Chapter 16 - Franco
Even with the threat of our rival pack and the anticipation of each new bloodlust, life in the pack was on an upward swing. Sienna had become an instrumental member of my council. Each day, I was pleasantly surprised by how kind, thoughtful, and wise she was in her position of leadership. She had taken her place in the pack quite well, and I felt it was time to make things up to her. After all, she hadn’t joined me here by choice.
Evening had fallen by the time all my tasks had been completed for the day, and I found Sienna rifling through her stockpile of herbs at the table in our cabin.
“You busy?” I asked her.
“I don’t have to be,” she said. “I was thinking of going out to scavenge herbs, but there’s no rush.”
“Will you come into town with me?”
“What are we going to do?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“I thought it was time I took you out,” I replied. “You’ve been doing so much for everyone else. I want to do something for you.”
We walked into town, enjoying the quiet between us. It was true that Sienna deserved much more than a night out for everything she continued doing for me and the pack, but I couldn’t deny my ulterior motive for asking her out.
The truth was that I wanted to spend more time with her. Every conversation we had seemed to deepen our bond and bring us closer together. Despite her unfortunate lineage, I found myself more drawn to her than ever. I could almost forget that her father was the one who had cursed us in the first place while we got to know each other.
We arrived at the bar we had gone to before and discovered it was karaoke night.
“Do you sing?” Sienna asked.
“Not at all,” I admitted. “Do you?”
“Only when no one is listening or if I’m drinking,” she laughed.
“Good thing we’re in a bar, then, eh?”
I ordered us a round of drinks, and we settled into a tiny table in the corner to listen to the locals take turns at the microphone. As time passed, the patrons became increasingly inebriated, singing with much more gusto.
“Woohoo!” I cheered as a middle-aged woman finished her rendition of a popular country song. It hadn’t been sung technically well, but the woman’s stage presence had more than made up for her lack of tune.
“You sure you don’t want to take a turn?” Sienna asked me as she shoved my shoulder playfully.
“Nah, I don’t want to clear the bar out,” I laughed. “You can always go up, though.”
“Oh, no. I don’t need to give you any other reasons to tease me,” she replied.
“I’m the last person who should make fun of someone else. Not after everything I’ve done,” I said seriously.
She put her hand on top of mine gently, the mood between us now more somber than before.
“It wasn’t you,” she told me earnestly. “It was the curse.”
“Maybe now,” I agreed. “But I wasn’t always under the influence of magic.”
“True, but you told me a little bit about your childhood before. That can’t have been an easy way to grow up. I’m sure it played a role in how you behaved.”
“I can still be faulted for my behavior, even if there was a good reason behind it. Growing up without a parental figure to teach me right from wrong doesn’t mean I get a free pass on being an asshole. But I understand what you’re saying.”
“The fact that you can recognize that means you aren’t a bad person,” Sienna said. “Bad people don’t feel guilt for the things they’ve done.”
Her point was a good one, and one that I hadn’t considered before. I supposed it was true. After all, if I were truly evil, I would glory in the wrongs I had committed against people. Instead, I found myself feeling regret for the hurt I had caused.
“My biggest regret is my relationship with Killian,” I admitted. I winced, thinking of all the ways I had thrown up barriers between my brother and me over the years. “If I could go back and change one thing, it would be that.”
“It’s not too late,” Sienna pointed out.
I nodded. “As soon as the curse is lifted, I’m going to make amends with him. Until then, I don’t want to risk making the divide between us any worse than it already is.”
“I can understand that,” Sienna agreed. “Family can be complicated.”
“Yours doesn’t seem to be,” I told her.
She laughed. “It’s not funny, really. I just forget that from the outside, we look like one big happy family. The reality is much different.”
“How so?” I asked.
“I grew up having a good relationship with my parents and my siblings,” she began. “But after my mother died, everything changed. My father was lost and broken, and he began neglecting my siblings and me. My older brothers were already out of the house, so they weren’t affected by it as much. And I tried my best to make sure my little sisters didn’t feel his absence. But I was barely eighteen. There wasn’t a lot I could do to help them—or Dad.”
“Did he ever come back around and take care of your siblings?”
“When I left home, he didn’t have much of a choice,” Sienna said, allowing bitterness to creep into her voice. “But it will never be the same between us. I cut him out of my life when I moved out. He forgot that we were all grieving for Mom, too, and made us do it without him. I don’t think I can ever truly forgive him for that.”
“Even if he apologizes and takes accountability for what happened?”
Sienna and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to betrayal by family. I wanted to believe that Killian might forgive me someday, but hearing that Sienna might not be capable of forgiving her own father made me wonder if my dreams were out of reach.
She seemed to pick up on the undertone of my question and stroked my hand again.
“If I thought he truly meant it and wanted to make things right, I would forgive him,” she said.
We sat silently for a few more minutes as we finished our drinks, but I was ready to get out of the public eye and spend some time alone with Sienna. I paid our tab, and we left the bar.
“Hold on,” I told her.
“Aren’t we going back home?” she asked.
“Let’s go for a walk first,” I suggested, trying to ignore that she had called our cabin “home.” “If it’s alright with you, I’d like you to meet my wolf.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Blizzard,” I said. “You’ll see why.”
We walked out into the forest, and as soon as we were far enough away from town, I shifted.
“Oh,” Sienna said as her eyes widened. “It’s nice to meet you, Blizzard. I see why you chose that name. You’re beautiful, light, and intense like a winter storm.”
She reached out to stroke his light blond fur as she looked into his eyes, which mirrored my own in color. Blizzard nuzzled into her caress and then nipped playfully at her side.
“Do you want to play?” she laughed. “Come on then, try to catch me.”
She turned on her heel and ran away into the trees, tossing her vibrant red hair over her shoulder as she did. Blizzard’s tail wagged in excitement at the chase, and he launched himself after her.
Both of us knew that Blizzard could catch her in an instant if he wanted to, but running was part of the fun. Sienna hid behind a tree until my wolf came around the corner, only to laugh and run off in another direction.
“You’re getting closer!” she shouted in a singsong voice as he nearly caught her.
They continued their cat-and-mouse chase for a while, enjoying the playfulness of their exercise. Finally, Blizzard had enough of the separation between them and launched himself at her. His paws wrapped around her, cushioning her body from the fall, as he rolled her in the grass.
She was still laughing as we tussled until one of Blizzard’s claws scratched her side.
“Oof!” she exclaimed, reaching a hand down to check the injury.
I shifted immediately, horrified by what had happened, and put my hands up in the air in a motion of surrender.
“Sienna! I’m so sorry, that shouldn’t have happened,” I said frantically.
I remained facing her but took big steps away. There was no way she would want me to be anywhere near her now. We had just ruined everything between us.