by Amira Rain
I knew it was pointless to stew about it, and so I resolved to stop. However, that was easier said than done. I didn't fall asleep until well past midnight, and even then, I didn't sleep very soundly.
Mil, Fiona, and all the other adults in the house besides staff members were already gone when I came down for breakfast the next day. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit with Brandon and Martin, who zipped little metal cars across the table while we ate. Near the end of the meal, Brandon asked if I wanted to play with one, too. I accepted, figuring I was "grounded" like a kid, so I may as well play like one, too.
I zipped a little metal car across the table with a sigh. "Vroom."
I took the boys for a hike later that morning, accompanied by no fewer than four guards, the same ones who'd be watching the house that night. Watching for me to escape, more than watching for wolves, I was sure.
After lunch, the boys took a nap, and I did, too. Afterward, the boys wanted to go outside again, but it was now raining. Pouring buckets, actually. I told them that puzzles and toys would have to do for the afternoon, then helped them make a large, elaborate fort out of blankets and chairs so they could do those activities inside. Martin declared that I was "super fun," making me crack a smile, really the first one I'd done all day.
The staff chef made a delicious dinner, though I wasn't able to eat more than a few bites. While another staff member cleared the dishes away, the chef, a petite older woman with twinkling brown eyes, asked if I'd like her to occupy the boys that evening with some cookie baking.
"I'd be glad to give you a little break if you want one."
I accepted her offer and thanked her, saying a break for a hot bath was maybe exactly what I needed.
An hour or so later, I got out of the bath, dressed, and called Mary, the chef, to check on the boys. She said they were doing just fine, having lots of fun, and just about knee-deep in sugar and flour.
Despite my afternoon nap, I was feeling a little sleepy, and Mary must have heard it in my voice, because she offered to put the boys to bed in a couple of hours for me. As I had to her first offer, I accepted gladly and thanked her.
After ending the call, I turned out all the lights in my rooms and got into bed, but then immediately got back out. I padded over to the windows, wondering if I'd be able to catch even a glimpse of the fight that I knew would likely be starting soon. I knew this was kind of absurd; the fight would be taking place over by the warehouses, all the way across town. Miles away. I wouldn't be able to see anything.
But for some reason, I just wanted to try, maybe just wanted to gaze in the direction where Grant and Adrian would be fighting.
The rain had passed, and the sky was now a clear, velvety black studded with stars. The sight of them gave me the idea to get a telescope from one of the other guest suites on the third floor, so I did. Once I had it set up on its tripod in my own living room, I realized I could use it not just to look at the stars, but maybe catch a glimpse of the fight as well.
That idea didn't pan out. Had there been no trees, houses, buildings, and hills in the way, I might have been able to catch a glimpse of the fight. But then again, with it being so dark, maybe not. I'd just have to settle for stargazing.
I tilted the telescope up and surveyed the starry sky for several minutes, spotting recognizable constellations here and there. It was actually pretty relaxing, almost a bit hypnotizing somehow, even, and it made me sleepier than I already was.
I wanted to continue on, though, thinking that it just didn't seem right for me to be dead asleep while a shifter fight was probably now raging just across town. A shifter fight that many people I cared about were participating in.
However, before long, my eyes began closing even while I gazed through the telescope at the stars. I had to go to bed.
But first, I wanted to take a quick peek at the vast yard surrounding the house, just to see what the guards were up to. Specifically, I wanted to see if they had their backs turned toward the house or away from it. They'd be facing the house, I imagined, just wanting for me to come tearing out, half-crazed. I almost hated to disappoint them, but I did not intend to break my promise to Grant.
Or, at least, I didn't until I saw the great gray wolf. Massive and shaggy, floodlights around the house faintly illuminated his shadowy form as he crept from a darkened copse of trees on the west side of the yard.
There wasn't a guard in sight. As the enormous gray wolf slowly crept from tree to tree, I could now see that he had something dark all over his face, likely blood. As big as he was, I knew it was possible that he'd already taken out one or two or even all of the guards. I knew it was possible he'd attacked them and murdered them in cold blood, just like wolves had done to all four of my parents.
I suddenly wasn't tired any more. I was suddenly so full of some wild energy that my whole body was shaking. My legs were shaking to the point that they literally couldn't support me any longer; I had to sink to a crouch, then have a seat on my rear.
I was breathing at a near-pant, though at the same time, I felt like I wasn't getting enough air. I thought of Mary, the boys, and the few other staff members downstairs. If the wolf got inside, they would all surely be killed.
I thought about the guards, who'd likely already been killed. Images of my parents, all four of them, flashed through my mind. I saw images of them all bloody and mangled, the way they'd all likely appeared when the wolves had murdered them.
I couldn't stop myself from wondering if my first mother, the one who'd braided tiny white roses into my hair, had been killed quickly or slowly. I couldn't stop myself from wondering how scared she'd been.
After a very short time, maybe only ten or twenty seconds, I forced myself to rise on my shaking legs, using the windowsill to pull myself up. Clutching it for support, I peered out the window.
The wolf was still below, in the yard, creeping from tree to tree, a little closer now. I willed my body to stop quaking, and it did, slightly. Next, I took several deep, steadying breaths, right before dashing into the living room and snatching up my longbow and bag of arrows.
Grant's instructions be damned. I was going to kill this wolf.
CHAPTER NINE
After grabbing my weapons, I flew down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor. I knew that Brandon, Martin, Mary, and the other staff members were probably out in the kitchen, and I debated whether to alert them.
On one hand, I didn't want to scare them needlessly when I intended to take out the wolf swiftly. I wanted to have him dead on the ground within seconds of me stepping outside, actually. Though on the other hand, I wanted to get everyone up to the third floor where they might be safer than on the first. Just in case.
However, I suddenly remembered, every single window in the house was made of a special unbreakable material that Adrian had once told me couldn't be broken by any shifters. It couldn't even be broken by a shifter bear swinging an ax, he'd said.
Based on this, I figured the boys and the staff members would be just as safe on the ground floor as they'd be on the third, as long as I locked the titanium spring lock on the door behind me as I left, which I planned to do. So, I decided I wouldn't do any alerting. No need to scare everyone.
It was only when I'd made my way through the ground floor and across the foyer to the front door that the images of my murdered parents began to fade, becoming replaced by a new image: Grant's face.
I grabbed the deadbolt lock with a trembling hand, intending to flick the lock open, but then I paused. "Dammit." I squeezed the lock between my thumb and finger, willing myself to twist it, even while another part of me willed myself to let it go. "Goddammit. Goddamn you, Grant."
I couldn't get his handsome face out of my mind, and he was frowning. I didn't care, though. I was going to kill this wolf, and I didn't care what the hell Grant thought. I didn't care if I broke my promise to him. I didn't care if I blew his last remaining particle of trust in me to smithereens.
If he even ha
d one. I just didn't care. Or, at least, that's what I told myself. Because no matter how tightly I squeezed the deadbolt lock, willing myself to just turn it, I just couldn't. My fingers simply refused to do the task. Despite the fact that my brain was yelling at them to, screaming at them to.
"Goddamn you to hell, Grant. Goddamn you and your stupid, handsome, frowning face."
I just couldn't get the image out of my mind. Though suddenly, it changed. It changed into Grant's face, though a different Grant. A fourteen-year-old Grant, how I imagined he'd looked then.
A young teenage Grant, standing in the woods in bear form, ready to jump out from behind a tree and lay down his life in a futile attempt to defend a little girl with tiny white rosebuds braided into her hair.
After picturing the image for several seconds, I sighed. "All right. All right, Grant."
I'd made a promise to that boy, though to the grown man he'd now become, and I knew I couldn't break it. I knew deep in my gut, deep in my bones, with absolute certainty.
I took my hand from the lock and let it fall to my side. I wouldn't twist the lock; I couldn't any more. I knew it wasn't even possible. I wouldn't take even half a step outside. I cared about Grant too deeply to betray his trust.
He didn't deserve that. I took a deep, shaky breath, realizing that I cared about him even more than I cared about avenging my parents' murders. I maybe even loved him. A thought that made my eyes suddenly misty for some reason.
Sniffling, I wiped them with the back of my hand. "Yeah. I love him. And probably Adrian more than a bit, too." Snorting, I paused. "And now they've both got me so crazy I'm actually talking to myself." I snorted again, the sound turning into a weak chuckle. "Dummy."
I leaned against the door, legs still shaking. Not a second later, someone, or something, slammed into the door. Hard enough to make me jump back and drop my longbow, gasping. It had felt like a body being hurled against the door. I knew instantly that it had likely been a wolf's body. The massive gray wolf stalking the yard.
It was only then that the thought occurred to me that I could just as easily shoot arrows from my own third-floor living room window as I could from outside. I could maybe even shoot them with better aim, having the advantage of height over my target.
Incredulous, I stared at the door. "Dummy again. Idiot."
Something massive slammed against the door again, shaking the frame, and I knew there wasn't time to waste beating myself up further. I wasn't worried about the door breaking, allowing the wolf to get inside. The door had a steel core with steel-and-titanium structural supports around it, as Adrian had once told me, so I knew the chances of the wolf getting in were very slim, no matter how hard he tried.
What I was more worried about was some of the bear shifters getting back and killing him before I could.
While the wolf slammed into the door yet again, I snatched up my longbow and began racing out of the foyer to the stairs. While I dashed up the two flights as fast as I could, I realized that because a section of roofing shielded the porch, I was going to have to get the wolf off the porch in order to shoot him. I didn't figure it would be too hard. I'd just hurl something heavy, something that would make a thud, into the yard, and when the wolf went to investigate what had made the noise, then I'd shoot.
Once in my living room, though, this task turned out to be a bit harder than I'd thought it would be. I threw a couple of thick books into the yard, but they had no effect. The wolf didn't even pause in his slamming himself against the door, which I could still hear clearly, even now on the third floor.
I opened the tallest window in the living room even wider and tossed a sturdy wooden plant stand into the yard. It landed on the lawn and broke, one of the floodlights revealing at least four different pieces of jagged wood. But still nothing. Just more heavy thudding against the door, without so much as a pause.
Now getting a bit desperate, I picked up the heavy telescope, attached metal tripod stand and all, and hurled the whole thing out into the yard with all my might. It sailed farther than the books and the wooden plant stand had. And that did the trick. The moment I heard a lull in the door-slamming, I snatched up my longbow, loaded an arrow into the string, and waited. With my room completely dark, I hoped the wolf wouldn't be able to see me.
He didn't even seem to realize from where the telescope had come. He crept over and sniffed at it a little, his bloody face marking the white paint of the telescope with streaks of red. And then he looked up. And not directly at me, but in the general direction of the house, and that was close enough. I fired my arrow, and in a blink, it pierced his left eye. It went in deep.
So deep that only the feathers at the tail end of the arrow were visible at the front of his face. The razor-sharp metal tip had come out the back of his thick, gray-furred neck, and it glinted in the floodlights. After remaining standing for just a split-second, the wolf went down, hitting the ground with a soft thud. After that, he didn't move.
"Take that, you sonofabitch. That was to all you wolves from me, for my parents."
Suddenly, I was crying. Maybe even harder than I ever had in my life, and that was saying a lot. As I'd done earlier, I sank to a crouch, and then to my rear, my shoulders rising and falling with sobs. I tossed my bow to the side.
I sat crying in the dark, with my face in my hands, for I didn't even know how long. My sobs came as a series of deep, shuddering inhalations followed by low keening noises, noises so strange and unfamiliar and sad that my voice didn't even sound like my own voice to my own ears.
I could barely breathe. I couldn't stop sobbing. I wasn't even quite sure why. I'd avenged my parents, without leaving the house and breaking my promise to Grant. I knew I should have been happy. I couldn't understand why my chest ached so badly that I felt like I had to keep a hand on it, clutching it, or else the pain would get even worse. I didn't understand why avenging my parents had made me feel as if my heart had been split in two.
I didn't understand, that is, until right before Grant entered my rooms. It could have been ten minutes; it could have been an hour. I knew I'd been hearing voices down in the yard for a short while, though I wasn't even sure how long. It could been ten seconds or five minutes for all I knew. I seemed to have lost all sense of time.
Calling out my name, Grant flicked on the foyer light, then came tearing out to the living room, where I still sat by the open window, still sobbing. Within a blink, he was crouched beside me, and I was being cradled and rocked in his strong arms.
"Please tell me what happened, Lila. Please tell me you're okay."
With my face wet with tears, I lifted my face from his hard chest. "I killed him. I killed the wolf in the yard. I had my revenge. But it doesn't even matter. My parents are still dead, all of them. They were all still murdered. It doesn't even matter what I did. It didn't bring them back. It didn't make anything better. I don't know why there was a stupid little part of me that thought maybe it would."
I paused to suck in a great lungful of air. "Oh, and by the way, I didn't leave the house. Almost did, but didn't. I want to rebuild your trust in me. Oh, and also by the way, I love you."
I returned my face to his chest, sobbing again, but not so loudly that I didn't hear Grant say he loved me back.
He soon tucked me into bed, got in beside me, and held me, smoothing my hair, while my sobbing tapered off into sniffy crying. Before long, Adrian joined us and put his arms around me, too.
I eventually slept for a short while before waking with a start. "The guards. Are they...are they all dead? Did any of them survive?"
Grant pressed a kiss to my forehead before responding. "They all survived. All in pretty bad shape, though, but they should all eventually recover. Which is more than I can say about the hundred or so wolves we took out over at the warehouse tonight. They won't be bothering us again, and that was the remaining population of Howell, right there."
"Good. But what about our side? Any casualties of our shifters? And how are Mil and
Fiona?"
"Mil and Fiona are just fine. Triumphant, actually. They each took out two wolves. The count is zero shifter casualties on our side. A few serious injuries, but our shifters are strong. Like the guards, they will recover in time. All is well."
I closed my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. "Good."
I'd almost fallen back asleep when Grant spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm so sorry, Lila."
I flicked my eyes open, trying to search his face in the small amount of dim light coming in through the cracked bedroom door from the hallway. "Sorry for what? What are you talking about?"
"That wolf should have never gotten anywhere near the house, and it was my fault that he did. It was my fault I didn't keep you completely, one hundred percent safe. It was a complete error in my foresight of all possibilities. It didn't cross my mind that the Howell wolves might have made friends with some of the wolves further up north."
