The Shadow Wolf

“You can call me Jilly. Everyone does.”

He turned, wondering if this young one would know how close she’d danced to the knife’s edge of violence.

“I’m not afraid of you.” A frown dented her brow. “I’m worried about you. You hurt.”

At his blank stare, she rubbed her thin chest. “In here.”

Tension knotted the spot she’d indicated. “I’m fine,” he lied.

“No, you’re not,” she said seriously. “I can tell. I can feel inside you. You don’t want anyone to know because you don’t like what happens when you feel this way.”

Merde, a seven-year-old could tell? Gabriel retrieved the hammer. As he brushed it free of sand, he glanced at the solemn girl examining the inside of his canvas tool bag.

“You can feel inside me?”

She nodded. Seldom had he used his enormous powers of mind control to delve into a child’s thoughts. Children were innocent and their motivations and thought patterns as clear as shiny glass. They were easy to read, but he hated having to do it.

He motioned to the steps, and when she’d sat beside him, he turned the hammer over in his hand. “Can you read other people’s thoughts?”

Jillian gave him a guileless look. “Only if they allow me to, or if they’re so loud they’re screaming at me. Like they’re yelling out loud, but they’re not. Gram taught me not to be rude and invade their minds.”

In a ladylike gesture, she folded her hands in her lap. “I tried once, when my friend Andrea bragged her hair was prettier than mine. I went into her mind to see the truth. She hated her hair and I told her so. Megan punished me and made me apologize. She said it was wrong. I didn’t mean to hurt Andrea and I promised never to do it again.”

“Megan is right. Using power holds you accountable for your magick.”

Gabriel sucked in a deep breath. “When you get older, you’ll understand the difference between doing it for the right reasons or just to be a bully. You’ll learn to shut out others’ thoughts, too, so you can have peace.”

How he wished he could experience such peace. Hadn’t, not since Amelia and Simone had died.

“You didn’t do it, Mr. Gabriel. You didn’t kill her.”

“What?”

“Amelia. You said you killed her, but I felt what you felt.” Jillian shook her head. “You’re not like the bad men who hurt Shadows.”

A fist of guilt and alarm squeezed his throat. “What bad men, Jilly?”

“The men on the island who wanted to hurt Megan. The fisherman on the boat who hit her, and wanted to do the same things the bad men wanted.” She looked confused. “I didn’t understand. Why did they want to take her clothes off?”

His wolf silently howled in protective rage. Gabriel forced it down. Going hog wild on his emotions wouldn’t help her now. He mustered all his control and turned to look Jillian in the eye.

“There are bad men who do things like that, little one. They aren’t nice and you need to stay away from them. There is a blackness inside their hearts and their spirits.”

For a moment they sat in silence on the steps, staring at the gathering storm clouds. Sandpipers and seagulls flew toward the mainland. Jillian looked worried.

“Is it going to be a bad storm, Mr. Gabriel?” she whispered.

He gave her a reassuring smile. “Call me Gabriel. No Mister. Naw, we’ll just see a bit of wind and rain. I can feel it in my bones. You’ll be safe.”

She chatted about the storms she’d experienced on her island. Gabriel listened, paying attention the way few adults did. He liked kids. He’d always been good with his brother Etienne’s four children … and Alex’s Amelia. He’d longed for children, but didn’t dare procreate with his bad genes. Gabriel’s chest felt hollow. Never would he want a son or daughter to endure the shame and aversion he had known in childhood.

“What’s this?”

Fascination stole over her face as she stared at the blue-inked scrolling on his left bicep. She traced it with a finger.

“You got marked, too. Did it hurt like cousin Megan’s?”

The attention span of the young.

“It’s a tattoo, Jilly. My brother Indigo put it there for me. It means ‘fierce one’ in the Old Language of our ancestors.”

“It’s pretty. Megan’s mark is just numbers. She cried after it was done. She tried not to let us hear, but I knew she was crying.”

“Numbers? Where?”

“On the back of her neck, like female Shadow Wolves get when they turn twenty-one.”

So now they were inking all Shadows to keep track of them? His gorge rose. Wolf growled to the surface, driven by the urge to protect and defend his Megan.

His?

The notion stunned him. Megan Moraine was a Shadow Wolf who needed escorting to a safe house. Yet his emotions were that of a bonded male for his draicara.

Jillian sighed. “I guess they’ll give me one when I get older, too.”

Her practical tone sent chills through him. Gabriel took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

He started to say no.

Words died on his tongue, a promise he wanted to give her, but couldn’t. She looked so trusting, his heart twisted. Once he’d made the same promise to another child, and failed. He couldn’t promise anything to children. Not anymore.

He enlisted her help in picking up his tools. Gabriel let Jillian proudly carry the hammer and screwdriver while he took the canvas tool bag.

When they reached the guest house, Megan was sitting on a deck chair. Her legs were tucked beneath her as she combed her hair, gazing at the whitecaps crashing against the barnacle-riddled seawall.

She began to sing. The purity of her voice reminded him of sunrise over the bayou. It soothed him, brought the beast to a standstill. His entire body tingled with the desire to draw close, sit at her feet and let her voice wash over him in a cleansing flood. Music was his balm, a necessity to tame his wolf.

Then Jennifer burst out of the house, a tiny, pink-clad whirlwind waving a small conch shell. Megan held the seashell to her ear.

Gabriel stared. Not classically pretty, Megan had an exotic, Fey beauty. Her cheeks were stained pink by the rising breeze, long hair wreathing her heart-shaped face. Her mouth was cherry-red and moist. A blue T-shirt molded to firm, round breasts.

The unabashed laughter in her sea-blue eyes lured him like a sailor to a siren’s deadly song. Megan laughed, the sound pure enjoyment.

All his senses focused on her, his hands shaking with longing. He wanted a piece of that honest happiness, if only for a fleeting moment. Not the joking front he showed to disguise his real emotions. Gabriel yearned for something as simple as the joy of sharing a seashell’s whispers.

He hadn’t experienced that since … when?

Since Amelia died three years ago. When his niece died, a light of innocence in his life had winked out. His niece had adored him, and she’d known exactly what he was. And still, she wasn’t afraid of him.