by Amy Richie
“Willow,” he purred my name.
“Hello, Blake.”
“You’re looking well.”
I opened my mouth to say the polite thing back to him but then closed it again. Blake didn’t look well at all. His hair was disheveled and his clothes were wrinkled and dull. His eyes were ringed with thick purple blotches. The confident, almost cocky, demeanor was replaced by a nervous fidgeting and he kept looking back over his shoulder as if he expected something to shoot out of the darkness.
He had been nervous around Gage the first time we met. Was it just because he knew he was really Mikhaul that made him so jumpy then and so fidgety now? I looked at Gage, but if he knew anything he wasn’t showing me any signs.
“What brings you here, Blake?” I asked, in what I hoped sounded like a confident voice.
“I was visiting with Bella and we … I,” he cleared his throat nervously, “I decided to come see that everything was well with you.”
“Is Ivy ok?”
“What?” His features relaxed for a moment by his surprise at my inquiry.
“My sister; is she ok?”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Isn’t she with Bella?” He had just said he was with Bella, wouldn’t he have seen Ivy, too? Goosebumps rose on my arms. He only stared at me, not saying anything.
“Everything is fine here. You can be on your way now,” Rueben called loudly.
“It seems to me,” Blake said, snapping back to attention, “that all is not well here.”
“We’ve had a few setbacks,” I explained hastily, “but we’re fine.”
“Who is that? And why is she here?”
It took me almost two full heartbeats to realize he meant Carlie. No one moved a single inch. “It’s Carlie,” I told him with barely moving lips.
“Carlie?”
“Yep.”
“Do you realize who Carlie’s father is?”
My eyes widened before I could stop them. How did he know that? “No,” I said through clenched teeth.
“What is she doing here?” Ice crept into his voice as he dropped all pretenses.
“We’re having a sleepover.” I almost heard Gage groan but when I chanced a quick glance at him, he was watching Blake with the same intensity that Blake was watching me.
“A sleepover?” He tilted his head mockingly. “Isn’t that sweet?”
“Carlie goes to our school,” I raised my chin defiantly, “we’re friends.”
He moved fast, faster than anyone could have stopped him, with wide eyes full of barely suppressed rage until he was inches from my face. “Her father is a Knight,” he hissed. The smell of fresh blood was strong on his breath.
“I know, I’ve met him,” I replied as calmly as possible. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
As close as Blake was in front of me, there were the boys pressed against my back and Gage right at my side.
“Get away from her,” Gage growled so low it was barely human. “Now.”
Blake’s eyes flickered to Gage, whose stony anger would have frightened anyone so I wasn’t surprised when he took several steps backwards. “Hey, hey, hey.” He held up his hands in mock surrender and laughed a little on the hysterical side. “I’m from the council, I’m here to help.”
“Did the council send you … ” Gage began but I finished.
“Because of Carlie?”
He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done for it,” he said with heavy sadness. Why did he suddenly remind me of the mad hatter?
“What are you going to do?”
“Oh, I’m not going to do anything. You are.”
“Just what do you expect them to do?” Gage asked in his still low voice. I didn’t miss that he had just removed himself from us.
“They are going to get rid of the human.” No one said anything, we just let the crazy man talk. He turned to look at me. “You’re going to have to kill Carlie.”
I just stared at him, not able to form the appropriate words. The boys, however, had no such trouble.
“You’re crazy!”
“We aren’t killing anyone!”
“She’s with us!”
“Enough,” I said loudly to be heard over their uproar. “If you came here to ask us to kill Carlie,” I spoke to Blake after everything was quiet again, “then you can leave.”
“Shall I go and tell the council of your behavior?” He arched one eyebrow in a high arc on his glistening forehead.
“Are you threatening us?” This time it was me who stepped towards him.
Gage stepped between us. “Who’s orders bring you here, Blake?”
“No ones,” he said quickly - too quickly, and when he tried to correct himself it just wasn’t very convincing. “My … own. Just came to check on Willow and look what I find.”
“The girl is harmless.”
“Harmless?” he snorted. “Surely you remember … don’t you remember … Gage … the Knights?”
“I do.”
“1906, wasn’t it?”
“Was that the first attack you remember? Sometimes I forget how very young you are, Blake.”
I exchanged a glance with Jed. He was young in 1906? Geesh! “Carlie isn’t like that,” I needlessly told Blake. Gage didn’t turn to roll his eyes at me but I was pretty sure that was only because we had company.
“We don’t generally go telling pack secrets to humans,” Blake sneered. “I would have thought Bella taught you better.”
I jerked back at his words, as if he had slapped me. Bella had told us more times than I could count not to make friends with people. But, another part of me argued, she had let Ivy bring Carlie to the house. I refrained from saying that out loud, though.
“There are a lot of things Bella never taught me,” I said instead.
“We’ve come to the end of your inspection,” Gage announced suddenly. “We won’t harm the human nor will we allow you to do her any harm.” We all moved closer together, unified under Gage’s words. Carlie, for her part, had remained silent through our entire exchange. My respect for her swelled.
“You can leave now,” Rueben told him firmly.
“I’m afraid that the matter of the human is not the only reason I have come tonight.”
Gage tensed in front of me. “It’s not?” I croaked.
“No.” He paced lazily in front of us. “Do you remember the day I first told you about this orphaned pack?”
“Yes.” I followed his steps with my eyes, trying to see where he was going.
“You said you didn’t want to lead the pack.” I shifted my weight to the other foot, waiting for him to get to the point. “If I remember correctly, you wanted Ivy to take over.”
“Ivy isn’t of age yet,” I answered automatically.
“Not yet,” he conceded. “But,” he grinned wide, “we’ve found a different female to take over the pack.”
My breath caught in my throat, closing off any reply I might have made.
Blake continued talking, oblivious to my discomfort. “We both knew that you were never going to be a good leader. You just don’t have what it takes, Willow.” His words cut through me painfully. Hadn’t I always said the same things about myself?
“Who did you find?” Gage asked suspiciously.
“Bella!” Blake was obviously pleased with himself.
Very slowly, my eyes turned to take in the beautiful woman who had disentangled herself from the shadow of the cabin. Had Bella been hiding there the whole time? Surely not. I pressed my hand tight to my mouth to stop from saying anything stupid.
“Hello, Willow,” Bella purred, her bright eyes shining.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Standing My Ground
“Bella,” I whispered when I could breathe again.
She inhaled deeply, the veins in her neck popping out. “It’s good to see you, Willow,” she lied.
“You, too,” I lied back.
> In her own way, Bella was always good to Ivy and me. She made sure we were safe and had what we needed. She was never the type to bake cookies and don a white apron, but she did her best. But those weren’t the things I saw when I looked at her now. I noticed the way her eyes strayed hungrily behind me. She wanted my pack, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Where’s Ivy?” I asked.
“She’s safe.”
“Are you here to try and take my pack?”
Her eyes swung back to me, opened slightly wider. “You didn’t want them.”
I do now. “Where is your pack?”
“We’re joining both packs.” She shrugged as if the solution should be obvious to everyone. There were no sounds from the pack; this was my fight - no matter what they wanted.
Bella’s eyes darted again and again to Gage who was still standing almost in front of me. I realized suddenly that she knew exactly who he was. “Have you met Gage, Bella?” I asked with thick sweetness. I pulled him closer to me. He obliged without comment.
Blake started to laugh but was cut short by a glare from Bella. “Hello, Gage,” she greeted icily.
“Hello … Bella. Might I know your true name?”
Her nostrils flared but she recovered quickly. “And might I know yours?” she seethed kindly.
“I think you already know who I am.”
“Maybe I do,” she acknowledged. “Does she?” She didn’t look at me but I knew who she was talking about.
“He’s told me everything,” I told her, not wanting to betray Gage. I would just have to pretend that it didn’t bother me that he was Mikhaul.
“He told you his true name?”
She turned her icy glare on me; the one that used to make me squirm until I told her all she wanted to know. That glare had once discovered Ivy’s secret stash of tiny underwear. Bella had absolutely forbid us to wear anything so provocative but of course Ivy couldn’t resist. She swore me to secrecy but I couldn’t fight the glare.
“He did.” Hopefully I sounded like a grown up.
“That he is Mikhaul?”
If she hoped to surprise me it didn’t work, but the boys behind me hadn’t known. There was a rustle of whispers among them. Gage spared them a single look but it wasn’t exactly the time to be hugging it out.
“Yeah,” I replied in the same pinched voice. I suddenly wanted to push Gage away from me but I was afraid that would seem kind of obvious.
“Sometimes, Willow,” she began in a soft voice, “I feel like I wasted my time with you.”
Shame filled me. The kind of shame only a parent can inflict, a disappointed parent. I felt a burning in the back of my throat but I couldn’t give in to it. Bella always knew how to make me weak. I couldn’t let her get in my head now.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” I tried to look at her but failed miserably.
“What kind of mess have you made here?”
I glanced guiltily around me. The boys all watched me intently for the tiniest hint of taking action against these two intruders. Gage watched me anxiously, probably waiting for tears. And there was Carlie in the background, also watching me, fear prominent in her green orbs. I felt a childish urge to scream at all of them to quit looking at me, it wasn’t like I knew what the hell I was doing.
“We’re fine; great even.”
“I have heard rumors, Willow, nasty rumors.”
She had heard about Steven, my breath was far too shallow for normal words. “Small towns are ripe with rumors,” I flatly recited something she had often told me.
“Yes, they are. Which is why our kind have to be extra careful.”
I nodded; I already knew that. “We are,” I breathed.
Her eyebrows arched dangerously. “By allowing a human to join the pack?”
“She’s not … ”
“By letting one of your own be seen?”
“It was just an accident.”
She took a step towards me. “And what about the one that was killed?”
“He’s not dead.”
“But you allowed him to be seen, too. Didn’t you, Willow?” Her voice rose in volume as she took another step in my direction.
“We … um … ” I couldn’t back away from her with the boys pressing in behind me, my shoulders tensed up with the urge to bolt.
“You what, Willow?” she sneered.
“I just meant that we’re … getting ready to … ” I tried to swallow but my mouth was too dry and my throat was too swollen.
“I think what you mean to say is that you failed.” She stopped just a few inches from me, her face pinched in loathing. “Isn’t that right, Willow?”
Every word she said seemed to shrink me until I was seven years old again. I wanted to cry; throw myself at her. Maybe she would gather me up like she used to and tell me what I had done wrong. She could tell me how she would have done things if it were her pack.
The things I had been fearing but not saying out loud were all there in her eyes and the way she watched me. I couldn’t lead a pack, I just wasn’t good enough. I was just going to fail them and in my failure they would be ruined, too. The boys would be so much better without me. Bella could lead them, she would do so much better than me.
I couldn’t say any of this out loud, of course, my throat was closed off. But Bella saw it in my eyes and her lips turned up into a greedy smile.
What would happen to me after I left the pack? I wouldn’t be able to stay, obviously, but maybe I could stay close enough to watch them from a distance. Carlie and I could travel together. We could follow them; because Carlie wouldn’t be able to stay either. If Bella even let her live, that is. Once she was their true leader she could make them kill Carlie. My heart broke a little more at the thought.
Then suddenly something happened behind me. I felt someone’s breath on my neck and someone pushed their hand against the small of my back. Tiny gestures to remind me they were all behind me; both physically and any other way I needed them.
A warmth started in my back where someone was touching me and spread rapidly throughout my entire body; all the way to the tips of my fingers. I realized with a sudden clarity worthy of an epiphany that I belonged with my pack - no matter how badly I failed.
And they wanted me with them. That was the best part, the part that made tears spring to my eyes. My boys wouldn’t trade me for Bella.
“We’ve made mistakes,” I acknowledged firmly, “but they aren’t fatal.” Sensing the change in me, the boys’ excitement grew. They whispered loudly behind me but I didn’t stop to listen. Even Gage seemed excited, although he was still watching Bella.
“You are too young to lead this pack,” Bella tried to change tactics.
“We’ll learn together,” I took a step to meet her but she took a step back. “And soon we’ll be the strongest pack there ever was.” Bella took another step back. “That’s what she wanted, isn’t it?”
“She?”
“Noreen.” Bella’s lip curled up and Blake snarled at the name. “She wanted us to be the strongest but only so she could use us.” My voice gained momentum as Bella paled further. “And the council wants us to be strong so they can use us as weapons, too. But you know what?”
I looked back at the boys, really seeing them for the first time since Bella had shown up. They nodded their heads as one, already agreeing with whatever plans I had for them. I turned back to Bella, who had gone strangely quiet.
“We’re not going to be used by anyone.” I arched one eyebrow, immensely proud of my pack that everyone seemed to think they could boss around. “This is my pack and you’re not welcome here Bella.”
“Your pack?” Blake laughed loudly, the sound making the hairs on my arm stand up.
“Yeah, they are.”
“This is Noreen’s pack.”
“Noreen is dead.”
“How dare you!” Bella lunged forward but stopped short of actually touching me. “You will show some respect,” she screeched.
“I have already told you nicely to leave.” I wasn’t experienced in making threats but I hoped that one was pretty clear.
“You are the one who will be leaving tonight,” Blake called in a manic sing-song voice.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I folded my arms across my chest and glared at Bella.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Night of Revelations
“What do you mean you’re not going anywhere?” my one time mother asked coldly. She clutched nervously at the collar of her shirt.
“You heard me.”
She was quiet for several very long moments. I knew that there was a possibility I would have to fight Bella but I really hoped it wouldn’t come to that. There was a small part of me that worried about the outcome of such a fight. Bella was much older than I was and had to know how to fight at least a little bit. She had, after all, won her pack by fighting for it.
Would she challenge me?
“Have you worried at all about your little sister while you’ve been playing house?”
This wasn’t what I expected. Threats - yes. More intimidation - incredibly likely. Maybe even some bloodshed would be required. Certainly not a random inquiry about Ivy. “What?”
“Ivy.”
“I know her name,” I snapped.
“Do you ever … wonder where she may be?”
“I asked you where she was, you didn’t tell me.”
“What if she needs you?” Her eyes drilled into me. “What if she needs you to find her?”
It felt like someone had just punched me right in the stomach. I even brought my hand up to cover the offending blow. “Do you know where she is?” I managed to ask around the knot in my stomach.
“Of course I know where she is.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Will you leave your pack and go find her?”
So that was how she was playing. She was trying to make me choose between Ivy and the pack. Bella just didn’t understand though. I didn’t really have a choice anymore. “No,” I replied firmly, “I’m not leaving them. No matter what.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not what I would have expected.” Her hawk eyes pierced even sharper. “Or what I would have done.”
