Healing the Wolf (BBW Paranormal Romance) (Luna Junction) by Sage Domini

 
    Chapter One
     
    E ven before I opened my eyes I realized he wasn’t beside me.  Again. The crude light of a winter morning offered little assistance but after a few heartbeats I heard the thick inhales of his uneasy sleep. He wasn’t far away. I squinted into the front room, already knowing what I would see.  He was curled up by the front door in a drunken stupor, wearing only a pair of stained pants.  Coiled protectively out of sight was the arm which ended abruptly in a scarcely healed stump.  My mate’s right hand had been lost five months earlier in an attack which had also claimed the life of his only brother. 
    When Talon’s young sister, Tess, had run to me with the news that he lived , I had fallen to the ground with dizzying relief.  Since the hour Talon Ivanov had curtly nodded at me and the children before he disappeared into that perilous night, I had prayed to the moon or whatever power reigned only to spare my mate.  Someone had listened, though the cost was heavy.  
    My sister, Amy, had been mated to Talon’s brother , Anton.  His death had exacted a heavy toll on her and when our father suggested she return to the safety of Saskatchewan with her children, not even the fervent protests of Talon’s mother, Kate, could make her stay. 
    “Come with me,” she begged on the morning of her departure.  Two of our Chevalier cousins, Richard and Frank, waited in the truck already packed with all the worldly possessions of Amy and her three children.  As I held my sister in the softly falling snow of the Yule season, the thought crossed my mind.  Our adopted home of Luna Junction , Arizona had become a violent frontline.  Amy was lucky to be returning to the north, to peaceful Claw Creek Landing which was as yet untouched by the wars.
    But I shook my head.  “No.  He will never agree.” 
    Amy pulled back, her mouth set angrily.  There was a ferocity in her eyes which was not suited to her.  I knew it to be a product of her grief.  Amy had always been the tender one, a sweet girl who everyone loved.  Who had been adored by her mate as she adored him in return.  But my sister was almost unrecognizable, her face a fire of hurt.
    “Leave him,” she said through clenched teeth. 
    The very i dea was shocking.  Talon was my mate.  He was damaged but I was still beholden to him.  Even though I heard the quiet mutters from everyone else that the mighty Talon Ivanov would never be the same, no matter how much time passed. 
    I stared at her clearly.  “I can’t.”
    Amy clutched me one final time and then she was gone in a whirlwind of snow.  I was left alone with four young sons, a broken mate, and pressing threats of violence in a changing world… 
    “Mom?”  My oldest son, John, stood in the doorway of the bedroom shared by the boys.  I had argued for the addition of more rooms but that was one of many fights I had lost.  To Talon Ivanov, the small two bedroom home was more than large enough.  After all, the cabin he was raised in by his iron-fisted mother was far smaller.  John’s tenth birthday would be in the summer and he was already nearly as tall as me and the very image of Talon.  He scowled when he saw the hulking shape of his sleeping father.  “At least he came home tonight.” 
    “Hush,” I warne d, climbing heavily from the beautiful handcrafted bed Talon had fashioned ten years earlier.  That, on the other hand, was a fight I had won, back when we were still new to one another.  Growing up, he had slept on the bare floor in the wide loft of the Ivanov cabin.  Or else on the raw ground of the woods surrounding Luna Junction.  The Chevaliers of Claw Creek Landing were a little more accepting of the creature comforts common to the human world.  And so Talon had relented to appease me.  “Don’t wake him.  I’ll get your breakfast.” 
    My eldest boy crossed his arms and continued to stare at his father with mute dissatisfaction.  It was true