Walking back to Rhona’s side, I fixed my outward attention on Valerie and Nathan on the stage.
I couldn’t wait for sleep tonight; My eyes felt scratchy. My body ached from holding the damn book up for hours on end. Despite that, I’d read the journals tonight until exhaustion claimed me again.
“You okay?” Rhona whispered.
“Might have to see the doctor.”
“It’s not the wound, is it?”
I froze.
Oh.
Fuck.
“It could be infected or something,” she added.
Sascha said werewolves could be made, but not from biting. I forced myself to breathe. “The wound is pretty much gone now. Just stress, I’m sure.”
“You know,” she said hesitantly, “if you need me to take on more responsibilities, I’m here for you.”
She’d already taken on a huge job. “Honestly, once the debt is gone, that will clear a lot of emotional space for me.”
“You spoke to Neve then?”
Neve was a lawyer who’d dealt with a lot of the Thana’s legal matters over the years. She drew up the papers for the transfer of funds yesterday. Another lawyer was working on conveyance for the house, so that would save me over a grand. “Yeah, I’ll transfer the leftover balance from the manor accounts after house settlement. Not gonna lie, I can’t wait to be free of that shit. Thanks for helping me with that.”
She pressed her lips together, and I could almost hear the angry outburst about Ragna on her lips, though she swallowed it back.
Even now, I couldn’t help feeling a loyalty to the woman who’d raised me.
Even calling her Ragna felt disrespectful.
Calling Herc my father felt like a lie.
But I had a sister. I had to remember that.
Valerie and Nathan finished, and I listened to the energetic murmur rising from the stewards. Perfect. I didn’t want to dampen their spirit with the don’t be complacent speech, but arrogance was a certain way to lose a grid in my amateur opinion.
Now, there was an edge in the air that told me they were ready to bring their A-game.
Wade approached with a middle-aged woman on his arm. “Andie, have you met Harlow Greene? Let me introduce the two of you.”
Switching on my head steward smile, I shook her hand.
An hour of introductions passed before I managed to escape to my room. I dragged the last journal from beneath the tallboy. After Pascal’s office search, I didn’t want to take any chances.
There had to be something in here.
Changing into my threadbare pyjamas, I ducked under the covers, adjusting the bedside lamp to shine on the page.
“Child-Ragna, give me something solid, please. People around here be lying.”
I see my friends together, but it’s just nothing like what I feel for Murphy. It’s like we’re one.
“Oh, brother.” Flicking through ten pages of loved-up teen life, the details of their latest sexapades, and Grandmother Charise’s death, I slowed at another passage.
Mother and father are gone, and Herc is so busy now. He’s so short-tempered, and I’m trying to be the person he needs me to be, but I feel so alone. If Murphy left, I couldn’t go on. What are we even doing playing this game? What’s the point when everyone I love dies? One person holds my happiness in his hands. And that’s so terrifying that sometimes I can’t speak.
I paused at two frantically written words on the next page.
Murphy’s sick.
Sitting straighter, I scratched at my aching calf.
He came down with it last week and it’s getting worse. I’m so angry he concealed this! He knows I can’t live without him, but—of course—he didn’t want me to worry. He’s aching all over and has a sore throat. He’s downplaying how bad things are, but my Murphy is always cheerful. Now, he looks so tired. If he doesn’t get better tomorrow, I’ll call the doctor.
An overreaction for the flu, but she’d been clear on what Murphy meant to her. Margaret Frey wondered if Ragna never forgave Murphy for dying and leaving her alone. It seemed strange at the time, but more and more, I believed the theory could hold weight.
But what about me?
Savannah had to be heavily pregnant with me right now, but there hadn’t been any mention of her in the journal. They really did hide me from everyone. Did that speak for the lack of trust between Herc and Ragna, or the lack of trust between Savannah and Ragna? Savannah was only mentioned in the fondest terms in the journals, so if so, the problem was one-sided.
My heart stopped at the next passage.
Murphy lied to me. He knows why he’s sick.
We can’t see a doctor.
No one can know.
I turned the journal toward the light to better see, but the three following pages were a mess of emotional ramblings and no specifics. “Come on, Child-Ragna. Give me something.” My urge to figure this out passed healthy curiosity weeks ago.
I had to understand.
I was desperate to understand.
Herc and Savannah can’t know.
Especially with the baby due next week. They’d never see our side.
“You did know about the pregnancy,” I murmured.
I’d never felt less like sleep as I focused on her words. “Come on. Tell me what happened.”
Even after everything. This was still about her.
Still about me missing her.
The light illuminated four words.
I read each of them, heart hammering. And I knew the words were now burned into my mind forever.
Tears had blurred the ink on the page twenty-one years ago. I traced the uneven, smeared words with a shaking hand, feeling her dire hopelessness through the coarse page.
Murphy’s becoming a Luther.
“Andie?”
I peered over the readying mass of stewards. They’d dressed in a dusty red that would allow them to camouflage against the iron ore. Protective vests and helmets on, we otherwise tried to keep bulky equipment to a minimum in this grid.
The bottom of the circular quarry was a lake. And this was to our massive advantage. The grid entry point was into the water. From the lake base, tiers rose up steep and fast for one hundred and fifty metres like an amphitheatre for giants. The result was a vertical height nearly three times the height of sandstone.
The Luthers had never taken Iron from us.
I couldn’t lose this grid today, or I’d lose standing with the stewards in a big way.
“Andie?”
Focus. That’s what I had to do.
But how could I after what I read last night?
He was bitten in Timber two weeks ago. By one of them. At first, he didn’t think anything of it, especially when the new moon came and went. But last week, he started to feel different.
An aching body. Changes in his voice. Fatigue.
Panic cloyed my throat.
I didn’t say anything, but sometimes, if I mention telling others, he gets angry and his eyes go dark.
I’d read her mounting terror as Murphy displayed more and more signs of an imminent shift. Anger. Outbursts. Growls and snarls.
The last entry helped me figure out much of the rest.
We’re leaving. We can’t tell a soul. Herc won’t understand. He’ll cast us out.
The Luthers hate my family. No one will help us. We need to go.
Murphy is leaving on a delivery tomorrow. I’ll leave the day after while Herc’s in meetings. Nothing could part me from this valley but Murphy.
I’ll hide these journals with the hope that one day we’ll return to our home. One day, when the game is over.
Brother. Savannah. And my little niece, Andie.
I love you all so much.
I fear you all so much.
My heart is breaking.
Goodbye.
She’d said goodbye to me, so she didn’t intend to steal me at that point. So what changed?
Someone shook my shoulder roughly.<
br />
Jerking, I looked into Rhona’s eyes. “What?”
“Where are you? I’ve been calling your name.”
I’m turning into a Luther. “Sorry, I’m trying to think whether we missed anything.”
She scrutinised me. “Did you sleep last night?”
“Maybe?”
Rhona grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. “You need to take better care of yourself.”
“I know,” I retorted sharply. “I will.”
Her brows shot up. “Alright, keep your hair on.”
“Sorry, just tired. What can I help you with?”
She released my arm. “Came to tell you that everyone is prepared, and they completed the new manoeuvres without issue.”
“Thank you. How’s the training going?”
She hummed. “Good. Really good. But it doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough.”
Gripping her hand, I squeezed. “You’re helping more than you know. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“It’s just—”
“Andie,” Wade hollered. “Speech!”
The chant was taken up on the muddy shore of the lake. I sucked in a breath at the assault on my ears.
My really sensitive ears.
Tears pricked my eyes. Something was happening to my body. I was becoming something I hated.
The new moon passed. I thought I was safe.
Sascha said biting didn’t make werewolves.
Rhona would never forgive me for my part in Herc’s death, and the stewards wouldn’t trust me if they knew about the mating call with Sascha. But a werewolf leader?
I might not understand so much about Ragna’s decisions, but I understood why she ran instead of staying.
Hate ran deep. And it would turn on me. Without doubt.
I couldn’t even tell Wade.
No one.
Mum always dated her journals, and I spent the hours before dawn figuring out what phase of the moon Murphy was bitten during. Waning Gibbous. Just after the full moon. They left before he actually changed. The speck of desperate hope in my heart wanted to believe that meant nothing ever happened.
But then why didn’t they return?
No. Murphy changed alright. Then he came back to explain everything to Herc.
And Herc killed him.
I’d reasoned that my father wouldn’t hurt a human, but I’d seen first-hand he had no qualms about killing Luthers.
I climbed atop a rock with Billy’s help.
Eager faces stared up at me. One thousand of them.
I was an imposter.
A fraud.
A letdown.
I had to leave them. And they’d never know why.
From Murphy’s timeline, new werewolves didn’t shift at the new moon when they had the least power. I felt stupid for missing it.
The sun gave Luthers their power.
The full moon would be my last day as a human.
“Stewards,” I said, pitching my voice higher. “Naatira Thana said something on the cusp of a battle in this grid one hundred years ago, and during my readings on tribe history, her words have stuck with me. I say them for you now. Flow fast water, flow down valleys and roads. Flood everything, but do not pretend that your actions are undertaken with purpose. Yours are the fumbling actions of a beast. Move with intent. Surge forth only with knowledge. Hold strong against the rising tide knowing you forged the path that water can only flow upon.”
I took a breath. “There’s a reason our strength is Iron. There’s a reason the Luthers’ strength is Water. Tonight, we show them the difference. Move with our intention. Surge forth only with knowledge. We forge the path for another day in thousands as those before you have done. The Luthers can merely flow upon it.”
Did they hear the nerves in my voice?
Why were they silent?
A few shouted “Head stewards” from the back renewed my courage. I raised a fist, unsmiling.
In a wave, a sea of fists raised to the sky. The air thrummed with determination that tore me apart as surely as it made me.
Next week, I’d no longer be one of them.
I stared at the one thousand people who would soon hate me.
Boom.
A well-oiled team, the stewards headed for the murky water. The lake looked border-line dangerous to swim in, but I’d been assured it was impossible to drink enough to take in harmful levels of iron.
The fastest swimmers had to make it to the farthest side. The weaker swimmers were already climbing the nearest tiers. We didn’t use many traps in this grid, but that had to change.
Sascha wouldn’t pull punches, and neither would I.
When Pascal joined me, I resisted the urge to demand answers. Maybe she knew how to cure this. Maybe she could help me.
But if she’d guessed what was in the journals—that was one thing. If she’d read the journals, then she was aware of the symptoms displayed by a human changing into a Luther.
She could ruin me if I mis-stepped.
I had to be very, very careful.
“Nice evening out,” I said cheerfully.
She arched a brow. “Indeed.”
Indeed.
9
Unknown number.
Just what I needed. Shouldn’t have unblocked him.
“What?” I snarled into the phone.
“Andie,” Sascha’s voice tipped over me like warm water.
My rage spiralled higher. “To what do I owe this honour?”
“The honour is mine, mate,” he replied. “Congratulations on the win.”
Yeah. Yeah. We both knew Water and Iron were pretty much assured victories for either side. “Thanks.”
He paused, and I hated that part of me just wanted to be with him. Touching him. Kissing him. Talking to him.
Simply because I’d feel better for it. I wanted to feel better.
My body was tired.
I was at my wit’s end. The galloping approach of the full moon was like a noose around my neck.
“Have you thought any more about the meets?” He said low. “I’m not sure I can keep away from you for much longer.”
The words weren’t a threat—just truth. If I didn’t act, Greyson would.
Yet I couldn’t. Not until I figured something out.
Leaving town. Surely, I had to leave town. How could I hide this from the tribe, let alone Luthers?
I closed my eyes. “My situation has changed. I can’t go through the meets with you.”
A leaden silence met my words.
“What changed?” He asked so softly my sensitive ears nearly missed the question.
Some people, like Rhona, got louder when angry. The thing about Sascha… he didn’t have a tell. With him, I could throw the dice with very little idea which emotional square they’d land on. He could be murderous, contemplative, or worried right now and he’d still speak in that quiet, controlled voice.
Without this mating call, I never would have peeked beyond his mild exterior. Even with this crap, I rarely saw him lose his cool. Freaky didn’t begin to describe it. “Nothing that concerns you.”
“It very much concerns me, Andie.”
My ears twinged. Was that an undercurrent of desperation or anger? “This isn’t what you wanted to hear, but it’s how things have to be. I’d appreciate if you could contain Greyson on your end.”
Impossibly, his voice lowered further. “You know Greyson doesn’t play by the rules, little bird. You know he’ll kill to get to you. If I put my people between you and me, I put them in harm’s way. The same for any of your people. What could possibly be more important than preventing further bloodshed between both sides? Tell me what has happened since we last spoke.”
He was lecturing me on the lives of others. Fucking rich. “That’s my decision. You don’t have to like it. Let me say right now that if you attempt to harm any of my stewards, I will kill you myself—whether it breaks me or not.”
Sascha sucked in a breath that I’d asso
ciate with someone who’d been kicked in the chest.
He swore a moment later. “How did things get this way between us?”
I gripped the top of the tallboy, staring into the mirror. “I met you. That’s how.”
Blackness crept in on my emerald eyes, and I reeled back.
“Andie?”
Oh my god. I’m a monster. “Got to go.”
Breathing hard, I gaped at the stranger in the mirror. Me. How could that be me? I tried blinking the darkness away. When that failed, I turned to the black fury inside.
Breathe, Andie.
Watching closely, I deepened my exhales, casting my mind to the forest as I so often escaped to when playing the saxophone.
My heartbeat slowed.
The pounding blood left my cheeks.
Darkness ebbed, leaving misted emerald behind.
A tear slipped over my cheek. What the fuck was I going to do? What if my eyes did this in a meeting?
I had to practice.
Focusing on that unshakeable fury, I let it out again, barring my teeth as black edged in once more.
Drawing my rage in, I forced the shadows away.
I wasn’t a Luther yet, but maybe doing this would help me control the effects.
But would my smell change when I shifted? If so, the pack would know immediately.
Maybe if Rhona could take my place in meetings… I could think of some excuse. Sascha and the other Luthers would assume that was me avoiding the mating call.
In the grids, I kept out of the fighting, away from werewolves.
To consider staying was madness, but I’d lost so much. I’d fought so hard.
Moon Claimed: Supernatural Battle (Werewolf Dens Book 2) Page 8