by Holly Hook
“Look, I lost my parents too, but—”
“You don't remember them. You haven't experienced the before and after. Wait until you do. Then you'll never see the light again.”
Leaving me with those words, Lawrence storms up the stairs, leaving me with his words.
Chapter Seven
“We used to have five Guardian Packs around Breckenridge, where the Royals used to be based,” Abigail tells me as we chop meat and prepare dinner for the pack. “Even with the Hunters' help and that of the Russell Coven, the Savages wore away at them over the years, and my son and his wife fought hard to keep this one alive. It was my grandson who decided to do something different and keep to ourselves. Against my wishes, I might add. But once he became alpha, even I had no influence on him. Don't let Lawrence intimidate you. He has a lot going on emotionally.”
Clearly, with the heavy metal belching from upstairs. It's almost funny if that rage weren't directed at me. Cayden doesn't even act the way Lawrence is acting now.
Or it could be a ruse and his way to look less threatening.
I enjoy chopping meat with Abigail, especially since Cayden helps us prepare a huge dinner for the pack. He works the knife with precision, cutting chicken into perfect strips. Once dinner's served, I ask for everyone's names. Don. Ron. That's not confusing. Kaylie, Lawrence's mate, offers her name even though I already know it. Kaylie's twin, Hayley, shakes my hand. The boy: Allen. He's strong and offers me a fist bump. Then there's Shonna. Marleen. Abigail's younger friend, Natalie. I'm never going to remember all the pack members now. Is this what teachers go through every year?
"Breathe," Cayden whispers in my ear. "We're doing a good PR move."
"Feeding your new pack members is always a good move," Abigail says with a wink. "Thank you for helping prepare dinner."
"I can tell they're good Wolves," I say. "They deserve it. Lawrence hasn't come down. Isn't he hungry?"
I can hear him now. I don't want your pity.
"He'll come down when he's ready," Abigail says.
A young man named Zach grins at me as he stands and stuffs a whole seasoned chicken strip into his mouth. "Does being alpha mean you cook for us every night?"
"Cayden's a much better cook than I am," I joke.
He pokes me in the ribs. "I am not."
"You have ninja skills."
At least we're warming things up with the new pack members. Most seem alright with us so far. I wonder if Abigail put in good words while we were gone. Cayden and I eat at the kitchen table with Everly and Aunt May. Remo goes outside to talk to Leonora with a borrowed phone.
After dinner, people scatter throughout the house to socialize. Cayden and I take the couch. I'm coming down off the high and drifting back to reality. Cayden sighs as we listen to more death metal lyrics from upstairs. Even with my hearing, it just sounds like someone grunting on a toilet. What's going through Lawrence's head?
“I know what that's like,” Cayden said, listening to the music above. “He's more of an angsty teenager than I am.”
"Lawrence needs to be an adult," I say. I've never seen anyone fall apart as much as him. I can see Abigail's point about my right to be alpha. "Maybe you can talk to him."
Cayden grips my hand and gives me a look of horror. "Please don't say that's an order."
"It's a suggestion. I don't expect you to get through to someone like that, believe me."
Cayden frowns like I've given him a challenge. "Brie, I'll try. Let me stay here in Colling for a bit and keep an eye on him. I know what it's like to be in his position, so I'm the man for the job. Also, I'm still beta, so it makes sense for one of us to stay here. We've got to keep the pack together somehow."
"Cayden, you don't have to." While I sit with him, warm tingles flow through me. We give each other life. And will the curse strike him if he tries to talk sense into Lawrence? That probably falls under the "protecting me" umbrella.
"I will," Cayden says. "We'll be less than twenty miles apart, and I won't stay here more than a couple days. Letting Lawrence spin out of control is dangerous."
I want to stay with Cayden, here, but we still have to watch Breckenridge. Protecting Noah, Olivia, and the rest of town is still my job. I lower my voice. "But what about—my other problem?"
Cayden licks his lips. "We have to take out the cult. Got a hunch that will solve it. Brie, don't let yourself get mad at regular people. Or at other Noble Wolves, either. That's why I'm staying here with Lawrence instead of you." He leans forward and our lips brush.
I can always rely on Cayden. We melt together and I press my chest into Cayden's. Our heartbeats sync as he runs his hand through my hair.
"Cayden, thanks," I gasp once we come up for air.
"Get a room," Everly says, walking past us to the porch.
Cayden flips her off as she leaves, and I hold back a laugh. But once she leaves, the mood darkens. A piece of workout equipment clanks in the other room. People talk in low voices in the kitchen.
“Is it really a before and after?” I ask Cayden.
“The before and after?” Cayden asks. “Oh. What Lawrence was talking about. Yes. I forgot you didn't really have that, since your parents have always been—”
“Well, gone,” I finish for him. “I don't even remember the funeral. I guess I'm perpetually in the after, right?” I don't want Lawrence's words to be true. Is it really nothing but darkness in the after? I've been able to find joy and light in my life. But another loss could make the sun set. And it will happen. Is it eventually night for everyone?
I look at Aunt May, who talks to a middle-aged man on the other side of the room. His name is Don, if I remember right. A real small town guy dressed in overalls and smelling of metal tools and a trace of oil. A handyman. She smiles and sips from her water. Maybe Aunt May entered her night with the loss of my parents and she's been hiding it for my sake. Maybe Cayden's now burying his pain for my sake, too.
“There really is a before and after,” Cayden says. “We both know when the divider came down for me and the rest of the pack. And we both know I was like Lawrence for a while. Not proud of that fact."
“Does it get better?” I whisper in his ear. “Do you ever get over it?”
Cayden sighs and stares into his glass. “You just learn to live with it."
“You're doing a very good job. You argued Lawrence into the house.”
He forces a smile, but a flash of pain makes him blink. “You're helping me get through the night, Brie."
Tingles spread over my body and fill me with warmth. Then I remember. “The curse. How did you avoid it earlier, only to have it attack you again in the diner?”
Cayden swallows. “My theory. I've been dying to tell you about it all day.”
I give him a peck on the cheek. “Please do.”
“Remember how the Russells said like attracts like in the spirit world? Well, it sounds stupid, but Earl gave me the chance to test it. When I was drawing his fire, I thought about the time we met in the play and sang together."
My jaw drops. “That's it?”
“It wasn't easy to think about that when I was getting shot at, but it was worth a try. Don't think I'd be able to do it in an actual fight."
“And how would that keep Mr. Hayde's dark spirits away? They don't like happy thoughts?”
“Every other time they attacked me, I was scared or angry. Don't they feed on attention and bad stuff?”
“Yeah, but it doesn't seem like just thinking happy thoughts could deflect those shadows. Too easy.” I'm skeptical. The Russells had their protective spirits follow us, and they're not very strong or perfect yet, but I felt them when Earl was shooting at us. "Maybe you fed the Russells' army and they came through? This magic stuff is confusing."
“It's something worth pursuing, isn't it?” Cayden asks. “If we become like Lawrence and stew like Batman all the time, we'll never get rid of Romulus or the cult. Or the curse.”
“Well, maybe.” I hope. I r
eally, really hope.
Cayden gently grabs my cheeks. “Brie, you're so scared of being too nice now that you might go too far in the opposite direction. I saw the struggle in you earlier.” Though face to face, he doesn't dare say his worry out loud. "Be nice. Romulus will hate that."
“But then I'm too weak. Can't win, can I?”
“There has to be a way.”
“Remus lost by not wanting to fight his brother.” I ask.
“We don't know the whole myth. Just that the twins were the first Wolves, they lived a long time ago, and Romulus killed Remus.”
“More details would be nice.” I've researched the myth in my spare time, sneaking to the school library, and just found that Romulus and Remus both ruled kingdoms and Romulus killed his brother over a dispute. Of course, the books just have the human version of the myth.
“We have to split up soon,” Cayden says. "I'll deal with Lawrence. Take Abigail with you in my place. She says she's from an old line of Wolves, so she's strong."
"Sounds like a good idea."
Lawrence's music stops upstairs as if he's detected that we're about to leave. So he was listening. He walks downstairs and everyone stops socializing to watch him emerge from the dark spiral stairwell. All eyes turn to him. He glares at us. Awesome.
Abigail steps out of the kitchen, along with Kaylie. "Lawrence. I'm glad to see you back down."
“You want to split the pack." He stares right at me.
"We have to. It's the only way to guard two territories. If Abigail could come with us—"
"That would be fine. I'm a Guardian Wolf. It is my duty." Abigail furrows her brows at her grandson as she speaks.
Can a defeated alpha challenge me and take his position back? Lawrence has a chance, even if I'm a Royal. Maybe he wasn't born a Royal, but he made himself one.
I stand up from the couch. “Lawrence is really good at defending Colling, so that's still his job. And I know how important that is. I don't want to see anyone here get hurt.” My gaze lands on the boy, Allen, for a second. “You stay here, too."
He nods, but I don't miss the sound of his grinding teeth. We will not have another Wyatt.
"Lawrence, hon, nothing's different to me," Kaylie says. She holds his arm and he drops his shoulders.
“I'll protect Colling,” Lawrence says. “Your beta will stay here, right?”
Cayden nudges me. I wish we could think to each other in human form, but I've never gotten it to work. It's clear I'm missing something.
"Yes. We already agreed on that." Worry sweeps over me and sweat snakes between my fingers. Is that a threat? I try to read Lawrence's now bland face. But we have Abigail. I hate to think of her as a pawn, but if Lawrence does, it might prevent him from hurting Cayden.
Abigail steps over to join me. So does Aunt May. She follows right behind Abigail like the two have been socializing.
“I want Lawrence here because he knows how to protect Colling the best," I say, which I know is true.
But he says nothing, even as Cayden steps over to stand near the kitchen archway. The warm tingles within me shudder. Peace will be hard to win.
"And then what?" Lawrence asks.
"And then I work out, with the Hunters, how to attack the cult," I say. "The Noble Order is coming together again, and we're going to get rid of Romulus once and for all.”
Chapter Eight
I hate leaving Cayden.
Especially with Lawrence. My chest aches the farther I walk away from Lawrence's cabin. Of course there has to be a price to getting more Wolves on our side.
And that price might be losing control over myself, as I found out today. One screwup, and Romulus wins. The Noble Order crumbles from the inside. Bringing the Noble Order together means putting them in even more danger, but the alternative is just as bad. I can't win.
Night's falling as I walk with Everly, Aunt May, Remo, and Abigail, and as I walk down the trail, I turn and wave to Cayden, who remains on the porch. Then he gives me a thumbs-up. He's got this.
"This is for the best," Aunt May says.
"I hate that is has to be this way," I tell her.
Cayden steps inside and stands in the window as I keep walking down the trail. Backlit by the light from inside, Cayden looks like a dark angel, with messy black hair and a perfect physique that does, in fact, rival Lawrence's. It just makes him even harder to leave.
But I turn my head away once we pass where Earl has his tree stand. Focusing on Cayden's absence won't get us anywhere. We have to focus on stopping the cult before they do more damage. The Guardian Wolves sacrificed a lot to protect the Royals. They've done their time and I'm making them sacrifice even more. The cult will be ready for us, and Wolves will die.
"You look worried," Abigail says.
"We have a lot happening," I say.
"A Noble's burden," Abigail says. "We always care about others, and it's hard, but it's worth it. Protecting what's good in nature is our duty. I've been trying to tell my grandson that for years."
"Good luck."
Abigail smiles and slaps my shoulder.
She leads us down a narrow trail, and I get that we're going to shift down this way and go to Breck as Wolves. It's much faster. Once we reach a small, round clearing with plenty of human and wolf prints mixed together, we remove our clothes, leaving them in a pile beside the trail. No one looks at each other as we shift. The world turns into pops and snaps of pain, and the stretching and whispering of skin and then fur. Everything tilts as I enter my own world of agony for a couple of horrifying seconds, but then the surrounding forest takes on more life than ever as we begin the journey as a half-pack.
We run under the trees and stars, jumping over boulders and navigating hills until we reach the edge of Breckenridge's border. Well, our territory, marked by our scent. Abigail, the white wolf, rubs her body on one of the trees, adding her scent to mine and Cayden's. The air fills with Noble nature scents, of the brighter parts of the natural world. Things the Savages look down on and hate.
After circling town for a bit and marking trees, I think, we can finish tomorrow.
You need our protection, Abigail thinks. Her voice is old and wise. She's sharp and strong. You rule two territories now. I smell Savages in the distance, to the west.
I've been there, I think, thoughts turning to Brett and Karina. The two are hopeless now, having turned away from me. The cult is based there.
I knew they were close. Abigail bounds into our territory, snout down to the ground and picking up the trail Cayden and I have left. His scent is here, making me sick as I remember he's miles away. Though he's not as far as he was when he took the bus, it still hurts. Like the universe is playing a cruel joke on us, refusing to let us stay together.
And I hate that he's around Lawrence. But at least we have Abigail. I don't want to use her like a pawn, but Lawrence might not know that.
Home, I say. Though my house has more space, I don't want Abigail there, just in case. The less she knows about me right now, the better.
Everly bounds forward. This way. To our cabin.
She's come to the rescue. I'm grateful for her. But I don't think that out loud.
We plod back to the Lowe cabin and file inside. As usual, the Lowes have left the back door unlocked, so we can open it in wolf form and go inside to change back in the heated structure. It's not that anybody comes back here. Compared to Lawrence's place, it's tiny. We take turns changing back in the bedrooms, and though we have extra clothes here, we neglected to get clothes in every size and style. I change back in Cayden's small room. The place smells of him, and when I close my eyes, I can pretend he's here. I even put on one of his T-shirts even though I've left some of my clothes here. I put on my own jeans, though. There's no need for my pants to fall down.
Abigail has to dress in some of Aunt May's clothes. After several minutes of desperate dressing, we all stand in the kitchen together. But even though we've run miles, Abigail's limp hasn't gotten any wo
rse. She's a strong Wolf. She would have to be, if she's survived this long. Callie's right that she and Lawrence come from an ancient line almost as strong as me.
"What now?" Everly asks, blinking sleep from her eyes.
"We had a long trip," Remo says. I know what he's asking. I eye the clock on the stove and realize it's creeping up on midnight.
I can't work the pack right now. “We should all get some sleep,” I say, nodding to the stove. “We'll discuss what to do to attack the cult later. And Callie has to call the other Hunters, too. If we're lucky, they won't know we have more Wolves than we did yesterday. Either way, we're about to end Romulus's little food supply.”
* * * * *
At least I know Everly well enough now to understand her facial expressions. With Abigail sleeping on the couch the next morning, Everly takes to note writing, since talking in the house, even whispering, isn't private when everyone else has amazing hearing. She slips the first note to me when I start a row of sausages on the Lowes' griddle.
I read it. I'm the resident skeptic. I'll watch Abigail.
I look to her and nod. Everly still hasn't given up her fun-killing status. I'm guessing this is her way of keeping it, now that we've caught her being friends with Leonora. So I'll let her be the spy.
Everly's notes continue throughout the day, even after Aunt May and Abigail go for a walk around the block.
Abigail is strong. Watch out.
She even leaves me one under my folded jeans. Look oblivious. Just in case.
I try not to roll my eyes at her efforts. But I'm appreciative I'm not doing everything and Aunt May is helping to keep my secret, too.
We spend the rest of Sunday resting. Even Everly agrees that's a good idea. I don't hear from Callie at all which is disappointing. My muscles still ache from the long trip and I don't want to tax Abigail. She might be strong, but her joints creak as she walks. Without rest, we won't get much further. Tomorrow, we work out a plan to attack Romulus's little death cult. I'm sure we outnumber the Savages by now. Matthew's dead. It's likely their new alpha isn't as powerful as a Savage Royal.