Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Istand frozen in the center of my rug, shaking, chilled. Eventually I manage to move enough to shower and scrub days of filth out of my hair. I soap myself until the water runs clear and the tangles in my hair are now a rat nest blocking the drain.
This is my life. This is my cage.
The same pink rug and soft sheets are the bars I’ve gotten used to. Any romance there might have been when Jrue threw stones at my window to get my attention are nothing but someone else’ s dreams in my memory.
Everything about the cage has been the same for years.
Nothing changes no matter how the alpha wills it. He can be as vocal as he wants, but I’m still moonlocked and the curse still spreads outside our borders, touching everyone but us now, the way he wanted it.
I probably brought it in with me.
Grayson and I have to get out. I hadn’t wanted to fight the search party though I should have.
Sleep comes to claim me and I fall into familiar sheets, familiar mounds of pillows.
My nightmares consist of glowing eyes and shots in the dark. When thin sunlight sneaks through my half-drawn shades in the morning, it hits me.
We should have run instead of sleeping. I’m not well rested despite my best efforts.
I shower again for the novelty of it then change, brushing my hair in front of the mirror. Despite the restless, prowling sensation under my skin, there’s no golden glow in my eyes. There’s no change from human to wolf.
I stay the same on the outside.
My gut grumbles but I have a feeling anything I throw into the empty pit will threaten to come back up. The rolling heat there makes it uncertain whether I need to eat to fuel myself or run on empty.
The knock on the door is hardly a brush of skin against wood before Holly slips into the room and shuts us inside.
She presses her spine to the door. “Okay, spill. I waited a good amount of time before I snuck away. You have to tell me where you’ve been and what happened and why you showed up with the bitten boy that Dad refuses to talk about.”
“There’s nothing to spill.” I sigh, my heart softening at her round face and rounder eyes. “And yes, you did wait. Good job.”
“Something is going on with you and you might have been able to run away from Mom and Dad last night, but I see right through you.”
Holly is only a few years younger than me and the innocence in her eyes might fool everyone else, but I’ve always been able to understand the predator lurking underneath.
Which is why I lose the fight. As easy as it might seem to turn her away, I can’t. The tears spring free as I haul myself onto the bed and curl up around the body pillow.
“It’s fucked up. Isn’t it?” A shuddering breath squeaks past my teeth.
The wrongness of the situation hits hard and for half a second, I feel sorry for myself.
“You mean what happened to you?” Holly jumps beside me, the mattress bouncing before absorbing her weight.
She grabs another pillow, soft and pink and shaped like a rose, and crosses her legs.
“Why won’t you talk about it, Mandi? Is it too soon? Are you still trying to process what happened?”
She’s vibrating, barely managing her impatience at hearing about Grayson.
“It’s everything. It’s the way we treat those bitten wolves even after they nearly destroyed us.” I scowl at her. “And you need to stop sticking your nose into everything. You’re too curious. It’s going to get you hurt or worse.”
“Well, someone has to ask the questions, don’t they? It might as well be me.” Her gaze lands on my bandage. “You need to change that.”
“I kept it dry in the shower at least. Wrapped a bag around it and everything.” I hadn’t wanted to look.
“Here, let me.”
I clutch my arm to my chest. “No, definitely not.”
Grayson did such a good job with the bandage I don’t want to risk Holly’s shoddy replacement. Or mine.
Holly is the kind of suspicious who will see monsters where there are none. Once she gets a look at the wound, she’ll put everything together. And with me and Grayson separated—
I need a better imagination to come up with a backstory for them to sink their teeth into.
Rather than argue, she lunges over the pillow, grabbing my arm and pulling. She might be fast but I’m stronger.
“Stop it,” I grind through my teeth.
She’s panting, tugging, using her wolf to get her way. “Why don’t you want me to see? Is this about him? Oh my gosh, did he treat your wounds? Was he your knight in shining armor?”
The mention of Grayson as him throws me off my stride. I drop over the side of the bed, landing hard on my back, and Holly is over me in an instant.
“It is, isn’t it?” She chuckles, her honey-blond ponytail swinging with the movement. “The pack is trying to keep you separated, you know. I heard Dad talking about it last night. They think he’s the reason you took off in the first place.”
Correct.
“They’re not sure if he’s the reason you got caught by vamps or not.”
Incorrect.
I tug my wrist out of her grip but she latches on again, her nails pushing against my skin. “Like I said, you’re a sneak.”
“Dad says he’s inferior because he’s bitten and you’re not. And just so you know, I’m not an idiot.”
Holly gets her way, as she always does, using her claws to cut through the bandage without marking my skin. The gauze drops and the crescent bite marks are right there, between the two of us.
Her eyes narrow with surprise and I manage to push her off me. Scrambling to my feet, I twist away from her.
“Was it him?” she breathes.
“It was the vampires. They had me for days. You know how they are,” I hedge. “They want to hurt you in any way they can.”
“Actually, I don’t. Why haven’t you healed by now?”
The space between us is wider than it’s ever been, and marked by something more permanent than physical distance.
I haven’t healed because I’m probably cursed in a way I haven’t been before. I can’t tell her.
I can’t share the truth with Holly, not when my entire life is made up of lies. The weight of it slices me on the inside and severs muscle and tendon from bone. I’m bleeding out, only no one sees it.
“The vampires didn’t want me to heal. There’s something about their saliva. They can either help close the wounds they make or not. They’ve slowed down healing for me,” I make up on the spot.
As sheltered as Holly is, will she ever figure it out?
“So vampires had you, and he singlehandedly got you out. He saved you and bandaged your wound. Am I hearing this correctly?”
My cheeks flush at her question. “He did. I thought for sure out of anyone you’d believe me. He’s a good guy.”
“I’m not questioning you, I’m just trying to understand.” Holly’s expression goes flat. “You never want to talk to me anymore.”
Well, crap, there goes my heart. It twists painfully because, out of anyone in this messed up world, Holly has always been there.
“And when you go off and mate with Jrue, I’ll never get to see you. You’ll move to a place of your own. I know this is a smaller community but it’s super isolating sometimes. You’re the first-born. I’m…I don’t know what I am but I know I miss you.”
It’s another example of what’s wrong with this place and these people.
“It’s going to be fine.” Twisting to hide the bite marks, I use my other arm to hug her. “You’ll see.”
“It’s not fine and it doesn’t matter how many times you say it. Whether you actually got that bite from the vampires or not, you disappeared,” Holly says. “We had no idea where you were! Mom cried all the time and Dad was hardly ever home. He sent so many search parties out to find you.”
“And finally Jrue did.”
My false chipper tone isn’t fooling Holly the way it does anyone else. Sisters are always the exception, aren’t they?
I keep my arm around her shoulder and settle us both on the mattress again.
“Life is changing, Mandi. You’re changing. I’m not sure I can keep up with it. Now you’re home with this bitten wolf and you’re going to bat for him. It’s not like you,” Holly bursts out. “You’ve always played by their rules. You told me it’s the only way we stay safe.”
Or maybe it’s exactly like me to finally stand for something.
The claim is right there underneath everything I’ve said to blow her off. So is the truth.
Holly doesn’t know about my being moonlocked. She doesn’t know about the dangers of the moon-mad wolves on the prowl because she thinks the move here made us untouchable.
I unclench my jaw, tongue working over my teeth.
And the moment before I cave and spill everything, the door bursts open.
We lurch to our feet in unison before I recognize Grayson on the other side. He’s wearing the same stolen flannel from the cabin but the sleeves are shredded from his scratching.
He glances around the room before his eyes land on me.
“I’ve been trying to find you.” His voice is deep, gravelly, grinding over each syllable. “Your father hasn’t made it easy. I tracked your scent.”
Concern and panic mix in a dizzying cocktail. “Are you okay?”
I rush to him, brushing my fingers over his sweat-soaked clothes and the new bruises on the side of his face. In addition to the dirt from our trek yesterday, there are welts and patches of bluish purple near his lip and temple.
What the hell did they do to him in the pen?
“Dad must know something happened between you. Like I said, I heard him talking.” Holly stands near the bed, cautious but curious. “You’re being too obvious about the way you care for each other.”
I expect Grayson to automatically blow her off but he leans to the side, his eyes fluttering closed. “Talk to me,” I say. “What did they do to you?”
He tracked me here. My pulse quickens.
He recovers and straightens, sucking in a breath. “Can I talk to you in private, Mandi?”
“Oh, sure, don’t mind me. I’ll be right here minding my own business.” Holly holds up her hands.
I stage whisper, “Please don’t tell Dad.”
I’m already halfway out the door, close enough to feel the heat rolling off Grayson and smell the particular scent unique to him. The one I’ve started to crave when we’re not together.
Holly grabs the pillows and replaces them in the pile near my headboard, pretending she’s not eavesdropping when she absolutely is. “You owe me.”
I usher Grayson into the hallway and check in both directions. My senses scream at me, warning of the danger of being together, urging me to make sure my parents aren’t around.
“How did you get in the house?” I ask.
“I’m good at finding my way into places where I don’t belong,” he murmurs back. “This place is nuts, though. It’s like one of those Stepford communities. I’m lucky they let me out of the cage at all this morning. And luckier to have given my guards the slip.”
I clutch his arm, catching myself only when he looks down at the spot where our skin joins. Hastily I retreat, but not before noticing how he burns. That explains the sweat.
His wild eyes dart around the hallway before finding stillness in mine, but the unsettled feeling left in the wake of that look stays much longer.
“I can’t say anything about what we’re doing in front of Holly. I trust her to a point, but only if she doesn’t know anything. That way she won’t be able to answer any questions if she’s asked.”
“She’ll tell your father I was here.” Grayson adjusts his posture, shifting from foot to foot.
“She might, but we can get far enough away before he finds out. It won’t matter.”
The tilt of his head, the tightness of his skin…what is he listening to?
Because it doesn’t seem like mine is the only voice he’s hearing right now.
“Hey. Hey!” The sound draws him back to me. “I just hope she’ll keep her promise to me. She always does. Now how did you get in?”
“The same way we’re going to get out. Your pack might watch their gates but they aren’t watching the houses. Let’s go, Mandi. Let’s go right now and find the witches. We’re no safer here than we were at the cabin.”
He’s right, but saying it out loud costs me too much. It’s an admission that my family, my father and his rules, don’t always have everyone’s best interests at heart.
And I don’t feel like one of them anymore.
“Did you change last night?” My teeth crash together, jaw clenched and grinding as he pulls me away from my room.
“No, I didn’t, and it didn’t matter. They treated me about as well as you’d expect them to treat a wild animal caught on their property.”
I know how to read between the lines and this only solidifies the sensation in my rolling gut. We go, now, before the troops come running. Before Jrue realizes his charge is not in the same place and the guards Grayson lost pick up his scent.
“Are you okay? It’s another long walk into town. You look sick.”
I lift the back of my hand to his forehead, heat blistering me before I make contact with him again. Grayson catches my wrist but is gentle when lowering it away from him.
“I’m fine. I’m well enough to run.”
He’s not fine. None of us are. Which makes it even more imperative for us to escape.
I nod, cataloging the way his fingers lock around my wrist without release. “Then we go.”
“Do you want to change out of those bunny pajamas?”
He uses his nose to indicate my attire. And even though it’s smart to equip myself, I shake my head.
“Let me get a pair of sneakers and then we’ll go. It will only look more suspicious to Holly if I change.”
Resolved, I break away from Grayson.
There’s never been a whole lot of comfort in this house, not the way there would have been if I’d shifted. If I’d been born normal.
It’s not a hardship to leave and the small voice of hesitation I expected to hear is oddly silent. It’s time for us to go.
I’d known better, but I made a choice and led us here. We never should have come back to Ironwood in the first place.