Page 28 of Pack Witch
I left the garden laughing, but it didn’t take long for my good humor to fade.
Julian was the one who needed to answer some questions now. When I got back to the cabin, Bo had returned, and the two of them were talking quietly just outside.
So I went inside alone, my thoughts whirring. The weakness I’d felt healing him had diminished, though the spearing sensation in my heart kept me from being able to sleep, even when I was bundled under my quilts. I waited for Julian to join me, though I hadn’t invited him. Of course, he was a gentleman.
And I was an old, exhausted woman. I fell asleep and dreamed of my wolf running around the sun while Julian’s ran around the moon, at opposite sides of the sky, unable to meet.
Chapter 15
Zinnia
The next week was simultaneously one of the most and least satisfying ones of my entire life.
I was within arm’s reach of Julian every evening for dinner, but the boys were there as well. I tried to come up with excuses to be alone with Julian again—to heal him, I assured myself. It couldn’t be because I wanted to fuck him into the ground again. It absolutely had nothing to do with the way he’d woken up every part of me below the neckline, like he’d knocked down a wasps’ nest ofwantthat I was in no way prepared to face.
Julian’s face, whenever I caught him looking, seemed to mirror my desire. But he never touched me. After the third evening, I knew for certain he was avoiding me.
After the sixth, I wondered if this was some sort of sexual torture. I’d read some deliciously smutty novels with something called edging in them. It had sounded like a nightmare. Living it was worse.
Although maybe this wasn’t that? That edging had featured a lot more physical contact.
“I should have said yes when Ida offered me a vibrator twelve years ago,” I grumbled to Urchin.
“Ssssss.” She slid across the floor, ignoring me as I shook my hands out. Well, myrighthand. I’d fallen so out of practice with pleasuring myself, I could only just make it happen with my right one, and that wrist kept getting sore after only one unsatisfying climax.
“Miss Zinnia? You ready?” Leroy’s voice pulled me out the cabin door and into the weak, early morning sunlight. He stood in his cut-off shorts and ragged t-shirt. I’d had to patch it two days before, after he tore an enormous hole in the front, but the thing was almost too small to bother with.
Maybe I’d make him a new one. Julian hadn’t made any noises about leaving yet. Maybe I’d have time to make both boys some new clothes.
I had a quick thought about also making some new ones for myself. When it had just been me alone, it hadn’t mattered how I looked. But maybe a new dress, or prettier clothing of some kind, would get Julian’s attention.
“You’re up with the birds,” I complained, as Leroy darted past me.
“Nah, I’m up with the snakes.” He grabbed Urchin off the ground where she’d slithered out behind me. The snake had curled around his feet on our second day out in the garden, and the two had bonded. He had an affinity for all my animal friends, and had helped me dropper feed some orphaned rabbits we’d found outside the garden. He’d even asked about Marta, but I’d explained she was probably scared to come back for now.
“Hey, pretty baby!” He wrapped Urchin around his arm and dropped a kiss on the tip of her tail, then grinned at me. “What? Early morning’s the best time to pick vegetables, you said so.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I sighed as he bounced on his toes. “Let’s get to it, then.”
Leroy was obsessed with the garden, and he’d asked to come out with me every morning. He peppered me with questionsfrom when to plant every kind of crop imaginable, to how to keep pests away. I wondered if he could tell how much I loved having someone to share my knowledge with.
A half hour later, we were in the back part of the garden. Urchin was wrapped loosely around his neck, and we were side by side, pulling the last of the winter onion crop. Leroy was almost breathless from asking questions about root vegetables.
“You can’t love gardening this much, Leroy,” I laughed when he finally took a breath. “You could take a day off, go train with Bo.”
My eyes went to the pine forest, where I could just make out Julian’s voice. Leroy had confided that until this week, he’d trained with Bo as well. But it seemed that even if Julian didn’t want to be in my presence, he also didn’t want me left alone. I was certain Leroy had been assigned my guard, but I worried that he was missing out on his training.
“Ah, thanks, but I’d rather pick a million onions than feel Sergeant’s teeth on my a—pardon, my butt, because I fucked up again.” Angry shouts in the distance had us both frowning now. “Pretty sure Bo’d say the same.”
I hadn’t had a moment alone with Julian to tell him what I thought about the way he spoke to the boys, especially Bo. I didn’t know if it was even my place to remark on it, but the pain in their eyes when he disapproved of them, or spoke harshly, had me grinding my teeth.
I turned back to Leroy, who was still working. His hair fell over his face as he pulled another onion free of the dirt and added it to the top of his already-full basket. “Miss Zinnia, what kinda onions grow best up in the Northwest?”
I tried to picture my family’s garden, but couldn’t. Those memories of my small pack were all indistinct now. “I… don’t know, to be honest.”
“Can we look it up somehow?” I had an old stack of books and almanacs he’d been leafing through after dinner.
I nodded. “You know you don’t have to learn everything all at once.”
