Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend

by Tina Smith

  Two weeks later Sky was still away healing reset bones. I wasn’t told where -apparently with a more experienced pack that could help him set his bones straight, which was something we could not do accurately. Reid kept in contact with Cres. I wondered how bad Sam was if, she had so badly hurt Sky. Was she crippled? Healing badly? I knew that was something that would bring back a flood of old emotions, for her to be crippled. I didn’t want to ask, I was glad she was gone.

  Cres offered to take me to get my stitches out. She held my opposite hand as they were plucked; her hand was warm and dry. My own mother wouldn’t have displayed such affectionate support, and it felt strange to me. So I told her I was fine, with an embarrassed smile. The nurse commented to Cres that she might have a career in healthcare. I thought I saw pain in her still eyes as she nodded in reply.

  “Cres,” I asked on the way home in the rattling jeep, “did you want to show me what you are? That day at school, when you pulled the alarm.”

  “What makes you think it was me that pulled it?” “Wasn’t it you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you ….going to show me?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes widened.

  “Why?”

  “Because, you’re like me… I knew it, but I wasn’t

  sure. I was scared you might kill me at the same time.”

  She pursed her thin lips.

  I was confused. “How?”

  She didn’t answer for the longest time.

  “When I said think about ‘who you are’, did you?”

  she asked intently.

  I had to admit I had been rather distracted. “No.

  I’ve been occupied.”

  “Exercising?”

  “Yeah.” I laughed a little; I wondered where this

  was going. In Sky’s absence I had decreased my

  workouts slightly.

  “I think you are like me,” she said pulling over

  near my driveway and turning off the engine. My mind was blank, I knew what she was saying was important but I wasn’t able to compute the

  information. I knew this was serious and perhaps I

  knew it would change everything again, between Sky

  and me especially. My mind protected itself. I smiled

  inappropriately as if I wanted it to be a joke. “You think I’m a hunter?” But as I looked at her

  my nervous smile faded.

  She looked at me with a deadly serious expression; a nervous tickle surged down through me. She was more than serious, she more than

  thought I was like her.

  “You know this?” I frowned, concerned. She simply nodded. My blood ran cold. I closed my eyes and put my palm over my eyelids, as if to block out the trauma of the realization

  from entering my mind. But it came from the inside

  out. I went quiet.

  I remembered Reid’s words spoken so long ago,

  emotion rising in me. ‘You were born to it’. If you

  were a hunter it chose you. Cresida hadn’t chosen it

  and I didn’t want it.

  “No, no I’m not. I can’t be. You’re the hunter, it’s

  your job,” I said desperately.

  “I’m not meant to do it anymore.” She seemed

  resigned to her failure. “I think you, or your body’s

  waiting for me to end, and then you’ll be the hunter,

  Lila,” she uttered.

  “Stop it, stop it.” I glared at her.

  Her eyes were gentle. “We’ve seen it coming for

  some time.”

  “No.”

  “None of us chose this,” she admitted.

  I ignored her miserable sympathy. “Since when?” “What?”

  “Since when did you all see it coming?” I retorted. “The first day you arrived,” she said calmly. My blood curdled. I pulled the handle. “Shut up

  Cresida!” I reefed open the car door.

  “Just think about it,”she touched my arm; I shook

  it off, grabbed my bag and shot her a vicious look.

  Why was she saying this? How could I be a hunter?

  If I was anything I was going to be a wolf, not a wolf

  killer.

  Once inside I tried to call Sky, then Reid, who I usually avoided. No answer, still. Only now I was concerned.

  I left voice mail.

  “Call me now, did you know about this and for

  how long?” I failed to hide the hysterical desperation in my voice, as it cracked and wavered emotionally.

  I hung up and kicked a hole in the wall with my boot; the plaster fell about the floor like breadcrumbs exposing the space inside it. Sophie would crack when she saw it, which made me angrier. The gaping hole stared at me as proof of my strength and the force of the hunter.

  “No, no, no, no,” I screeched, crouching in a squat with my hands over my face in the hallway, my fists clawing through tufts of hair.

  Finally I called Cresida’s phone. She answered on the first ring. “When did you know it?” I ordered.

  “Lila, the night you ran nine kilometres to Sam’s cabin was a clear indicator… but there were so many other things - the exercise, the determination, the mark, resisting Sam’s charms, and mostly the pull Sky felt for you - the draw I held for you, your appeal to Reid - all very clear signs.”

  “How long have you known this?” I hissed.

  “We didn’t know for sure, you have to know that. I had dreams, there was the symbol.”

  “And he knew? How long did he know?”

  “I think since he went up to your room he was sure, when he could no longer resist, despite Sam and Reid.”

  “So what we feel isn’t real - none of it? Because I’m a hunter and I actually just want to kill him.” I didn’t let her reply, the truth rolled out of me like an overflowing drawer unlocked for the first time. “- Like a black widow! You’re telling me this is all a lie, my entire life, my life with them, at school - my life with him - loving him. My own feelings are all wrong and he knew it, you all knew it - you saw me change and none of you told me.” I sounded distressed, disgusted; the last words were a whisper.

  “I did - I tried, you didn’t want to see it, you should have seen it - I didn’t have another hunter trying to warn me, Lila.”

  “You didn’t warn me - you just acted crazy, you knew I couldn’t stop it just like you - and you fed me to the wolves!” My chest began to hurt.

  “You took so long to get even to this point, Lila. I’m still waiting for it to hit you; it’s happening slowly, we can’t deny it. When nothing happened we thought: ‘Right, it’s not true, it was just a fluke - and we all gave up - but then you started to act like a hunter, it became obvious, even though we all denied it. Sam saw it and wanted to turn you, like she did me, to fix her problems. Sky and I saved you,”she said certain of the fact.

  “What now, Cres?” I gulped through tears. For me it was over. My dreams were smashed, irreparably so.

  “I’m coming over, wait, please.” The phone hung up. I lay on the floor against the wall like a frustrated and exhausted tantrum-throwing child, my face puffy from crying tears, which continued to slowly ooze from my tired eyes.

  She knocked softly to announce herself, which surprised me.

  “Come in,” I called.

  28. Dichotomy

  I was part of their world but not how I wanted to be. At one point I would have almost welcomed it. Now I knew why I was in the pack. Sam’s plan had been to sway me to her side and in a strange way it worked. But had it not been for Sky they would all be dead, by Cresida or by me. So what I felt was just more vicious manipulation. The only one who was on my side was Cres - then why did I hate her? Sky and Cres had saved me.

  “It’s what he couldn’t do for you, right? That’s what’s so crazy. He did it to you and I love him and it’s not real, and I can’t stop feeling crazy about him.” I looked into her deep blue warrior eyes. “I wouldn’t kill him. You couldn’
t do it, this hunting crap is all bullshit,” I spat defiant.

  Cresida almost smiled.

  “No one knew this was going to happen, none of us - not Sam, not Reid, not Sky…”

  I felt deeply that it was no excuse. “But you knew, didn’t you?” My tone was severe.

  “I thought you might be, yes,” she pouted.

  “And you didn’t stop me, from any of this.” I couldn’t believe it.

  “My visions change, I tried, you wouldn’t listen or back off, and you were like a moth to a flame. No one can stop it, Lila,” she uttered shaking her head.

  I waited until I caught her gaze.

  “Cresida, I don’t think you did try to tell me! You let me…you should have tried harder. I would have seen – God! I would have run!” My voice betrayed me, breaking. Perhaps I would not have.

  Silently she let me rant. Cres swallowed.

  “You had to discover it for yourself, I broke the rules even trying to show you what they were. And when it didn’t work I had no choice but to go with the flow, but I protected you,” she assured me.

  I glared at her.

  “Fine, it’s true,” she admitted. “I should have trusted my intuition more. I tried to stop you. It’s a part of me to want you to kill them, you’ll see what it’s like - it means more to me than anything. I didn’t fight it any longer, once I had the visions of you. I hoped you could do something I have been unable to do. I was just prolonging the inevitable, and besides no one was sure. It was a crazy situation,” she stated apologetically.

  I screeched, “This is all for nothing!” I was weeping again. I sobbed then and she didn’t speak as I wept, “Tell me Cresida - I want to know it all, all of it

  - everything you know.” But mostly: “I want to know where he is?” I felt a fear he wouldn’t come back, but I didn’t let myself believe it.

  She was at my side. I felt something poke my shoulder. I looked up at her.

  “Look,” she said.

  I pulled the paper into my hand and eyed the document in my lap, through bleary eyes.

  It was a shape and eventually it came into focus. It was a rough scribble of my tattoo.

  “What’s this?” I had cried so much I couldn’t breathe through my nose.

  Cresida saw the hole in the wall near the kitchen.

  “My mum will be mad.” I shrugged as she eyed it.

  “Yeah, well that’s the least of our worries,” she said relaxing and sliding down the wall sitting next to me on the carpet.

  I emphasized, “Our worries?”

  “Yeah.” Cres sniffed.

  “How?” I asked like a stubborn child, frustrated and exhausted.

  She breathed in and pointed to the crinkled notepaper.

  “This was drawn by me over one year ago.” She tapped it, remembering, “It’s a sign.”

  “I’m not like you,” I interrupted. I blew my nose.

  “Fine.” She didn’t argue the point.

  “Don’t you see, I love Sky, I can’t kill him - I won’t, I won’t kill them, you should have let her bite me,” I blurted angrily. I wanted Cres to know it.

  “No, I think that’s why you’ve come to us because of what happened to me. I’m supposed to be dead, Lila, or maybe I am supposed to protect you from repeating what happened to me,” she admitted.

  I felt sick.

  “So if I am the hunter now – what? - So I just take the job from you? Kill you - kill them, my only friends, and end up here alone with blood on my hands?” I sounded distressed.

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “Then really explain this to me, Cresida!” I threw my hands up in frustration.

  “I would, if I could. We’re writing the book here.”

  After a silence I spoke.

  “Where is Sky? Is he coming back? I want to know and do not lie to me, Cres,” I was vehement and determined I would find him.

  “I never have,” she said, offence shading her tone. She reached to the phone table above me and pulled some tissues, then sat back down next to me and placed the pile in my hand.

  I glared at her though I must have looked more like a spoilt tear-stained child than an actual threat. Hunters surely didn’t cry - that’s what I was now told I was supposed to be.

  “He is healing with the other pack. They have a nurse who is a wolf. He knows how to reset the bones, get x-rays, that sort of thing on the down low, stuff we can’t do.”

  “Sam?” I asked,

  “She’s hiding - we don’t know for sure - with her friends in Paris, France, most likely.” She sounded unsure.

  “Is he coming back?” I asked agitated.

  “To be honest with you I don’t think I or anyone else could stop him.” She swallowed. “He comes at his own risk,” she said flatly.

  I burst then.“Why? You think I would hurt him?” I accused.

  She raised her brows.

  “Lila, you are the hunter now, it’s your job, like it was supposed to be mine.”

  “It was your job! And might I remind you that you didn’t kill him. I won’t do it. If I am supposed to kill him, then why does he pursue me? Why did they all pursue me?”

  “None of us could risk telling you in case it wasn’t you. Do you see? We all tried to keep you close, it was a tug of war and anyway I as good as told you. I showed you and you didn’t even seem to flinch.” That was when Cresida had changed tack. She had seen I was going to go with them and she had decided to choose her battles, gambling that soon enough I would be back and she would be watching.

  Cres spoke again, softer. “I don’t know why he had to have you. Because he’s crazy, because they wanted to keep you close.” She shook her head.

  “Why me?”

  She took me literally. “We don’t know. It seems like he has a talent for finding hunters and subduing them with lust or something?” She shook her head. “You pull him in and vice versa.” She pulled her stubby fingers, which now began to show the signs of nail growth, through her hair. “It’s like he’s a venomous flower, you know the ones, that attract the insects with their nectar?”

  And slowly suck the life from them, I thought, but Cresida didn’t say it and neither did I.

  “So he felt the same way about you,” I said defeated.

  “No, not quite. Not as strongly,” she admitted with her fingers upon her temple.

  “For you or him?” I looked at her, I was jealous.

  “Me and him. I never felt like you seem to.” Cres offered.

  I tried to stay logical.

  “Sky is attracted to hunters?” I whispered bitterly.

  “He doesn’t do it on purpose.”

  “So that’s it, it’s all manipulation.” A tear rolled down my cheek.

  Cresida swallowed. “If you had a choice could you leave him?”

  “No.” I didn’t want to elaborate because it was that simple. “Not before and not now he wants me to.”

  She shook her head again.“It seems like maybe if you weren’t what you both are - a wolf, and a hunter

  - that you would maybe have feelings for each other and that’s like added together.” This unfortunate admission made me happy.

  “Does all that cancel out the killing part?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Cres, why didn’t he tell me?” I gazed at her with bloodshot eyes.

  “Why didn’t you ask?” she huffed, tired. “I don’t know, Lila.” She then admitted, palms up, “Like I said, we hoped you weren’t as big a threat - you seemed not to know anything - we all thought we were wrong, that you were a decoy…”

  “I wasn’t a threat,” I retorted. “I just don’t understand why no one, especially why he, didn’t tell me.”

  I felt maybe I knew why, because like me, when he had a chance, he didn’t want a reason to break the brief moments we had. We knew they were brief, I felt it; maybe he denied it as much as I had.

  I was a threat to his life and that of his pack, his family, and he loved me.
I knew I didn’t want this to be the truth and at the same time it all made sense, more than any other explanation.

  Cresida informed me it was all a dangerous chemical cocktail which had dazzled me like a hypnotized rabbit to the slaughter. He had inadvertently compromised me and all the while this spun in my head. I replayed the moments we’d had together. Surely he loved me, needed me as desperately as I needed him? I felt like I would pine to death, but I didn’t tell Cresida, I didn’t tell a soul. She seemed confident I would get over it soon and I did not go out of my way to convince her otherwise. At that time I believed I still had a choice. And she was quiet for my sake.

  The front door opened. My mother’s keys jingled in the lock. She attempted to call out when she saw us, my head rested on Cresida’s bent knees, her arm over my back, her opposite hand entwined in mine, and I lifted my head.

  There was no point in hiding the fact that I had been crying.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed upon seeing us, “I didn’t expect…”

  “Mum, this is Cresida James, my friend.” I unwound my fingers and sniffed, wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi, Mrs Crain.” Cres smiled courteously, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Sophie,” Mum corrected hiding a cringe at my father’s name, with a soft smile, though she had only just returned to her maiden name, Knight. She turned her attention to me. “Have you been crying?” she asked, matter-of-fact, as we stood up from our strange position on the carpet. I was certain she was relived someone was comforting me, so she wouldn’t have to. I pulled the wrinkles from my clothes.

  “Um, Sky’s been transferred to a hospital for some further testing, on his bones,” Cres offered as a rationalization for my tears.

  Sophie looked at me. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t realize how bad he was?”

  “Oh, he’ll be fine.” I laughed wiping my eyes. “It’s just…upsetting, you know.”

  Sophie nodded. She was holding groceries, which she looked at then, as though reminding herself of what she had been doing when we had startled her. Mum wouldn’t want to pry further, I relied on this.

  She went into the kitchen, the bags rustled as she untied them and pulled things out onto the counter top. “It’s a shame about the practice,” she called

  - aimed at us both.