16. The Rose
Chapter 16
The Rose
T hree days after the pack run I was beginning to wonder if we had a chance at harmony in the pack.
Grayson and I had managed to keep the silent truce we’d called the night he lay beside me on the bank in the days following. He’d taken to waiting for me at breakfast and walking me to class. When a pack member brought a concern to his attention—big or small—he invited me into the conversation. Both had taken me off guard the first day. By the second I expected it. On the third day I let myself look forward to it.
There were still moments when his face turned stony or his eyes clouded, but more often than not he found ways to break out of the thoughts that plagued him. He was trying, and trying was more than I had hoped to expect. Today I caught him looking at me the way I imagined the moon would look at the sun–with complete awe and affection.
I thought he would turn away or wipe the expression from his face when caught, but if anything, he only further softened. I didn’t understand—didn’t trust what it could mean. I only knew that the longer he looked at me that way, the more I wished I could forget everything that had happened since overhearing him speak to his father. I wished I could go back to the way we were when I still believed that I was someone he cared for—maybe even someone he most cared for. But wishes rarely led to the outcomes we expect, and I didn’t have the luxury of risking uncertainties.
I had to get away from him. I couldn’t trust myself to stay and not fall back into my role as his shadow, not when he looked at me like that.
So I fled—back to the woods where I’d found solace my first night at the Academy. I had considered taking the trails circling the lakes to the south—I’d yet to visit them and heard the water made for an enchanting sight—but remembered Kenna’s warning they were well traveled. After a day filled with classes, pack squabbles, small-talk attempts from other students, and being flustered by a certain Alpha, the last thing I wanted was more interaction.
Grayson’s approval was all it took for the same students who’d mocked me in the hallways to vie for a spot in my good graces. Pathetic . If those same people found me on the lakes’ path I may be stuck listening to them for hours.
It was a simple choice to meander back into the burgundy forest instead. How the lantern-lined road wasn’t a popular route, I’d never understand, but I was glad for the solitude. Even before night fully fell it was stunning. When I stepped beyond the road into the thick of the trees, I swear it felt like they were alive, calling to me to come and walk amongst them. I basked in the peace, in the quiet they provided as they blanketed me from the rest of the world.
But it wasn’t just me they blanketed. Something was with me. It was in the subtle shift of the air, the softest sounds on the edge of the grass. Someone else may assume it was a harmless animal or leaves falling from the tops of the trees, but I knew better.
It was a predator stalking its prey.
I slowed my pace but didn’t stop. Let them catch up to me, let them think they could prowl unnoticed. My hand hovered over my dagger and when the near silent padding against the grass paused, I turned just in time to see the sharp claws descending on me as the lion pounced.
She was lucky I caught her cinder toffee scent quickly enough to lower the dagger before it plunged into her gut. I let the lion pin my shoulders to the ground and lick my face before dropping my dagger to the ground and shoving her off of me. I stood and turned on her now shifting form.
“Goddess above Kenna, don’t you know better than to sneak up on someone like that?” I pressed a hand against my sternum where my heart still thundered against my chest.
“Uh, no actually,” she said. “How would I take someone off guard if I wasn’t sneaking? That would ruin, like, half of my fun.”
I chuckled on an exhale and said, “I can’t argue with that, but I also can’t promise one of my blades won’t find its way to your heart by mistake.”
She threw her head back and cackled, actually cackled, before disappearing behind a nearby tree. She reappeared fully clothed and still smiling a minute later.
“Briar, I swear if you’re not careful you’re going to make me fall in love with you.” She wiped a tear from her eye and got her laughter under control. “There are worse ways to die than a blade to the heart, but I’ll do my best to dodge it if need be. A worthwhile risk if you ask me.”
I bent down to retrieve my dagger and sheathed it at my thigh.
“You’re brave coming this far into the woods without a sword,” Kenna said and reached around the tree trunk to grab her blade to secure it around her waist. “Just because we’re on campus grounds doesn’t mean the occasional creature doesn’t break through, let alone the ones who’ve been trapped inside. Goddess only knows what terrors like to lurk amongst the trees.”
She looked far too pleased at the prospect.
“I guess I’ll just have to take my chances this time around.” I wasn’t walking back to campus to get another blade when I had five perfectly good ones strapped to me. I could throw them if I needed to keep my distance.
Kenna, on the other hand, must have felt differently, because the next thing she pulled from behind the trees was a bow along with a quiver of arrows.
“Kenna,” I said jokingly, “Do you know about something I don’t? Are we expecting a raid? I almost wonder if you’re about to pull out an ax.”
“You can never be too careful.” She shrugged. “I’d rather be too armed than caught unaware by a threat bigger than me.”
“I thought you didn’t see anyone as a threat.”
“I didn’t say that.” She corrected, “I said I don’t see any other shifter as a threat. If a few extra weapons help me ensure I stay the scariest thing in these woods, I’ll carry an arsenal of them.”
The shock must have been evident on my face because she tilted her head and said, “I can be lethal and know my limits, that’s how I stay alive.”
“I wasn’t aware we were being hunted.”
“Everyone in power is being hunted by those who wish to take it.”
“Then consider me the huntress coming after you,” I tease. I liked to be as prepared for an attack as the next person, but this felt too foreboding for a Wednesday stroll in the forest.
“I love that you think you could be,” she said while looking at me like a child may look at a newborn pup, “Wishful thinking becomes you, but no. My Enforcer offer is still on the table though if you’ve changed your mind.”
I grinned and replied, “The same offer is open to you.” I meant it.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure she could be anything other than a Luna. Someone with that much dominance would struggle to fall in line to take anyone else’s lead, but Enforcer was better than losing her rank altogether. Beta was too close to power for someone who craves it. I would know.
As an Enforcer I could give her a longer rope to work from. I’d keep her from going off the rails but leave her to protect the pack the way she saw fit. She must have displayed somewhat sound judgment if she’d avoided a mutiny the two years she’d been here. In my albeit limited interactions with the rest of our pack, it was obvious they held her in the highest respect, yet she always seemed to be a little bit separated, alone.
“Sure, dearie,” she said, “It’s good to have dreams.”
“Are you just going for a stroll or planning to take a nap in the trees again?” I began walking deeper, enjoying the directionless wandering.
“I wasn’t napping, I was resting my eyes,” Kenna corrected, “I’m only going for a walk today though. There’s something about solitude that clears the mind, don’t you think?”
“I do.” I nodded. “I don’t want to interrupt your solitude, but you’re welcome to walk with me if you want to.”
“There’s worse company than you I could keep.” She fell into step beside me.
We walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes until the terrain changed. The woods nearest the road had been well-kept without vines or underbrush encroaching on them, but the farther we went from campus, the wilder it became. Trees had fallen. Vines criss-crossed in our path. Moss climbed the side of trees and boulders, some of them sprouting flowers.
The forest only grew more enchanting the deeper we went. Everything about it drew me in, but it was the web of rose bushes at the base of one of the boulders that stole my attention.
“Did your parents name you after the roses?” Kenna asked, tracking my gaze.
“Not exactly.” I looked away from the thorny bushes and kept walking.
“Oh, come on.” She bumped into my shoulder and asked, “Not exactly? What, is it a secret known only to a select few? Don’t tell me, it was your mother’s favorite flower. No?”
Her grin widened as she spouted a few more far-fetched theories, smiling wider with each tale she spun. After she guessed that it had to do with my conception I raised a hand to cut her off before she could take that imagery any further.
“It was where Lucas and Ivy found me.”
She came to a halt and looked at me, the smile fell from her face.
“Found you?”
“Found me.”
I reached up to fiddle with a low-hanging leaf and explained, “I can’t tell why my parents chose my name, or even what name they chose. Ivy and Lucas called me Briar because when they found me I was sleeping under a rose bush.”
A speck of pride flared in me for rendering Kenna speechless —a feat I suspected few had accomplished. She tilted her head to one side and studied me, the intensity of her stare burning my skin.
“Why were you living under a rose bush?”
“Because the thorns helped keep the predators at bay.”
Sometimes. Other times they hadn’t.
Even at eight years old—based on Ivy and Lucas’ guess I was a few years younger than Grayson—I’d known how to use my surroundings to survive.
“I wasn’t as strong then as I am now, and even if I could’ve handled a weapon to defend myself, I didn’t have one to wield. I used whatever advantages I could find.”
“And why were you in the woods in the first place and don’t you dare say because you walked there.” She pointed her finger at me as she spoke, “Don’t think I’m someone who cares enough about making others uncomfortable to stop prying before I find out what I want. I’m not. I can ask questions all day, but our time together will be far more pleasant if you tell me.”
Because I turned an entire village to ash. Because I woke up surrounded by corpses. Because I was a monster.
“My village burned down when I was younger,” I said truthfully. “I woke up to it lying in ruins. I was scared, so I escaped to the woods. I didn’t know what caused the fire or if someone would come back and find me, so I fled. I was alone until Ivy and Lucas found me.”
“How long were you out there?” she asked gravely, her usually strong voice barely a whisper.
A lifetime.
“I don’t know. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months.”
Time had been a blur of running from the sounds echoing through the trees, hiding when I couldn’t run. When I couldn’t hide, I’d done my best to fight. My best hadn’t been nearly good enough.
I had the scars to prove it.
“You and your pack mates act as though you’ve been together your entire lives, but Grayson’s been here for three years. There’s no way you joined it less than five years before then, ” she observed, “You couldn’t have been more than what, twelve at the time and wandering the woods, surviving on your own? Maybe our duel will be even more fun than I anticipated.”
“We think I was around eight when they found me,” I admitted wryly.
Her head turned toward me faster than Marcus turned when a pretty girl walked by. I could’ve sworn it was so fast I heard the bones clang together with the force of it.
“And you’re eighteen now? You were found ten years ago?”
She hadn’t moved, but that sound rang out again, though it was still faint. I turned to look around but saw nothing amiss. We were the only ones out here.
“Yes,” I answered absentmindedly, still looking for the source of the sound. I might’ve imagined it once but not twice.
“Which forest did they find you in?”
Another clang. This time the sound was clearer; somewhere in the woods weapons crossed, and a sinking feeling in my gut had me thinking it wasn’t a friendly duel amongst friends.
“Briar,” Kenna grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face her. “Which forest?”
A scream echoed against the trees, and I wrenched myself from Kenna’s shockingly strong grip and sprinted toward it.
“Goddess if it’s going to send you into a sprint, we don’t have to talk about it,” Kenna called as she ran after me, “I didn’t know geography was such a touchy subject.”
“Kenna, don’t you hear that?” I asked, still running but slowing my pace to better listen for which direction the sounds were coming from.
“The wind in the trees and the pounding of your feet? Yes, I do. I have exceptional senses.”
The clanging was growing louder. I pulled her behind a tree and said, “Keep your voice down, and listen.” Another clash of metal against metal. We should be just close enough for her to hear it. Her brow furrowed, but she nodded. Wordlessly, she unstrapped the sword from her waist and handed it to me.
I hurried to secure it around my own and put a finger to my lips as I stepped out from behind the tree and continued forward. We cut through the trees efficiently and silently, our footsteps were light as we took care to mask our approach.
The sounds of the fight grew louder, and we crouched lower into the brush as we closed in on our potential opponents. Kenna’s hand on my shoulder jerked me back a step. Her wide eyes met mine and she tapped her nose. Inhaling deeply, I froze as bile threatened to rise in my throat.
Tar and brimstone.
When I looked over, Kenna’s still silent lips mirrored mine as we sank deeper into the foliage.
“Demons.”