“Six,” Jay corrected firmly. “Eden and I are right here.”
“And none of us are going anywhere,” Eden promised. As soon as the words escaped her lips she regretted them. With her body as numb as her heart, the words rang hollow.
She didn’t believe them. No one was going anywhere, but Zack was still slipping away. He didn’t have to make Quinn’s choice to leave. If something didn’t change, that hungry emptiness inside her cousin would consume every trace of the man he’d become.
Something had to change. Soon.
They buried Quinn in a small clearing surrounded by trees near the center of the farm. Stella laid protective wards around its perimeter while Fletcher and Colin dug the grave deep into the loamy soil.
The magic tickled over Jay’s senses as they crossed the barrier, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It had been too long since he’d been involved in the harsh reality of being a wolf in human society, too long since he’d dealt with anything but his own practical matters. And, since reaching adulthood, those were few—he had good control, never had to worry about hurting anyone or blowing his cover.
Never had to worry about much of anything until now.
Horrible, to be burying someone in the middle of the night by the light of the moon. No preachers, no funeral service or sleek caskets, none of the sterile niceties that allowed you to remove yourself from the proceedings. With the mounds of dirt excavated from the grave covered by bright green plastic carpeting, it was easy to see only the steel box being lowered into the cold ground.
All they had was a body sewn into a sheet from the attic.
But as he looked at the somber, sometimes tear-streaked faces around him, the truth hit him. They didn’t need tact. They needed the visceral candor of this moment—no music, no flowers, no sonorous prayer offered by a religious official.
Just them and their dead friend.
Someone had to say something, but a wind warmer than the chilly night breeze rushed past him, odd enough to draw his attention. It felt like breath, and Jay turned instinctively, looking for its source.
Nothing. No one behind him, just the quiet of the night.
The whole damn thing was making him paranoid.
The wolves gathered in a ragged circle around the grave. Mae, Kaley and Lorelei huddled together, a quiet knot of pain echoed in the tight set of Zack’s shoulders as he stood stiffly beside them.
No one spoke. No one seemed able to.
Jay cleared his throat and squeezed Eden’s hand. “I didn’t know Quinn, but I wish… Well, I wish the things he’d been through hadn’t seemed so insurmountable.”
Mae sniffled and turned her face to Lorelei’s shoulder. Fletcher looked away from the women, as if their obvious pain was too much—or too na**d—to bear.
A hand brushed Jay’s right shoulder. He glanced back again. There was no one behind him, and Eden stood close to his left side, her right hand tucked into both of his.
Paranoid.
Kaley wiped her red eyes and stepped forward. Shane tried to stop her, but Zack growled a low warning. She shook her head and wrapped her hands around the pitted wooden handle of a shovel. “I need to do this.”
Fletcher retrieved a second shovel. “We can do it together. Anyone who wants to.”
Mae looked like she wanted to be doing anything else. Eden and Lorelei led her away from the open grave as Jay picked up a shovel.
When the first clump of dirt hit the wrapped bundle at the bottom of the grave, a sob tore through the night. At first, Jay thought it was Kaley, but her features were set in a grim, determined mask as she worked. It echoed again, decidedly feminine—and too close to be any of the other women. Jay froze, but no one else seemed to have heard it.
He was losing his f**king mind.
Colin hesitated, his dirt-laden shovel hovering over the grave. “You okay, Ancheta?”
Stress, nothing more. “Yeah, I’m square.”
Colin didn’t seem to believe him, but he returned to shoveling. With five werewolves working in focused silence, the grave filled quickly. Eden reappeared when they were half-done, her bare arms pale under the nearly full moon. She’d stripped off her jacket and filled it with dozens of moss-covered rocks of various sizes. “Mae wants to build something to mark the grave.”
Jay’s protest caught in his throat. Marking the grave made it recognizable, suspicious.
Shane leaned on the handle of his shovel. “I bet Stella can add redirection to the wards. Make it so people who don’t know this place is here just won’t notice.”
“If it could be safe…” Eden’s eyes held a quiet plea. “She can say goodbye in her own way.”
Jay relented. “It’s fine. Does she need help?”
Eden glanced at the grave and shook her head. “It’ll take a few more trips this way…but that’s all right. You’ll be done before she gets back.”
And they were. As Fletcher and Shane rounded off the mound of dirt, Kaley rubbed a grimy hand across her forehead and knelt to help Mae sort through the rocks she’d gathered. Jay collected the shovels and headed back toward the barn.
They didn’t need him to construct a cairn for their friend. It wasn’t his place.
“What’s this?” Shane asked, blocking out the moonlight as he loomed over the fire pit.
Jay placed one last log. “Didn’t want to be in the house just now. Thought I’d build a fire instead.”
Colin appeared at Shane’s side. “Mind some company?”
“Depends,” Shane said as he settled next to Jay. “Did you bring beer?”
“Better.” He pulled a flask out of his jacket. “Moonshine. Seems fitting.”
Jay snorted. “If you want to go blind, maybe.”
“Only temporarily.” Colin took a sip before offering the flask to Shane. “Can’t get a buzz off beer, and tonight I could use one.”
“That’s what this is for.” A crate of bottles rattled in Stella’s arms as she rounded the growing fire. “I heard there were dry counties in this godforsaken state, so I brought my own. Tonight’s as good a night as any to drain it all.”
Colin choked on his moonshine and coughed. “Damn. Gotta love a woman who brings her own liquor cabinet wherever she goes. How’d you become friends with a stick-in-the-mud like Shane?”
“He saved my life, that’s how.” She retrieved a sleeve of red plastic cups from the crate and waved them. “Who wants one?”
Jay held out a hand. “Got any bourbon?”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”
“I should think not,” Eden murmured from behind Jay. She slid to the ground next to him and snuggled into his side. “How undignified for the Pope.”
“Maybe if he’s camping.” He wrapped an arm around her. “Everything okay inside?”
“I think so. I made sure all three of them got something to eat.” She turned her face to his shoulder and closed her eyes. “That’s all I can do, isn’t it? Give them time.”
Impossible to know for sure. They’d only just met—even Eden and her cousin, in a way—and their only option was to rely on instinct. “We can be here if they need us. That’s it.”
Eden ignored the whispers from the other side of the fire and slipped her hand into Jay’s. “It doesn’t feel like enough.” Unspoken was her obvious grief—for Quinn, it hadn’t been enough.
“It isn’t, but our only other choice is to force them. They’ve had enough of that.”
“I know, you’re right. They need—” She cut off as the back door swung shut with a soft thud. The porch stairs creaked under Mae’s slow, wary steps. Eden shifted as if to stand, but after a moment settled back against Jay’s side and clutched his hand as they waited for Mae to come to them—on her own terms.
Stella turned, following their gazes, and held up a bottle. “Want some?”
Mae hesitated for an awkward moment, her gaze taking in the wolves around the fire. Jay couldn’t tell if it was the woman or the wolf who took the first step, but it was a submissive in desperate need of pack who edged into the spot Stella made for her. She accepted the bottle with a shy smile. “Thanks. I could use a drink.”
“You and me both, sister.”
Mae took a swig from the bottle and stared into the fire. “I just wanted to say…I know you guys tried. Are trying. Thanks for helping us.”
Shane stared down into his cup. “I want to know something about Quinn. Anything.”
“Quinn was…” She picked at the edge of the label on the bottle. “He was funny. Witty. He had this dry, sarcastic sense of humor. Half the time, people weren’t sure if he was serious or making a joke.”
“He played guitar.” Lorelei stepped out of the shadows near the corner of the house. “For a while, he wanted to go to Nashville. Be a star.”
Instead, he’d wound up getting the shit kicked out of him in Memphis. Jay drained his drink and leaned over to pull a new bottle from the crate next to Stella’s feet.
“He used to tease us by writing silly little songs.” Mae shifted aside to make room for Lorelei. “I always loved everyone else’s and groaned through mine.”
Lorelei dropped beside her and sniffed through a laugh. “Remember when he was writing the one about Zack and spent a week trying to think of something clever that rhymed with surly buttface?”
Mae’s lips twitched. “And Kaley and I kept trying to help him, but he didn’t like twirly mutt race or girly smut phase.”
The back door slammed again. “That’s because we’re horrible lyricists.” Kaley stepped off the porch, a cardboard six-pack of beer in one hand. “Then again, so was Quinn.”
Eden nudged Jay to make room for Kaley, completing the ragged circle around the fire. “What did Quinn do when he wasn’t singing?” she asked as she accepted a beer.