The Wild Moon by Riley Storm

Chapter Eight

The instant my arms went around her, my best friend broke.

I got an arm under her and guided her to the nearby couch, trying to figure out what the hell could have gone wrong. Was it her Soulbond? Had it failed to materialize as mine had? Since it had happened to me, it was no longer unheard of. But even I hadn’t had a reaction like this. No, I decided, something else was going on. Something worse. But I couldn’t get a word out of Jo to figure out what it was!

Powerless to help, I did what I could. I sat next to her and held her while she cried. I was going to have to change my shirt. Again. At this rate, I’d go through my entire wardrobe before I left town. On the plus side, shopping spree? Though I’d have to come up with the money somehow. That was a bit of a bummer.

As my mind wandered, Jo sobbed into my shoulder. The poor girl was absolutely distraught. Had someone died? She needed something to calm her down. I gently eased my way out from under her arm and settled her into the corner of the couch. I grabbed a box of tissues from the coffee table and shoved it at her.

“Here,” I said gently. “I’m going to make us some tea. I feel like we could both use it. I’ll be right here, though, okay? I’m not leaving.”

Jo didn’t have the composure to speak, but she managed a nod before burying her face in her arms again.

I got off the couch, trying desperately not to note that it was my mother’s favorite couch. I’d somehow sunk into her spot, as if now that she was gone, someone else had to take up her mantle of matron of the house.

She’s not gone. Just missing. She might still be alive.

The supplies for tea hadn’t been touched while I’d been gone, but it was my mother’s go-to drink, and I soon had bags hanging over the lips of a pair of mugs and water well on its way to boiling so they could steep.

“You got her this one,” I said softly, looking at the mugs. “We were what, ten?”

I held up the white mug that said “World’s Best Teacher” on it. My mom hadn’t been a teacher, but she was like the mother Jo had never really had, and to a ten-year-old, anything that said “World’s Best” on it was worthy. My mom had cherished that mug.

Jo glanced up, and for a moment, a smile graced her face. I smiled back at her, trying to put as much empathy and care into that one look as I could. I was dying to ask questions and pry answers from my friend, but the words had to come from her. She had to be ready to talk about her experience.

“Have you been back here?” Jo asked suddenly. “You know…since?”

I shook my head. “No,” I told her. “Not until today. It was always too painful. Too many bad memories that I couldn’t seem to shake. The unknowns are the worst part. Not knowing the truth.”

“Yeah,” Jo said quietly. “I get that. Not knowing is…It can tear you up inside.”

There was something there. I frowned. “Are you okay, Jo?”

I couldn’t help it. She was my best friend, and I had to know.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Physically, I guess.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, pouring the water into the mugs. “Something wrong with your mind?”

“I don’t know,” Jo said flatly.

I considered her answer while I brought the mugs over and set them on a pair of coasters in front of us. “You don’t know?”

“I mean. I think I’m okay. Maybe. I don’t know. That’s a lie,” she said with a cry-hiccup. “If I were fine, I wouldn’t be a mess like this.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed, not sure what else to say. “What went wrong?”

“Ha. More like what went right?” Jo said bitterly. “The answer to which is absolutely nothing. How could it when on the night of your Soulshift, you can’t do the one thing you’re supposed to do?”

My frown deepened. I knew I should probably ease up on it lest I give myself some perma-wrinkles. Which, of course, was bullshit. But hey, media influence at its best, right? Still, I relaxed my face.

“Your Soulbond didn’t form either?” I asked gently, feeling horrified for my friend.

Jo laughed. Harshly, bitterly. I’d expected agreement. More tears. Not that, though. The sarcastic bite of her laugh cut me deeply because Jo was always such a happy person. If anyone was in need, she was the first to lend a hand. She didn’t deserve whatever had happened to her.

“Hard for that to happen,” she grated out, “when you can’t even shift.”

I blinked. “What?” I had to work my jaw several times to get that single word out. She couldn’t shift? Now that was unheard of.

“Yeah,” Jo said. “I didn’t shift, Dan. I know my wolf is there. She’s inside me. I can feel her a bit like you did leading up to your Soulshift. She’s definitely there, just weak, somehow. Nothing happened last night. I waited, standing there naked, while everyone else shifted and took off. And I waited. And waited. And nothing.”

“Oh, god, Jo,” I said, reaching out to hug her again. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there for you. I can’t imagine.”

My guilty conscience reared its ugly head again, slamming me down, painting me as unworthy of this friendship. I’d promised Jo that I would be there for her, but as soon as the moon showed its face, I’d taken off without a care in the world, leaving my friend behind to suffer horribly.

“It’s okay,” Jo said, the epitome of grace and class. “I don’t blame you.”

“But everyone shifts on the first Wild Moon after their twenty-first birthday,” I said. “That’s…that’s just the way it is.”

There was precedence about Soulbonds not forming right away. It happened with many of the men since they often ended up mated to younger shifters, so some of them waited years. I was the first woman anyone knew of where the bond had waited, but there was at least precedence in a way. This though…

“I know,” Jo said bitterly. “Which must mean I’m not yet twenty-one.”

“How the hell would that be possible?” I said, speaking before my brain kicked in.

There was a reason my mother had been a second mom to Jo. A reason why she’d practically lived at my house for the first ten years of our friendship.

“Jo, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” I said, trying hard to pull out the giant clown shoe I’d just inserted into my mouth.

“It’s fine,” she said tiredly. “You didn’t have to live with the drug-addict mother or alcoholic father. It’s not the first thought that enters your mind. And I wouldn’t want it that way. I don’t wish that on anyone.”

“Still,” I said, “I’m your best friend. I should have known.”

“You should have known my parents somehow forgot my actual birthday and started celebrating it another time entirely? Seriously? Come on, Dan. No. You didn’t do anything wrong. Stop it, please. I’m already dealing with enough shit.” She sniffed, flinging her blonde hair out of her face. Half of it just fell forward again.

I remained silent while we drank some of the tea, and Jo pulled herself together a bit. She regained her composure eventually, and I braced myself. Now that we’d talked about her night, she would inevitably ask me about mine.

“Have you found anything?”

“Huh? Oh, no,” I said. That wasn’t the question I’d been expecting. “I’ve been trying. All my money goes to tracking them down. I’ve been in touch with every other pack I know about and even some I’ve only learned of since living in the city. Nobody has heard a damn thing. It’s like they just vanished. I don’t get it.”

“Me neither,” Jo said. “They didn’t leave anything behind?”

I shook my head. As I moved it, my eyes drifted to the hallway that led to my father’s study. I paused, staring at it, remembering back to that night. My father had come home unexpectedly from one of his expeditions, ostensibly to surprise me on my Soulshift night.

He’d told me he had a gift for me. A Shift Gift, it was commonly called. He’d told me it couldn’t be mine until after. Through his hints, however–my dad had been terrible at keeping secrets–I’d gleaned it was a book. Something he’d found or dug up during his expeditions. Straight from the past of our species. Yet when I’d tried to take a peek at it, he’d been unusually secretive.

After they’d gone missing, I’d gone into his study, and seen the wrapped package on his desk addressed to me. But I’d left it there. He’d said he wanted to give it to me in person. It had felt wrong to take it then. But now…

I got up from the couch without a word, nearly pushing Jo over and almost spilling her tea in the process.

“What? What is it?” she asked, but I didn’t respond. My mind was locked in the past on the night of my Soulshift.

The book was still there, sitting on his desk in the white paper just as he’d left it. My name was on it. I unwrapped it, forcing my fingers to tear apart the paper before I had the chance to consider what I was doing. If I paused to stop, I might not start again.

A note was stuck to the front of a leatherbound book, which was in unusually good condition for something that should be hundreds of years old. Too good of condition. This was something else. As I looked at the spine, I spotted a name embossed on it.

Thomas Wetter.

My father. I trembled. This was his journal. It had to be.

But why had he left it for me?

I opened the note with shaky fingers.

Dearest Little D,

Tonight is your Soulshift. Although you’ve been a woman in my eyes for a long time, tonight, you will take your next step. You will become independent of us and bonded with your wolf. You will find your mate, and together, you will start a family. I couldn’t be a prouder father. My latest trip was quite the time, and I think you’ll appreciate all that I’ve found. I wrote about it for you.

I love you,

Dad

I swiped at my eyes with my shirt, trying to find a dry spot to absorb the tears I was now shedding.

“Oh, Dad,” I said, gripping the journal tightly.

It didn’t explain what had happened to them that night, but reading the note made it feel like he was there beside me. I had read the entire thing in his voice.

I turned to tell Jo what it was. I’d heard her get up and follow me, and she had to be dying of curiosity by now.

“Anything good?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

I shook my head. “N–”

The front door exploded inward under tremendous force, ripping one of the hinges free as someone forced their way into my house.