Quest (Shifter Island Book 4) (13 page)

“I had horrible visions of this place.”

Helene smiled softly at that as she slid another heaping plate of food onto the table in front of Luca. She’d told him a little while ago that it was a treat for her to cook all these things, that Russell’s tastes were very simple and he seldom asked her to cook a grand, elaborate meal. Not since before her youngest son had left home had she prepared a meal for a young wolf with a good appetite.

His mother’s food tasted better, he thought, but he supposed he felt that way because she was his mother. He supposed Helene’s son felt exactly the same way about her cooking.

“We shouldn’t do that to our young ones,” she said as she put an empty pot in the sink and ran a little water into it. “I’ve learned that most cultures do it—frighten the young with tales of monsters and hellfire—but that doesn’t make it right. I don’t believe in it, myself.”

“You never told such things to your son?”

“Never.”

“Did Russell?”

Her eyes twinkled a little. “All Russell ever had to do was allow the wolf to stretch him a bit.”

“Make him larger?”

She nodded. “I believe his ‘personal best’ was six feet, eleven inches. It was very impressive.”

Luca looked past her out the window at the beautiful sprawl of mountainside that was visible from Helene’s kitchen. Some of the trees had begun to change color, so the view was a breathtaking spill of green, gold, amber, and rusty red. When he felt better, he decided, he would explore those woods and see what sort of interesting things he could find. Maybe he could find some gifts to bring back to Allison, keepsakes she could add to the shelf in her living room.

“When I came for my Involvement,” he told Helene, “I had a sense that this land was very big. But I never imagined all of this. It’s so large that it seems unreal. Like something I saw in the dream world.”

“Maybe you did see it there.”

Luca frowned a little. “All I see there is the island. Although, during my fever, there were other things.”

“Nothing that looked like purgatory?”

“No.”

Smiling again, Helene set a big bowl of bread pudding in front of him. “There isn’t a young wolf alive who doesn’t like a treat,” she told him. “This is my special recipe. It’s Asher’s favorite.”

He hesitated for a moment, thinking he might be stealing Russell’s portion—along with several other people’s. On the island, what Helene was offering to him would be enough to feed an entire family. True, his appetite had been boundless today, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat what might be Helene and Russell’s food supply for an entire day. Maybe, the entire week.

But Helene seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Eat,” she told him. “No one starves here. We have access to everything we need. If we don’t grow it ourselves, we can buy it at the market.”

“The supermarket?” Luca asked skeptically.

She shook her head. “There’s a special market nearby. Only a few of the humans know about it.”

Then, too, she and Russell had a refrigerator. They could store food for much longer—and much more reliably—than anyone on the island could. Luca had peeked inside the last time she’d opened the door, and had been surprised by the quantity of food in there. So much, for just the two of them.

When he had finally finished eating, she shooed him into the living room so that he’d be out of her way while she cleaned up the kitchen. That didn’t take long; barely ten minutes had gone by when she joined him and curled up in what he thought might be her favorite chair. Luca had taken a seat on the big, soft couch, a place he thought might be wonderful for naps, particularly on a cold winter day. From there he could see a row of framed photographs on the mantel: several pictures of Helene and Russell, some in which they looked much younger than they were now. And several more of a young wolf with tousled, light-colored hair.

“That’s my Asher,” Helene told him.

“Where is he now?”

“He works on a ranch about two hours’ drive from here. He loves it there—working with the horses.” She sighed a little. “He’s found someone there. She’s lovely, but I’m afraid that once they’re joined, they’ll stay there, and Russell and I will see their little ones only once in a while.”

“You could go there to live,” Luca suggested.

“We could,” she conceded. “But this is our place. We feel very connected to this spot.”

From the looks of her home, she and Russell had lived here for a long time. Maybe from the very day they’d been joined. Asher had grown up in this house, Luca decided. It was only a collection of wood and stone, but what had happened inside its walls made it as important as a shrine. That was exactly what it was, he thought: a shrine to their family, to their history together.

“If you left here,” he asked quietly, “would you feel as sick as I did?”

“I think I might.”

“Even if you were once again with your son, and could see him every day? If you could be close to your grandchildren?”

“Maybe.”

Something caught her attention, and she cocked her head to listen. Luca duplicated the gesture and picked up the sound of an approaching car. No, several of them. Russell was back, then—and he’d brought others with him.

He came striding into the house a minute later, flinging the door wide to admit the others: four men and two women, all of them younger than Russell and Helene but older than Luca, including a man with a thick white scar running along his jawline. The sight of it made Luca shudder; for it not to have healed properly, the original wound had to have been a terrible one.

The way the others moved around him said that he might be an elder. Luca quickly stood up from the couch and offered the man his place.

The others took a moment to greet Helene, who then disappeared into the kitchen and returned with some snacks and a big jug of water. While she was bustling around, the others took seats, one of the women sitting very close to a man who was clearly her mate. She was very close to giving birth, and the man put his arm around her protectively.

They were all wolves. There were no humans here.

When they were all seated, including Helene, Russell introduced all of them. “Peter. Henry. Alexander, there with Emily. Judith.” Finally, he nodded to the man with the scar and said, “And Malachi. This is our new arrival, Luca. He comes from the island pack.”

“Were you banished?” Malachi asked.

Luca shook his head. “No, sir. I came to the mainland in search of my mate. She brought me here.”

“Allison,” Russell explained. “You’ve all met Allison.”

The others all pondered that solemnly. To Luca’s relief, none of them seemed disturbed or wary. A couple of them reached for snacks or a drink, and Emily sank a little deeper into the cushions of the couch, then laid her hands over her belly, a gesture that seemed more tenderly loving than protective.

None of them were afraid of Allison, then. None of them thought his bond with her was a bad thing.

He hoped.

“Where is she now?” asked the man whom Russell had introduced as Henry.

“Working,” said Helene. “In the city. Russell and I thought it might be better to have you meet Luca this way, so that we can all talk. Luca has been… a little uneasy about being in a new place so far from his home. I hoped you could all help put his heart at ease.”

“I came from Wyoming,” Peter said. “As a young one.”

Wyoming? That sounded familiar to Luca, but where it was, exactly, he didn’t know.

Peter lifted his chin and took a deep breath. What he picked up from it made him smile and give Luca a very knowing nod. “We suffered the fever too,” he confessed. “My brother was sick for several weeks. But we learned to adapt. There’s a strong community here. You’ll find everyone to be very loyal and strong. There’s not a problem you can present to us that we can’t help you solve.”

Murmurs of agreement echoed around the room. No one even seemed to think that that point was worth a “maybe” rather than solid confirmation. Luca thought Malachi might have something to add—that scar certainly suggested that he’d been through a terrible trauma—but all he did was nod.

“I miss my family,” Luca said after the nodding and murmuring had died down.

Judith leaned forward in her chair and braced her hands on her knees. “My daughter has gone to Louisiana,” she said, as if that was completely beyond the realm of imagination. “She’s learning to be a healer, and she wanted to know about the old remedies they use down there. It’s been eight months. You would think she’d know everything there is to know by now.”

“The old ones, Judith,” Peter reminded her. “Their knowledge goes back hundreds of years. That’s a lot of information.”

No one said anything, but a bit of knowledge seemed to float around the room.

“What?” Luca asked.

“Judith has a phone,” Alexander said with a chuckle. “We all do. Don’t let her pull you into her tale of woe. She talks to Bethany at least three times a week.”

“It’s not the same,” Judith complained.

Then it was Malachi’s turn to sniff the air in Luca’s direction. He did it so elaborately, with a great deal of twitching of his nose, that the others fell silent again and waited for him to speak. Judging by their expressions, they thought Malachi would share something helpful, something encouraging.

Instead, he asked quietly, “Are you of Reuben’s line?”

Reuben? Luca had to think carefully. Recalling who that might be made him shudder a little. “He was my great-grandfather’s brother. A shame in our family. He was sent away long before my father was born. He broke a promise to one of the elders. I don’t know exactly what it was.”

“He was my great-grandsire,” Malachi said. “A good wolf. Loving and strong.”

Luca opened his mouth to respond, but Malachi gestured him back into silence. The older wolf’s expression was so stern that Luca didn’t dare argue with him.

“Are you sure of your bond?” Malachi asked in a tone as commanding as anything Luca had ever heard from the elders on the island—even from the alpha. “With Allison? You’ll dilute the blood of the pack. You must be sure.”

“I’m sure,” Luca said.

“I hear doubt in your voice.”

Luca took a deep breath. “I did have doubts. I was unsure about leaving my home and my family. I was unsure what kind of life I could have—if I could provide for my mate and my children in a place that’s unfamiliar to me. Here, where there are so many humans.”

“You thought you were alone,” Henry said.

“I did,” Luca agreed. “It was a very frightening prospect. On the island, we work together.”

“We do here as well.”

Was this all of them? Luca wondered. Just these few? It seemed unlikely that such a small group could provide everything that he would need, no matter how generous and kind they were. The pack on the island was nearly sixty strong, and even that seemed like a small number sometimes—particularly compared to billions of humans, something he tried to avoid thinking about.

His apprehension must have been clear on his face, because Henry got up from his chair and guided Luca over to a window.

“Russell has told us what he said to you,” Henry said, gesturing toward that enormous expanse of mountains. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten, since you were burning with fever.”

“I—” Luca began.

Henry lifted a hand, with his first two fingers pressed together. “There are many hundreds of us nearby, young Luca,” he said softly. “These mountains are home to more wolves than you’ve seen in your lifetime. Across this land, there are thousands. Some live among the humans. Others live in seclusion. You will have as much privacy as you seek, but you will never for a moment be alone.”

He gave Luca a minute to think that over, then grasped the back of Luca’s neck in his hand.

“When you’re ready,” he said, “we’ll make you one of us.”

Then he returned to his seat and picked up one of the fragrant muffins Helene had set out for the group to enjoy.

“We are one,” Peter said in a rumble that came from deep in his chest.

“We are one,” the others agreed in unison.

“Good to see you back, Al.”

She looked up and smiled at Roseanne, who was standing in Allison’s office doorway with a hand curled around the doorframe. As always, Ro looked as relaxed as if she were in the middle of a Caribbean vacation. Her face was curved into a slight, wistful smile; people who didn’t know her well often thought she was spacey, or that she wasn’t paying attention, but Ro never missed a trick.

“Thanks,” Allison said. “Lots to catch up on.”

“After you get settled, let’s sit down for a few minutes and go over some stuff. There’s something coming up on the horizon that I think you’re gonna like.”

“Really?”

“They’re saying Dan should get it, but it’s got your name written all over it.”

That was all Ro would say. Allison watched her walk away, strolling casually through the office, around the secretaries’ cubicles, until she disappeared around a corner.

Something new.

Ye gods. All of a sudden, her life was nothing
but
new things.

She thought about closing her office door to give herself some privacy until she’d finished wading through her In box (both email and snail mail, and the huge pile of interoffice paperwork), but the low hum of life in the office was so blissfully familiar that she couldn’t bring herself to shut it out. It was just what she needed right now: a sort of musical backdrop while she reoriented herself and made some plans for the rest of the week.

And the rest of her life.

One by one, about half the staff came by to say “welcome back” and bring her up to speed on the latest news and gossip. Tosh from office services brought her a donut and a stack of files, along with a copy of the latest
PRVistas
magazine. This issue had a woman on the cover, one not much older than Allison.
Rising Star!
the caption said.

“You’ll be on that cover one day.”

Ron Daystrom, one of her bosses, was standing in the doorway. As usual, he’d shucked his suit jacket, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up most of the way to his elbows. He looked a little rumpled and dusty, as if he’d been hauling old boxes around—but she knew all he’d been moving were sheets of paper.

“Good trip?” he asked.

“Busy.”

He leaned in and peered at her a little. He’d done the same thing at her interview, she remembered: looking
into
her, it seemed like, as if he had x-ray vision. Or, she realized now, as if he were a wolf—although he wasn’t.

It was best to confess to him, she decided. He’d find out about Luca sooner or later. “I… ran into an old flame,” she said.

“Ahhh.” He grinned.

“He… came back with me.”

“Sounds serious.”

“I think it is.”

“Which, from you, means that you know it is.” Ron smiled warmly and chuckled a little. “Honestly, Al, that’s a good thing. We all work our nuts off, but bottom line… it’s only worth it if you can go home at night to somebody who cares. Somebody you’re working hard
for
.” He stepped into the office and straightened a framed photo of the Rockies that was hanging a little crooked. “I was glad when you asked for the time off. And I’m even more glad you hooked that fish.”

He winked at her, then went back to fussing with the picture, which seemed completely unwilling to hang straight.

She was surrounded with good people, she reminded herself. At work, at home… all of them interested in her welfare. Even Julie, who’d sent a series of texts saying she’d call and they could have some extensive girl talk after her honeymoon was over. She seemed determined to forget everything bad that had happened during the week of her wedding. That was sensible, Allison thought—starting her marriage off on the best possible footing. She’d suspected that that might include ending their friendship, but Julie had never been one to hold a grudge.

Even when her wedding reception had ended with three people being arrested for assault.

“Ronnie?” she said after a minute.

He raised an eyebrow and stepped away from the picture, ready to listen.

“You’ve been married a long time.”

He nodded in acknowledgment. “Nineteen years in November. Of course, we got married when I was six.”

Allison grinned, then asked, “Does it ever happen—are there times when you’re in the middle of doing something, and all of a sudden it comes into your head that you love Fay so much that it takes your breath away?”

Ron looked past her out the window for a moment. She could tell he was thinking about his wife—who was genuinely one of the sweetest people Allison knew, a terrific wife and mom, and the manager of a successful flower shop—and letting the warmth of his love for her wash through him.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Couple times, I thought I was having a stroke.”

Allison burst out laughing at that, and Ron joined in. That was his sense of humor; if things got a little too mushy, he’d deflect them with a joke. It wouldn’t do, after all, for the boss to get teary-eyed in the middle of the day.

“Have a drink with us sometime soon,” he offered. “After you get your bearings. You and Mr. Old Flame, me and Fay.”

“We’ll do that.”

No, she thought after Ron had walked back to his office—there was no way she could have given all of this up to go and live on Luca’s island, no matter how beautiful it might be. No matter how much she loved him.

In spite of all the doubts she’d had during the week of Julie’s wedding, she knew now that she and Luca belonged together—and it seemed like nothing less than a miracle that he’d been willing to come here with her, to a place he’d been genuinely frightened of. He’d given up everything that was important to him to come to Colorado, and no doubt that would impact him for the rest of his life.

But he’d seemed all right this morning. Interested in exploring the area. Getting to know Helene and Russell.

They’d be all right, she hoped with all her heart.

Both of them.