Moonlight Run

Twenty-Nine

Isa’s POV

I awoke in my new bed, in my new apartment, with a stretch and a moan. I hadn’t slept that comfortably since long before I’d been taken by Julius. Whatever mattress Nikolai had selected for me was like slumbering on a cloud. I stood from my bed and looked around the room again. He’d put a six drawer double-dresser in the room for me, with a vanity mirror above it. I’d gotten myself familiar enough with the space last night to know he’d had all my things from the packhouse moved over here in my absence. I was grateful. But it was a strange transition, expecting to come home… and yet, not coming back to the home I’d known.

I suppose I did ask for this, I thought; recalling my conversation with Phineas that felt like another lifetime ago. Now here I was, living outside the packhouse. I smiled, decidedly choosing to be happy at the idea, as I opened up the door to the walk-in-closet Nikolai had shown me before.

I almost doubled over. To the left hung all the clothes that no-doubt came over with my belongings. But to my right? The rack was rull of brand new items, shirts, jackets, blouses, and so so so many dresses— all with the tags still on. I flipped one tag over on a particularly sequined red dress and quickly turned it back around. There’s no way I could keep all of this.

Immediately, my first instinct was to text Nikolai and tell him I couldn’t possibly accept these items. And then I remembered I didn’t have a phone. s**t. Julius had my mother destroy mine before we’d ever reached his grounds, after she abducted me.

A chill ran down my spine, recalling that night in the woods. I knew I would never see my mother the same way again, and I dreaded being face to face with her. I put the thought from my mind, as I threw a pair of my favorite jeans and grabbed a graphic tee from my dresser.

I made my way into my new living room and looked around again. It was minimally decorated. Apart from the couch and ottoman, the tv and fireplace tv stand were the only items in the space. I decided I would have to fix that soon. I wondered if my purse and wallet made it over from the packhouse. I’d last had it on a shelf under my bedside table. I stepped into the small kitchen and looked around, not seeing any signs of it.

There was, however, one new addition on the kitchen counter that I was quite certain was not there yesterday… mostly due to the giant red ribbon stuck to the side of it. There was a keurig waiting for me, and a circular stand of coffee pods stood adjacent to it. I opened the fridge hopefully and squealed, spying an assortment of creamers in the drawer. I looked again to the machine and saw the envelope leaning against it.

“Isa,

Just a little housewarming / early birthday gift I picked up for you this morning while out with Alvis. I’m sure you won’t be getting out of bed until at least noon, but when you are, give me a call? We are very overdue for a proper girls’ day.

Your sister, always,

Pipa”

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘I would love to do that Pipa, but I don’t have a phone.’ I looked around, suddenly aware I had no idea what time it even was. I glanced at the clock on the stove and my eyes about popped out of my head. It was 1:39.

I spun around, wondering if it would be at all ballsy to go knock on Nickolai’s door and see if he could give me a ride to the packhouse, very much aware I couldn’t drive back. I sighed as I ran back upstairs to put my socks and shoes on, and then stepped out the side door. When I got to Nikolai’s door, I rung the doorbell at the side.

I was taken aback when Phoebe answered the door.

“Um… hi? Is Nikolai here?”

She smiled at me, which was strange all by itself, and stepped aside. “Yeah, he’s downstairs with Dimitri.” I stepped into the space and saw his living room had been finished; he had furnished his space, too. Before the fireplace, there were two gray sofa’s sitting across from each other, with a glass coffee table in between them. A fuzzy rug separated the seating area from the fireplace. Phoebe returned to one of the couches and grabbed the popcorn she’d been munching on, pulling it up into her lap as she unpaused the tv. She looked entirely too at home in the space and it mildly bothered me.

I dismissed the feeling as I passed through the archway to the kitchen and dining room, noting that a counter top had finally been put in. But the space was still free of most appliances. I felt a pang of guilt remembering what he had said last night, that he put off his own kitchen remodel to update my appliances. Then I looked over to the once two separate doorways leading to his home office and down to the basement, respectively, and could see he had removed the wall in between the two. Now the area led naturally to the open basement stairs from either the office or the dining area, and the space looked so huge and open.

I hesitated at the top of the basement stairs, recalling how he had asked me not to go down there before. But now I could hear laughter between Dimitri and Nikolai as their voices carried up the stairs, so I went down anyways.

“Is that you, Pheebs? Could you maybe grab us some more pizza rolls from the freez—” Dimitri stopped in his tracks when he saw me coming down the stairs. “Whoa, you are not Phoebe.”

“Nope. And you can get your own pizza rolls, even if I was.”

Dimitri chuckled in amusement, and I looked around the room. I was in what looked to be a second-living area turned into an aspiring man-cave. A pub table and two stools sat in the corner next to a wet bar and well-stocked beverage cooler. There was a dart board on the wall adjacent. A slightly smaller tv hung on the wall beside me and a number of games and game systems lined a shelving unit below.

I realized as I appraised the space that Dimitri was holding a dart, firstly, and secondly, that I was standing in the line of fire, and I stepped quickly aside. Directly across from me there was a hallway and I motioned down to it. “Yep,” Dimitri said. “He’s in the one on the left.”

There were just three doors in the short hallway, and I knocked as I gently pushed open the one on the left, as Dimitri had suggested.

I gasped at the bedroom I’d just stepped into. This was nothing like the bachelor pad Nikolai had described. There was brand new hardwood flooring, and it seemed clear of any bedside cases of beer, as he had previously mentioned. The monstrous bed frame in the center was upholstered, a smooth black leather. There were only a pair of dark grey sheets on the bed. I ran my hands over them; they were satin, of course. Two very plush pintucked grey chairs sat in one corner, with a black marble side-table in between them. I was admiring the incense burner that was billowing smoke from the side table when I heard a throat clear behind me.

I jumped, nearly knocking the side table over, catching the incense burner just in time, but not the ash or cone as they fell to the floor. “Shit.” I said, looking back up at him. “I’m sorry.”

He narrowed his eyes at me with a frown, but there was something playful in it as he disappeared back into the hall and returned a moment later with a broom and dustpan.

“Lucky for you, the supply closet is across the hall in the bathroom.”

I stepped back, to give him room so he could sweep up the ash. But he took the incense burner out of my hands and handed the broom and dustpan to me, instead.

I frowned back at him, but he only smiled as he went back to the door and closed it behind him. I mostly ignored him as I swept up my mess, but then I saw him slip into the bedroom’s closet, the size of which could rival mine in the other unit. He returned, standing next to me as I got the last of the ash into the pan, with his hands behind his back.

I stood, motioning to the tools in my hand. “Um, where should I…”

“Bathroom,” he motioned across the hall. I gave a short nod and walked over into the restroom. Unlike my apartment, there was no claw foot tub to be had here. Instead, there was an obnoxiously large marble tiled shower stall that looked big enough to substitute as a small dance floor. I shook my head in amazement as I emptied the dust pan into the trash bin. I found the only closet in the restroom and opened it, quickly noticing the space where the broom mounted to the back of the door. He was a neat and organized man, I had to give him that. As I closed the closet door behind me I nearly jumped when I saw his reflection in the large bathroom mirror that hung over his double sink vanity.

“Jesus!” I clutched my chest. He laughed, as he held up his palms to me, and I noticed the long white box in his hands. I squealed when I saw the familiar logo. “Oh! Nikolai, you didn’t?!”

About ten minutes later I was sitting on his bed, and he was stretched out sideways across it, watching me as I set up my new phone. He’d explained to me that he put me on his plan, “It’s a business write off, really, since you’ll be working out of my office.”

When I was finally finished he took the phone out of my hands, and set it on his end table. I noticed it matched the marble side-table on the other side of the room and I chuckled.

“What? I know I have to hide this thing before you get stuck on it all day.”

“It’s not that,” I admitted. “This just isn’t at all what I imagined when you said bachelor pad… I was expecting dirty clothes piles and, well, bedside beer.”

He rolled his eyes. “In fairness, that was before I put the cooler in. So there really was beer on the bedside table for a while.”

“Mmhmm.” I nodded. “I just don’t think you wanted me to see that you’ve got yourself a little Christian Grey dungeon theme going on in here.”

“I’m sorry, a Christmas who?” He sat up from his side now, leaning in towards me with a raised brow.

I shook my head with a laugh. “Nothing. Ignore that.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully before he swooped me into his arms, rolling me onto my back with ease underneath him. I gasped now, as he hovered above me on his hands and knees. “We aim to please, Miss Petrova,”

I burst into laughter, clasping my hands together. “You totally would be the one to get that reference. Christmas who?” I gave his shoulder a soft smack. “Jackass.”

He narrowed his eyes at me playfully, and put a hand over the wrist I’d just smacked him with, forcing it above my head, and then he leaned in close to my ear and whispered, huskily, “I’m the only one who does the slapping in this bed, Isadora.”

My whole body felt very alert in response to his words, and he placed a soft kiss on my cheek, freeing my wrist from his grasp in the next motion as he jumped off the bed, picking up my phone and sliding it into his back pocket.

I was still recovering, and felt the blush in my cheeks still red hot, when he said, “Come on then, we’ve got some business at the packhouse. And I promised Pipa I’d drive you in when you woke up.”

***

On the way back to the packhouse, Nikolai had explained to me that Phoebe and Dimitri had actually been a huge help in doing some of the work to get each half of the place ready. “If you haven’t checked your closet yet, I feel like I should give you a heads up… I let her go pick out a few things for you.”

“I saw,” I chuckled. “And I saw the price tags, too. You know I can’t keep all of that, right?” I motioned to the phone in my hands. “And how much did this cost? This is the newest one on the market. You shouldn’t have done that. I feel like I’m being spoiled for things I haven’t even earned.”

We were pulling into the parking area in front of the manor now, and as he put the car in park, he pushed his sun glasses down to the end of his nose, eyeing me over them.

“Isadora,” He clicked his tongue to his teeth and sighed. “Until you prove otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, you are 100% worth spoiling. And I’m sure, once Lena gets you situated in the office, that you’ll manage to earn it…” He pushed his sunglasses back up to his face, adding “one way or another.”

While we entered through the main entrance, I followed him to the annex wing. We took the elevator down to the basement, where the cells and the infirmary each waited. As I walked behind Nikolai I felt very nervous, and he took my hand in his. Once inside the infirmary, a nurse directed us to a room at the end of the hall.

“Now I will tell you,” she warned. “She doesn’t look good. But without a mate to heal her, and considering the damage that was done to her…”

Nikolai raised his hand for the nurse to stop, and she stepped aside as he pushed open the door, motioning ahead for me.

I could only stand at the end of her bed and stare, not sure what I felt as I looked at her there. My mother, who was not really my mother, had willingly handed me over to my brother to be bled out and fed to a would-be army of new werewolves.

Nikolai explained everything else I might have missed in the drive over. I knew about the lie we would tell when she passed; how Pipa was willing to further slander her father’s memory at my expense so that the lie could live. Pipa had shown me more than a handful of times that family didn’t have to be blood. As I stood staring woefully at Marisol, the woman I called mother, I wished more than anything that she had believed that, too.

I stepped back at last and looked to Nikolai, who was still hovering near the door. “I’m ready,” I told him. He nodded and repeated what I’d said to the nurse. After a minute more, a few more medical professionals had come in, some with tears in their eyes. I considered how for all the years of my life and more, Marisol had been a nurse here. As a midwife, she’d helped deliver most of my friends. The people surrounding her were probably her friends, too. And as the staff began turning off the machines and clicking buttons, I turned and left the room.

“Isa? Are you sure you don’t—”

I shook my head. “I’ve said my goodbyes. Let them say theirs.”

And as we made our way back down the hall I felt my shoulder sink as I heard the inevitable flat line. But I would wait until the elevator doors closed behind us before the tears came. When the elevator reached the main level, Nikolai pressed the emergency stop button, putting his arms around me. He ran his hands through my hair while I cried, never shushing me, never telling me we needed to go. He just let me cry.

I couldn’t tell you how much time had passed before we finally got off that elevator.

***

Nikolai’s POV

It would be more than an hour before we stepped off the elevator. We’d become somehow entwined there. I sat upright in the corner of the elevator, my back against the wall. She was spread across me, getting out her tears as my hands combed through her hair. At one point Isadora’s sobs had become so quiet against my chest, I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep.

Finally, with a small sniffle, she spoke, “Can we go see Pipa?”

“Yeah, we can go see Pipa.”

When we arrived at her sister’s bedroom I stepped back, staying out in the center of the hallway while she knocked. Pipa was in the doorway in one instant, and then had practically tackled Isadora to the ground in the next. Before long she was calling out Alvis to join us. I gave a short nod, but didn’t say anything, and he did the same. We each eyed each other nervously as we followed the girls back out to the parking lot. Apparently, we were going out for pizza.

“I thought you weren’t a pizza person?” I asked Pipa as we all sat down at the table together in the mall.

She laughed, and said, “I’m really not. But she is,” she motioned to Isa, “and he is,” and then to Alvis, “so I suppose I should get used to it.”

As we continued eating, I decided to take the opportunity to try to get to know our new packmember. “So, Alvis, which pack did you belong to before you went rogue?”

One of the girls kicked me hard under the table and I looked accusingly at Isa, who nodded towards Pipa. She wasn’t amused.

Alvis gave a half laugh, “Um… well, I suppose the human pack.”

I looked across to Pipa, expecting a laugh or a punchline, but none came as she only shook her head at me.

“Wait, are you saying…”

Alvis shrugged. “Once upon a time I was just a kid from the east side of Cleveland before someone attacked me in the wrong part of town.”

“You mean to tell me there are rogue wolves out there just hanging around the ‘hood? That’s strange to say the least.”

He laughed. “No man, the east side of Cleveland is the hood. That night, I was in the white people ‘hood, where their yards back up to the land preservation. Next thing I know, some big ass dog is coming out of the trees at me.”

“Oh,” I shook my head in shock. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

A thought occurred to me just then. “Wait a minute, for you to have been bitten… the means the wolf that bit you was either born a rogue, or bit by someone who was. If you grow up in a pack, they remove your venom sacs,” I said to him.

He nodded. “Yeah, your dad’s got me scheduled to have mine removed later this week.”

“I don’t understand,” I said quietly. “If Julius had you… he could make plenty of werewolves the same way he was going to use Isadora. Why would need Isa?”

Alvis looked at me strangely as he replied. “Well it’s not like my bite does the same thing her blood can do, or will do.”

Isadora and I exchanged confused glances and looked back at Pipa for clarification. She shrugged, seemingly having just as little idea what Alvis was talking about.

Isa spoke, “Maximus said my blood makes wolves, just the same as your bite could make wolves. Am I missing something?”

Alvis sunk back in his chair, dropping his slice of pizza on his plate. “s**t. They really kept that quiet from you? Damn. I thought Julius liked to talk too much to keep a secret like that.”

I leaned across the table towards him, grabbing his collar and lifting him from his seat as Pipa screeched at me to put him down.

“Tell me everything, now.”

***

Isa’s POV

People around the mall court were watching as Nikolai held Alvis in his grasp by his shift collar. I looked around and realized not everyone here was in our pack.

“Nikolai,” I hissed. “Let him go.”

“Tell me!” Nikolai shook Alvis in his hands.

Alvis smacked the side of his throat to motion that he couldn’t breathe, and then Nikolai promptly set him back in his chair, still holding him in place by the shoulders.

“Her blood…” Alvis panted. “It doesn’t just make wolves, man… She’s got their dad’s Alpha blood in her… And not just because she’s his daughter, but like genuine Alpha blood, as real as you and Julius.”

I let out a gasp and Nikolai released him. Pipa looked over to me with worry as Alvis continued to speak. “The whole week she was with us, Julius had Maximus taking her blood samples while she slept. He’s got this working theory that whenever the venom in her blood activates, it’s not just going to be a werewolf goldmine…” He nodded towards me. “That girl might be able to turn humans into Alphas, maybe even turn other wolves into Alphas, too.”

“Why would Julius even want that? A pack of Alphas isn’t a pack you can control.” Nikolai said.

Alvis shook his head, looking to the ground. “You guys just don’t get it. Look, it's not like any of us were born in Julius' pack, right? We pledged our allegiance to him because in some way or another, he got s**t done. He took care of us, made sure none of us went without.”

Nikolai stared forebodingly at him, waiting for him to say more.

“You really think if he turned a bunch of nobody wolves into free Alphas that don’t have to answer to anybody else that he wouldn’t win hearts and minds?” Alvis shook his head, and after a moment more he looked at me. “You know, he said something to me once, and I think maybe if I tell you, then you might understand the kind of Alpha your brother really is. He said ‘Alvis, when you make a man free, you make him loyal,'..." Alvis looked back to Nikolai. "Now, tell me that isn't the damn truth.”