Chapter 8 #2
I can feel the flicker of unease that passes between the four of them.
Just as quickly, Lucan’s mental presence seems to lift up walls around just him and me, so that the others are blocked out.
I’d ask him how he does it if my stomach wasn’t roiling.
You don’t have to eat the elk, Saskia. We can always find something else.
No, it’s not that. I tighten my grip on his fur, desperately hoping I don’t sound ungrateful. I don’t… know, exactly. Maybe I just need something a little lighter.
Lucan’s concern ripples into my mind. I know a spot where there’s a huge patch of blackberries just a few more minutes uphill. Would that—
Yes, I answer immediately. The thought of rich, dark juice bursting in my mouth rather than the meat of a dead animal… it sounds infinitely better at the moment.
Lucan tears down the mental walls around us long enough to command the others, Take the elk back home. Prepare it for tonight. I’m going to take Saskia a little further up.
He shutters them out before they can respond, and we’re racing uphill again, just me and him, past the gory scene, over a creek, and into a balder spot of the mountain where the pine trees stand spaced apart from each other like lonely statues.
Thorny brambles grow in hordes between them, though, and the air swells with a sweetness as my eyes land on all the clusters of berries hanging from their stems.
I slide off Lucan and lunge for them, my stomach grumbling again. Lucan’s chuckle rumbles through me for a moment before the connection between us snaps as he shifts back into his human form and comes up behind me, watching me eat with a curious tilt of his head.
“What?” I demand, whirling toward him, knowing my lips are probably already stained dark blue. “You fucked all the energy out of me last night.”
“And you,” he says, drifting closer and swiping a thumb along my chin, collecting a drop of juice, “are remarkably good at using curse words for someone who’s just learned them.”
“What can I say?” I shrug and pluck another blackberry from its stem, popping it into my mouth. “I’m a fast learner.”
I’m glad Lucan can’t read my mind right now, because behind the smiling shape of my lips, part of my chest is caving in at how right all of this feels—well, besides the dead elk.
But the pack. The way they’re all connected.
The way they live, so wild and free and in houses that actually feel like homes.
I wish I could truly be a part of it, but I’ll never be able to run as fast as them, or hunt something like them, or shift like them, no matter how fast of a learner I try to be.
“It’s hard to remember,” I continue, turning to view the landscape around us, “the Guardians and what they do to the people in there when you’re out here.
I don’t know how you always remembered us.
” I turn toward him, a pinch of admiration twisting my heart.
“How you kept fighting for us when everything is so perfect outside the Wall.”
Lucan’s amber gaze dips from my eyes to my mouth before flitting back up, contemplative. “There’s a place at the top of this mountain, actually, where I go whenever I need a reminder. It’s the highest point you can get—even higher than the Wall. High enough to see all of Xantera.”
My mouth drops open, and I glance upward. “Really? Can you… can you show me?”
I know, realistically, that I won’t be able to see individual people from such a great distance away.
Not Malcolm or Gaia, and certainly not Eleni or Claudia trapped within the palace.
But even just viewing my old prison from above might help me remember that my fellow humans are trapped, dying, and aren’t even aware of it.
That we still need to find a way to tear down that wretched Wall.
That my mother deserves all the vengeance in the world.
“Of course,” Lucan says, his expression inscrutable as he studies me. “Remember, whatever you ask of me…”
Ten minutes later, he’s depositing me onto a rounded crown of icy snow, barren of trees but circled by slick black boulders.
It truly does seem like the top of the world, because when I sweep my gaze all around me, I can see the rise and fall of the terrain in every direction, silver strings of sparkling water winding among the ravines, and the circular disruption of the land that is Lucan’s stolen kingdom.
And when I squint over the spikes of the Wall…
Even with my human eyes, I can see the bustling dots of people in the streets—not walking in orderly fashion like normal, but swarming, converging like ants attacking each other. Even though I can’t hear them, I swear the wind carries a faint note of screaming.
And flames—those are flames, licking toward the sky from various buildings.
“Xantera,” I gasp as Lucan goes stone-still beside me.
But I can’t get the rest of the words out, because I don’t know if it means hope or the destruction of everyone in that city.
All I know is that Claudia and Eleni must have succeeded in getting incriminating evidence onto everyone’s screens in their housing units.
The people of Xantera are rioting.
I cling to Lucan’s fur as he barrels back toward town, summoning all of the remaining pack to shift.
One by one, their presences coil through me. Flooding my nervous system, I can tell every werewolf carries a unique feeling, like a mental fingerprint, but it’s hard to pick out who’s who without knowing them.
One hour, Lucan tells them. Pack meeting.
Their thoughts go haywire before Lucan shutters off the unfamiliar voices for me.
Thank you, I say, tucking myself into his fur as he streaks down the mountain with lightning speed, weaving between tree trunks with seamless grace.
Lucan doesn’t even sound winded. You’ll get used to it, he assures me.
Maybe so, but right now I’m thankful for silence because I need to think, and my mind and stomach are twining into knots.
Malcolm. Gaia. Walter. Eleni. Claudia. Even Tristan.
They’re all caught in the middle of a riot—that I technically started. Or at least contributed to.
My distraction worked, and Eleni and Claudia succeeded. All of the citizens must have heard my last conversation with Arad, where he admitted everything. I don’t know whether my nerves are pride or the need to vomit.
Xantera wants to fight. And I want to help.
Though I don’t have long to stew on the fact that I can’t help. Not while that Wall is still standing.
And certainly not when we turn back on the main dirt road to find Soren, Merrick, and Vivian already waiting, standing in a row in their werewolf forms like some sort of shield.
Lucan’s mental block melts, and there’s a tense shift in the air. I’m clueless, eyes churning between these enormous wolves. For a second, I wonder if Lucan has cut me out of whatever is going on.
But as soon as my feet hit the ground, a werewolf I don’t recognize, with reddish fur and a long, pointed snout, stalks up from behind them with his teeth bared. Let’s talk now.
Lucan steps in front of me, and a deep growl echoes in the air and inside my head. The hair on the back of my neck raises along with everyone else’s as they all crouch defensively.
I said one hour, Gabriel, Lucan replies, voice hard.
But the male named Gabriel doesn’t retreat. You’ve been acting strange for months. Keeping us out of the loop. And now a human woman miraculously shows up without any explanation.
Gabriel’s disdain for me seeps into my bloodstream, almost hot with hatred. I’ve never even heard of him before, yet he already seems to despise me.
Lucan flicks his eyes toward me before cocking his head toward Vivian. Go with Vivian.
I blink uneasily, very aware that they can all hear my thoughts and any response I offer. I don’t want to leave Lucan alone with someone who’s obviously angry about my existence.
Are you sure? I ask.
Gabriel seems to sneer at me. The human doesn’t even follow orders, Lucan.
The air goes frigid rapidly, and before I can register it, Lucan is mid-air, clashing with Gabriel. Then it’s a blur of werewolves tangled on the ground. Limbs flailing and kicking, teeth snapping and snarling.
With two yelps, Soren and Merrick jump into the fight, and now it’s a blurry cloud of brown and red and black fur.
Vivian, in human form, sidles up next to me with a roll of her eyes and places her hand on the back of my elbow.
“Bunch of children,” she laughs, but does a double take when she sees me staring, eyes wide, like someone’s about to get their head ripped off. “Don’t worry. They’re fine.” She assures me with a gentle squeeze and then leads me past the growling twist of werewolf bodies. “They’ll work it out.”
I nod, trusting her, and follow her up the sidewalk past two abandoned houses until she opens a small, white picket fence and motions up at the most adorable house I’ve ever seen. Ivy climbs up the white-washed brick, kissing the wooden shingles hanging from the roof.
As Vivian unlocks her light blue door and I step over the threshold, the street goes silent behind me.
Lucan’s presence cuts out of my necklace so fast it startles me.
Looking over my shoulder, I see Soren and Merrick both pinning a now whimpering human Gabriel down by the arms and throat, while Lucan looms over him.
“She answers to no one,” Lucan tells Gabriel, dragging him up to his feet and glancing back at us one last time.
“See?” Vivian says as she shuts the door behind her. “All under control.”
Vivian pulls me into her bedroom and sits me in front of the most gorgeous mirror.
Framed with a simple white wood, it sits connected to a four-legged table with drawers to my left and right. On top sits little vials and round containers, brushes of all different sizes, glass bottles of pretty-colored liquids.