by Sydney Marie
***
Henry and I walk around outside, as he refuses to stay in and rest his ankle. He is the only bandaged one between us, for my head has healed to a point where a wrap is no longer needed. The grass is dry, and we travel through it on a random path to nowhere. Henry wanted to come outside and enjoy the last bit of fall before winter comes and coats the grass white with its harsh winds and endings. Today, the weather is nice—not too cold as if the sun has decided to shine one last time before night takes over.
I did not look out the window this morning. This morning, I realized something. If this alpha is going to come for me, there is no point in hiding. He has killed an innocent man, and I am sure he is willing to commit such a crime again. Staring paranoid out a window will not keep me anymore safer than I am outside. It is silly to believe that walls will keep the danger out. Danger always finds a way to creep in and attack from behind when you are least expecting it.
I notice Henry studying my face.
“You look tired. Did you fight and sleep apart?”
I roll my eyes playfully, though I do not feel playful at all. I feel crummy, worn out, and irritable like a child who has been kept awake for too long.
“I didn’t sleep well last night. That’s all.”
“I heard about what happened last night. I heard that you went along,” he tells me, reminding my nostrils of the unforgettable smell. “Was that your first time seeing a dead person?”
“Yes. This may surprise you, but I haven’t had the chance before.” Sarcasm drips from my voice. “You wanted to come out here only to walk. Not that you can do much anyway, but we’re right beside the house.”
“Sebastian asked me not to go on any adventures until I’m fully healed up.”
Amused, I smile while watching his face. “And you listen to him?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but he is my mate. I know he only wants the best for you and me, but you’re brothers. How can you obediently follow?”
“He probably knows what’s best, so I might as well listen. It would be hard to move around in the forest anyway, and if anything were to happen, I wouldn’t be able to get away like I did last time.” He admits, realizing the points behind his brother’s orders. “He spends more time thinking. I spend more time doing.”
“I might be in that boat with you.”
“Oh, but you’ll have to learn to think things over before you act upon them. You’re the alpha’s mate, the luna.” He brags as if he has gotten away scot-free.
“And you don’t?”
“No, because I don’t have any official title. Hence, no official authority. So I get to act right away.”
I sigh and cross my arms jokingly. “Well, that’s not fair. What if I want to act recklessly?”
“You can’t. You’re the alpha’s mate,” he chants.
“If you weren’t injured, I would push you over. I don’t feel like leadership material. I’m not courageous, witty, charismatic, mindful, strategic—”
“Ruthless,” Henry cuts in.
“Yes. I’m not ruthless.”
“Does it bother you that Sebastian is?”
I stop walking and glance up at Henry. His eyes are gazing somewhere else.
“He does what he has to do and what he feels is necessary.”
Henry looks back at me. “People change each other.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s just a thought.”
We turn around and head back towards the house. The temperature for the day has reached its peak, and soon, it will come tumbling down in preparation for the night. The leaves on the trees are blown about, sending a whooshing sound through the air.
“What will happen to the body? What do they do with it?” I ask him.
“They might bury him if he has no family. If he does, the family will decide.”
“I hope he has a family.”
“Me too.”
The house draws closer until I find myself climbing up the steps and entering with Henry at my side. Marina is in the kitchen, preparing for dinner, and I sit and watch her from the counter, never once looking out the window. Henry chats casually as I lean back and observe.
I could have been that man last night, cold and alone with no family to bicker over what to do with my body, no sobbing and uncontrollable emotions surging through them as I lie empty. If I stayed with Grandmother, would I have died alone? What if there was never a pull convincing me to cross the stream? What if my grandmother passed and left me to perish slowly until an abrupt and final end? I am hoping that the man did not feel this way. I am hoping that he was surrounded by friends if not family before the attack.
It is always easy to convince yourself that the positive option is the truth, but it is easier to believe that he did indeed die entirely alone. It is even easier to trust that I would have too.
Chapter 13
The house is empty. My grandmother is gone. Two guards wait outside as I roam through the vacant space. Everything is still here, the furniture, some clothes, food. It is like she just disappeared. Right when I came through the door and called through the house, realizing that she is not here, I panicked almost to the point of a heart attack. Immediately, I blame it on the alpha, as my mind cannot conjure up any other guilty man.
After shouting at the guards to search the area for her, I scavenge for a note, possibly saying that she has gone away. Once I find none, tears spring to my eyes and my heart squeezes tightly in my chest. The pounding shields any other sounds from slipping in. What if he took her? What if he killed her? The thoughts rush as if the dam holding them back finally broke.
The house is silent besides the frantic sounds of my breathing mixed in with a sob every few seconds. I fall to my knees and hide my face with my hands. He is watching me, isn’t he? He’s enjoying the scene of me in shambles. I continue to cry on the floor, feeling defenseless.
Sudden anger bubbles up inside, and I feel my cheeks flush with heat. Promptly, I get up and hurry up the stairs. My bedroom door is cracked open, and I push it the rest of the way, showing a bedroom I once used to recognize. Everything is in the same spot as before. Nothing moved an inch, but I feel like I no longer belong here. Glaring out the window, I search for something—my grandmother, the alpha, anything. Extremely frustrated, I rip my bedding off the mattress and shout when it will not let go.
Heading into her bedroom, I scan the area again as thorough as I can be. My hands fist my hair when I find nothing in return. My chest rises and falls dramatically as I fly back down the stairs and rush outside.
One of the guards is running towards the house. “Did you find her?” I yell, but he replies with an expected “no.”
“Would you like me to get the alpha?”
I hesitate. “Yes, yes. Please get him.”
The other guard must still be searching, and I watch until the messenger disappears into the trees.
The trees watch me. They witness all, and they must be laughing at me now. These towering beings see everything that happens in this forest, every death and every plea, and it is all embedded in their trunks. If you hold your palm against the bark, you may just be whispered the secrets they keep. They will tell you how a foolish girl stumbled onto taken land, and they will confess how she ended up getting everyone killed. If you are lucky enough, you may just hear a cry.
I sulk back into the house and slowly close the door behind me. I lean against the door, the wood being the only thing keeping me up, and I stare into the hotbed of memories. Her scent is sparse in the air. The open cabinets, the missing clothes, and the sense of trepidation all show the effects of a story that I may never hear.
The curtains are pulled shut when they are usually all the way open, left that way, so the house is never gloomy. It all hints to one final answer—an answer I cannot get my hands on. Did she also fear his stalking eyes? Did he force his way in? Did she leave in a hurry?
“Where are yo
u?” I murmur.
My hands curl around the fabric before tugging the curtains open, letting a filtered ray of the drab light show through. Minuscule dust particles swirl in the air, dancing in the gleam, adding to the empty feeling of the space.
I hate feeling like I never grew up here. It is a different place now that my grandmother is not here. It is no longer a haven or opportunity to be free but an abandoned house lost in the center of an observing wood. The second step to the porch no longer means anything without my grandmother.
A decade of my life is gone, vanished. A desolate hole lies in the timeline of my life—a period that taught me so much, forgotten about. My grandmother would not just leave me on purpose. There has to be a reason.
My fingers trail along the back of the couch, thinking back to when we spoke only a few days ago in this exact spot. She told me everything I needed to know.
A sudden rustling from outside causes my ears to perk up, and I swiftly open the door expecting to see Sebastian or the guard. When no one immediately comes into view, I try to look further out. Nothing.
“Evangeline?”
Off to the side, I see Sebastian coming over with the guard close behind him.
“What’s going on?” he calls to me, and I hurry over.
“My grandmother, she’s gone. She’s not in the house. She’s not in the forest. It’s bizarre an-and something happened. I know it,” I ramble. “She wouldn’t leave without a purpose. I looked through the entire house, and I couldn’t find anything.”
He turns to the guard and tells him to continue searching, and then he leads me back inside. Once the door is closed behind us, I feel all my emotions surfacing again.
“I can’t do this anymore. He’s getting to me, Sebastian, and I can’t take it anymore. With the nightmares, the dead body, and my grandmother missing, I can’t take it anymore. There is not one day where he is not either tormenting me in here—” I point to my head “—or out there. All I want to do is find him and kill him. I don’t care how many people are in my way. He cannot take my grandmother from me. What’s next, huh? Is he going to try and take you too?”
“Evangeline, please—”
“Do not tell me to calm down! My grandmother is probably dead. My parents are probably dead, and it’s all because of this alpha who I’m not even sure is real. All because of what? An ability I can’t even prove!” Tears of fury stream down my face. “He’s going to take you from me. He’s going to take you from me. He’s going to take everyone until I am all alone, alone and defenseless so I can die knowing that I’ll have no one.”
Sebastian roughly places both of his hands on either side of me, forcing my eyes to look up at his handsome face. No matter how loudly I shout, he does not seem visibly affected, and he doesn’t turn away.
“Take a breath.”
I obey.
“Now, nothing can be done if you waste time yelling and crying about it. I know this may seem harsh, and I am only telling you this because I care about you, but you have to stop panicking. Your grandmother is missing, and you’re scared, so what are you going to do about it?”
I swallow. “I’m going t-to relax and think.”
“Yes, think before you act.”
“You sound like Henry.” I let a small smile appear on my face as I clear the tears from my cheeks. “He says that you think before you act, and I have to.”
“Finally, he says something useful,” Sebastian jokes in a brotherly way. “See, you are relaxing. You cannot conquer with a clouded mind.”
Killing someone is so intimate, so personal, and the words simply tumbled out of my mouth. This man, could I do it? The hurting part of me, maybe—the part that shoved all those words from my lips just moments ago. Surely it is easier to imagine myself ending the life of the beast in my nightmares. But a man? The begging will most likely break me. To think I held a gun to my head only a while ago…
If my grandmother heard what I said, I do not know what she would think. It is possible that she might understand, being that the alpha probably stole her away and is currently making her suffer. I should not think in such ways, but my mind seems to only think of the negative possibilities. It is much easier to imagine them, especially with all this violence crowding around me lately, though technically I am bringing it to myself.
Sometimes I catch myself imagining what it would be like to have met Sebastian and have no worries like the ones prodding at me now. Would I know him better? Would he be more open without all this stress?
I internally sigh and shake the ideas from my head. There is no use in daydreaming.
After hesitantly leaving the house, I agree to go back to the pack territory. Sebastian is keeping guards on the lookout, and some are taking time here and there to search further. Guilt surges through me. I should be looking for her. Yet unlike the trained guards, it would not take much to bring me down.
Sebastian convinces me that if she is around, they will find her and bring her back to me. I trust him, but part of me still wants to run through the forest, yelling her name. It must be the most dangerous idea I have come up with, as the alpha and his minions could be roaming on the unclaimed lands. The concept that he has people working for him is ultimately my theory. Nothing proved at all. It makes sense to me though. It answers my question of how I am constantly watched. The alpha has to sleep, or at least I think, so someone must take over for him. Or he could be something more beastly than a werewolf. What if he needs no sleep? What if he is really some sort of monster?
My head is getting to me. It is not the alpha who needs a nights rest. It is me.
***
The next day, I find myself creeping into Sebastian’s office to take my mind off my grandmother. I am not sure if I am allowed to be in here alone, so I make my mission quick and locate the book Henry told me about. Second bookcase, two shelves down, with a green cover. The words are jumbled up with the rest of my memories.
Lycanthrope Mythology, the book cover reads in delicate calligraphy. Quickly, I take it and return to the living room. The book looks to be decades old, definitely passed down through generations. Now that I think about it, almost all the books in Sebastian’s office seem to be aged and fragile.
I gently open the book and scan the pages. Distractions are everywhere, as so many interesting topics flash by each page, and I find it difficult to focus on my own myth. Finally, I locate it and begin to read. Most of it revolves around the Moon Goddess, which I expected. It continues to go on about how a woman could link herself to the Goddess through an extremely dated ritual. After this, the woman and her daughters would keep this connection.
The connection consists of the ability to converse and visually see the Moon Goddess, which is accurate, but then it talks about harnessing her powers. I suppose they could not get everything right. Maybe that is why the alpha is so threatened by us. If somehow he read something like this, then he might believe I have the Moon Goddess’s power—the power to take over. I knew just communicating could not be enough.
It would be nice to be a goddess, so mystical, poised, intelligent, and gorgeous. Though I harness none of her powers, and if I did, I am sure I would know by now. If we did have even a smidge of her abilities, my mother and I could be together again, and this alpha would not be a problem, as getting rid of him would be a breeze. If only.
The book keeps my attention as I wait for someone to come back with news on my grandmother. The other myths are astounding, and it makes me wonder if they are also true. One of them is the Moonlight Wolves, a pack that existed way back whose members were immortal, recharging themselves under the moon’s luminous glow. Though I doubt this one, it entertains me and fills me with a childlike wonder. I see now why Henry reached for this book.
“What are you reading?”
Glancing up at the thick pages, I see Sebastian standing in front of me. My mind is so consumed with the stories that I did not notice him come in, which is rare.
“This book about
myths. Henry told me about it since he found my ability in it.”
“And what myth are you?” He sits down beside me as I flip back to the page.
“It’s called the Daughters of the Moon Goddess.” I hand him the book, and he looks over the pages. “Some of it is true, but most of it is not.”
“Daughter of the Moon Goddess,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Well, that explains your beauty now, doesn’t it?”
Color stains my cheeks. “Well, I…Thank you.”
He looks up at me, directly into my eyes, only making the color more vibrant. My thoughts on kissing get cut short by Marina telling me that dinner is ready.
Later in the night, I take the book upstairs with me and place it on the bedside table. Maybe if I get another nightmare, I can read and let the book distract me. I do not find myself needing the book though, as Sebastian takes me in his arms again, holding me close enough to make my eyes flutter shut in a few minutes.
The curtains are open, and the crevices are free for shadowy figures, but I can’t care less. Not only have I given up on my extreme paranoia, but in Sebastian’s arms, I have no fears, no worries whirling through my mind. In his arms, everything is peaceful.
My thoughts on killing flee my mind, freeing me from the heavy chains. Tonight, there is no death in my dreams, only eternal life.
Chapter 14
“Please, tell me you’ve found something,” I ask the guard as they return from the latest and most likely the last search.
The guard tells me the usual, and my shoulders fall, disappointed and weighed down by worry. I could take this information two ways. The first is that she could still be alive, and the second is that she could be high above us. As always, it is easier to visualize the second.
“Are you sure you found nothing? How far out did you go?”
The guard looks down at me, pitying my desperation.
“We went out farther than the last time and saw nothing but forest. I’m sorry, Luna.”
“Where is Sebastian?”