Chapter 6
DION
“Fate?” I snapped. “Your name?”
The woman knelt before me, saying nothing. She’d initiated the mating call, drawing my heart out, my wolf… until I realized it could be a trap!
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was luminescent. She was the image of complete beauty. I would die without her. And I didn’t know who she was.
And in her commoner’s clothes, something off the back of a wagon, she could’ve been a spy from Lassig! I didn’t even know if she was a werewolf. Would the Siren Singer be able to inform Lady Skol so quickly? Could they send someone so quickly?
But she’d initiated the call?
My heart remained guarded.
She stuttered but said nothing. She looked like she was trying to sink into the dirt.
“Who are you?” I repeated.
She blushed, covering her face with her hands then rose and ran. Joining another woman on the edge of the square, before disappearing.
The silence after she left was thick. Every man was still staring at me, and I was all too aware of what I’d done.
I’d shown myself for who I truly was.
Roman stared at me with a face of confusion. He was thinking. Then he looked away, nodded to himself about something, and ran off.
The silence deepened again; the men still rigid. Every other pack waited for the other to make a move. But none did. I was heavily outnumbered and outmanned.
But no man moved at all.
The Siren Singer’s screech sounded again. A hideous thing cutting through the air and into our brains, like prickles being dragged across flesh.
Then the silence was gone. The Sleep Singer was whimpering and nearly everyone was awake.
Everyone began moving at once, fleeing to leave the square and find cover. If the Siren Singer saw a trace of a shifter, it would stay and immobilize all of us. But if it saw nothing, we’d have a higher chance of it leaving.
I ran for the Firepaws that had kidnapped the poor Sleep Singer girl. A young woman that had been taken from her family in the desert. When I grabbed the hand of the man dragging her by her ankle, he turned white and let go.
He almost jumped out of his skin getting away from me.
“Trust me, okay?” I said to the young girl, kneeling down and throwing her over my shoulder.
We had to find cover.
I made my way through the throngs of people rushing for cover. Men from the visiting packs gathered at the wagons and climbed inside, sealing themselves in. So that was how they’d come.
I took a side alley and emerged at a crossroads, I looked towards Lassig. I could see the creature making its way from the wall through the air, its membranous wings glistening a sickly color in the sun. It was an enormous distance for a Singer to have sensed a wolf…
I shuddered at the thought of them and continued on. I came to the back passage that connected to Nicholas’s inn and slipped into the stables, closing the door behind me.
I set the girl down and looked around. There were other men and women hiding here, a few horses and stableboys, but mostly it was dark.
“Psst.”
I looked up, Roman was up in the loft. He motioned to join him. I bade the girl to follow, and we climbed up. The loft was empty of feed for the horses, a commodity still hard for Nicholas to buy it seemed.
But Roman wasn’t alone. Two girls were with him.
The girl I’d just rejected, and her friend.
An intake of breath caught in my throat, and I ignored the longing in my heart that spewed forth.
“Well, that was certainly one way to do it,” Roman said, coming over and grabbing my shoulder. “But thank you. I never expected a sleep singer.” We turned to the young girl, and she blushed. “Powerful, for one so young.”
“I didn’t want to,” she mumbled in her own language. “They threatened my father.”
“I’ve no doubt,” Roman said back, in her same language. He took her hand for comfort. “Do not worry.”
Roman sighed, turned back to the original women watching us. My heart still yearned for her, it called fate constantly, but I didn’t know her. Had she been planted to reveal me? Had that been another facet to a plan that was being woven around us, a noose tightening at the Whiteclaw necks?
“I have our way out,” Roman said.
“What do you mean?” I said. “We’re waiting for the siren singer to come, let alone go.”
“Of course,” Roman said. “But after that. With all that’s happened just now,” he paused, a small smile.
“We do need to leave. You’ve created a mess that I don’t think we’ll want to be here for.
Lucky for your father every pack leader was with him.
And you weren’t in any pack colors. But who are you, will be the big question? ” He shook his head in awe.
I felt incredibly self-conscious in front of the girl. Suddenly it seemed idiotic to be talking about who I was and my prophecy.
“So,” he said, turning to her and her friend. “Why do you want to head to Jebra?”
My eyes bulged and I snapped towards the pair. Even the singer girl’s eyes bulged.
“I–” but she went silent looking at me. “I need to go,” she said quietly.
Roman stared at her, then squatted down on his haunches. “People need to go to the market, they need to see sick relatives, they don’t need to go to Jebra.”
“Well, I’m not people,” she replied.
Roman nodded. Satisfied. Something clicking in his mind he wasn’t telling me of. “What’s payment then?”
“We can’t seriously consider this?” I asked.
My heart yelled for me to stop. My wolf howled in anger, wanting to do nothing less than be with her.
My embarrassment turned red, and I made out I was angry.
I’d just rejected this girl publicly, and now I was to travel with her? “Jebra is a legend anyway,” I said.
“No. It isn’t,” Roman replied. He turned back to the girl. “What is payment?”
“Payment?”
“You wouldn’t expect us to chase the wind for free, would you?” I was trying to cover my smitten feelings with anger now. Why was I pushing this girl away that I wished to be near?
“Well–I didn’t–I don’t have–”
“We can pay with this,” her friend said. She took a small bag of money from her pocket, and the two earrings from her ears.
“That is Lassigian money,” Roman said, gently pushing the purse back towards them. “And while sentimental, these earrings are worthless.”
The girls were crushed, a look passed between them of fear.
“But I will take you regardless,” Roman said.
“What?” the girls, and I, said together.
A loud screech sounded above. Everyone flinched and ducked, all but Roman and I.
The Siren Singer flew quickly, its great shadow passing over the stable darkened the already lowly lit building.
Murmurs of awe came from below, saying exactly what was on my mind too.
If the singer’s shadow was that big, how big would the creature be?
But Roman still sat as he was, looking at me with a stern face imploring me to see something that I was blind to. But he was blind too. I was trying to avoid this girl, and yet he was insisting she be near me. Hadn’t he seen the rejection?
“We will take you there. But it is a long and difficult journey. We’ll need supplies and–”
“What about her?” I asked, pointing out the Sleep Singer. She looked mortified at having the spotlight on her. “We must return her to the village she was taken from.”
“Where are you from?” he asked her.
“Kadarr,” she replied.
He nodded at her. “No issue, I was planning on buying supplies there,” he said to me.
A second screech sounded, and the shadow returned. It circled over the inn, slowing its flight and continuing to circle.
“I believe it senses you,” Roman whispered.
“Quick, down into Nicholas’s cellar.” He motioned for the girls to stay, and we descended the ladder from the loft.
Crossing the stable quickly and passing through into the building, I hoped that it would be the last time to see the woman I rejected yet yearned for.
For my heart’s own sake, as much as hers.
But it wasn’t to be. I hid in the cellar for another two hours, and when Roman came to get me, the agreements of the voyage were settled. The Siren Singer had come and gone, but another trap awaited me.
Could I find a way not to travel with Roman for once? Could I leave him to go on his mad chase and find the scarred girl another way? Maybe now that I was revealed, I could announce myself as the son of Marcus the Whiteclaw?
I was ravenous after such a long day and smelling the cooking while I was hiding helped nothing. Rather than return to the stable with Roman, I chose to stay and eat. I paid for a serving of the dinner meal and began eating in earnest.
It was a meat I’d not had in a long time but couldn’t remember its name. More importantly it was bloody and half rare. Delightful. The juices dripped down my chin and I mopped it up with bread. It was a grateful meal indeed.
I finished the water jug in one long draining gulp. But it wasn’t enough. I still had a deep thirst, a gap to fill that water couldn’t satisfy. Only she could.
I crossed the kitchen and went to the trough, filling the water to the brim. The hustle and bustle of the kitchen had come alive for the evening meal. The inn would be full for one last night before the pack’s left. It’d be busy. But I hoped that we’d be gone.
I turned and bumped into someone, the jug’s contents splashed outwards, covering the poor person head to toe.
It was the girl!
I’d drenched her in water. Her loose shift was soaking and near see through. It hugged her body and accentuated every curve and corner. Every possible place of the body to whisper sweet secrets and love to was revealed entirely.
Along with the bloody gash over her heart.
She was the scarred woman…
When she coughed I realized I had forgotten myself. I hadn’t even offered to help, and she was still wet with water.
I grabbed towels and covering. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe–I didn’t see–it just–”
“It’s okay,” she said, she was blushing. We stared at each as red-faced fools. The gash on her chest beat with visible rapidity. My heart warmed and reached out again, hers too. My wolf howled in unison with another.
I suddenly knew what Roman had known.
The girl had come.