The Full Moon Effect

Chapter 8: Pillow Talk

She paused for a second, her nose red, and wiped a few tears away, collecting herself. I stretched my hand across the table and she gripped it like a lifeline.

"That's when Beta Andrew had come in. He was in a tougher spot, couldn't protect us the way he wanted to because of the loyalty due by his title. I'm sure he could smell the fear in the room; it was palpable. But he controlled himself, greeted the Alpha and left with him when Leyton requested a private audience."

I picked up the story, squeezing my best friend's fingers. "The next day, my father and I went out for a morning run like we had been doing for years. Before I could shift, he questioned me about what happened the night before and I told him. And then...he asked me if Leyton had ever asked me about my mother's death. Leyton never had, I was too young to remember what happened so I'm sure he thought it'd be useless. I don't know what Leyton asked my father, but I bet it has something to do with that, though I can't imagine why.

My mother had been with our pregnant Luna Xena in the pack house. The house went up in flames quickly, killing everyone inside. Leyton searched for hours for a clue on how it started but couldn't ever find a clue as to who or what started the fire."

"Maybe Leyton found a clue about it," Shem offered, leaning forward in his sight. "Maybe he found the wolves who started the fire and killed them, and that's why he was gone that week and came back angry—he was reliving his pain."

Malra shook her head. "Or he found them but couldn't kill them—that would better explain why he came back ready to rip heads off of anyone who so much as looked at him wrong. They got away again."

"When Leyton came back, he distrusted everyone, even my father. He wouldn't tell him where he had gone or what he'd done and isolated himself from pretty much everyone," I said.

"Leyton was hiding something. Something either so big or so private that he couldn't tell his own pack," Amar weighed in.

Jones wrapped an arm around the back of my chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. "Luckily, big things are hard to cover up and private things have a way of never staying too private. It won't be hard for me to pull a few strings and put together what happened."

"Quicker than Leyton, who already has all the information?" Shem raised an eyebrow.

"Leyton has to tread slowly now that everyone's on alert. And he's working alone. There's a reason why lone wolfs have shortened life spans; we're better together."

*****

Shadows moved on the wall like a puppet show, mimicking the sway of the trees outside the window. The windows were open, like they always were. Outside, lesser predators stalked through our lands, willing to come out of hiding now that we were tucked away inside the house. Crickets and frogs sounded off their locations, hoping to scare them away.

I couldn't tell if Jones was asleep or not, his steady breathing hadn't changed. Every now and then his arm would tighten around me from where it had relaxed over time. If he thought it was weird we slept in my father's bed, he didn't say anything or make a fuss. Jones simply followed me in and wrapped me up in his arms, offering wordless comfort.

But it was our last night here, my last night in the home I grew up in, in the lands where I first shifted and hunted. I had set aside a few of dad's shirts to take with me, ones that he wore often and that I had fond memories of him in. We would leave in the morning and, eventually, his scent would be washed from this place. Stripped away by dust and sunlight, smothered by spiders and rain.

A small sigh left me.

Jones's fingers began to trail patterns across my hip.

"You're awake," I said, turning onto my back.