"Wolfie?" she asked as I stayed quiet.
I cleared my throat as I sat down on the bed. I stared ahead of me at the window and gathered my thoughts. "They attacked the pack after everyone shifted back," I said. "Anica ran back, but she collapsed before she reached the house. Riley and I heard her calling for help before she got here and went out to find her. She's injured and Rusalki took her to the clinic."
Ceres stared at me with wide eyes.
My heart pounded in my throat and I did my best to swallow it back down. "Is he alive?" I whispered.
The pain in her eyes broke my heart and made me fear for the worst. "I don't know," she whispered. It wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, and she knew it. I wanted her to tell me that he was fine and would come through the front door to bark orders at any moment… but she couldn't. She didn't know. For once, she didn't have the answers.
"I've got to go," I muttered before I stood up and grabbed my jacket from the hook on the door. Ceres followed me as I walked out of the bedroom and into the foyer, where the others waited. Someone grabbed Luke. With him, there were ten other men waiting to go. I cleared my throat and looked at their faces. "Be on your guard," I said. "We'll focus on finding survivors first. After we have them taken care of, we'll gather the dead and take them for cremation."
They nodded with grim looks on their faces. I turned and gave Ceres a kiss before I led them out of the house. I looked back once before I walked through the door and saw her standing with the twins. The three of them wore worried looks on their faces. Ceres put her hand over her heart, and I mimicked her before I stepped over the threshold.
Chapter 2 ~Ceres~
I watched Wolfgang and the others leave with a sense of dread. My heart raced as I heard the engines start up and pull out of the drive. I rushed to the front door and opened it to watch them leave. I wanted to call Wolfgang back, but I knew that his place was out there, with them, helping the pack. For me to call him back would be a disservice to him and the rest of the pack. They needed him more than I did right now, and I had to force myself to remember that.
"Come on," Selena said, dragging my attention away from the door. I looked at her and then at the floor. Large drops of blood littered the ground. I saw the blood on Wolfgang's body, but I hadn't paid attention to the floor. The three of us followed the trail into the dining room. The smell alone told us how terrible things were. Lycan blood was sweet and coppery. The scent was thick in the air. I looked at the dining table and saw a puddle of it on the polished surface.
I shook my head. "I'll get the rags," I said.
"I'll get the bleach," Sophia added.
"That leaves me with the bucket," Selena sighed.
We turned around and left the dining room to get what we needed so that we could clean up the mess. As I walked up the stairs to the linen closet, I saw Wolfgang's mother, Ravyn, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, looking out at me. Her face was tense and her lips thin with worry. Her eyes were wolf amber. Her black hair was messy from tossing in bed most of the night. I knew that she had Mira in there with her, but I didn't know if she slept at all. I hesitated on the last step of the staircase because I knew that she wanted to ask, and I didn't know how to respond.
"You know what happened," she said. It wasn't a question; it was a statement. She knew about my ability to know things. This wasn't the first time she'd seen it in action.
"I know what Wolfie told me," I replied with a slight shrug. I shook my head. "I don't know much of anything right now."
"And that is?" she asked.
I wrung my hands together as I finished climbing the stairs. I even chewed my lip a little, but I didn't want to wait too long to give her an answer. "Anica came back," I explained. "She told Wolfie that the coven attacked the pack." Ravyn's eyes widened. "He took a few people to gather survivors and bring them home…. Or to the clinic if they need to go there instead."
Ravyn took a moment to compose herself before she spoke. She gave me a hard look. "You know as well as I do that they're all going to the clinic," she said. "What are you doing?"
I cleared my throat and glanced at the linen closet. "They took Anica to the dining room," I explained. "She bled all over the table and the floor. The twins and I are going to clean it up."
Ravyn nodded and looked down the steps toward the front door. "Use the towels on the bottom shelf," she said. "They're the ones we use for blood and things like that. When you're finished, get them into the wash right away so that the stain doesn't set in. Once you're done with the bleach, use vinegar. It'll pick up anything the bleach doesn't.
Ravyn fell silent and I could hear the question before she asked it. "I don't know if he's alive," I told her.
"I do," she replied. She looked back at me. "What I don't know is how bad his injuries are. He's weak…." she whispered. "If they don't find him soon, he will die."
I stared at her in shock. "How are you so calm?" I whispered.
Ravyn let out a shaky breath, letting me see the weakness for just a moment. "I'm not as calm as I look," she said. I saw the tears glisten in her eyes and the way her hand shook when she brushed it through her hair. "Leon ordered me to stay here," she whispered. She closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed. "While he cannot force me to do anything, as I am his mate, I respect him enough to abide his wishes. One of us must stay here with Mira. If that is me, so be it. I will stay."
I shook my head as I grabbed some of the tattered towels from the bottom of the linen closet. "It's not Mira you're staying behind for," I said. "It's so that he doesn't die if you do." She nodded at me, confirming my assumption. If she died out there, Leon would die. If she stayed here under the guise of staying with their daughter, a girl who spent every other full moon with the other children and didn't need her mother to supervise her during this one, she wouldn't risk being killed in the event of an attack. This exact attack. "You're a strong woman for doing it," I said.
She let out a bitter chuckle and looked down at the door again. "Strong is a far cry from what I am right now," she confessed. I had a feeling that the only reason she told me this was because we both knew that I would be in her shoes someday. "As Skaapie, I don't have a choice." Her eyes fell on me. "You don't have one either," she continued. "If you want to break down, you can't. If you want to get scared, you can't. You absolutely must project strength and calmness in everything you do. You will take my place someday, Ceres. Learn how to do it all now, because when we're gone, it will be too late."
I nodded. "I'll keep that in mind," I said before I shut the door to the closet. I held up the towels for Ravyn's approval. She nodded before I made my way back downstairs. The twins were already in the dining room, waiting for me. When I entered, they gave me curious looks. I shook my head and they let the question drop before they voiced it. We started cleaning the table and then moved to the floor. As we worked, I couldn't help but wonder what Wolfgang and the others were up against at the Resting Grounds. I couldn't shake the feeling that the Witches weren't done with us for the night.
When we finished cleaning, I took the rags out into the garage and tossed them into the washer. I needed to find things to do to keep me from freaking out about what Wolfgang was doing out there.
Before I could go back inside, Sophia poked her head through the door. "I've got to go to the clinic," she informed me. "Dr. Cyrus just called me in. Anica's injuries are really bad."
I sighed. "I don’t want you to travel alone," I said. "Lena and I will take you there and then come back. No one should travel by themselves right now."
Sophia bit her lip, hesitating before she nodded. At that moment, I realized that she was hiding something from me. "Okay," she said.
"I'll text Wolfgang and let him know," I said.
Sophia nodded before she stepped back inside the house. I followed her because my phone was on its charger. I sent a quick text to my mate before I grabbed my jacket. I went upstairs again and knocked on Ravyn's door. I heard her soft voice tell
me that it was open before I turned the nob.
I pushed the door and looked inside. Ravyn lay on her bed with Mira curled up with her. "I'm borrowing your car for a bit," I said. She gave me a surprised look. "Dr. Cyrus called Sophia in because of how severe Anica's injuries are. She needs an extra pair of hands and, at this point, none of us should travel alone. I'm going to take her to the clinic, and I'll take Lena with us so that I'm not alone on the drive back."
"That's a good plan," Ravyn replied. "You know where the keys are."
I nodded before I ducked back out of her room. I fetched the keys from their hook and met the twins at the door. As I led the way to Ravyn's car, I decided again that I needed to get one of my own. I didn't like borrowing hers all the time.
Sophia took the shotgun seat and Selena slipped into the back. I could feel the tension between them tightening the area between my shoulder blades. Something was up. Wrong. The twins were keeping a secret from me and I didn't like it.
I was careful as I maneuvered through the streets in the storm to the clinic. On a good day, the trip could take almost fifteen minutes from the house. On a night like this, it was closer to thirty. I watched the clock as I drove. If they sped, Wolfgang and the others would just now reach the Resting Grounds. Given the weather, I couldn't imagine them speeding. Given the danger, I couldn't see them not.
The twins didn't talk as I drove. I didn't force them to. When we reached the clinic, Sophia got out of the car and rushed through the sleet into the double doors of the clinic. The building used to be a warehouse, but the pack converted it into a medical facility when they acquired it. There were four doctors in the pack now that Sophia was here. On a technicality, Selena was the fifth doctor, but she was a veterinarian, not a medical practitioner. She could treat us, but it wouldn't be the same.
Sophia fit in with the pack in an almost seamless way. She found Luke, Wolfgang's best friend, and the two of them realized that they were mates in an instant. Selena had the same reaction with Riley, but her personality made it a little more difficult for her to fit in.
I looked at the redhead in question through the rearview mirror. "Are you coming up front?" I asked.
She didn't say anything as she got out of the car and slipped into the front seat. She shivered as she settled in and put her seatbelt on. I put the car in gear and drove away from the clinic. As we came to a stop at a red light, I looked over at her. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, or do I have to guess?" I asked.
She swallowed and looked away from me, through the passenger window. The silence in the air was thick. I sighed and shook my head before the light changed and I started driving again. I let it grow between us and clenched my jaw to keep from snapping at her. As we pulled into the driveway, I switched on the dome light and turned in my seat to look at her. "Tell me what's going on," I said. "You've never kept secrets from me before. This isn't like you."
I saw the tears glisten in her eyes and smelled the guilt in the air. I almost wanted to roll down a window to let some fresh air in, but that wouldn't blow away the scent. She hated herself for something, and instinct told me that it was the same something she didn't want to tell me.
After a moment, she pulled the collar of her jacket away, revealing a neat, healing bite on the left side of her neck. My heart skipped a beat and my breaths became shallow. "When?" I asked, my voice breaking with a thousand emotions I couldn't name.
"Couple days ago," she whispered. "We didn't plan on doing it. It was kind of an accident. Instinct took over…."
Tears burned at my eyes and Ravyn's words came back to haunt me. If you want to break down, you can't. If you want to get scared, you can't. You must project strength and calmness in everything that you do.
I took in a deep breath to steady myself and let it out as I counted to ten. My hand reached for the door handle.
"I didn't know how to tell you," Selena whispered. I didn't want to hurt you."
I couldn't look at her, so I stared ahead at the back wall of the garage. "It's fine," I whispered before I opened the car door and got out. Before I could reach the house, she got out of the car.
"No, it's not," she said as she caught my arm. She turned me around to face her and I prayed that my tears wouldn't fall yet. "Look, I know how hard this is on you. It hasn't even been a month since you lost the baby—"
"I didn't lose my baby!" I snarled at her. "They took my baby!"
Selena's eyes filled with tears and I wanted to hate her. I shook my head. "Don't you dare cry right now," I said with a shaking voice. "You don’t get to cry right now."
"I didn't mean it like that," she said with a tight voice. Tears spilled from her eyes and she stared at me. "I just meant…." She sighed as she brushed the tears away. "Sorry," she whispered. "I know that it hasn’t been very long since it happened, and I know that you aren't over the loss—I don't think anyone gets over something like that. You went through something very traumatic and I get that. I didn't want to hurt you," she said, her eyes begging me to believe her. "Riley and I talked about waiting until after you and Wolfgang got pregnant again before we mated. As I said, we didn't plan this. We were in the middle of going at it and then it was like our wolves just took over and we didn't even think about it. Afterward, we knew we shouldn't have, but it was too late. We mated, which means that we're pregnant, and I can't tell you how sorry I am that it hurts you. That I hurt you."
I shrugged my shoulders and licked my lips, my mouth dry. It took me a moment before I could speak. Even then, I still didn't trust my voice. A tear betrayed me and fell from my eyes as I looked at her. "It's fine," I whispered again. My voice shook and she knew that it wasn’t. I hung Ravyn's keys on the hook by the door and rushed back to our room. I sat down on the bed and curled up with a pillow. Before I knew it, I was bawling, and I couldn't stop the tears.
When I calmed down enough to function, I called my mother. It was probably close to noon in Scotland, so I had the feeling that she would be awake. Since I knew the truth about us now, she didn't have to dodge my phone calls. Of course, after what happened last time, she promised never to do that again.
Mom answered on the third ring and I heard my baby brother crying in the background. "Hi, Sweetie," she said, sounding rushed and busy. "What's up?"
"Please tell me that you have a few minutes to talk," I said, tears still thickening my voice.
I could almost feel her alarm a world away. "Give me a second," she said. I heard the rustle of fabric against the mouthpiece of her cell and her muffled voice speak to someone else. A few seconds later, she was back, and the sound of my brother was more distant. "What's the matter, Honey?" she asked.
The words gushed out of me and I told her everything that we knew at this point from Brenda's threat to Anica's injuries and her announcement that the coven had attacked just after the change back into human form. I told her that I knew almost everyone was dead. I told her that the injuries were severe enough that every doctor in this pack was called in.
Then I told her about Selena and Riley, and I started to cry all over again.
It took her several minutes to calm me down. "Take a deep breath," she said. She repeated the words more than a few times until my tears ceased and I was calm enough for her to talk to me. "Now, let's work things out in an order that you can do something about them in. First thing's first; let's put the things you can't do anything for out of mind, okay?"
"Okay," I replied.
"First is Riley and Selena. What's done is done and there's no changing that, so don't worry about it. I know you're upset, and we'll deal with that later, but for now, just set it aside."
"Yeah…"
"Next is the attack. The Witches are gone by now, no doubt about it. You can't do anything about the people who were hurt. Sophia and the others are working hard on that. Wolfgang the people with him are doing their best to save the ones who are hurt. Put it on the back burner."
I took in a deep breath. "Sure," I sighed.
>
"Now, something you can change. While you can't do anything about the fact that Riley and Selena mated, you can change the way you feel about that. I know you want to hate them. I know you're jealous. But, Ceres, that's not going to help you, Wolfgang, or the rest of your pack. These are two of your most trusted people, so you're going to have to let this go. Can you work on that?"
"I can try," I muttered.
"There is no try," Mom reminded me. "You either let it go, or you don't."
I nodded. "I'll work on it," I promised.
"Good. The last thing we need to look at is the loss of life your pack has suffered. We have a few families here who would like to relocate to the States. There is even a sister pack nearby with others I know are looking to relocate; all for various reasons. I'll talk with Derek and see what we can do regarding their relocation, even if only temporarily until the coven is dealt with."
"I can talk to Wolfie about it when I have a chance. When Leon's better, we can talk to him about it too."
"Sounds good," Mom said. "Let me know what you decide. Now, do you feel better?"
I nodded. "A little," I said.
"I love you, Ceres."
I smiled. "I love you too, Mom."
Chapter 3 ~Wolfgang~
My truck bounced back and forth as I drove through the trees. The other vehicles lined up behind me, a few feet back in case I needed to come to a sudden stop. The sleet obscured my ability to see much more than a few feet beyond the hood of the truck.
Luke and Riley sat in the cab with me. Luke sat between us, so the tension between Riley and I could take a back seat while we focused on the crisis at hand. By the way Luke glanced between us, I knew he could sense that something was up.
Vanilla Moon: Acrimony Page 2
