by Ellis Marie
“So who’s Professor Richardson?” I ask, trying to take attention away from the eyes that feel like they’re burning holes into me.
Trent’s body relaxes as the chair turns with him, swinging us both around to more papers.
“He’s a long-time pack friend and also a geographical analyst. We’ve asked him to have a look at some of the details we have to see if he can come up with some ideas of base location or how they’re moving about.”
That’s smart.
“Okay,” I sigh, straightening up as I ruffle through the sheets. “Let’s see if I can spot anything.” I might as well give it a shot.
As I begin to flip through pages, I feel Trent’s hands hover over mine. A strained sound leaves his lips as he tries to stop me from digging further.
“Elle, maybe don’t—”
Too late.
I see it peeking out from a corner immediately; the floral pattern of the curtains a dead giveaway to what the picture is.
My heart pounds as I slide it out from under the rest of the papers, my fingers shaking as they pinch the edge of it, like I’m scared it’s going to shatter.
I haven’t been in it in weeks, but I can still close my eyes and smell the scent of hot brewing tea and freshly lit candles. I can still hear the soft jazz music and her laughter echoing through the memories.
“Why do you have this?” I whisper, my heart already plummeting before he speaks.
There’s only one reason that he has this.
Trent is silent. Too silent.
I finally look at him, and I see the pain etched into the lines of his eyes. I can sense the reluctance to explain like it’s my own.
“Trent? Why is there a picture of Mrs. Grenway’s house in your evidence?”
He still doesn’t look at me. Instead, his hands unravel from around my body to beside him. From one of the drawers, he pulls out more papers. This time, he chooses not to hide them from me as he places them down on full display.
Bile rises in my throat as I see her splayed body, my memories of the feeling of her unbreathing figure still fresh in my mind and my own screams echo in my ears.
Past that, I see the photos of the rest of the house, of the smashed-up hallway that I had run through, of her bedroom where I found her.
This is the place that I had opened Christmas presents, that I had played hide and seek in with Obi and helped clean during the summer. It just doesn’t look the same.
There are also photos of rooms that I didn’t go into—ones of the living room that show it in a state of disarray, books ripped off of shelves, and ornaments smashed, then one of her kitchen that shows all the cupboards open, no drawer left unscathed.
Someone had been there before I arrived.
“Why would someone do this?” I choke out, seeing her most prized possessions scattered across the floor of the home I have grown to love so much. “What did they want?”
“We think they were looking for something,” Trent explains carefully, his words lined with caution like he’s waiting for me to break. “They seemed to hit every room, but we’re not sure if they found it or not.”
I can feel myself beginning to spiral. I can taste the metallic drip of anxiety crawling up from my throat, but I have to do this. I can’t just pretend this didn’t happen. I refuse to be a damsel in distress.
“What could she possibly have that they wanted?”
Trent’s eyes flicker to my neck. To the necklace.
Maybe you should ask Trent where he got it.
“Trent,” I say softly, already afraid of his answer. “You got this necklace from Mrs. Grenway, didn’t you?”
He looks even more troubled now, pulling his brows together so tightly that I wonder if he’s getting a headache.
“She gave it to me after we first met. Even then, she knew I was going to make a mistake somewhere down the line and would rely on that necklace to make sure you were okay.”
“That sounds like her,” I whisper with warmth filling my heart. “She was always one step ahead.” I clear my thoughts of the melancholic memories. Instead, I focus back on the issue at hand, the necklace now feeling heavy.
“So they were looking for this?”
If that’s true, if I’ve been holding onto what they wanted this whole time, then . . . did she die for nothing? Should I have been the one lying on the floor instead of her?
“It could have been that.” Trent nods. “But it could also have been any other artefact in her house. She was quite a collector, and I’m pretty sure most of the stuff couldn’t be bought from the grocery store.”
This doesn’t make sense. Why would I be attacked if her house was the real target?
“So what? The bomb was a distraction or something?” I ask, really just speaking my thoughts aloud. “How did they know she was there?”
I freeze. She was always one step ahead and looking out for me.
“Is she dead because of me?”
Trent rips the papers out of my hands as they begin to crumple in my grip, my breaths laboured as I struggle to hold on to the rational part of me. He moves my gaze, his warm eyes soothing my frets as he holds me to him, helping me to calm.
Through my mumbles and tears, he continues, waiting for my ears to stop ringing and for me to actually listen to him. Eventually, I do.
“Whoever did this knew that Maggie had a protection spell on you,” he explains softly, twisting his fingers around my hair. “Whether the goal was to hurt you, to hurt me, or to hurt her, we don’t know. Originally, we thought she might just be a casualty but when we saw how her house was ransacked . . . we just don’t know, Elle.”
Was the bomb planted in order to get rid of Mrs. Grenway? Or was it to stop me having protection? Or was Trent the target the entire time and someone was trying to hurt him through others?
If Mrs. Grenway hadn’t saved my life, would she still have had the protections around her house? Would she have been able to fight them off?
Is someone trying to kill everyone that I love?
“Andy said that someone was coming . . . for everyone. Does that mean that people we care about are in danger?” I rush out, going at a mile a minute while trying to keep up with my thoughts.
A cold chill slips down my spine. I spin around to Trent, clutching his top before he can produce words.
“Oh my god! Trent, what about Kristie? She’s totally unprotected. What if—”
“Cole’s already gone to get her,” Trent assures me, one hand wrapping around my own while the other curves around my neck, caressing my cheek with his thumb. “I promise, I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Thank god.
“What about Cam?” I ask, a ball of dread ever turning in my gut. “Has anyone seen him? If Matt really is involved, then he’s the person he’s going to go for if he realises that he’s a wolf.”
“I know,” Trent urges, still trying to calm me. “I’ve already got the boys out looking for him. As soon as he shows up, you’ll know.”
I don’t miss the way he says it with zero hesitance and with an assurance that can only come with confidence in his team. Whether it’s real or he’s putting it on for my benefit, I’m not quite sure, but for the sake of my mind, I let myself believe it. I believe him.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders. He nestles his head into the crook of my neck. Our chests press against each other, his heartbeat rhythmically syncing with my own. He whispers unknown words into my collarbone, his breath like a fan softly blowing away the embers on my skin.
Listening to him calms me; it provides a solid baseline for the whirlwind of pain and panic that I feel constantly. It works immediately and I feel like a child clinging to their parent.
Parent.
I pull away from Trent slowly, the realisation breaking through the cracks in my memory while its fingers grip onto the forgotten shards nestled in the back. Trent looks at me in concern as I stare down at him, the rusted cogs in my mind beginning to click as more becom
es clear.
“You said they’ve been recruited?” I whisper. He nods in confirmation.
“We don’t know who by, though we—”
“I might,” I interrupt, not believing that my own mind could possibly have put this together.
It can’t be true, can it?
Trent’s own eyes widen in shock, and he sits up in his chair when he notices my dark expression, his forehead crinkled.
“The day that my father attacked me, when Cam was a wolf and saved me.” Trent’s nostrils flare. “When he saw Cam, it wasn’t as if he was confused or shocked by his appearance . . . it was just as if he was scared.”
Trent’s on high alert now. My heart begins to race, tingles that sweep up my spine let me know that I’m on the right track—something inside me assures me that I’m correct. Like an itch that I’ve only just began to scratch.
“Elle, you don’t think—”
“I do,” I state, my voice breaking. “He goes away for days on end, he disappears for weeks. He and Matt have these conversations that I was never allowed to hear. I always wondered how they got so close, how he had such an influence on him.”
I can see his face. The mask of venom and hatred appearing as though he’s standing right in front of me. His threatening words whispered through my closed bedroom door or spat in my face.
No . . . it can’t be.
“When he saw Cam,” I gasp, jumping out of his lap. “He knew, he knew what Cam was. He said, ‘It can’t be’, like he thought I’d never be protected by one. He knows about werewolves. He has to. Trent if he knows Cam is one—”
“Okay, okay.” Trent follows me, stopping my rising voice and flailing arms. “Just breathe, alright. I’ll get the boys to go out and look, but I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to get a map and point to any place you remember from your childhood that has some significance. I don’t care if it was a month ago or ten years. Anything.”
“But why?”
“If your father is the one recruiting them, then there’s a chance that he created the meeting place.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It could help us find it.”
He takes my hands in his. His face is no longer stressed or overthinking. Instead, he’s calm and concerned, picking every detail of my features as he kisses my palm.
“Elle, if you’re right, then I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. I need you to be prepared for that.”
Can my father seriously be the one turning teenagers into hunters? Could he honestly be out there murdering people in broad daylight just because they’re different from him? Would I be able to stand aside if it’s true and he’s punished? Could I watch my father die if it meant saving the people I love?
Yes.
“Get me a map.”
***
“Knock, knock.”
I look up from the stressed scribbles in front of me and release a breath of relief when I see Cole’s smiling face sticking in the gap in the doorframe.
“Hi, Cole,” I greet warmly, the exhaustion slipping into my voice as I relax into the chair again.
“How’s the mapping going?”
“Exhausting.” I laugh lightly and rub my eyes. “Please tell me Kristie is alright.”
With a nod of confirmation, he happily slides into the room and the door shuts behind him. Before I know it, he’s beside me, gently curling his arm around my shoulders.
“She’s totally fine. A little confused at my demands of her staying here and she has already gone to bed because she apparently has a club early in the morning before school.” He chuckles. “But she’s completely safe.”
My head knocks into his stomach, and I feel my worry ebb away. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if she got hurt because of me. She isn’t a part of this world, and I can’t drag her into it. She’s gone through enough.
“Thank you for finding her,” I mumble as he presses a kiss into my hair.
“It’s alright,” he assures. “You’re not the only one who wants her safe.”
I catch the slight tone to his voice, the edge of something glittering in the words he hasn’t spoken. I pull away from him and raise a brow, the soft smirk on my lips not being able to be hidden. He avoids my eyes, clearing his throat as he turns away and grabs the spare chair from the side of the room, dragging it over with a light whistle.
“Cole?” I press, refusing to stop staring at him even when he sits beside me and peers over me, pretending to be interested in my map. “Are you going to explain what that was?”
After a few seconds of silence, his eyes flick over to me. He sighs, his resolve dwindling in a blink. I can’t help but giggle at how easily he caves under me sometimes.
“Nothing,” he states, his voice rising an octave. “I just care about her too, that’s all. She’s a nice girl.”
“A nice girl?”
He rolls his eyes, shoving an elbow into my side gently. “You know what I mean.”
Does Cole have a bit of a crush?
“Okay,” I muse innocently. “And does she know that you think of her with such . . . high regard?”
Cole scoffs at my choice of words and nudges me again, only causing me to turn and face him more; my eagerness obvious. I feel like a kid being told a secret. My enthusiasm only makes him chuckle.
When I see the light blush on his cheeks, I gasp and clap my hands. The bad things in the world disappear for a moment as I see that someone has been falling for my best friend.
“You have to tell her!” I squeal, latching onto his arm and ready to start planning their wedding. “Oh my god! That would be so cute, and we could double date and—”
“Wow, slow down,” he interrupts, picking my hands off his arm. “It’s not that simple.”
Disappointment floods me.
“What do you mean it’s not that simple? You like her?”
“So what?” he asks. “I’m meant to reveal that I’m a werewolf? I’m meant to bring her into this life when I don’t even know what dangers are after us right now? I couldn’t do that to her.”
Are all werewolf men so overprotective of their loved ones or have I just found the best pack in the world with the biggest hearts?
“Okay, well, maybe not right now,” I say, my excitement still not crushed. I just have to get him to see it. “But when this is all over, you never know? It’s not as if she doesn’t find you attractive because she definitely does.”
“It’s not just that, Elle,” he sighs, a sadness in his words as he shakes his head, pulling away from me. “I’ll just end up hurting her.”
These stupid over caring boys.
“How do you know that?” I try. “You can’t be so negative. We will all get through this, and when we do—”
“Elle.”
Cole’s voice is filled with something that I don’t recognise, but it crushes my happiness in a second, my hands tingling at the expression in his eyes. The swirling desire that’s being held back by something bigger—something painful.
“She’s not my mate.”
It’s like a cold bucket of water is poured over me. I finally understand the look in his eyes. It’s regret. It’s the pain of knowing that he can’t because she doesn’t know the truth, because someone else might come along in the future that’s better suited for him. That’s made for him.
“But you haven’t met your mate?”
Cole shakes his head. He’s no longer the strong second-in-command that I have grown to love; he’s now just a vulnerable eighteen-year-old boy with a painful love and longing in his green gaze.
“I might never meet her,” he mumbles with a shrug. “That’s the gamble you take, whether you wait around for your mate or you settle. I’ve always thought I’d just wait for my mate, but if I never find her, what then?”
My heart breaks for the boy in front of me whose heart is so big, yet he thinks he might not be worthy of being gifted someone who loves him just a
s much.
“You’ll find her,” I state, trying to put the same confidence in my voice that Trent had done for me earlier. “There’s no one that deserves it more—you or Kristie. And if you two aren’t meant for each other, then I know you’ll find amazing people anyway.”
I’ve never really thought about that struggle. I suppose humans always talk about soulmates and how some people believe you have one while others think you can have many. Some even believe that they don’t exist and love only lasts with work, that relationships are more than destiny or intertwining fates.
Did I not believe that until I met Trent?
If I knew that soulmates were real, but there was a chance that I could never meet mine, would I hold onto that hope and wait for years and years until I found it? If I ever found it? Or would I choose the human way? Would I find someone myself that makes me happy? Someone that isn’t my perfect pairing, but is perfect for me? Would I always wonder who my mate really is, or would I be content with what I had found?
I’m so incredibly lucky to have found Trent.
“Okay, enough of this mush,” Cole coughs, sliding himself closer to the desk as he flattens out the map I’ve been working on for at least a couple hours. “What have you got?”
I groan in response.
“That bad?”
“It’s not as if I spent a lot of my childhood with him,” I explain. “I don’t even know where he went on the days he left, I just enjoyed the peace and quiet.” Moaning, I drop my head to the table. The hard thud of it only making Cole chuckle again. He gently pats the back of it as he sighs.
“We’ll figure it out. We’re the dream team after all.”
His words make me smile. I sit up, grateful for his comedic jokes and a gentle helping hand whenever I need it.
“That’s true. Although the last time we were the dream team, you did end up in a coma, so I’m not really sure . . . Cole?”
I expect his face to be filled with amusement and focusing on the task at hand. Instead, his gaze is glassy, his eyes unfocused on some spot on the wall in front of us. He grits his jaw and clenches his fist.
