Purity

by Claire Farrell

  “That’s not the same thing. I won’t let anyone pick on you.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “And the beta is the next in line to be an alpha. Kind of like the vice-president. Who would that be in this pack? Jeremy? You? Because I feel like Ryan is the new vice-president.”

  “Ryan can’t be alpha.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  I shrugged. “I just don’t feel it. He’s not dominant. Jeremy, yeah. Even you’re more dominant than Ryan.”

  “Omegas are the least dominant. Wolves fight with the omega so they don’t fight each other.”

  “I think you bring peace in other ways. Seriously, when you calmed Jeremy down, I realised there’s something to that omega stuff, after all.”

  She raised her chin. “And what about the other stuff?”

  I shrugged, unable to commit to an answer.

  She shivered. “It’s all true. Everything I’ve told you about us, about our ancestors. It’s important we remember. I don’t want Kali invading my life again if she reckons we’ve forgotten her story already.”

  “Yeah, okay. I just don’t see how it can help us. That’s all.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I can think of lots of ways. I’m getting closer to answers, Nathan. I can just feel it. It’s like this is what I was meant to do. It’s in my blood. Mémère even thought so. If it wasn’t for Opa, this stuff would probably already be part of our lives.”

  “I get that you’re excited about it, but there’s so much going on right now.”

  She turned to face me. “I am sorry about what happened. Well, not that I broke the curse, but the way I broke it out of the blue like that. We didn’t get a chance to deal with it, not any of us. It feels like there’s been no closure or anything.”

  “I know you didn’t mean everything that happened. I was just pissed. I still am sometimes, but since I’ve come home, I’ve felt better.”

  “I wish you’d talk to her.”

  I shook my head and turned to go to my room.

  “No, please, don’t walk away. It just seems so stupid to throw everything away like that.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve been everything she despises. I’m no use to her this way. Maybe some day, when everything’s over and my head’s in the right place.”

  “What if it’s too late?”

  I shook my head. “Then that’s something I’ll have to deal with.”

  ***

  “This is ridiculous,” Opa said as he stared out of the window at the police car parked discreetly down the street. They weren’t there all of the time, but we never knew when they would show up. “What do they think is going to happen?”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Ryan said. “They’ll move on as soon as something more important comes along.”

  Opa grunted. “Not soon enough.”

  “We run tonight,” Byron said as if nobody had spoken. “We need to be seamless if we’re attacked, and that’s not going to happen unless we hunt together.”

  “We need a proper plan of attack,” Jeremy said from the corner, sounding slightly less sullen than usual.

  “You’re right,” Byron said. “Maybe you could work on that with me.”

  They held each other’s gazes until Jeremy finally nodded. I could almost taste my cousin’s surprise, but I was glad Byron was making an effort. Jeremy was angry at his father—that was obvious—but it was up to Byron to bridge the gap he had forced upon his family.

  “I think we should move on,” Opa said, and all of us turned to look in his direction. “Get rid of this house before it’s too late. We’re sitting ducks here. We can’t run freely. We need to drive hours away to hunt. It’s not working for us anymore. I’m tired of waiting for Vin to come after us and trying to figure out how he’ll come at us next. We need to move on, travel Europe, and really make an impact on his pack.”

  “Amelia and Nathan have school,” Byron said.

  “We’ll hire tutors. This is more important than education.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” I said.

  Amelia shook her head. “Me either.”

  “We do what’s best for the pack,” Opa said, and he picked up a newspaper from the table.

  “We’re not leaving,” Byron said.

  “We’ll see.” Opa’s response sounded more like a challenge than anything.

  Amelia signalled for me to follow her outside, so I did.

  “Do you think he’ll make Byron leave?” she asked, sounding frantic.

  “Byron’s the one in charge,” I said. “But Byron could change his mind.”

  “We can’t leave. I don’t want to move again. I’m happy here. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like I fit in somewhere, and I want to have a home, Nathan. This is where I have to be.”

  I frowned. “I know. If it comes down to it, we’ll stick together. You and me. I won’t let anyone force you to go anywhere you don’t want to.”

  She looked so surprised that I laughed. “Oh, what now?”

  “I’m just… I didn’t think you’d want to stay with me.”

  “Shut up,” I said, not unkindly. “Yeah, I was mad at you, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to ditch you. If things get worse, we may end up on our own, but you’re my sister. Like I said, we’ll stick together.” I started moving a little further away from the house.

  “Opa’s losing it,” she said, walking next to me. “I’m afraid he’ll drag everyone down with him. Even I can’t help him now. He’s too far gone. He doesn’t want to feel better.”

  “I know how he feels.” Seeing her expression, I added, “Don’t give me that look. It’s hard to lose what your wolf wants. It’s hard to… I don’t know, deal with the loss for both sides of you.”

  “There are no sides, Nathan,” she said impatiently. “It’s all you. Everything you feel is yours. Blaming the wolf only makes it harder to deal with.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I’ve gone so long thinking of the wolf as a problem that I can’t get my head around the fact this is for life.”

  “We were meant to be this way. To be a pack. But keep an eye out when we’re running together later. I have this feeling that something’s going to happen. I don’t like it.”

  “Hey, relax. We’re going to hunt together to cement the pack, like Byron said. You’ll see the difference in everyone after that.”

  She frowned. “Here’s the thing. This feeling I have is like… under my skin. I know something’s coming. I just don’t know what. Last time I felt this and ignored it, well, things got furry.”

  “Next you’ll be predicting thunderstorms.”

  “Oh, shut up!” But she laughed along with me.

  We left soon afterward for the hunt. I travelled in the car with Byron, Amelia, and Ryan, while Jeremy and Opa brought the jeep and the dogs. There were no police cars outside, but we still travelled far away, just in case.

  Ireland had plenty of small, tight cities, but a lot of the land surrounding them was lush and green. Forests, fields, farms, and open land were a pleasure to run on.

  There were a lot of choices, but we still had to be careful. Farmers could shoot, and we didn’t want to disturb livestock, but wild things were fair game. Travelling around meant we didn’t upset the balance, something that Opa had never been overly concerned about.

  We drove past endless fields of cows, my eyes blurring as everything melded into one long stretch of green and yellow. Byron seemed to get a kick out of finding new places for us to hunt, and he manoeuvred through dozens of tiny, winding tracks that couldn’t exactly pass for roads, what with the grass growing in the centre of them.

  We finally pulled in before a steep hill shrouded by forestry. I could smell horses nearby, and I worried we would set them off, but all was calm. Still, I kept an eye on Amelia, her nerves triggering my own. I felt ill at the thoughts of what could happen in the middle of nowhere.

  We trekked through the trees, stripping to phase, and I was
off before anyone else, closely followed by Amelia. She nipped my tail before she outpaced me, and I urged myself onward, hoping to outrun her.

  We left the others behind, chasing, fighting, and nipping at each other’s tails. She was good. Really good. She already had stamina and was as agile as I was. I didn’t have to worry about her strength either. She rolled me over a number of times, which was embarrassing.

  Still, it was fun to have someone new to run with. She wasn’t a grownup, and she took pleasure in everything wolf. We played, and wolf choked on his own laughter whenever he managed to trip her up. It was probably the closest we had ever been. I had always been protective of my little sister, but she was right: I had never treated her like an equal. She equalled me as wolf.

  Byron howled in the distance, and we both raced back to him, me winning by a nose. She snapped aggressively, and I batted her snout, barely avoiding the clamping of her jaws. We had all run wild for a while, forgetting everything, but it was time to eat. The hunt was tense, and I kept my eye on Opa and Jeremy, worried for reasons I wasn’t even sure of.

  Amelia’s comments about something coming played on my mind, and I had to admit that even my wolf was unsettled during the hunt. Something about the way Opa stayed at the back of the pack set me on edge, some look in his eye, some feeling in the air. I couldn’t relax.

  Having become a larger pack, we doubled up on some of our roles. Byron sniffed out the prey, but Amelia and I forced the creatures into the path of the rest of the pack. Byron and Ryan took care of the killing, and Jeremy and Opa kept to the edges in case anything escaped—or something came too close.

  Byron ate his fill first, a statement to the rest of us. We all waited patiently, but I could see a tremor in the corner of my eye: anxious movements, very slight, from Opa and Jeremy. Steeling myself, I prepared for anything.

  Byron made a sound that let us know we could join him. Opa crept up behind Byron, looking ready to pounce. I growled in warning, and Byron turned in time to meet his father’s attack. I made to move forward, but Ryan got in the way, warning me back with a growl.

  Jeremy paced, while Amelia lay down and waited for the challenge to be over. Opa was smaller than Byron, but still tough and fuelled with more than just anger. They snapped at each other aggressively, but I could tell Byron held back. Opa kept pushing, trying to pin Byron and force him to show his belly.

  My heart pounded. I felt desperate with the instinct to help Byron, but Ryan had been right to stop me. It wouldn’t do any good to interfere. Amelia glanced at me with knowing eyes, and we watched as Byron pinned Opa, forcing my grandfather to submit. It was painful to see, but if Byron didn’t assert himself, we would be stuck with Opa as alpha again. I would have challenged Opa myself to avoid that.

  When it was over, Byron acted as though nothing had happened, and we all shared the meal. Opa avoided looking at Byron, and when we took one last run together, everything felt smoother.

  We wouldn’t have to move.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Perdita

  The party had more of a kid’s sleepover kind of vibe. When we arrived, Ger’s parents still hadn’t left, so Ger made Joey walk around the block a couple of times.

  “Really?” Tammie hissed.

  Amelia held up her hands as we huddled together in the living room. “I didn’t know,” she said, barely containing her laughter.

  “Joey’s going to kill you. Just so you know,” I said.

  “I’m kind of glad to get a minute alone with you two,” Amelia said. “I really want us all to get along, and I thought this might be the place to clear the air, you know?”

  “I’m up for that,” Tammie said, surprising me. “There’s no reason for us to fight. We need to be there for Perdy right now.”

  Amelia grinned. “Agreed. I can move on if you can.”

  They shook hands, and Ger’s parents finally went out the door.

  “I thought they were never going to go,” a hyper girl named Julie exclaimed as soon as the door closed.

  “Shush,” Ger hissed from the window, watching her parents drive off to their weekend away. “Fine, they’re gone. Music, please? Everyone, text the boys and let them know the coast is clear.”

  The boys, including Joey, arrived, and everyone paired off. I was the extra wheel, yet again. God, I needed some new friends.

  Amelia paraded her boyfriend in front of us. He didn’t look like anything special to me, but they definitely had some chemistry, and it was kind of sweet to see them together. They weren’t nearly as vomit inducing as Tammie and Joey.

  “What do you think of him?” Amelia whispered to me as her new beau ran, literally, to get her a drink from the kitchen.

  “He seems lovely.”

  She smiled back, but something caught her eye, and her face fell. “Oh, no. What is he doing?”

  Confused, I followed her line of sight. Abbi walked in with Nathan, Dawn following right behind them. My lungs decided working properly was too much trouble, and I sucked in a dry gasp of nothing.

  “I’m so sorry,” Amelia said. “I invited you both, but I didn’t expect him to turn up with them.”

  His gaze locked onto mine, and I couldn’t break free.

  “I need air,” Tammie murmured. “Wanna come with?”

  I nodded, still staring at Nathan. Amelia kept whispering to me, but I couldn’t hear her because I was tumbling through space as everything came rushing back at once. I had fallen for Nathan, no matter what they said about curses breaking, and I couldn’t switch off the feelings.

  Even if he could.

  Maybe Ryan had been right. Maybe my drama was a distraction that Nathan didn’t need. As it was, his face had drained of colour, and he had stopped talking mid-sentence once he saw me. I turned away, following Tammie outside, relieved to get some space from the situation.

  Even though a tiny part of me had hoped he would be there, I wasn’t ready to see him and not be with him. I wasn’t ready to deal with how it had ended, how we had been behaving before it ended. It didn’t feel right for us to be in the same building and not even say hello.

  “That was so incredibly awkward,” Tammie said as the two of us moved to stand at the side of the house.

  “Just a tad.” I smiled wryly. “At least it’s done now, though.”

  She eyed me warily. “I still don’t see the attraction. He never made you happy.”

  “I was happy. Other stuff got in the way, and it made everything go bad. But he didn’t make me unhappy. Why did you always dislike him so much?”

  She shrugged, picking at the nail polish on her thumb. The shade matched the newly dip-dyed purple ends of her hair. “He looked at you like he owned you, you know? He was always looking at you. And listening. I could tell. He was always trying to listen in on our conversations. He’s probably listening right now.”

  We both glanced toward the door then burst out laughing. The door opened, cutting off our laughter, but it wasn’t Nathan. Worse, it was Dawn and Abbi.

  Dawn approached us, Abbi whispering frantically in her ear. I groaned, wondering what drama they would start.

  Dawn edged up to Tammie, her expression absent of her usual sneer. “I heard what happened. I’m sorry for you.”

  I glanced at Tammie in confusion.

  Her face paled, and she nodded jerkily. “Thanks.” Her voice trembled.

  Dawn gave her a grim smile before walking away with Abbi, who looked as confused as I felt.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  She stared after Dawn, wrapping her arms around her torso. “It’s nothing.”

  “Didn’t sound like nothing.”

  Tammie looked away. “Let’s just say I’m an idiot.”

  I touched her arm. “Come on, Tams. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you here. I wanted you to have fun.”

  “Well, I think that’s blown out of the water,” I said with a little laugh. “So you might as well spill.�
��

  She hesitated before nodding. “Come up here.” She pointed behind us. “Where it’s quieter.”

  I followed her until she stopped and picked at her nails, roughly this time, completely ruining her nail polish.

  “It’s… remember years ago, when Dawn and I were friends?”

  “Yeah, of course.” They had lived in each other’s pockets until one day they seemed to hate each other on sight. I had been only too grateful when Tammie decided she was my friend instead.

  “Not many people do, but it all started then. Our parents were good friends, so we were together a lot, and we told each other everything. I mean everything. So anyway, one day she told me a secret and said I couldn’t tell anyone. I worried myself sick about it, so sick that Mam knew something was wrong, and she made me tell her.”

  “What was it?”

  Tammie took a deep breath. “Dawn’s mam and my dad. She caught them together. And I told. It caused so much unbelievable shit, but Dad told Mam that Dawn was a little liar, that she never saw them together. He begged me to back him up. Dawn’s parents were already splitting up over it, and I didn’t want the same thing to happen to mine, so I… I did what he asked. I called her a liar, said she was always making things up. I even said she admitted lying about it to me, and my parents stayed together. That’s why she hates me so much. I know I let you think she was just a spiteful bitch, but she had a reason for it. Can’t really blame her, right?”

  “That’s so screwed up. How could your dad—”

  “That’s not all of it.” She looked as though she might vomit. “Months ago, I saw them together. Kissing. On the street. Right out in public. I mean, it must have been going on for years. I was in bits over it. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, to tell anyone, apart from Joey. He always knows what to do, you know?”

  I nodded, my own stomach turning.

  “I wanted to tell you—I did—but you were with Nathan or Amelia all the time, and I got pissed about it. At first, I didn’t want to talk, but then it seemed as though you were turning to Amelia instead of me. I felt like I had nobody, except Joey.”