Hidden: The Swamp Page 2

  “Kenzie. Okay. Same question. You all right?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He didn’t pick me up like his father had done, although I was sure he could have. He was significantly taller than me with visibly strong muscles stretching his black t-shirt. Jarret had strong leg muscles too, on display with his black shorts. I lifted my head. I was in no condition to be looking at him like that.

  Jarret tugged me against his side, his arm coming around my shoulder. “We’ll go slower. I won’t let you fall. I promise.”

  I believed him, and we walked together silently up the long, nearly destroyed staircase until we reached the top and turned left. Jarret finally spoke again. “I’m going to put you at the end of the hall. It’s the quietest. This house is noisy. I find it hard to sleep here. I jump at every sound. But it’s quieter on this side, and I imagine with the way you are feeling, less will be more.”

  I wasn’t sure I followed everything he’d said to me. But he was being considerate, and since we’d gotten up the stairs, I wasn’t getting as much hostility from him in his scent. It was like he cooled but not in a hostile way, just the opposite. His blood pressure had lowered. How did I know that?

  “There’s something wrong with me.”

  We reached the room where he obviously intended to leave me. Jarret tilted his head to the side, regarding me the way Gus had. They didn’t look alike or even particularly smell alike. Gus was like the wind, and Jarret was more like cloves. I shook my head. What was the matter with me?

  He visibly swallowed. “There’s nothing wrong with you that some rest and time won’t heal. What happened to you, it doesn’t ever have to happen again. I’ve never been through it. It’s a choice. And with some instruction, you can make sure you never feel like this again. Everything will fade.”

  “Don’t tell her that.” Preston strode toward us. “My younger brothers don’t know of what they speak. They’ve never felt like you do now, and they never will if they don’t get their heads out of their asses.”

  Jarret shot Preston a look that could only be called hateful and stepped back from the door. He nodded toward me. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  These men all had southern accents so far. So had Gus, but he sounded more like Preston, whereas Rainer and Jarret were more genteel. I still hadn’t heard Anton speak at all. All in all, it was a little bit like being in a movie. I didn’t know if I’d ever been around people with accents as thick as this before.

  “This is my house.” Preston took another step toward me. “If you need anything, you let me know. I have some business to do, but I’ll be around.”

  Jarret shook his head. “It’s all our home.”

  “Really? Because before today I can’t remember you being here for years. If you hadn’t made a trek out here today to insert yourselves into my business, you’d have never been here with Mac to begin with. So I’m going to say that since you will likely be gone first thing in the morning, leaving me once again in your taillights, little brother, that she should probably look for me since you’ll already have forgotten her.”

  Jarret’s eyes seemed to flare, and the heat of the anger that had been downstairs wafted toward me again. I took a step back. “Don’t talk to me like that.” He pointed at Preston. “You never listen.”

  Preston ignored him, his attention turning toward me again. “Don’t be afraid. I’m sorry you’ve arrived in the middle of our family hate fest. It’ll be much more pleasant tomorrow when my big brother takes the two littles with him and disappears back into New Orleans for the next however long. You and me? We’ll get along great. How you’re feeling now? That will happen to you for the next ten to twelve shifts. Less and less with each one until it won’t happen at all. Jarret can’t tell you about it. He’s too much of a coward to try it. The bathroom in this room works just fine. The water runs, and it heats up. The bedding is clean. You should be fine. If you see any ghosts, ignore them.” He winked at me.

  I swallowed. “Ghosts.”

  “Oh sure. These old places in the swamp are always loaded with ghosts. Vampires. Swamp monsters. Werewolves.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what I do when I’m not confused and in the house of strangers, but I don’t think I was born yesterday. There are no such thing as monsters.”

  Jarret took two steps back before he turned and headed straight for the stairs, as though he couldn’t move away fast enough.

  Preston’s smile was harsh. “Oh, make no mistake, Mac. There are monsters in the swamp. If you only believe in what you can see, hear, and… smell, then fine. Watch out for the gators. They’ll eat you and we’ll never find your body. Not even pieces of it. But there are other things too, and the Loup-Garou, he’ll eat you up until they never find your body either. Best to stay inside. Unless you’re feeling like you want to run with the wild things.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re a very strange person. Thank you for your hospitality, but I can’t figure out what to make of you. You smell like… lemons. It’s a clean, fresh scent, which goes in direct contrast to the things you say and how you’re behaving.”

  He leaned against the wall. “You smell like honey. But I don’t make the mistake of thinking that means that you’re sweet. Go on inside. I’m going to watch you close this door.”

  I didn’t have to listen to him. It wasn’t the same compulsion I’d had with Gus. No, with Preston it was as though I could tell he was strong, and I could drop my eyes and do as he said but there was also a part of me that didn’t want to, that wanted to challenge him by standing right where I was and not moving.

  But tiredness won that strange argument, and in the end, I did drop my eyes and head into the bedroom. I needed to sleep. Then maybe this strange smelling-everything compulsion would stop, then maybe I could remember where I came from. I turned toward Preston before I shut the door. “No one calls me Mac. My friends call me Kenzie.”

  “I call you Mac.” He grinned, and I got my first taste of laughter on my senses even though he didn’t do that, at least not on the outside. Preston had teased me.

  I shrugged. “Suit yourself. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  His mood abruptly shifted. Maybe that had been the right thing to say because there was something in his scent that was hard to identify. It was longing… sadness… I couldn’t quite grab onto the word. “You’re welcome. You’re safe here. We’ll keep you hidden until it all gets worked out. I promise you that.”

  I believed him. “I don’t know what has happened, and I should be more afraid that I don’t.”

  “No, you are feeling just as you should be. Somewhere deep inside of you, that part that always knew this was coming, that needed this, craved it, that part knows you were supposed to go through this time. It won’t let you panic. It won’t let you lose your mind. It’ll just make you calm, force you to lean into this, until the clarity comes back. Get some rest. You’re not crazy. Well, maybe you are. How would I know? All I know is that when it comes to shifting, you’re totally boring and normal in your response.”

  I scrunched up my face. “I can’t decide what to make of you.”

  Preston threw back his head and laughed. “Smart. Don’t trust anyone. We’re a hateful, difficult, selfish bunch who should probably all be taken out in our sleep. I’m the worst. That being said, you’ve never been safer in your life. Night, Mac.”

  I didn’t really understand what was happening, but I could sincerely say this had to rank among the strangest days of my life. I could be sure of that, even without knowing who the hell I was.

  Fuck. I closed the door.

  Chapter 2

  I ran, snarling forward, my fangs tearing into the neck of the man who had been trying to hurt me. I wouldn’t let anyone put their hands on me again. Not like that. He fell to the ground, my tongue coming out to lick his blood. I hated the taste, but not because I didn’t enjoy the sensation, rather because I hated who it belonged to. I raised my eyes and saw h
im.

  Family.

  That thought struck me. I wasn’t related to this man. But he was family. He was… pack.

  I jumped to my feet. I had to get away. The wolves were coming, and my family had been clear… I was never to shift into a werewolf. We had to let our wolf side die, that was the only way we’d survive. The men with needles were going to hurt me again. I had to get away. I had to get home and tell my parents what happened. They’d know what to do, how to handle this. Surely there had to be a way to put the wolf back in the bag, as it were.

  I ran forward, not even knowing where I was going until I collided with a hard body in the dark. I made an oomph, and strong hands kept me from falling straight down on my face. The moon lit up the room around us, showing me the huge brown eyes belonging to Anton Lejeune staring back at me.

  His gaze was kind, and he didn’t say a word to me, just standing there in the darkness as my heart wouldn’t stop racing.

  I swallowed. “Sorry. I have to go. I have to get out of here.”

  He shook his head. Once then twice. Still, he didn’t speak. The truth dawned on me. There were things I knew about the Lejeunes. They were a famous werewolf family, one of the last to agree to the Accords, to agree to put their wolves away, to stop being werewolves. What had happened to them had been so awful that it had only made my parents surer about their decision to step away, to struggle through the ‘unbecoming’ that they went through on a daily basis.

  Or so I’d been told. I’d been a baby at the time when Anton Lejeune had been stolen from his crib on his first birthday and tortured by the werewolf Hunters who were after their family. Those Hunters no longer breathed air. They’d been killed, brutally, by the Lejeunes, who had ended up losing one of their adult males in the battle. Like all werewolf families, the female had more than one husband.

  The truth dawned on me hard. I was in the house with the Lejeunes.

  I had to hide my truth from the humans around—calling several of my fathers ‘uncle’ in public just to keep anyone from knowing.

  And now here he was… the famous Anton Lejeune with his huge brown eyes, long face, and utter silence. The rumors were true, even though the Lejeunes had hidden him away from scrutiny, he didn’t talk.

  I dropped my eyes from his. I couldn’t look at him. With my mind back and not foggy, I could identify this for what it was. He was dominant to me in pack order, if he’d actually allowed himself to be a wolf, as I’d somehow managed to do.

  “I’m a werewolf. I tried not to be. But… they made me. I shifted because they were going to kill me. I was terrified. I couldn’t help it.”

  He nodded before he drew me closer to him. I stared at him from under my lids. What did he want from me? A second later he hugged me tightly, placing his head down on my shoulder. It should have been a weird thing. People, not even werewolves pretending to be humans, didn’t go around hugging each other like this.

  And yet… I loved it. It wasn’t just that he hugged me; he clung to me like he needed me more than he did anything else in the universe. Before I could overthink it, I hugged him back just the same way.

  He smelled like pinecones and smoke. The woods. Clearly my brain had been storing information about scents, even in the years I’d resisted the wolf, and seemed fine presenting it to me now. Having just shifted, everything was very potent.

  As far as I was concerned, I never had to move.

  Dizziness wafted through me, and my stomach rumbled. He lifted his head and caressed his thumb down my cheek. It was a gesture made for someone you knew, someone you were intimately familiar with. The way he hugged me had been the same way, too. All of it should have made me tell him to go to hell. I’d certainly told others to fuck off. But standing there in the hall of the falling-down-at-the-seams home in the swamp, the only thing I wanted was to let this man hug and caress me like we were deeply connected.

  He strung his hand into my own, linking our fingers. With a gentle tug, he brought me downstairs. It was easier to descend the stairs than it had been going up. My legs had decided to work.

  Anton switched on the light in the kitchen. It flashed a few times before it came on. He looked up at it with a scowl and then shook his head. He pointed to the counter.

  “You want me to sit on the stool?”

  He nodded and picked up the tablet. With swift movements he typed, and a word came out of it. “Bacon?”

  I smiled. That must be how he communicated. “Bacon sounds like heaven.”

  He walked away from the tablet and toward the stove. “I can sign. ASL. If you want to talk like that.” My best friend growing up had a deaf mother. I’d learned how from an early age. Not that I’d had anyone to practice on since they’d moved away. My parents hadn’t loved the friendship to begin with.

  Anton looked over his shoulder but just shook his head. No, he didn’t want to sign or no he didn’t sign? I’d have to ask him when his hands weren’t busy cooking me breakfast in the middle of the night.

  “Thank you for this.” I wasn’t sure I could stand at the stove without dizziness or I’d have attempted to make the food myself. For years, while my family worked, I’d taken care of myself and everyone else when needed, even if I’d done a disastrous job. Being catered to wasn’t exactly my way.

  He nodded; I could tell by the jerking of his head. It was hard to take my eyes off the strong steel of his back. Anton Lejeune. Where had he been this whole time? New Orleans with the rest of his family? My mother would have had a field day standing in this kitchen. At some point, generations earlier, my family had left Louisiana for cooler, more mountainous lives, but they were still absolutely obsessed with the goings on here.

  Anton looked over his shoulder and winked at me. Mind reading wasn’t a power for werewolves as far as I knew. Otherwise, I might have been worried that he could actually read my mind and know that I was checking out his backside.

  This was very unusual for me and had to be another reaction to the shifting. I rubbed the back of my neck. It would ease. I’d get the wolf issues back under control, never shift again, and that would be that.

  I could return to my normal life where smells were just smells, and I wasn’t checking out near strangers for their potential sexiness.

  Finished with the bacon, he set it on a plate and brought it down to me. It was crisp, just liked I liked it. Clearly, I wasn’t craving it raw and there was something relieving about that. I didn’t want to be craving bloody things all the time. Not like…

  My dream rushed back at me. I had lapped up blood. My stomach turned. Wearing four feet, I hadn’t cared about how gross that was but now…

  Anton nudged me, catching my gaze once again. He held up a strip of the bacon, bringing it to my mouth. I wasn’t sure I could eat at all, not with the blood memory, but the closer it got to my lips, the less I cared about what I’d done and the more I wanted that pork in my mouth.

  I chewed, closing my eyes. Yes, that was the greatest taste in the world. I opened my eyes in time to see Anton smiling at me. He held up another piece.

  “You don’t have to feed it to me. I can hold it myself.”

  He nodded his head but didn’t set down the bacon. Instead, he brought it close to my mouth again. I smiled. “You’re dangerous aren’t you, Anton? Flirtatious.”

  This time he shook his head, and I laughed, the feeling bubbling up inside of me. “Oh sure. You’re denying it.”

  “Is something burning?” Jarret rushed into the room. He skidded to a stop. “Fuck. Sorry. Okay. It’s bacon. Of course it is. Because who wouldn’t be cooking bacon at three in the morning.”

  I turned in my chair. Jarret was shirtless, which made me fully aware that Anton was, in fact, still dressed as he’d been all day. What had he been doing in the hallway? Jarret was built like he’d been carved out of stone. I wouldn’t have guessed that when he was dressed, he’d looked slender, which was only because his muscles were lean. My mouth watered. Okay, yes. Totally a result of the shi
fting.

  Jarret stepped toward us, nudging his brother with his shoulder. “You’re cooking in the middle of the night?”

  “He’s helping me out. I got up, and I was a little out of my mind and starved.” That sort of made the whole thing concise. Maybe.

  Jarret walked to the fridge. It squeaked and groaned when he opened it. Everything in this house was falling apart. I’d hardly paid attention earlier, but my room was clean, yet still a disaster. The walls were peeling, and I suspected the paint was lead. In my current state, it made my nose burn.

  I sniffed and went back to ignoring it.

  “He doesn’t talk. It’s not an affectation. He can’t.” Jarret supplied without turning around.

  “I gathered that,” I answered him, raising my eyebrows as Anton slipped another piece of bacon into my mouth.

  Jarret pulled orange juice out of the fridge and walked over to us. If he’d seen the bacon exchange, he didn’t indicate it. I sniffed the air. I could only smell the bacon. And with Anton so close now, his natural, woodsy scent almost overwhelmed the food. Jarret’s cloves smell wafted over to me as well. I still wasn’t getting any idea of how they were feeling.

  They were both staring at me, and once again, my dominance issue hit me hard. I looked down. Next to me Anton made a disgruntled sound. He tapped my cheek until I raised my gaze to meet his. His smile was slow and moved through me like a gust of warm air. “You want me to look you in the eyes.”

  “He could talk, or communicate,” Jarret held up the tablet. “If he wanted to. I bought him this, but he’s never used it.”

  I lifted my lids. “Never, huh?” He’d just used it for me.

  “Nope.” He smiled at us. “How are you feeling?”

  “Well, I gave into my werewolf and shifted so now I guess I get to live with the discomfort of the wolf wanting to come out and play until it goes away again. However long that takes.”

  Jarret nodded. “I wondered if you knew or if you were one of those humans who didn’t know you were a werewolf. Much easier that you know. You’re not going to have a nervous breakdown.”