the alternative was…confusing.

“What do you eat that I could provide for you?”

Even now, the question made her cheeks heat and she didn’t like it, just like she didn’t like the idea of Hale doing nice things for her. She wasn’t sure why, but she liked him better when he was being an asshole.

Taylor slept like crap. She’d always been a light sleeper and her feelings about Alder’s departure, her confusion about Hale’s blueberries, and Lark’s loud snoring made it impossible to get anything more than a few broken hours of rest.

She felt like she’d only been asleep for a few moments when a loud banging startled her back into awareness. Her mind instinctively went to gunfire, and in her panic to take cover, one of her legs became tangled in the hammock and she tripped, barely able to brace herself as she crashed onto the floor.

The door swung open and as Taylor rubbed her scrapped arm, it occurred to her that the sound wasn’t gunfire, but knocking. She sat up, glaring towards the doorway. The outside light flooded into the cabin, framing the lanky figure that could only be Glenn.

He crouched down beside her, but didn’t speak. Taylor blinked a few times until she was able to bring him into focus. His mouth was open, as if he’d intended to say something, but his eyes were fixed on her chest.

At first she thought that her scar was showing. She hastily moved to adjust her dress, only to find that one of her breasts had managed to pop out of the slit. She tucked it back in, giving him
a awkward grin.

“Sorry,” she said, though she immediately thought better of it. After all, he’d been the one to startle her, and then he’d barged into her home.

She intended on giving him a firm tongue-lashing, but when she glanced back up at him, Glenn’s face had gone beet red. He quickly looked away, murmuring an apology of his own.

Taylor couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud. “You see naked women all the time.”

“But none of them are you,” Lark said, rising from her hammock with a theatrical yawn. “What are you doing here this early, Glenn?”

Still looking fluster
ed, Glenn stood, offering Taylor a hand. She took it, brushing the dust from her dress.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Glenn. “About how we’re always getting shafted when it comes to hunting.”

“That’s cause we suck at it,” Lark said, climbing from her hammock. She was fully nude, but Glenn didn’t seem bothered.

“Maybe you do,” he said. He turned to Taylor. “I’m great at hunting. I’ve caught a lot of things
. It’s just that I’m the youngest in the pack. They all still see me as a kid.”

“You are still a kid,” Lark said, running a comb through her tangled hair.

Anger flashed across his face. Too tired to deal with their bickering, Taylor placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Tell me your plan, Glenn.”

He relaxed a little. “The hunting party won’t be out for at least another two hours. That’s plenty of time for us to go out and make our own kill.”

Taylor must have looked as mortified as she felt, because Glenn quickly added, “You don’t actually have to do any of the killing. I’ll take care of everything and we can just say that you helped.”

“What about me?” Lark asked.

“Of course you too,” he said, his lips pressing together.

“I don’t know if I want to see something die,” Taylor said, still on the fence about the whole idea.

“I won’t let it suffer,”
Glenn assured her. “And you don’t have to watch.”

“They’re going to kill something tonight whether we’re there or not,” Lark pointed out. “We might as well tag along and take some credit, otherwise it’s cleanup duty again.”

She did have a point, Taylor thought. Just about anything would be better than scraping the guts out of another deer.

“Okay,” she said, smiling at Glenn. “Let’s do it.”

***

Light droplets of rain misted Taylor’s body as she trekked into the woods. Lark had given her a soft pair of moccasins to wear
to protect her feet from the rocks and pine needles that littered the forest floor.

It was only after she
’d agreed to go that Taylor remembered her vow to stay off of her feet for the day, but as usual it was hard to resist the urge to do things with Lark and Glenn.

They’d been out at least an hour, maybe two. She kept pace with Lark and they trailed behind Glenn, who’d shifted into the form of a shaggy brown wolf. He was much smaller than Alder and Hale, but about
a thousand times cuter, though she knew that she couldn’t tell him that. He kept his nose close to the ground as they walked, occasionally speeding up when he caught the scent of an animal.

The forest was
fairly quiet and they’d yet to come across any game animals, aside from a few quails. When Taylor had first spotted one of the stout brown birds, her stomach had clenched in anticipation of Glenn attacking it, but to her relief they left it unmolested. According to Lark, the fox shifters enjoyed eating their eggs, so the quails were off limits, except in the wintertime when food was scarce.

Glenn began to pick up speed, and this time he didn’t slow down. Lark took Taylor’s hand, pulling her along with urgency.

“I think he’s gonna get something!”

Taylor cringed and shook Lark’s hand off. “Ugh, you go ahead. I’ll catch up once the killing part is over.”

Lark gave a quick nod before she dashed off after Glenn, disappearing into the trees.

Now that she was alone, Taylor slowed down, taking some of the strain off her ankle. The forest was darkening as the day came to an end, but she wasn’t afraid. Looming over the forest, hardly a mile away, was Halcyon Mountain
. For some reason, she felt as though she was safe, so long as the mountain was nearby.

The aged hemlocks began to thin and Taylor paused as something in the distance caught her attention.
Taking a detour off the path, she crept towards a small grove. Faint light reflected off a narrow brook that twisted through the clearing. At the water’s edge was a large, mossy stone. A brown pelt had been tossed over it, and beside the rock was a petite female.

Although she was short, her willowy limbs were perfectly proportionate to her height.
At first glance, Taylor thought she was a child, but as Taylor came closer, she could make out the narrow, defined face of an adult woman. The woman, presumably a shifter, was bent over the brook, naked and lapping at the water.

As she took another step forward, something crunch
ed under Taylor’s moccasin. The sound was soft, but it seized the shifter’s attention much the same as a cannon blast would have. The small woman shot up to her feet, wild eyes frantically scanning the area.

Feeling terrible, Taylor held up a hand and waved at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to
—”

The woman’s gaze centered on
Taylor for one instant, and then the next she snatched her pelt from the rock. In a swift movement she jerked the pelt over her body, as if to cover herself. But then, in a move that could put any magician to shame, she was simply gone and in her place was a long-legged doe. Taylor hardly had time to blink before the doe bounded off into the underbrush.

Unsure of what she’d just witnessed, Taylor rubbed her eyes. She’d seen wolves shift before. It was by no means a slow process, but the woman had shifted in the span of a breath and the pelt
… it was as if it had become a part of her body.

“A skinwalker.”

Taylor let out a strangled cry. Her hands flew up defensively as she spun on her heel to see Hale. She wasn’t sure how she knew it was him at only a glance. Probably because she had the strong urge to punch him.

“God, what is it with you people and sneaking up on me?” she hissed, lowering her arms.

As usual, Hale seemed to find her amusing. “You startle too easily.”

She gave him a sour look, but inwardly agreed. The past few weeks had
stretched her nerves to their limits. Even her own shadow was making her jump these days. He didn’t need to know that, though.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“This is my territory. What are
you
doing out here?” he countered.

His face had taken on a blankness that reminded her of Alder, though it was clearly less practiced. There was a small crease between his
eyebrows that told her he was irritated. Irritated at what? That she’d been taking a walk?

“I’m not alone,” she told him, squashing back her own annoyance. “I’m with Lark and Glenn. They’re up ahead…”

Taylor trailed off, realizing she probably shouldn’t be telling Hale, of all people, about Glenn’s plan to get them out of cleaning duty.

She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Hey, what did you say that woman was?”

“What are they doing?” Hale asked, not allowing her to change the subject.

If he were anyone else, she
probably would have made something up.

“Glenn’s hunting. We were hoping he could catch something so we wouldn’t have to clean tonight.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Beka will hate that.”

It wasn’t what Taylor had expected him to say. “And that’s funny to you? I thought she was your girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” he asked, and he said it in the way the shifters said things when they had no idea what she was talking about.

“What, you don’t hav
e girlfriends here?” she asked.

For the first time today, she looked him up and down before centering her gaze between his eyes. Although it had just been a quick glance, the full picture seemed seared into her
brain. The contours of his muscular torso and strong arms reminded her so much of Alder that her mind went down a very bad path. She began to wonder if beneath the scrap of fur that hung loosely around his hips, every part of Hale was the same as his brother.

“I have a few females I prefer,” Hale said, his lips tugging again. “But I don’t play favorites.”

Taylor swallowed and pushed herself off the tree. “How charming.”

She walked past him, feeling the urge to put some distance between them. Hale followed her, seeming content to stay a few feet behind her.

“Did you still want to know about the skinwalker?” he asked.