Luna
The triplets go off to a new job installing wires the next day after a quiet breakfast. I make dinner, but hardly anyone speaks through the meal. For some reason, I find myself thinking of this one time when I caught my foot in Virginia Creeper vines while a gator was eyeing me for its supper. Mama was having one of her funny feelings that day, so she was hiding in the house, sure that wolves were going to come for us. But we had to eat, so I went out anyway. I knew there were no wolves in the swamp, even if she didn’t.
I shifted and raced into the woods, hoping for a lucky day and a fast catch. But then I got caught in the vines. I shifted back in a flash, used my fingers to free myself, and ran before the gator could grab me. That night, I headed home empty-handed to find Mama with a knife in her hand, ready to slit my throat because she thought I was one of the wolves, come to murder her.
Tonight feels almost as tense.
I cooked the swamp rabbits that were in Callan’s traps today, but I just cooked it a little, leaving the meat nice and bloody. Still, the triplets are
quiet, focused on eating, not even making conversation with one another. “Did I cook the dinner wrong again?” I ask at last.
“It’s great,” Ethan says, wiping pink juice from his chin. “Are you mad that I checked the traps without you?”
“It would be safer if you stayed with one of us when you go into the woods,” Warrick says, scowling at me. “The Jacksonville pack doesn’t take kindly to us using their hunting grounds.”
“Besides, they might not like that you’re living with us,” Callan says.
“Why not?” I ask. “They didn’t want me living with them. They
can’t pick where I do live.”
Callan gives me a tight smile. “They might not like how it looks, you being Axel’s former mate and all.”
“How what looks?” I ask, glancing around in confusion.
“A pretty little lady like you, living with three ugly old dogs like us,” Ethan says.
“What does it look like?” I ask. “Like you took me in and accepted me when they didn’t?”
Warrick gives a rare grin, just one corner of his mouth pulling up. “That, too,” he says with a chuckle.
“We’ll show you where to hunt on your own, in case you get a hankering while we’re out,” Callan says, patting my hand. Then he pulls back real quick and casts a guilty look at Ethan. I remember what he said last night when he ran out of the kitchen, and I wonder what he promised his brother.
“I can take you out any time,” Ethan says with a grin, covering my other hand with his. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you shift.”
Callan’s foot shoots across the small space under the square table and clobbers Ethan’s shin. Ethan curses and rubs at the bruise.
“Cut it out, you two,” Warrick growls, and I feel that dominant energy pressing down on the table, forcing me to drop my gaze. The other two drop their heads and grumble.
There’s more awkward silence.
“If it’s not the dinner, or that I checked the traps alone, then is it my hair?” I guess, running my fingers through the beautiful purple strands, the color of spiderwort flowers. “Because even if you don’t, I still love it, and I’m keeping it.”
I peer up at Warrick from under my lashes, hoping he won’t say otherwise because if he does, I think I’ll have to change it back. He told me to do it, though, so I hope that’s not it. Living with these men is so confusing. In the swamp, all I cared about was whether we had food to eat
and if Mama was in a stable mood, which was seldom, or worked up, which was not. But even that is simple compared to trying to figure out what’s wrong with the three grumpy, silent oafs sitting before me.
After dinner, Callan and Ethan start to clean the kitchen while Warrick disappears outside like he does whenever he’s in a mood.
“Can I help?” I say, picking up my bowl and taking it to the sink.
“Nope,” Callan says, plucking it from my hand and placing it in the sink.
The two men move around me like I’m a tree growing in the
kitchen.
“I’m going out to have a beer on the front porch,” I pronounce, the same way they usually do after dinner. “Come out if you want to join me.”
No conversation ensues once I’m outside. Unlike most nights, they don’t squabble or bicker, joke or play loud music. I wonder if it’s because of what happened last night-whatever I did wrong that made Callan dash away to the shower like he was on fire. Maybe he told his brothers what I did wrong, and now they’re all upset. Even though I don’t know what I did, I know this new strangeness is because of me. When I arrived, everything was messy, but they were happy.
I brought this tension into their home. Worse, I don’t understand how I did it or what to do about it.
I’m still thinking about it when I finish my beer and head inside, since no one came to join me. Callan is in the shower again. Since getting the showerhead fixed, these men are making up for lost time with the showers. I have to take one during the day when they’re out because it seems like one of them is always in the shower lately.
I crawl into bed, and in the uneasy stillness of the typically raucous household, I close my eyes and will them to be happy again.
In the morning, I wake to the roar of motorcycle engines. I roll from the rumpled sheets, my heart hammering, afraid there will be another vampire fight. But when I run to the window, it’s just Callan and Warrick on their bikes, ready to head off somewhere.
Callan’s head swivels toward me, and for a second, our eyes lock. The same warm shivers I felt when he dyed my hair churn in my belly, but before I can even raise a hand to wave, they’re gone in a cloud of dust and gravel.