Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Ten minutes later, the trio returned with Grace holding the door open for Leo and Stephen who both carried cases of water.
If the three of them guessed what she and Kellen had been up to since they left, they didn't indicate it.
They dropped the water cases on the kitchen counter, while Grace retook her seat on the floor.
"I don't think we're going to need that much water for the rest of the trip back," Kellen said, as he tugged Sarama back to the sofa where they sat next to each other.
"It's not for us." Stephen returned to his seat while Leo ripped open the plastic securing the water bottles. "It's for Samara. We think we know why her wolf shadows are dormant."
Kellen's arm, already around her shoulders, squeezed her tighter.
"All right," she said. "Let's hear it."
"You were right about the colloidal silver.
You drank so much that it knocked out both your shadows," Leo said, while he pulled out a bottle of water.
"However, the shadows are still in there but are restrained by the silver that's still in your body.
If we can get rid of the silver, you'll be able to communicate with your shadows. "
Samara sighed. "Let me guess, drinking a mountain lake's worth of water will wash out the silver."
"Exactly." Leo handed her the bottle of water. "Your body has been washing out the silver naturally—"
"—which is why you no longer look like a Smurf—" added Stephen. "But you're still slow to heal because you were train hopping at the time, you weren't eating or drinking as much as you should have been until you started working at the restaurant—"
Leo picked up one of the too small garbage buckets from the kitchen and placed it next to the sofa where Samara sat.
"—so, you couldn't...uh...eliminate as much silver as you could have if you had a proper diet with lots of liquid." Leo's attempt at politeness only made the conversation funnier.
Samara glanced at Kellen. The look on his face was comical. He saw what she and Grace had seen earlier. All she could do was laugh again along with Grace.
"Three hours of this." Grace rolled her eyes. "I had to listen to them for three hours...."
Looking at the water bottle in her hand left Samara’s internal doubts swirling.
This was it. The moment that would permanently alter her life.
Unlike before, when she escaped Riverstone and she had a plan to return her body to normal.
Now that she knew there was no chance of being a regular human, she understood she didn’t have a choice.
If what the guys were telling her was true, her wolf shadows would return once she flushed the silver out of her system.
Better to rip off the bandage. "Bottoms up.
" She toasted the room and, before she could chicken out, gulped the entire bottle until it crackled under the pressure of her hand.
When she finished, she tossed it into the garbage bucket.
"We're going to need a larger bucket and some lemons. Room temperature water is gross."
"I'll call room service." Kellen kissed her cheek before reaching for the phone.
Even with breakfast, it didn't take long for her first bathroom break. When she returned, she found the guys had rearranged the seats so they could all watch television.
She squinted at the movie on the screen while she slipped back into Kellen's embrace. "What are you watching?"
"Some Like It Hot." Grace stood up when someone knocked on the door. A moment later she returned with a bowl filled with lemons, a bucket of ice, a paring knife, and a tall glass. While Grace handled the tray, housekeeping entered the bedrooms for a refresh.
"Thanks." Drinking lemon-flavored water from the glass would make this whole process easier. "So, there's nothing else you guys want to watch? Football? NASCAR?"
Leo shrugged but kept his eyes on the screen. "We can watch whatever you want."
"But you chose..." that's when Marilyn appeared on the screen and it all made sense.
"What happened? Did Stephen lose at rock, paper, scissors?"
Stephen sounded offended. "No. Pillow Talk is next."
"Let me guess. Doris Day." Samara cracked open another bottle of water, while Kellen kindly squeezed a lemon slice into the glass.
"And Rock Hudson." Now they all looked at Grace. "What? I may be an old widow, but I'm not dead."
The first movie came to an end just as she returned from the bathroom for the tenth time. "This is getting old really fast."
"How are you feeling?"
"Bloated. I'm going to need a diuretic after this."
"I'll—"
"No, you don't have to call room service and ask for some." Her stomach gurgled just as she realized she'd answered Kellen before he finished his sentence. Was that a sign of some sort? "At least not yet."
She waited while Stephen flipped through the cable channels to find Doris. Samara poured more water into the glass. She'd had to drag another garbage bucket out of the bathroom to accommodate all of the rinds she had to throw out.
By the end of the second movie, Samara was starting to feel dizzy, but didn't say anything.
All she needed was more food, especially protein.
Twenty minutes later, they all had variations of burgers and fries.
It didn't help. The dizziness continued.
By this point, she'd stopped apologizing every time she left for the bathroom.
This time, when she'd finished, she found Grace lying down on the bed.
For reasons she didn't understand, Samara lay down next to her. "I never in my life imagined such burly wolf shifters would spend an afternoon watching golden age beauties."
"It's not entirely about the beauties." Grace yawned. "The brotherhood out there has fought their own blood-soaked battles. Stephen and Leo talked a little bit about where they've been and what they've done."
"Normandy?" Samara guessed.
Grace nodded. “Among other places.”
"Then what's the attraction to classics?" Samara was missing something here.
"The happy endings. Everyone gets what they want with little to no trauma. I don't know what Leo and Stephen's lives were like in their own packs, but however they were raised it had to be a damn sight better than what Kirian—Kellen— had, even with the protection spell."
"Because you couldn't protect him from Josiah?"
"Because I did protect him from Josiah."
"How does that make any sense? Kellen said he was raised to become Josiah's personal bodyguard and then his assassin. He had no choice because he was an omega wolf."
Grace shook her head back and forth. "That was the spell working.
Josiah raised him that way to rub my nose in the fact that Kellen's father couldn’t protect us.
Josiah made sure I remembered that every single day.
Even if he didn't hit me or turn me over to his omegas for their version of fun, I could never forget Kellen's father.
Josiah tried to turn Kellen against me, but Kellen was strong enough to resist. As long as I kept him close to Josiah, the less likely Josiah would figure out he was protected by a spell and find a way to kill him. "
A choke in Grace's voice made Samara turn her head. A small tear formed at the edge of Grace's eye, but it pooled there and didn't fall.
"When Kellen decided to walk away from the pack, he snuck back and begged me to go with him.
It broke my heart all over again to push him out of my life, but I had to make it appear that I had stopped fighting Josiah and became a devoted and unquestioning follower.
Kellen didn't understand at the time, but staying with Josiah was one of the few things I could do to keep protecting Kellen. "
"Why would you think that?"
"The protection spell wasn't strong or perfect.
If I had tried to run with Kellen when he was a child, we'd have been hunted down.
As a widow with a child in the 19th century.
..there weren't any resources I could access to get us far enough away. If the pack caught us, they would have made me watch them as they ripped apart my son, spell or no spell.”
Samara’s heart broke for Grace. As a mother, she’d sacrificed everything she had to keep her son out of harm’s way. How horrible to think that not following her son into the wider world was the only option Grace had to ensure Kellen’s safety.
"When Kellen tried to get me out, I let him go in hopes he could create a life for himself outside the pack.
I did everything I could to distract Josiah in the meantime.
I couldn't stop his order to kill my son, but I could slow down the process and make sure he kept looking north and east when he should have been looking south and west."
That damn buzzing filled Samara's ears again and she had to shake her head to dispel it. "You need to tell him this."
"I will, but not today." Grace wiped her eyes dry, then sat up. "He's still getting used to the idea that I finally broke away from the pack after all these decades."
Damn it, she missed the last few words Grace had spoken. Not that it mattered. She got the gist of what she had said.
“It'll be okay." Was she trying to reassure Grace or herself? "Kellen and the others were planning to leave anyway. They have to find a new home because that's what they do every thirty years just to keep the townsfolk from realizing they’re different."
"They really are a family?" Grace turned to look at Samara, grasping at much needed confirmation. "The three of them, are they happy together?"
Everything she'd experienced in Winterbourne flashed through her mind, but she also thought of Kellen's heartbreak at losing all of his wives.
"They are happy. They have their own businesses, their own friends, their own lives.
I know that they shift every night and hunt together.
They wouldn't do that unless they had a rock-solid bond.
They are brothers in every way except blood. "
At the word blood, her own blood started to churn. "Crap, I think I'm going to puke..." She pushed back on her elbows to sit up. That was when she saw the fur on her fingers. "Oh, no. I'm shifting. Help. I can't stop it."
Grace leapt off the bed. In a second she was tugging off Samara’s shirt. "Lay back, unzip your pants."
As she did, Grace opened the bedroom door. "Kellen. Strip. Samara is shifting." Then she was back again, whipping off Samara's shoes and tugging off her pants.
Samara looked down to see her thighs already changing, more fur everywhere.
Her eyesight changed, the light in the room brightened then darkened and suddenly all the colors had layers her human eyes could never see.
The sounds around her amplified, her own heartbeat mixed with the television creating a cacophony.
Then she rolled off the bed onto all fours, her throat opened, and she let loose a howl that reached for the stars. Both her wolf shadows had returned with vengeance and self-protection competing for dominance.