The Moon's Son Ch. 5

Chapter Five

    Nick sat on the back patio, his feet dangling in the pool as he enjoyed the high-noon sun. It was going to start getting cold soon, the trees were beginning to hibernate for the winter—the brown, gold, and red leaves were a beautiful indicator—and there was a brisk chill in the air.

    It had been four days since they had gone to the mall, and a whole week since Nick had come to live with Macey and the vampire. During that time he had come to accept his fate, that he was a pet to a human, a creature with a false will and no real future. He was angry about it, more often than not, but he found that he could no longer direct his anger at the girl.

    Ever since the mall incident he had been unable to be angry with her, no matter how childish or ridiculous her antics could be. When he found her and Lilly singing along to a movie of talking lions and then crying at one of the lion’s death, he hadn’t been disgusted like he had expected. He hadn’t exactly liked it either, but it didn’t bother him at all and he even found himself watching her from the windowsill as she rehearsed the entire movie back to the screen—Lilly had just sat there and listened which probably meant she did it often.

    Nick didn’t mind sitting at the dinner table with her anymore, though he didn’t offer conversation; this led to awkward silences because Macey had stopped talking to him. He knew her sudden awkwardness around him had something to do with the mall but he hadn’t figured out just what that was. He didn’t really care why she had stopped trying to build some type of relationship between him, but he did wonder what her next phase in behavior would be.

    He could hear Lilly moving around in the house, her feet occasionally making a louder thump on the tile in the kitchen as she danced to something called Blink 182 and cooked at the same time. She’d become an interesting factor to his new ownership that he had never considered. The vampire was blunt, sometimes to a point of being rude, but she was also kind. She apologized every time she shooed him out the door so she could feed off of whatever Macey provided for her and made his lunch every day around noon despite her lack of appetite for real food. He couldn’t say he trusted her completely, but he liked that he wasn’t the only one who understood what it was like to be worth almost nothing.

    With a sigh at his thoughts, which was what he often used to entertain himself, Nick stood from the side of the pool and used a towel to dry off his legs. Lilly would be furious if he tracked water into the house.

    He was dropping off the towel in the linen closet where a laundry basket was stored when he heard the sound of a vehicle rolling into the drive way. A glance at the crescent moon shaped clock above the front door told him that he hadn’t lost hours to his musings because it was only twelve thirty. He was instantly on guard and had the urge to either run upstairs and avoid whoever the stranger was or stand at the door and guard what was now his home—willing or not.      Before he had even made a conscious decision to do so, he was at the door with his hand on the handle. He opened it slowly and stepped outside to see that a slick black car that was low and tiny had pulled into the circle driveway. The car door swung open and Nick felt the hair on the back of his neck raise as something extremely foreign assaulted his nose.

    The smell of sweat, forest, food and something he didn’t recognize put him on edge instantly and a growl slipped past his lips at the stranger. It was like something was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what.

    A dark haired head popped up from behind the car, adorning a pair of dark metallic sunglasses. Despite not being able to see the man’s eyes, Nick could tell he was surprised because his mouth was open in shock and his skin seemed a little pale.

    “Who the hell are you?” the male asked, not even bothering to close the door as he stepped around the car. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans and he was extremely muscular. He also noticed that the man had a crescent moon dangling from his left ear.

    Nick felt a retort build in his throat, but he bit his lip, almost drawing blood, and coughed down another growl. “My master is not home. You should go.”

    “Master? You mean Macey is your owner?” The male grinned suddenly and laughed. “Good for her, I’m glad she convinced them. Is Lilly inside?”

    Nick felt his jaw tighten. He instantly hated the male for his excitement about his ownership, not to mention he didn’t trust him. But he obviously knew Macey, which meant he couldn’t just throw him out with the excuse of guarding the house. “Yes.” He turned and went inside, leaving the door open. He didn’t bother inviting the stranger in, he knew he’d come in anyway. He stepped to the side and watched as he came into the house and went instantly to the kitchen.

    It didn’t take much internal persuasion to convince himself to follow the overly muscular male. When they stepped into the kitchen Lilly was sitting on the counter, her arms crossed under her chest and revealing more of her pale skin beneath the dark long-sleeved, v-neck shirt she wore.

    “What are you doing here, Luke?” Her words were quick and her voice slightly higher pitched than she’d probably intended, as if she was worried. “You know Macey wouldn’t like you dropping in unannounced, especially now.” Her eyes darted to Nick and he felt his eyebrow raise in question. Instead of answering, the vampire turned her gaze back to Luke.

    The man shifted to lean against the wall, crossing his arm and ankles and looking as if he was trying to be intimidating. “Lil’ you know I wouldn’t do anything to piss her off. It took me forever to get her to forgive me last time. I wouldn’t be here, especially without warning, unless it was important.” The familiarity and comfort Luke used to speak to Lilly surprised him and Nick suddenly felt like the odd-man-out.

    Lilly sighed and looked down at her knees. “Is it something you can tell me?”

    “Of course it is, but it’s not something I can tell him.” Luke nodded his head in his direction and the feeling of being left out settled like rocks in his stomach—it was followed quickly by anger and frustration.

    He looked to Lilly, hoping that she would object, but he knew she wouldn’t. The vampire bit her lip and then sighed in defeat. “Then it’ll have to wait until Macey gets home. I’m just finishing Nick’s lunch and I like to sit with him. You can join us if you’d like.”

    “What did you make?”

    “Grilled chicken sandwiches and french-fries.”

    “Count me in.”

    “Count me out,” Nick retorted. “I’m not hungry.” He turned to leave, not bothering to look either one of them in the face. He had wanted to add a scathing remark, but the truth was: he was more bothered about being left out than he should be. In a short time, he had come to accept this place as his home and he didn’t like not being privy to everything in it.

    With a grunt as he slid the side door open, Nick stepped outside and began to strip. The chilly air kissed his warm, bare skin and he closed his eyes at the familiar and welcome feeling.

    This is real, he thought. The earth, the ground, my wolf—they are real.

    The mantra he often repeated to himself when he needed to take a calming moment flowed through his brain without any conscious will of his own. By the time he had finished, he was breathing normal again.

    The anxious feeling in his stomach didn’t go away, however, and he decided he needed a good run to calm his nerves. He closed his eyes and mentally reached for the half of him that was simple, beastly, and trustworthy by pure nature. Through the fog of whatever magic made him what he was, he could feel the stirrings of the wolf, could feel it waking; and then hair started to grow on every part of his body. His fingernails lengthened, fattened, and sharpened into claws and his spine ruptured from his back with a large and painful rip in his skin, lengthening to the point of almost touching the ground. The bones of his legs broke with a crack and realigned, forcing him onto his breaking and reassembling front legs. He felt the bones in his face lengthen, his ears grow pointed and move to the top of his head, and the teeth in his mouth sharpen and thicken with pulses of pain in his gums and jaws.

    When he opened his eyes, after a change that only lasted seconds, Nick was on all fours and everything around him was more vibrant and beautiful. The pads of his paws itched to run around the grounds he now claimed as his own and with a growl of excitement, he took off towards the end of the Graces’ yard.

    “What the hell are you doing here?!” Macey shouted as she stepped into the house to find Luke sitting on the couch watching some cheap sci-fi movie about warlocks being aliens. She glared even harder as he ran his hands through the short crop of dark hair and looked to Lilly, who was sitting at the other end of the couch.

    “Told you,” the vampire said. “I know her better than you.”

    Macey watched as Luke scoffed and stood. “She’s still happy to see me, aren’t you Mace?”

    She tried to give him an even darker glare but his green eyes were begging her to say “yes” to his hopeful plea. Besides, if she didn’t say “yes,” he’d wine all night about how she didn’t love him as much as he loved her.

    “Of course I’m glad to see you,” she said, “but I’m not glad about you just showing up. You can’t just show up unannounced. We have phones for a reason, Lucas.” She looked towards the kitchen and saw that the lights were off and then upstairs, but the hall light was off as well. She felt a frown tug at her lips as she realized Nick wasn’t nearby. “Did you send him off?”

    Luke snorted and shifted to the arm of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest in a lazy manner. “The guy has some serious attitude problems, Mace. He was rude the second I stopped by.”

    Macey looked to Lilly, hoping for an explanation. She knew Luke could be a handful but Nick wasn’t the friendliest werewolf she’d been around—in fact, he was probably only second to the one standing in front of her.

    “I heard the conversation between them,” Lilly said. “Nick was on edge—he was short, but he wasn’t rude. He was…It was almost as if he was protecting the house.”

    Macey pursed her lips, wondering if Lilly’s theory was true. If it was, Nick was making more progress than she had realized, despite her outbursts at the mall. “What do you think put him on edge? Is he okay? Where is he anyway?”

    Luke shifted uncomfortably. “You worry like a mother hen, Macey. It was probably my mask that got to him.” He pointed at the crescent moon dangling from his ear. “It covers my wolf scent, but even I notice that something is off about me. I can almost smell the magic, but not quite. It probably made him nervous.”

    “Which is why you should have called,” Macey hissed, her anger building up again as she worried over the werewolf she was trying to bring out of his shell. “I’m going to go check on him.”

    “There’s no need,” a voice said from the left of her, making her jump and almost slide across the wooden floor in her socks. Nick was standing beside her, sweat glistening down his bare chest and stomach while he held his shirt in his hand. His face was flushed and he was breathing slightly heavy.

    “You always do that!” Macey half-yelled, stomping her foot lightly upon the floor. “You need a bell or something.” She watched as his cool expression fell swiftly into a mix of anger and shock and then just as quickly went back to his usual somber expression. She realized too late just how those words sounded to him.

     “I had heard your vehicle and…” His eyes darted to Luke and she didn’t miss the subtle narrowing of his eyelids. “I do not know him.”

    The second Macey realized that Nick had rushed to the house to make sure she was safe with Luke, she lost her breath. She felt her mouth drop open slightly but she couldn’t make it close; she was left gaping at him as he turned back to her with a hard expression.

    “But now I know—you are friends with an illegally free wolf.” Just like that, the moment of elation was gone. Nick’s voice was cold, hard, and accusing—it felt like he’d slapped her in the face.

    “I…I—yes,” was all she could squeak out. She could feel Lilly and Luke’s gaze upon them and she wished that they would just look away. “It’s not what you think, Nick.”

    “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he answered, his voice lacking emotion and his expression dead. “I’m your pet.” With that, he turned and made his way to the stairs. He paused however, with his hand on the banister, and turned just enough so she could see his face. “I knew that you were different than what most owners are supposed to be like, but I had not thought you were a hypocrite.”

    His words were like a sharp, icy knife and Macey felt like her insides had frozen and cracked from the blade. With every step he took to the top of the stairs, she felt her heart break a little further. Just when she thought things were getting better, they got worse.

    A warm wetness settled on her cheeks and she realized that she was crying. Within seconds, Luke was there, wrapping his arms around her in a warm and tight embrace. “I’m sorry, Mace. I should have called.”

    She could only nod and bury her face into his chest. The last thing she saw was Nick looking down on them before entering his room. When he shut the door behind him, if felt like he’d cut the bridge she’d been working so hard to build between them.