by Nancy Holder
On a small wooden platform, at a black metal patio table and some matching black chairs, Cordelia sat with her father, Justin, Lucy, Jesse, Arial, Al, Regan, and the man who had to be the only bitten member of the pack—Regan’s husband, Doug. Doug had dark hair and piercing brown eyes, very much like Regan herself. The five men, including Justin, wore suits. Moonlight gleamed down on Justin’s hair, frosting it with silvery highlights.
Arial wore a gold halter dress, and Regan was slinky in black satin. Beside Lucy, Cordelia was wearing the same black dress that she’d worn to Trick’s Halloween party, with the flower in her hair. It fit the occasion perfectly.
“I’d like to welcome y’all and thank y’all for coming out on such short notice,” Lee Fenner said, standing. “We’re here to welcome the Gaudin alpha, Dominic, to our mountains.”
Polite applause greeted him. Clearly the guests were waiting to see exactly what kind of occasion this was.
Katelyn shifted her line of sight to get a better look and saw that someone else was sitting at the head table. He was seated between Cordelia and her father, and he was muscular, young, and very, very hot. His reddish-gold hair tumbled to his broad shoulders like a setting sun. His forehead was high, his eyebrows brown, and although Katelyn couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, she could tell that they were light. He wore a white open-necked silk shirt and black trousers that together looked almost 1930s, and a brass cuff glinted on his right wrist.
“Greetings from the Gaudin pack,” he said, getting to his feet. There was a lilt to his voice, sounding almost French. “I lead the pack in the name of my late father, Jean-Marc Gaudin.”
“Your daddy was a fine alpha,” Lee Fenner said, but his voice was strained. “A legend.” There was more polite applause, and the two men sat down.
“The Son of Gévaudan has come to discuss pack business with me,” Mr. Fenner said to the group. “But first, we have our own pack business. Don’t we, girls?”
Arial and Regan looked at each other, both smiling like smug Siamese cats. They looked back at their father with gleaming eyes, and Katelyn shuddered at the sight.
It looked as if all the blood had left Cordelia’s cheeks. She squirmed in her chair, and Justin reached across the table and squeezed her hand. Without realizing what she was doing, Katelyn touched her lips, still bruised from Justin’s kisses. A hot flare of desire shot through her and she shivered, shocked at the effect he had on her.
“My daughters have grown into fine women,” Mr. Fenner said, smiling at all three of them. “And one of them will become the Fenris alpha. As you know, loyalty is our highest virtue. And here’s one more test for my daughters. Exactly that. A test of loyalty.”
“Daddy,” Cordelia blurted out, turning scarlet. “Um, maybe we shouldn’t—”
A gasp went through the group. Dominic’s brows rose, and he grinned.
“Are you challenging me?” Lee Fenner thundered.
“No, Daddy, no!” Cordelia cried, and visibly cringed in her chair. Justin half rose and extended his arms as if to shield her, then dropped his hands to his sides and submissively lowered his head.
“Who is alpha here?” Mr. Fenner shouted at her.
But before she could answer, he spun on his heel and marched away, opened up the back door, and stormed into the house. The door slammed hard behind him and no one spoke. No one moved.
Oh, my God. Katelyn shivered. What if he hurts her?
As Katelyn watched him go, she realized that the trees she was crouched behind were clustered in front of the sliding glass door that led to Cordelia’s room. When Cordelia had first brought her home, Katelyn had thought the door led out into the woods, but she’d been wrong. If she remained where she was, she would be visible through the glass. But if she went inside, quickly, and hid, she might be safe—at least temporarily.
Cordelia got to her feet, and Katelyn watched as she started toward the house.
As the guests murmured among themselves, Katelyn made her move. She crawled through the trees, pushed open the glass door, and slipped into Cordelia’s darkened room. The cool, bare floor was a blessing for her injured foot.
“You’ve got some nerve,” Mr. Fenner’s voice bellowed from down the hall. Katelyn ducked. The door that connected Cordelia’s room to the hall was ajar.
“Don’t try your intimidation tactics on me.” It was a male voice with an accent. It was Dominic, and he sounded calm. “I came with a white flag.”
“You came to stir up trouble,” Mr. Fenner yelled. “Last-minute safe passage. Any fool with manners knows the way these things are done.”
“Your pack has snuck onto my land repeatedly to dump silver in our streams. This time I brought evidence,” Dominic shouted back.
“You’re a liar. You’d poison your own people and say we did it.”
“Daddy,” Cordelia pleaded. “Please.”
Katelyn heard the sound of a slap.
“One more sound out of you and I will take your throat. Do you understand me?” Mr. Fenner raged.
Katelyn bit back a gasp. The thought of being slapped by her father—or her grandfather, even—was beyond her.
“Leave her alone!” Dominic bellowed. “Or so help me—”
“Are you challenging me, boy? This is my daughter and my pack.”
“And one of your pack attacked a human,” Dominic said steadily. “That is expressly forbidden by both our packs. All the packs.”
Katelyn’s heart stuttered. He knows about me. How could he know about me? Cordelia couldn’t have told him, could she?
“Another lie,” Lee Fenner said angrily. “That’s all you got? Lies?”
“With all due respect,” Dominic replied, “we have proof that the sons of the Fenris Wolf have trespassed on our property. And that a human girl named Becky Jensen was mauled to death by one of you.”
Katelyn sagged in relief. Not me. They’re not talking about me. She closed her eyes for a moment. But what about Haley?
“Another lie! You’re just like your father!” Mr. Fenner was nearly screaming.
“And I thank the Beast for that,” Dominic replied. “Face it, Fenner. You’ve lost control. To humiliate your daughters like that—”
“I wasn’t humiliated,” Regan said.
Katelyn was startled. She hadn’t realized others had come inside.
“Cordelia was right to stop you,” Dominic insisted.
“She doesn’t love me. She’s never loved me!” Mr. Fenner bellowed.
“Daddy,” Cordelia pleaded.
“If you opened your eyes, you’d see she’s the only one who really cares about you,” Dominic said. “Listen, alpha, I won’t put up with attacks on my people. But it’s not too late to take another tack. If Cordelia and I got married—”
“Never! I’d kill her before I’d let you have anything of mine! Cordelia, go to your room,” he shouted. “Now.”
Katelyn jerked. She couldn’t let Cordelia know she’d heard all that. She needed to hide.
Clutching her purse to her chest, she lurched forward and ran into the edge of Cordelia’s desk. A book wobbled and she grabbed it, tucked it under her bag.
Light footsteps sounded in the hall. They grew louder, echoing in her ears like drums until the sound was unbearable. She lowered herself to the floor, lay on her back, then scooted beneath the bed seconds before Cordelia stormed in and flicked on the light.
Katelyn held her breath as the other girl flopped onto the bed. Down the hallway, the two men were still arguing. Katelyn barely breathed, hugging the book and her purse. She could hear her friend crying above her and wished she could offer some kind of words of comfort. But she knew there was nothing she could do.
Katelyn listened to Cordelia’s gentle breathing for what seemed like hours before she dared to scoot out from beneath her bed. She left Cordelia’s phone for her on top of the book, which she very quietly put back on the corner of the desk. Moonlight shone in through the large glass doors and hit the gold
letters that spelled out the title on the book’s cover, illuminating them: Ozark Folklore. Theodore Switliski.
It was the book Mr. Henderson had asked them about. Cordelia had had it and hadn’t told Katelyn.
She snuck out through the sliding glass door, pulling it as closed as she dared, and raced to her car. Once inside the Subaru, she opened her overnight bag, found her Mary Janes, and slipped them on; then she drove the long way home through the dense black forest, her mind whirling with everything that had happened. Dom had thanked the “beast” that he wasn’t like Mr. Fenner. Did he mean the Hellhound?
Shivering, tears sliding down her face, Katelyn made it home and grabbed her bag as she went inside. Her grandfather’s door was shut, and she heard gentle breathing. She went back downstairs and picked up the phone, trying to decide if she should call Cordelia. Exhaling, she put it back. Then she checked the back door to make sure it was locked.
An hour went by. Another. She paced, her attention caught by the rows of paintings in the front room. Something tugged at her memory as she glanced at the one with the deer and the strangely shaped boulder. Then she went back to the kitchen and looked at the dog leash in the drawer.
Then the phone rang and she grabbed it.
“Kat, are you okay?” Cordelia whispered over the line.
Relief flooded through her and words tumbled out of her mouth. “Yes, I’m so sorry, Cordelia. I don’t know what happened with Justi—”
“Oh, God, oh, my God,” Cordelia said in a rush. “I was so scared for you. I saw my phone and I smelled your blood—”
“You smelled my blood?” Katelyn said, shocked.
“And then I saw it, in the window.”
“Saw what?” Katelyn asked her, suddenly even more afraid.
“It was here. It was here at our house. I thought it had gotten you.”
“What? What was it?”
But the line went dead.
16
Katelyn tried to call Cordelia back, but all her calls went straight to voice mail. She didn’t sleep the rest of the night; she only paced. Her thoughts bounced from Trick, to the bust of her mother, to their kisses; then to Justin in the woods, and then the scene at the Fenner house. The way Dom and Mr. Fenner had spoken, in that strange, formal way. Threatening each other. Mr. Fenner slapping Cordelia.
In the morning, her grandfather came into the kitchen, holding her overnight bag.
“I’m surprised to see you home so early,” he said.
“Yeah, I just got back a little while ago,” she said quickly, so he wouldn’t ask her if she’d driven through the woods at night by herself.
“Didn’t go so well?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. She would act out his assumptions, let him think she’d come home defeated. Avoiding his gaze, she added, “It’s hard to fit in at a new school.” It was certainly the truth.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, putting down her bag. He clucked against his teeth sympathetically. Then he gestured to her to follow him. “Come with me.”
Outside on the porch, she spotted the hated rifle. Then she saw that he had hacked some of the branches from the tree directly facing the house. Against the bare trunk, he had pinned up a paper target.
“Okay. Final exam,” he said. “You hit that any way you can.”
It seemed weird that they would do this first thing in the morning, before coffee. He’d obviously put it all together for when she returned home. Strangely, though, she realized she was ready; she really did need to be able to do this. Trying to hide how shaky she was, she picked up the weapon and took aim.
The landline rang, and she jerked hard. She moved her gaze to her grandfather, who smiled indulgently.
“Must be a friend of yours,” he said. “I don’t get a lot of calls.”
She handed the rifle to him and raced into the house.
“I’m sorry about last night.” Cordelia’s voice was low and strained, but it sent relief flooding through Katelyn. “I had to go.”
“Oh, my God, Cordelia. What’s happening?” Katelyn asked.
“I’ll tell you later. I just wanted you to know I’m okay.” Cordelia hung up before Katelyn could say anything else.
Katelyn let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She hung the phone on the cradle, then placed the flat of her hand on her chest, willing her heart to stop slamming against her rib cage. Then she smoothed back her hair and rejoined her grandfather on the porch.
Ed raised a questioning brow, to which Katelyn shrugged lightly.
“Cordelia,” she told him. “Girl stuff.”
“On top of boy stuff?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, sounding genuinely sympathetic.
She knew he was still wondering what had happened at Trick’s. He handed her the rifle and she took aim. The shot went wide. She tried again. She hit the lower right corner of the target. Frustrated, she set down the weapon—business end well out of the dirt—then suddenly raised it to shooting position, aimed, held her breath, and fired.
She hit the bull’s-eye.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Ed let out a whoop, fished in the pocket of his plaid shirt, and held up two paper tickets.
“Cirque du Soleil, Little Rock, three weeks. We’ll make a weekend of it.”
She threw her arms around his neck in a rush of gratitude. Getting away from this place was just what she needed. “Thank you, Grandpa. So much.”
He held her tightly. “You’re welcome, honey.”
Once breakfast was done, she tried to nap, but she was too wired. Trick called and wanted to come over, but she put him off. After what had happened with Justin in the woods, she couldn’t handle seeing him—but more than that, she had to keep her distance until she knew one way or the other if she was going to become one of them.
“No,” she whispered as Justin’s face flared in her mind. It wasn’t a question of Trick or Justin. Trick was honorable, and good. And not androgynous. She smiled wanly at the old joke between them. She wanted to be with Trick; it felt like she’d known him forever. But if this thing happened to her, she couldn’t be. She’d have a secret life, and he could have no part in it.
And Justin? Why didn’t she have the power just to push him away? Why didn’t she hate him because he was a cheating jerk? There was something about him that pulled her to him. She didn’t know how to explain how she felt.
Then Cordelia called again.
“I can’t talk long. I have to be careful,” she whispered.
“Tell me about what you saw,” Katelyn insisted. “Now.”
“It—I thought it was just one of us,” Cordelia said. “At first. I was asleep, and I jerked awake. I smelled your blood and I freaked out. I sat up in my bed … and I saw two blue eyes staring through the window. I thought it might be Dom, and I started to get up. There was a wolf shape. And then … it all changed. It was like all I saw were the eyes, and it was surrounded by shadows, like you said. Exactly like you said, Kat. And all of a sudden, I was more terrified than I had ever been in my entire life. And I screamed bloody murder.”
Katelyn’s eyes widened as she gripped the phone. “What happened next?”
“It vanished. Just like that. Then my father and my sisters came into my room. My father went outside to look and my sisters started yelling at me, saying I was making it up to get attention so Dad would forgive me.”
“Do you think it was the Hellhound?” Katelyn whispered.
She exhaled. “I’m not even sure what I saw. Just talking about it scares me all over again.”
“But, Cordelia,” Katelyn said. “What if it—”
“When were you in my room?” Cordelia interrupted her.
Katelyn licked her lips. “After you saw … us, and you left, I came after you. You dropped your cell phone in the parking lot. I—I was so scared you were going to say something.…”
“Katelyn, oh, my God, of course I wo
uldn’t have. Justin came to get me because Dom was coming to our house. My father and Justin had been calling me, but of course I didn’t get the calls. So Justin called Bobby, and Bobby found me. That was when I realized my phone was missing.”
“I was going to leave it near Justin’s motorcycle. So it would look like it had fallen out of your purse,” Katelyn said. “Then all those”—she didn’t know what to call Cordelia’s pack mates—“people started showing up, and I had to hide.” Her throat tightened, and she tried to discreetly clear it. “I heard what your father said to Dominic.”
“He’s losing his mind,” Cordelia whispered. “I’m not sure Dom should have said what he did.” She started to cry. “Everything’s horrible. I’m so scared.”
“I’m so sorry about Justin,” Katelyn said in a rush. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. He started kissing me and I just couldn’t stop.”
“No, I’m sorry I freaked,” Cordelia said, sniffling. “We have strict rules in our pack for everything, including loyalty to a mate. Disloyalty is the biggest crime. You can get the death penalty for it.”
“Oh, my God.” Katelyn was horrified. She shut her eyes. This was way more than she was prepared to deal with. She changed the subject.
“When I was in your room, I saw the Switliski book Mr. Henderson mentioned.”
Cordelia didn’t answer right away. “Yeah. Um, I found it in my dad’s library when I came home from Trick’s last night,” she said. “Before the party started. I went in there to ask my dad what was going on. Dom was in our bathroom and the pack was gathering. The name on the spine just jumped out at me. Switliski. So I took it.”
Katelyn didn’t believe it. How would Cordelia have had enough time to do all that between arriving home and being outside where Katelyn saw her with her family? But at the same time, why would Cordelia lie?
“Does your father know you took it?” she asked, fishing for more information.
“I don’t think so. I’ve never seen him like this, Kat. He’s never been this bad.”
“Oh, Cordelia.” Katelyn’s heart broke for her friend again. They were both in such a terrible place.