Damn, Michael must have got his ability for sudden outbursts from her. I ran across the room and enveloped her in a hug. There was the briefest resistance before she hugged me back. After a moment, she pulled away and looked at me. I could read the worry in her eyes, but I knew there wasn’t much I could do to alleviate her fears. I couldn’t promise her anything.
“I will do my best not to get into trouble.”
She smiled. “I don’t think that’s a promise you can make. You could get into trouble crossing the street, but at least you’ll have your brother looking out for you.” She glanced over my shoulder at my brother who was probably still in the doorway. “You promise to keep an eye on her, Michael? Because that’s the only reason why I’m letting her go. Arturo paints a pretty picture, but since I can’t see this school myself without raising suspicions with your dad, I need to know that I can trust you to do that.”
Michael crossed the space that divided us and hugged us both. “Of course, I’ll keep an eye on her. It’ll be nice to have family close by, but what are you going to tell Dad?”
She flashed a smile at us which didn’t reach her eyes and rustled the top of my head, something she hadn’t gone since I was a child. “You let me worry about him.”
Chapter Four
I spent the rest of the day packing things away. I took books, clothes and my camera. When I’d been at the nunnery I’d had everything taken away from me. I was kinda hoping that this wouldn’t be the same. I mean, why would it be? One bad experience didn’t mean that they would all be bad. Michael had stayed downstairs just in case Dad reappeared and Mum needed backup. Michael knew more about the school than she did, so he’d be able to answer any questions Dad had or at least come up with ones that he might find believable. Knowing that I was running short on time and hoping that we could miss the confrontations with Dad I packed a little faster. I loved my dad, but I didn’t want to argue with him or risk the fact he might pull rank and decide that I couldn’t go. This school wasn’t a punishment since I wanted to go. Even if he didn’t know the precise why, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to read the hope or excitement on my face.
What would the school be like? I had to admit that my mind went to places I’d read about in comics. Places for those that were gifted or cursed. I frowned. I guess that all depended on who was asked.
Would I be able to make friends? I got the impression that these guys had either been at the school for a long time or had been bitten and had a fear of wolves and their future in the world. I closed another box with my clothes, breathing deeply. I couldn’t panic about this. I knew that this was where I was supposed to be.
“Do you need any help?”
“I’ve got a few boxes, can you take them downstairs?”
My brother appeared in the doorway. “You’re not taking much?”
“What do I take? I’ve got my essentials and packed some clothes away in the suitcases. I don’t need much. Any sign of Dad?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I think they had a big argument that we missed. Mum won’t talk about it.”
“It has to be hard for her. Keeping secrets from the people you love.” I’d been thinking about that. A part of me hated the fact she’d lied to us, but I could see her point. All she’d wanted to do was keep us safe. How could she have known that in keeping secrets she’d managed to make things worse? Would Michael have been turned against his will if she’d just told us? I didn’t think so, but that was the gift of foresight, a gift nobody had.
“Probably.” Michael shrugged. “I know that I shouldn’t hold it against her, but it isn’t easy. I lost a lot the day I was turned. Friends I never saw again. My family. It isn’t all bad. I’m stronger than I used to be. Don’t need to wear glasses and we live longer.”
“We live longer?”
“Yes, there are wolves out there pushing a hundred, but who look much younger than that. I don’t know precise ages, but you know, it’s rude to ask.” Michael scooped up three of my boxes and balanced them on one hand.
I bent down and picked up my suitcase, I grunted. It didn’t just have clothes in it but it was still heavy. I put my camera and film in there to keep them safe.
“Mum said that she’d take us.”
We moved down the stairs and I had to use the wall to make sure that I didn’t topple over. What would Dad think when he got home and didn’t find us there? I spied Mum at the bottom of the stairs writing something down near the phone.
“Message for Dad?”
“He’ll worry if I’m not here. Now let’s get in the car.”
***
I kept myself to myself when we drove to my new school. My brother talked to Mum, but I didn’t listen to what they were talking about. I had my own demons to figure out. I was going to a new school, one that had werewolves in it. I always had a problem with authority. I was the girl who ran away from a nunnery after breaking into Mother Superior’s office to find my things, who’d blown up the old science lab, which had been by accident and punched a boy in the face, which hadn’t been an accident. Now I was entering a world where I was sure my attitude problem might create more problems than it solved. That was something that I would need to talk to Henry about. Which raised a question that I hadn’t thought to ask?
“Is Henry going to be there?”
I could feel my mum’s gaze settle on me in the rear-view mirror. My cheeks went hot, but I didn’t meet her glance.
“I don’t know, he’s eighteen so he doesn’t have to attend the school and he works for Arturo’s pack.”
I still had his number and while my fingers itched to reach for it I stopped myself short. If I started to do that I was sure I’d get the fourth degree from my mum. We might finally be getting along a lot better, but there were some conversations that I didn’t want to have with my mum.
“He knows that you’ll be attending,” Michael said from the passenger seat. “He said that he’ll meet us when you’re settled.”
If it’s possible I think my cheeks get even hotter and my stomach felt like it was tied up in knots. It had only been a couple of days since I saw him last and we hadn’t talked about the kiss, or kisses. All of them had happened in the heat of the moment and I had no clue if they meant anything to him. I wasn’t even sure if they meant anything to me, sure I liked him, but my experiences with the opposite sex were limited.
A ringtone erupted into the quiet space and saved me from having to answer. Mum shared a look with Michael. She didn’t have to say anything, we all knew who it was. Dad had gone home to an empty house.
“Do you want me to answer it?”
“That’s probably not a good idea. I’ll pull over.” As she said it, she parked the car on the side of the road and switched on the hazards, before she took her bag and stepped out of the car. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She closed the door with a slam. Both of us watched as she stood in the field and started to talk.
“Are you going to listen in?”
“It’s rude to listen in.”
“But you’re going to do it anyway?”
Michael hushed at me and I unclipped my seatbelt and edged closer to him. After a few moments, I studied my brother’s expression. He frowned.
“What is she saying?”
I looked out the window to see that she was talking into the phone, she looked flustered and annoyed. How many times had she argued with Dad and won? “She’s saying that she’d lost one child because he didn’t want her to go look for him, she isn’t going to make the same mistake with you. She’s told him about the school, not that’s it run by wolves, but it’s for special or troubled kids and that they were lucky to get a place for you.”
“Well Dad thinks that I’m a screw up so that would probably work.”
“I doubt that Dad thinks that way about you. You probably don’t remember how it was before I ran away, but we had a good life, family trips, and game nights. Dad was busy, but he still made time for us to be a family. I don�
��t know how much home changed when I left. The fact you’ve been to a few schools probably means that it hasn’t been good. Don’t blame him for that. Blame me.”
“I don’t want to blame anyone. You didn’t have any control over what happened to you.” I touched his shoulder. “He became closed off and maybe the first therapist was right. I was acting out, but all it would have taken was for him to bother to look for you. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to him or Mum about you.”
“You’ve been in therapy?”
I sat back in my seat and sighed. “I became the black sheep of the family when you left, but it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just a shame that there’s still secrets in this family. They only cause more problems than they solve.”
The car door opened, and Mum sat down with a huff. “Your dad’s very stubborn. I’m not looking forward to going back home.”
“You’re taking me back?”
She shook her head. “I told him that I was taking you to a new school, and that you would need to go now to make sure that you’re not too far behind on the academic year. He was a little surprised that I’d taken the initiative.” She turned the car back on and moved back into traffic.
“How did you guys meet?”
She looked surprised. “What?”
“I know that you don’t want to talk about why you left the pack, but I figure it had to be something to do with Dad.”
She sighed. “It didn’t really have much to do with your father. I was attacked, shot when I was in wolf form. I shifted back into my human form and stumbled around for a while. My body didn’t want to heal so that meant there had to be silver on that bullet. I didn’t know if it was a deliberate choice. That the hunter was hunting wolves or if it was dumb luck, but I also knew that I wasn’t going to last long since I was losing a lot of blood. I managed to get to my stash of clothes and I got them on and made my way to the road. That was where I met your father. He was the man in the car that stopped. He got me to the hospital and visited me every day. I could have gone back home, but I fell in love and I knew the rules and what would happen if I broke them, so I decided to leave my past behind, to let my human half dominate the wolf.”
“And does that work?”
“It wasn’t easy, you know those trips I go on once a year?”
“To see your old-school friend?”
“I essentially travel to the Lake District and run around there in my wolf form. You can only deny a part of yourself for so long before it starts to lash out. I couldn’t risk losing my hold of her around you or your brother. It was only recently that I found out that there are other ways to keep her under control.”
Curiosity nearly got the best of me, but I figured that it was probably a conversation I didn’t want to have.
Michael on the other hand spoke up. “You’ve been using drugs?”
Her breath caught. “Sometimes. I wouldn’t recommend it. It might also be the reason why I’m doing this now. When you disappeared, Rachel, it was right about the time I go on my trip. I haven’t gone without the drugs as much as I have when you vanished.”
“You speak about the wolf like it’s a separate creature from you, but I know that’s not true. Both sides are supposed to live together.” I don’t know what made me say that, but I knew that it was the truth.
“That’s very easy for you to say when you don’t have the experience to know if it’s true or not.” She took a deep breath and I noticed that her knuckles had turned white. “If I hadn’t chosen to be with your father than neither of you would have existed and believe it or not, the births of the two of you were the best things that happened to me. When I was growing up in the pack, all I’d ever wanted to be was the wolf. There’s a freedom in that, but when I first saw your father I knew that was it. I wanted to be in his world and I gave up what I had to be with him. I would do it again. I don’t doubt that Joseph is the other part of my soul and the goddess wouldn’t have had us find each other if we weren’t meant to be together.”
Her words left me with a lot to think about and I rested my chin underneath the palm of my hand watching the world pass in a flash before my eyes. An uneasy silence filled the car. I guess we all had a lot to think about. After a couple of hours and a toilet break, the car slowed.
My heart did the same tango it did before, and I focussed on where we were now. She’d turned onto a quiet road, flat farm land surrounded us. There wasn’t anything that blocked my view of the road ahead. My jaw dropped open. That was the school?
Chapter Five
When Michael had called it a mansion I knew that it had to be big, but this big? The front of the building was large and had pillars on either side of the double doors. It looked like it spread out half a mile on either side, a bottom floor with steps that went up either side to a second floor. There were a small group of kids running around on a field that reminded me of the football pitches at my other school. Everything could have been described as normal, but the kids were moving way too fast. If there was a ball somewhere between them I couldn’t see it. A young boy stopped and watched the car. His stark white hair and blue eyes sent shivers down my spine. A big smile crossed his face and he waved before he joined the other kids in the game. The chilling moment had passed.
“You know who that was?”
“Yeah.” Michael nodded from his seat in the front. “His name is Daniel, the youngest child that Jonas ever recruited.”
I bit my bottom lip. I’d been wondering what had happened to the kids that had been freed from Jonas’s influence. It looked like I had my answer. “What happened to the rest of them?” There had been originally about a hundred. I doubted that all of them could fit in the school, even if it was huge.
“I know that Arturo gave them all an option, join his pack or go to the school. This isn’t the only school that caters to wolves. So, most of them were able to go to schools close to their original homes.”
“Any of them going to hold a grudge for us stopping Jonas?” It hadn’t occurred to me that I might have made a few enemies the day we stopped Jonas. All the kids had been brainwashed or at least I’d thought they’d all be brainwashed, what if they hadn’t? Oh crap. I rested my hand on my stomach and tried to stop the swell of panic that nearly overwhelmed me.
Michael didn’t seem to be that bothered by it. “The school is the safeties place for those who are new wolves, it’s a safe environment. You don’t have to be worried about it.”
His words didn’t reassure me. I might have spent most my life on the outside looking in, but I thought this place would be different. There was a real chance I could make friends as everything snapped into place, but that wouldn’t be easy if half of them wanted me dead.
“Your brother promised to keep an eye on you and if anything happens you can go to the headmaster.”
Mum pulled the car into a space outside the school. We decided to keep my things in the car until we figured where I would be going and staying. Michael showed us to Arturo’s office which was on the first floor at the back of the building facing a large wood. The corridors weren’t very busy and there was a gentle hum of activity. I peeked into some of the classrooms to see small groups of kids listening to teachers. If I didn’t know that some of them were wolves and others were Alphas, I would have never guessed they weren’t anything but human.
“Come on Rachel, I need to be heading back before it gets dark.” My mother’s impatient voice dragged my attention from the classroom and I followed them further into the school. Michael had said that Henry would meet us here, but I hadn’t seen him yet.
Michael stopped in front of one of the doors and knocked. There was a muffled reply and he opened the door. We all walked in. There were two people in the room, Arturo and Henry. I hadn’t had much contact with the other Alpha, the only real time I’d seen him was when he confronted Jonas and that had been more than enough. Where Jonas had hid a manic personality behind a business suit and a company smile, Arturo was calm, powerful in a
way that Jonas hadn’t been. I could see why Michael liked him and Henry trusted him.
Speaking of the boy I’d spent a week with, he looked up as we walked in. My heart did a funny flip in my chest as he smiled at me. It had only been a day or so and I’d missed him. He’d been the only one who understood what I was going through. He was an Alpha like me and he’d been on a mission to find out what Jonas was up to, during that time he’d met and saved my brother, only to lose him when Michael went back to Jonas to find out his plans.
His dark brown hair was brushed away from his face and his blue eyes never left me as Arturo offered us a seat.
“Ms. Valentine. It’s nice to finally meet you in much better circumstances.”
I smiled shyly.
He turned his attention to my mother. “And Mrs. Valentine, I know that this is a hard decision for a shifter who’s no longer part of a pack to make. I want to assure you that this an excellent place for your daughter to learn about her abilities.”
“My son tells me that this is a relatively new idea. We never had anything like this when I was growing up.”
He nodded. “When we were kids, the shifter population was only in the hundreds and mostly packs kept to themselves unless the elders needed to be involved for whatever reason. Our numbers have only grown over the years and the decision to open schools was first introduced quite recently.” He smiled. “As you can understand there is a need to keep us separate for the outside world and our youngest wolves don’t have the same level of control as an older, lone wolf might have. There are three main schools, this one, one in Wales and the last in Scotland. When a pupil graduates, they can pick a pack to move to. There aren’t many Alphas these days. The fact you had two children who carried the gene is rare. It’s those who can go on a start their own packs.”
“Michael says that he’s staying with yours.”
He nodded. “We thought that was a good idea. He said that he’d like to have his own pack at some point, but you know how long-lived wolves can be, so he’ll be learning the ropes from me. Henry is also in the same mind.”
Alpha (The Rachel Valentine Series Book 2) Page 3