A heated discussion was already taking place, and nobody had even noticed Krista, an outsider, amongst them. "So you're saying we should gather our forces because you saw some drawings on a wall in a cemetery?" The tough Amazoness, Sam, asked.
“After everything—the kidnapping and murders of your pack members, you still won't believe us?” Ryland's voice rang over the chaotic rambling. “This is clearly a prophecy that will eventually be fulfilled in some way, and it's up to us to come together and stop it.”
“But we don’t even know what we’re up against!” Ben growled. “It could be an all-powerful evil.”
“It could just be bullshit,” Rizz hissed through his teeth.
"We've explained this already," Tristan pushed up his glasses. "We believe we've found a ‘prophecy' involving some kind of monster and an oracle. The latter is currently residing with us."
Krista felt hundreds of eyes on her as they turned their heads to get a look at this ‘oracle.' She shifted in her seat but felt a warm touch on her thigh that made her shudder. Ryland was looking at her, his face leaning in towards hers and for a flash of a second, she thought of how he had kissed her. Suddenly, she felt a pull for that Ryland. Where was he now? Was he still there, right next to her? Or was she sitting next to the monster that was itching to eat her next?
“It’s okay,” Ryland’s voice silenced her thoughts. “Relax. You’re with us.”
But Krista couldn’t relax, especially when the entire room expected her to stand and address them. Ben seemed to do it for her. “Sounds like a myth to me,” he scoffed. “You bring a human girl in here and expect us to believe she’s carrying an ancient spirit of clairvoyance?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Krista heard herself say. She didn’t know how she did it. The words seemed to slip from her mouth, and she tried to gather them back up. “I mean, as far as I’m aware,” she retracted.
“Tch. I thought we all outgrew those shifter fairy tales,” Rizz scoffed. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll smarten up and stay in your own world’s politics.”
Krista tensed beside Ryland. The words hit her like pinpricks. Weren’t nightmarish visions enough to earn her place at the table? Did she have to carry shifter blood in order to have a seat?
"Krista isn't just some smoke and mirrors fortune teller," Ryland silenced the doubting voices of the other alphas. "Her power is incredible, and you should be grateful for it." Krista was taken aback at this. This was the Ryland she had discovered. He turned his head and gave her a gentle, knowing nod, which comforted her. There was someone on her side—just one person who was willing to believe in her.
She was also surprised to see Ryland rolling up his sleeve. “What are you doing?” She whispered harshly, grabbing his arm to stop him. “I thought you were-”
“No point in keeping secrets now,” Ryland said. Krista just barely caught a sly smirk peeking at the corner of his lips. He was going to tell them.
“She’s doing everything she can to help us stop whatever the hell this is,” he held up his hand high above for everyone to see. The curse had spread all through his arm, the whole limb nearly covered in inky black stains. The room gasped as they watched Ryland’s veins swelling under his skin.
“What the hell is that?” Sam reached for a knife in her jacket.
“It’s a curse,” Ryland admitted, flashing his wound for all to see. “The night my pack member went missing, and we infiltrated the new shifter’s warehouse, I encountered a strange shadow, one that decided to latch onto me.”
“What does it mean?” Rizz asked.
"That's where she comes in," Ryland placed his sturdy hands on Krista's shoulders. "We've recovered my great-grandfather's oracle bones from the enemy shifters. They stole them for themselves and, by the looks of it, they're searching for the oracle too. What they need Krista for is unknown, but we have the advantage now and we should take it while we can."
"But who would steal the bones?" Ben asked. "These shifters are obviously being led by someone well-versed in shifter lore. I know that just by that fact that it's not any of you alphas."
“Except for Ryland,” a voice called out from the back of the room. The doors were pulled open as Declan stepped into the room, holding a weighty trash bag at his side.
“You’re late,” Ryland sneered. Declan kept a straight face. “So you thought I’d show up after our little scuffle at our last meeting? How generous of you,” he said. He looked straight at Krista, and she could feel him studying her lack of shifter blood. Nevertheless, he raised the bag high above him. “Thought you’d all like to know where my pack member went,” he announced and he opened the bag. He grimaced as he tilted it upside down, dumping the contents onto the table.
The other shifters flew from their seats, the stench overwhelming as a severed wolf’s head tumbled onto the table. It rolled down, towards Ryland who held out his cursed hand to stop it. Krista was baffled as the wolf’s glassy eyes stared into hers—it’s disintegrating jaws fell open to reveal a mouth full of teeth.
“Why the hell would you bring something like this here?” He growled at Declan.
“Turn it over,” Declan declared. “I’m sure you’ll find something well worth your interest.”
Krista sunk further into her seat, trying to avoid the stench surrounding her. She watched as Ryland, still holding the head, turned it over to where a serrated knife met with the flesh. There was a thick piece of paper, drenched in blood, but still decipherable.
“An Iker sheds blood without sorrow. An Iker seeks vengeance. An Iker will split this city again, from its roots to its skies.” Krista wondered if anyone else noticed Ryland’s hand shaking as he read the note aloud.
“Ryland…Iker,” Declan enunciated for all to hear. “Just what is it you’re planning?”
Nobody would even look at Ryland, except for Krista. She knew the alpha had acted unpredictably before. He had, in fact, shed blood without sorrow. At least, that’s what she thought.
“Funny how you think this is still my idea,” Ryland said firmly. “I found my strategist stabbed through the heart in some sick ritual. Someone is obviously setting me up.”
"They seem to be setting you up as well, Declan," Krista added. Ryland had stood up for her in this meeting, now it was her turn to stand up for him. She threw a knowing glance at Ryland, and luckily he understood. He reached into his pocket and threw the Stalker's patch next to the wolf's head.
“Where did you get that?” Declan asked.
"The end of a tunnel, near the cemetery where my family's precious artifact was stolen," Ryland said. Krista heard the entire room turn their heads to Declan.
“There’s no use pointing fingers while a curse is upon us and shifters are being murdered,” Krista said.
“She’s right,” Tristan said. “We’re not here to settle disputes. We’re discussing how to use Krista’s abilities to determine this potential threat.”
"Then why not right now?" Declan challenged. The other alphas nodded in agreement. Krista's heart quickened. She looked up at Ryland, and even he seemed concerned for her. The others didn't know, but he and Tristan were aware that she couldn't do a reading under pressure. Maybe, with these oracle bones, she would have a better chance.
“Alright,” she said as she straightened herself up. Tristan approached her, holding the silk bag. It wasn’t that heavy in her hand, but once she felt the bones settling in her palm, she started to grow anxious. Not here, she told herself. Not while everyone’s expecting this from me. Standing before the silenced room, she clasped her hands around the bag and closed her eyes. Her mother had only briefly covered ancient runes, and Krista hoped it would be enough.
She could still see them watching her as she took a breath and spilled the bones onto the table. They rattled into place, and Krista's heart pounded as she watched the odd shapes settle. Already she felt a wave of power rising from them and wondered if the other shifters could sense it.
Her
eyes drifted along the runes staring back up at her, odd curved shapes and twisted squiggles that she couldn’t quite recognize. “I see the word, power,” she told the room. Their skepticism grew, which only made her more nervous. Placing her hands on the bones, she tried to feel the energy wavering from them. There was something clearly there, she just didn’t know what. Her mind’s eye only brought brief flashes, like soft crackles of static in a pitch black room.
She couldn’t do it. No matter how long she spent poring over them, she couldn’t get a clear reading. Her heart sank as Declan scoffed from the other end of the table. “What were you all expecting? That she’d float up into the air and spout out the prophecy?”
The other alphas and their pack members mumbled their concerns, flashing disappointed looks at Krista. "I think this meeting has reached a conclusion," Sam said with a grimace as she stood up. "We're joined by a peace treaty, but I and the other alphas should look into this on our own terms."
As she left, the others began to follow her. Declan was last. “Congratulations to the strongest alpha,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “I thought you were supposed to be good at keeping everyone safe.”
Ryland scowled and held his arm. Krista felt her face growing hot, and for some reason when Ryland placed his hand gently on her back it only made her feel worse. She scooped up the oracle bones and placed them back in the bag. "It's not your fault," Ryland told her. "It just wasn't a good place or a good time."
"Or maybe they're right," she felt herself say. "Maybe I'm not the oracle after all." She pulled away from him, even though it hurt her to do so. Tears welled in her eyes as she headed for her room without giving Ryland another glance. "I'm sorry to have disappointed you," she said over her shoulder before she turned a corner and felt herself choking up even more.
12. DISAPPOINTMENTS
Ryland’s paws thudded against the hillside, his mind running just as wildly as if he were in the cluster of trees outside the city. There wasn’t much nature around for shifters to release their wolf’s tension in, but the small pockets of forests were sufficient for Ryland.
He couldn’t stop thinking about that note, and Declan’s suspicions that he was the monster taking and killing shifters. His only worry was that somehow those words were true. Krista was terrified of him after he had killed that shifter in the fish market. What would stop him from losing himself like that again? What if he already had been?
His teeth sunk into a rabbit's flesh and he shook it in his jaws. He needed to hunt, to clear his mind of everything that had gone wrong in that meeting. The bones of his kill shifted in his mouth as he carried it off towards the Rogue's warehouse. It was much simpler to be a wolf. Kill, hunt, survive, everything was so basic this way. In the other world, there were far more complicated things to worry about. Power, leadership…love. Suddenly Ryland wasn't hungry anymore.
The note was still soaked in blood, but Ryland held it in front of a lamp beside his bed. No matter how many times he had read the words, he had a feeling that they weren’t about him. Despite Declan’s accusations, there was something about this that Ryland couldn’t connect to. An Iker seeks vengeance…but for what? He wondered. Maybe it had something to do with Henna. But just because he had lost a pack member didn’t mean he’d initiate a killing spree against the other factions. He had worked hard with them to bring peace, and couldn’t understand why or how he’d compromise that.
Something else about the wording bothered him—how the note had said ‘An Iker,’ not ‘The Iker.' His eyes shifted towards a book on his nightstand about curses, marked in the center with a colorful bookmark. He opened the book to look at it, staring at the photograph of himself taken just a few years ago. His hair was longer and unkempt as he stood next to a young man that looked very similar to him.
The two were smiling proudly in front of a warehouse, one where that had spent so much time and money to convert into a base for the Rogues (or a state-of-the-art gym for curious non-shifters) Ryland stared at the young man in the glasses beside him, a clumsy smile on his face as he squinted into the sun. His hair was neatly combed, but he was still almost a spitting image of Tristan. The young Ryland was laughing about something, perhaps making fun of his brother.
Ryland turned the picture over, looking at the scribbled note in messy penmanship on the back: “Little brother and me, 2016. Birth of the Rogues!” there was a small doodle of a paw print next to it. Ryland couldn’t help but smile, although the sight of it tugged at his chest.
He could still picture Christoph, throwing his black track jacket over his shoulder on his way out of the warehouse. “Good luck, Brother,” his last words echoed in his memory. “You’re going to need it.” But Ryland knew what was best for his pack, and that’s what had made him the best. Yet, Declan’s words still clung to him. After that failure of a meeting, Ryland was left with a feeling of incompetence. He had been so proud to be the strongest alpha, and it nearly killed him to know everything he had built was crumbling in front of him.
He held tightly to the photo, and a strange eeriness crept over him. There was something familiar about the curl of the ‘L’ in ‘Little brother,’ the short, concise letters written with a light hand. He held up the note from the meeting, the one that was crudely stabbed into that wolf’s head. He couldn’t bear to hold them up side by side. Instead, he shook his head and placed both items on the bed, before rolling up his sleeve.
It was spreading to his chest now, frequently taking hold of his heart and squeezing it like tight fingers. He clutched at the dark lines branching out across his skin, clenching his teeth from the pain. He held on as a wave of it crashed over him. Breathing was difficult, stabbing him as he began to panic. There’d been waves like this before, but not as strong as this. He rolled over, crouching into a ball on the floor as he tried desperately to ride it out.
His thoughts could only drift to Krista, how she couldn't get a reading for him. Questions were still unanswered. What was this thing growing inside of him? Then, the whispering came. It was louder than normal, incoherent. He could only remember the jabbering of Henna's murderer that day. Shaking violently on the ground, Ryland tried to relax.
He closed his eyes, surrounding himself with thoughts of his pack, of his devotion to his purpose as their alpha. But for some reason, it just wasn't enough. It was then he realized there was only one other thing he could really think about what seemed to coax him back down.
Krista could make him smile, almost like in the picture of him and Christoph. He had been worried that she’d be afraid of him, especially after how she’d acted during the meeting. Still, she did stand up for him to Declan. She’d been with him on this journey from their shaky start in that nightclub. There was something comforting in that, comforting enough to help bring him back down to Earth.
As he settled, the whispering ceased. But the room still felt heavy, as if a dark presence was hovering like a cloud. The weight left his chest, and he was finally able to sit up, holding his knees against his chest. He needed somebody to talk to, other than Tristan, who was too much like his brother. There was a softer presence calling out to him now, as if a light was seeping into the room.
He was going to see Krista. She'd probably still be locked up in her room, afraid of him, afraid of her failure with the oracle bones. First, he searched his bookshelf for anything on oracle bones. Maybe he could take it to her and help her feel better about the whole thing. Once he found a book that suited, he took a deep breath. Why was he so nervous? Maybe because he was worried about how she'd look at him. Then again, she was so quick to touch him, to hold his hand and examine his curse when anyone else would have been afraid.
He gathered himself together before pulling open his door. A small gasp made him freeze in his tracks as he stared right into Krista's widened eyes. Her fist was raised to the door and she quickly held it back at her side.
"Hey," Ryland said.
"Hey," she bit her lip, and suddenly Ryland forgot about eve
rything as the sinking feeling left the room. Krista was wearing pajamas, a tight pair of shorts and a long t-shirt covering them, the hem just barely brushing the tops of her smooth thighs. It was the same ratty band t-shirt she’d been wearing when he rescued her that first time, and Ryland remembered his fingers trailing under it to tend to her wounds.
"Did you need something?" He asked after both of them realized they had only been staring in shock at one another. Krista relaxed with a slight laugh. "Sorry," she said. "You might think this is weird, but I just had…a strange feeling that you were…"
“Not doing so well?” Ryland finished. Krista nodded. “Actually, yeah,” she said, her eyes slightly narrowed with suspicion. Ryland pulled the door open further for her without another question. As she passed by, he caught the scent of her hair again, the citrusy, musky scent of vetiver. It aroused his senses.
Her hand trailed to the book in his hand, hanging at his side. “What’s this?” Krista asked. “Interpreting Oracle Bones and Runes?” Ryland quickly pulled it from her. “I was just reading,” he said curtly.
“Reading?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why were you just about to leave?”
“What do you mean?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who opened the door,” Krista shrugged.
“I, um, was going to find Tristan.”
“He always goes to bed at ten o’clock,” Krista gave him a knowing smile.
Ryland couldn't come up with a better excuse and left it at that. The woman was a psychic, after all. She'd have to know his true intentions. Krista sat on the pillows around his coffee table. Ryland was surprised that she was being so open towards him now, after avoiding his gaze earlier in the day.
"So, what made you think I wasn't doing well?" He asked. Krista seemed distracted as she found a pen and scribbled on a piece of scrap paper.
Wolf Pack Chronicles Box Set Page 22
