Chapter Eleven
Violet
I’m alone.
Holy Alpaca. I’ve never been alone in my life before.
I’m not alone like I was when I shifted and ran through the woods on pack property. I felt Dax’s presence there, comforting, protective. I didn’t know he was watching me – but I knew he wasn’t far.
I don’t feel his presence here. The distance, the absence, makes me feel cold inside.
I did this. I separated us. I gathered my clothes into a ball that was wrapped in my skirt, shifted, grabbed them in my mouth, and ran.
I ran in the direction of Cedar Run. I’m on the outskirts of the town that I’m not allowed to visit.
One minute I’m running under pine and oak, the paved road cool beneath my paws, and the next Cedar Run opens up like a storybook. Real pavement, real sidewalks, real buildings. So much bigger than my tiny little hometown that I was occasionally allowed to visit.
Downtown Cedar Run is as charming as I’d imagined. Brick storefronts line Main Street, warm red and sun-faded, with striped awnings casting neat bands of shade across the windows. Hanging baskets overflow with petunias and trailing greenery, bright splashes of color against the brick.
There’s a coffee shop with a swinging sign that reads Has Beans, the door opening just long enough to release the scent of roasted coffee and sugar. Down the block, a bakery vents pure temptation with its aromas of cinnamon and yeast.
There’s no farmers market today, it’s only on weekends but I can see the wide open square at the end of Main, bare except for a few benches.
A group of women stroll past with shopping bags.
A man climbs off a bike outside the hardware store.
Somewhere, a radio plays faint country music through an open window.
I slow, letting my gaze drink it in. The normalcy of it all hits me hardest. It’s charming and busy and solid, a place where people build lives instead of being protected from them.
Quickly, I pull on my pink skirt, bra, and my white shirt which is splattered with little pink roses. Lastly, I slip on my white sandals.
There’s a diner sitting halfway Main Street, a low brick storefront gone soft red with age, the name painted in tall cream letters across the front. “The Late Shift Grill”.
A green-and-white striped awning hangs over the sidewalk, sagging at one corner.
Two little café tables sit underneath that nobody uses until May.
The screen door has a bell In the window, a glass pie case turns slow circles, and a chalkboard leans against the brick with the day's special written in block capitals.
The whole place smells of coffee and bacon and butter from half a block away.
I head over to the diner, enter and plop down at the counter. Sitting down, I order a coffee and a slice of pecan pie.
It’s delicious. So sweet and sticky. It tastes like freedom and…loneliness?
Everything would be perfect if I only had my Dax with me.
Big, lying Dax.
Dax who claims I’m his fated mate but who’s conspiring with the entire pack to keep something big and important a secret from me.
Dax who adores me, who treats me like a treasure, who makes me feel special and funny and needed, not weird and awkward.
I heave a sigh and focus on stirring cream into my coffee.
“New in town?” the woman behind the counter asks. She’s older, maybe late fifties, with faded auburn hair streaked with white and twisted up into a bun.
“Yes, just passing through.” I smile, and take a long, long sip of my coffee. Then another bite of pie.
Then it hits me.
I don’t have my purse.
Carefully, I set the coffee down and push the pie away from me.
“Um,” I say.
“Yes, dear? Can I get you something else?’
“I left my wallet back at pack headquarters.” Along with my dignity and my fated mate.
I take a deep breath. “So…how does this work? I guess I’m going to prison now?
” I wonder how long I’ll be in for. I wonder if they have ice cream, and if I’ll ever get to pet an Alpaca again.
I wonder if they’ll let me have conjugal visits.
Do I even want conjugal visits?
Yes, of course I do, but I shouldn’t, because my fated mate is a big hairy liar-pants.
Her eyebrows shoot up to her forehead. “Prison?” She bursts out laughing. “For heaven’s sake. Which pack is it? We can call them and have someone bring your wallet.”
“Moonstone. But, no thank you.” I fold my hands in front of me, and sit up straight. “I’ll take prison, please.”
She cocks her head and looks at me. “I’m sensing a story there. I’m Ethel, by the way.”
“I’m Violet. And my fated mate is a liar and I’m not speaking to him again, ever!” I blurt out.
She gives me a sympathetic look. “Well, if he’s your fated mate, then I doubt that last part.
But go on. Tell me what’s up. I’m Shadowpine, but I have to say, I’m surprised to hear that your mate lied to you.
The Moonstone pack is generally pretty straight-arrow.
Unlike those…” she glances around carefully, then says “Unlike those Frostbane creeps. I wouldn’t trust most of them farther than I could spit. So what did your mate lie about?”
So I tell her everything.
I tell her about my incredibly overprotective father, I tell her about coming to stay with the Moonstone pack, I tell her everything that’s happened since I’ve been here. And as I’m speaking, some pieces start to click together.
“It doesn’t make any sense that my father would send me here just because he was traveling and taking part of his security team with him. He’s done that plenty of times before.”
I frown. There were some weird things happening right before I left, too.
The oatmeal with silver in it, that was supposedly an accident.
My stepmother was sniffing the air as it was served, loudly, and I smelled the silver too.
She snatched it from me right as I was saying “This doesn’t smell right. ”
Then my favorite perfume disappeared from my room. It was just odd. Nobody on our pack is a thief, so I assumed that somebody accidentally knocked the bottle over and broke it when they were cleaning my room, but then I should have smelled the spilled perfume.
And then one day Drusilla rushed back to the house, holding an arrow, and a bunch of staff security crowded around her, but nobody would explain it to me.
“I think there is some kind of threat to our family’s safety, and my father didn’t want me to know,” I say carefully.
The door to the shop flings open, and Dax rushes in.
“There you are!” he cries out.
“Well, there you are, you giant lying fleabag.” Tiny Ethel glares at him fearlessly. “What do you mean by lying to this woman?”
I direct a ferocious scowl at him. At least I hope it’s ferocious. I’m not used to frowning at people. I wish I’d had a chance to practice first. I mentally add that to my to-do list: practice frowning. You never know when it might come in handy.
I take a deep breath and imagine that he is a very, very bad person, so that I can sound as angry as I need to. I pretend that he kicked a goat. Just thinking about it helps me frown for real.
“Someone is trying to harm me and my family. You have been hiding it from me. Tell me the truth, right now, or I’m not going anywhere with you.”