The person I wished I could be with Caleb.
I wrote a flashback chapter, from Sam’s point of view, to the day he first saw me … er, Nellie … sitting at my desk in the accounting firm. How Nell had rebutted each of his lines with a witty retort, then lowered her eyes and smiled shyly when he’d finally asked her out. How he told his wife he had a business meeting in Leeds, and he would stay overnight in the city so as not to wake her and the kids. How he’d gone to pick up the young black girl and they gone out to an amazing Chinese restaurant, then fucked in a hotel room until the wee hours of the morning.
My fingers slammed against the keys, pounding them down harder and harder as the words came out, as I slipped right into Sam’s head and saw myself as he saw me – this exotic, flirtatious creature who made him feel young and intelligent and interesting. How he didn’t even think about his wife at home when he was with me.
I typed the final line of the scene:
Nellie fell asleep, her head resting against his white shoulder. Peace descended upon her, the last moment of peace she would ever feel.
I leaned back, stretching out my arms. It felt good to be making progress on this book. Maybe I did have what it took to be a writer. Maybe, if I told this story, I could help another young black girl who had fallen into the same trap that had captured me. Maybe if just one white person read it and rethought the things they said and did …
Could my book make a difference? Was that my future, to use words to fight for equality? I thought about what Ryan and Marcus had said, about the discrimination within the shifter community, about how they had to hide what they were, lest they became yet another minority fighting for justice …
Lest they become like me …
My tea had gone cold, so I made myself another cup. As I stood by the oven, trying to decide if it was an Earl Grey or English Breakfast moment, I heard an odd sound from outside. Sort of a whoosh, like air being let out of a tire.
I set down the tea box as silently as possible, and moved toward the door. My heart pounded. Blood roared in my ears, almost drowning out the whooshing sound that was absolutely, definitely coming from outside.
It’s just an animal. It’s some kind of bird call, or it could be a tree branch scraping against the side of the cabin—
The more I thought of logical explanations, the more I was certain the sound did not fit them at all. My stomach churned, and a familiar sick sensation rose through my chest. My hands started to shake uncontrollably.
No. This can’t be happening. Not here. Not in my beautiful cabin.
“Hello?” I croaked out, trying to push through the panic attack. “Is anyone there?”
The noise stopped. My heart was pounding so hard I thought for sure it would burst from my chest. Through the haze of my panic, I registered that if it was an intruder, I needed some kind of weapon. As silently as I could, I slid a knife from the chopping block, and held it in front of me. I grabbed the door handle.
One, two, three …
I yanked the door open, and rushed to the edge of the porch, looking both ways. I heard a crunch. Something raced from the corner of the cabin into the trees. I whirled around, catching a glimpse of a man in black cargo shorts and a black t-shirt racing into the trees.
Oh shit, oh shit.
“Hey,” I called out, with more bravado than I felt. My hand was shaking so hard, I nearly dropped the knife. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” I staggered down the steps, heading toward the trees where he’d disappeared. But it was no good. He had too much of a head start, and the trees were too thick. I’d already lost him, and I was never going to catch him in my current state.
But who was it? I hadn’t been able to get a good look at his face. It could’ve been Angus or Robbie, but the guy didn’t look big enough or muscled enough to be either of them. It had been hard to see, though – he’d moved so fast.
I turned back to the cabin, my heart racing. I’ll have to call Caleb, and see—
I let out a cry of surprise. The knife clattered from my hand, lost in the leaves.
There, scrawled across the side of my beautiful cabin in big, ugly letters the colour of blood, someone had spray-painted the message:
DIE, BLACK BITCH.
10
Caleb
“This was not exactly how I pictured bonding with my pack-mates.” Marcus tossed a large amethyst wand into the air, catching it and twirling it between his fingers like it was a marching baton or a cuban cigar. “There’s no alcohol, or naked chicks. No one even brought snacks.”
The four of us were crowded into the back room of Astarte, Clara’s occult shop on the high street. Ryan and Luke had their noses in some of Clara’s shapeshifter mythology books, looking for clues that might somehow link my family to the Bairds. Marcus and I were huddled in one corner, a laptop screen between us, scanning recent issues of “Shift in Focus,” a membership-only news site that curated content relating to the worldwide shifter community. Apart from some recent articles about the discovery of the caves, and one with a shot of my back and the headline, Lowe Pack Re-Established?, we’d found nothing.
“Shut up and keep looking,” Ryan said, without even looking up from a thick volume of English folklore.
“There has to be a connection.” Luke mumbled as he tossed a book called American Werewolves in Europe against the wall, and picked up another from the stack.
“No matter how many times you say it, doesn’t make it come true,” Marcus muttered, pretending to stab the cover of the book with the tip of the wand.
Clara popped her head around the corner, and wrenched the wand from Marcus’ hand. “Can you boys keep it down in here? I’ve got customers out here, and it’s hard for them to feel the spiritual connection to my overpriced crystals if all they hear is you lot cursing at each other.”
“Sorry, Mother.” Marcus tried to grab the laptop off me, but I held it out of reach. “The new alpha won’t let his minions help.”
“I did let you help,” I shot back. “But all you wanted to do was look up videos of tractor accidents on YouTube.”
“Why not? That shit is hilarious. Did you see that one in Russia when the tractor ran over that bicycle—”
Clara rolled her eyes at me, and I stifled a snort. “Marcus, dear. Why don’t you pop down to the bakery and get us all some lunch?”
Marcus grumbled as he got to his feet.
Ryan grabbed the waistband of his brother’s jeans. “Get me a piece of that Heaven & Hell cake, would you?”
“Hang on.” Luke leaned forward, a thick volume open on his knees. “I might have something.”
I slid the laptop off my knees and scooted over, peering at the page upside down and trying to make sense of the strange diagrams.
Luke jabbed his finger at the page. “This says that the Lowe pack was once in possession of a powerful artefact, an ancient ring called the Benedict ring. It’s quite a unique design – two snakes curled around a bloodstone.”
“They sell those at every goth store at Camden Market,” Marcus growled.
Luke ignored him, which I was beginning to understand was the best way to deal with Marcus. “Apparently, the Benedict ring had been passed down through one of the most powerful witch families since the time of the Great Plague. The last descendant of that line lived here in Crookshollow. When the witch hunters came, she knew she would soon be burned, and the ring would fall into their hands. So she gave it to the Lowe alpha, who was her lover, for him to hide away. Apparently, it was never heard from again.”
“What’s this ring supposed to do?”
Luke consulted the book. “Apparently its original owner, a Lord Benedict, was a powerful magical worker. He would suck out the magic of other witches, and store all that power inside the ring. It enabled him to have many times the power of any equivalent witch. Apparently, he could even use it to fly. With that power he controlled a vast kingdom, until he was killed by his own daughter. Here’s a picture of him with t
he ring, see?” He jabbed his finger at a woodcut of a cold-looking dude in an elaborate coat. His right hand clasped the hilt of his sword, and his left hand rested against his breast, over his heart. The ring was on his left index finger, drawn large, to emphasise the detail of the coiled snakes circling the stone.
“How come we never heard of this before?”
Luke shrugged. “Maybe our parents and grandparents didn’t know about it. If the artefact was lost in the eighteenth century, perhaps it passed out of all knowledge, the way the one ring in Lord of the Rings came to be lost until Bilbo Baggins—”
“That’s enough of that, Gandalf.”
“Right, sorry.”
Ryan said. “Are we assuming the Bairds know about this artefact?”
“It’s definitely plausible.”
“Could there be any reason why they’d believe Caleb has it?”
“Of course, the caves!” I grabbed the computer and navigated back to the article with the grainy picture of me near the Crookshollow caves. I turned the screen around to show Ryan and Luke. “Shift in Focus were speculating that Luke and I were re-establishing the Lowe pack in Crookshollow, which I guess isn’t really speculation anymore.”
“Guess not.” Luke grinned back at me.
“The fact that we’ve marked out new boundaries for our pack around the forest probably solidified the rumour,” I continued. “If the Bairds saw this article, and they knew about the ring, they might theorise that the artefact would be hidden in our ancestral caves. They’d assume that I was staying in Crookshollow in order to obtain it and use it.”
“They could believe Caleb would use this ring to gain control over all the wolf clans,” Luke said, his voice tight with excitement. Ancient rings of power were just his kind of thing.
“And they want it for themselves,” Ryan said. “That, or they want Caleb as an ally while he builds up his power.”
“This whole thing sounds insane,” Marcus snorted. “Rings of power, bloodstones, seriously? This isn’t Harry fucking Potter.”
“I agree, but it’s no more insane than some of the other stuff that’s gone on in Crookshollow over the last year.” Luke looked over at Ryan. “Do you agree?”
“Fair enough.” Ryan grinned. After all, he was the centre of much of the drama that had put Crookshollow front-of-mind for shifters in the last couple of years …
“So does this mean we have to go hunt out an ancient ring?” Marcus asked, sighing.
“We don’t have to actually have the artefact,” I said. “We just have convince them we have it, which should be pretty easy. Like you said, there are dozens of rings that look like this in every goth store in the country. Clara might even have one.”
Ryan ducked his head out the door and explained what we wanted.
“Hold on.” Clara returned a moment later with a small black tray displaying several garish rings. “I think this one would be perfect.” She plucked one from the tray and handed it to me.
It was perfect. A huge, chunky band decorated with elaborate filigree, with two snakes coiled around a glittering red stone.
“That’s not a real bloodstone, of course,” Clara said, as I slipped the ring on my finger. It looked ridiculous. “It’s glass. But it is silver-plated.”
“Well, isn’t that fancy?” I grinned.
“Right, we’ve got our fake magical ring,” Marcus said. “Now what do we do?”
“I think we’re going to have to go see my friend Irvine Baird,” I growled, flashing my finger at him. “He needs to know that he can’t mess with the Lowe clan.”
11
Rosa
As soon as my limbs could move again, I raced back inside the cabin and slammed and locked the door. I grabbed all the knives from the block and lined them up in front of the door. Then I wrapped my hands around my knees and rocked back and forth, trying to stop myself from throwing up.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it, nearly dropping it through my fingers. I checked the number. It was Caleb.
“Hello?” I whispered.
“Rosa, you won’t believe what we’ve discovered.” Caleb sounded so excited. “Apparently, the Lowe pack was in possession of an ancient ring—”
“Someone was here, at the cabin.” My voice trembled. Relief flooded me, just from hearing his voice.
“What?”
The lump rose up in my throat. Now that I had said it out loud, I was dangerously close to losing control. “I just saw someone outside. They spray-painted DIE, BLACK BITCH on the side of my cabin.”
“Wolf or human?”
“Human. He ran into the bushes. I–I–I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Stay inside. Lock all the doors. We’re coming for you now.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I moved around the cabin on shaking legs, and gathered up some of my things – my laptop, a couple of books, some clothing and underwear. I crouched with my bag on the centre of the rug, the knives spread out around me like a rainbow of stabbing. My gaze flicked between the kitchen window and the window above the desk. Every hair on my body stood on end, every muscle tensed, ready to strike.
My cabin looked different now, all gloomy corners and no escape route. My space had been violated, tainted. I knew I could never write in peace here again.
It seemed like a whole day passed in strained silence while I waited. When the knock sounded, I was so wound up, I nearly jumped out of my skin. My heart hammered against my chest.
“Rosa, it’s me,” Caleb shouted through the door. “Open the door.”
I scrambled across the floor and unlocked the door. Caleb threw it open, and picked me off the floor, cradling me in his arms like a frightened child. I rested my head on his shoulder, and all the tension in my body poured out of my eyes. Great sobs wrenched from deep in my stomach, my whole body shaking as I poured it all out, all the fear and panic.
I felt strangely detached from the whole experience, as though I were standing behind myself, watching my breakdown. This isn’t you. This isn’t who you are. But it was. I was this hopeless, distraught human. I was losing it. The sting of the words against my cabin of freedom had cut too deep.
Caleb’s arms tightened around me. His hand cupped the back of my head. His voice cooed in my ear, a deep rumble that resonated right through my body.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffed, looking up at him. “I didn’t mean to …” The words failed me, so I just gestured to my tear-stained face. I’d smeared snot all over the other side of his collar now, but if he noticed, he didn’t seem to care.
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” His voice shook, and for the first time, I saw the raw fury in his eyes. “My stepbrother is the one who is going to be very, very sorry.”
“I thought you said he left Crookshollow.”
“He must’ve doubled back to do this.”
“I could deal with it when it was just text messages, but this is on my wall—”
“What text messages? Have you had more like that one from the other night?”
My face flushed. “Yeah, a couple more. He said he was watching me.”
Caleb growled. “He’s signed his own death warrant.”
“I don’t want you to—”
“Crossing a shifter’s territory after being forbidden is a declaration of war. I won’t tolerate this, Rosa. You deserve to live without this fear in your life.”
I snorted. “Caleb, I’m a black woman. As long as I live, I will live with fear in my life.”
“It shouldn’t be that way. I won’t let it.”
“I don’t even know if it was Angus. I didn’t get a good look at the guy, but he didn’t seem as big or brawny as I remember.” The more I thought about the blur I’d seen darting into the bushes, the more I was certain it wasn’t Angus.
“Who else could it be? Who else knows about your cabin?”
“My parents, my lawyer, and my therapist. That’s it.”
“And presumably none of th
em want to frighten you out of your wits. We’ll call them as soon as we get back to the village; check that they’re all right.”
A chill ran down my spine. “You don’t think they could’ve hurt my parents?”
“I fucking hope not. But if what we found out today is true, there might be more going on here than we think. You can show me where he ran off, and I’ll try and find the trail. That’ll tell us quickly if it’s my stepbrothers, or if they had someone do it for them. I didn’t think they have many allies down here.”
“Could they still be here, watching us?”
“The two of them had some serious wounds, and they know better now than to go up directly against Luke and I. I think they’ll go back to Aberdeen, if they aren’t there already. But when they return to Crookshollow, they’ll have reinforcements. Unfortunately, I think we might have made the situation worse. My brother Angus doesn’t like to lose.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t think you should stay here,” Caleb said. “It’s too isolated, and harder to protect. Ryan’s in the car. He says we can stay at his place—”
I looked down at my packed bag on the rug, and a wave of anger shot through my whole body. I shook my head. “I don’t want to sleep on some guy’s couch I hardly even know, even if he is a member of your pack. I’m not giving up my cabin. This was my dream. I’m not calling it quits after only a few days. That means they’ve won.”
“If you die, they also win.” Luke’s voice cut in. I jumped. I hadn’t even seen him standing there. “I agree with Caleb. It will be much easier to protect Rosa from the hall.”
Caleb’s eyes focused on mine. He leaned forward, lowering his voice, so we were the only two people who could hear. He stroked my cheek with his thumb, and a wave of desire shot through me. “I don’t want you to feel as though you’ve giving up anything,” he said. “But for a few days, would you consider being a guest at our new friend’s house? I think you might like it.”
Writing the Wolf: A wolf shifter paranormal romance (Wolves of Crookshollow Book 2) Page 12