Page 28 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

7

LEO

Something was wrong with Ven.

It had only been a day since our encounter with Alric, and I figured at least half of it had to be stress from the battle, but I sensed it was more than that. She was so jumpy, and despite the fact that the house was full of pretty jubilant celebration, my love seemed withdrawn. She smelled stressed as well, almost like she was grieving.

None of that made any sense. While I was still upset with her for getting so involved in the battle, she hadn’t been hurt. I couldn’t remember chunks of what happened, and a lot of it was blurry and unfocused, but as far as I could recall, she’d been a huge help. Also, she’d had incredible aim with those little smoke bombs. They had been incredibly effective on all the non-shifter enemies apart from the brothers.

“Hey, where should I put this leg of lamb?”

I looked away from the kitchen window to the shifter who had entered. He was a large, strapping fellow, and related to America in some way, but I couldn’t remember his name.

“In the freezer. We’ve got enough fresh food that we won’t be able to get to it for a bit.”

That was certainly a change for us. Although Ven had been a truly incredible host and worked quite hard to make sure we had enough to eat, I knew it had been difficult on her. She didn’t make a lot of money, and the demands of the shifter diet wereintense, to say the least. Thankfully, Ricky’s hunting had really supplemented things, taking the expensive protein demand off Ven’s beautiful shoulders, but now… well, we were practicallyswimmingin food.

A lot of shifters and magic folk were grateful we’d returned their kidnapped family members. It hadn’t been easy as some of the enthralled ones had fought us tooth and nail, but those effects wore off as the hours passed after we’d eliminated the two brothers. As for all the shifters stuck in their animal forms, it had taken a simple kiss on the snoot from Ven to break the curse.

I still didn’t understand how that worked, but I knew better than to question it. There had always been somethingmoreto Ven that I couldn’t quite explain. She wasn’t a shifter, and I knew for a fact she wasn’t a witch or some kind of mindwalker. But that didn’t mean she wasn’tsomething.After all, I knew better than most that the world was full of strange and unexplainable things. Why couldn’t the woman I was desperately in love with also be a little strange and mysterious? I owed her everything, and I would quite happily spend the rest of my life making it up to her.

“Sorry, man, your freezer is full.”

“Huh?” Oh, right. The shifter with the leg of lamb. My memories about the prices of things were still pretty hazy, but I was fairly certain that lamb was an expensive treat Ven couldn’t usually afford. Definitely not something I wanted to waste.

“Perfect timing!” America said, popping her head in from the living room. “One of mytíasis bringing a big ol’ standalone freezer for you.”

I smiled. That was one problem down. “You really don’t have to.”

“I’m not doing anything. She insisted. Says it’s the least she can do for the pack that brought her niece and nephew back to her. Honestly, you’re gonna have to get used to this stuff. Those warlocks have been wreaking havoc over several states ever since your pack first went ‘poof’. I don’t think you quite understand how many people you’re helping.”

I didn’t really know how to respond to that—words still weren’t exactly my strong suit—but I did feel my face flush.

Although I tried my best, I’d never really felt like I was that great of an alpha. The role had been pushed on me when I was far too young. I’d had to take out the usurper who had killed my father, and I’d made a lot of mistakes that hurt my pack. But now? Now, it felt like I was finally becoming the alpha I was always meant to be. Someone who could be relied on. Someone others looked to when they were in trouble and needed protection.

“Thank you, America.”

It was strange to think how the random coyote shifter Ven had run into at Chadwicke’s estate had helped our cause so much. We never would have been able to stage the attack on Alric’s auction without her. Hell, we wouldn’t have even known about it if it weren’t for Esperanza’s reckless actions. That eagle shifter was just a kid, and yet she was already responsible for saving so many lives.

“Ain’t nothing to thank me for. I’d still be that asshole wannabe drug lord’s property without you and Ven. You got me back to my family and freed all of us from the contracts he had us locked into. The very least I can do is help you free others.”

“Not everyone would be so generous,” I said, wanting to make sure America understood how much I valued her.

Before the curse, I’d never really thought about it, but now I was beginning to think the way different shifter species were so insular and stayed so far apart from each other was more harmful than helpful. Why were we so separated? Why was there so much tension between us? The deep divisions that went so far back made us much more vulnerable to people like the brothers. And the benefits of banding together had already been proven. We’d successfully destroyed the medical facility where I was trapped and killed two more brothers while stopping an auction where many of our magical kind would have been sold off to humans and others with duplicitous ideas. That was a pretty big deal.

Perhaps too big of a deal, and something to tackle at a different time. Right now, I needed to make sure a certain gardener was okay.

“If you’d excuse me, I’d like to check in on Ven. Make sure all that curse-breaking isn’t wearing too heavily on her.”

“Good idea. I did say hi to her a bit ago, and she smells very stressed. I figure she’s not used to having so many of us boisterous types hanging around her quiet place.”

Oh. I hadn’t even thought of that, and I felt stupid for not doing so. Ven’s place had been cramped for a while with me, Ricky, and our two rescues from the medical facility. But now there were close to two dozen people on her property. Not all in her house, of course—there was no way everyone would fit. Some of them were camped out in tents, others had brought campers, and several more were still struggling with adjusting to having their freedom back that they slept under the stars in their animal forms. Not to mention there were still several shifters whose memories were so fuzzy that they couldn’t remember their names or where they’d come from. My heart ached for them, since I knew what a personal hell that was. So, yeah, maybe my worries about something deeper were unfounded andVen was simply stressed from having so many people in her space and talking to her at random.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising that she had escaped to her garden. It was her safe space, after all, but I doubted it was quite able to do its job as effectively as usual considering people were walking up to her every ten minutes or so.

Now I was about to join the fray. Oops. Hopefully, my presence would be more of an assurance than a hindrance.

With a nod to America and her cousin, I headed out. Ven was on the far side of her garden, where her newest vegetable bed was. It was the one we’d built together for growing longer-term tubers, garlic, and other things that took more than a season.

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