Chapter 27 Lucan
The first thing I notice when Saskia joins us in the meadow is that gold chain hanging around her pretty little neck again. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t fill me with some sort of twisted, smug appreciation that she picked it back up. That she wants to be marked as mine.
Then my eyes rove up to her face, and I know something’s wrong. I can see it in the tense lines of her face, even as she tries to hike up a smile when all the children run up to her.
“Ask her!” one of them cries, pushing the oldest, Milo, toward her.
“Yeah, do it, do it!”
I try to catch Saskia’s eye, but she won’t look at me, so I exchange a bemused glance with Merrick and the others instead.
Milo peeks back at his mother, hovering on the edge of the meadow with the other parents, before he shuffles up to Saskia and murmurs, “Will you… um… can I fight you, too? Just to practice?”
“Milo!” his mother calls, her voice stern and melodic.
She was one of the few werewolves who lived in Veradel back when it was still a kingdom, just a child herself when the vampires invaded.
I remember how overjoyed she was when she and her mate found out she was pregnant with Milo thirteen years ago. “You can’t even shift yet.”
Milo rounds on his mother, his arms crossed. “But if we’re attacked, then I should learn how to fight a vampire with what I’ve got. I’m still strong and fast and—
“We’re not going to be attacked, Milo.”
“We might if she manages to bring the Wall down like all you want her to.” The boy doesn’t have to nod at Saskia for everyone to know who he’s talking about.
Once again, I try to catch her eye so that I can detect what kind of emotion is brewing in them, but she won’t look at me.
She’s just standing there, wringing her hands together.
Did something go wrong with the antivenom?
“Even if the Wall comes down,” Milo’s mother bites back, “there’s no way you’re going to fight.”
“Maybe not, but what if the vampires decide they don’t want to fight, either? What if they run away… toward us?”
The kid’s actually got a point. The Wall has protected my pack from the Guardians just as much as the Guardians try to tell the humans it protects them from us.
“I say go for it!” Soren calls with his hands cupped around his mouth, breaking the silence. “Give the pup a chance!”
Milo doesn’t like being called ‘pup’ apparently, because he wrinkles his nose, but his mother sighs and glances at Saskia.
“I’ll go easy on him,” she mouths with a nod. My chest tightens, then warms, as I realize how everyone—besides maybe Gabriel and Kyra, not here at the moment but surely watching from some window—have finally accepted her as one of the pack.
“Okay.” Saskia seems to steel herself with a deep breath, locking away whatever’s bothering her, and turns toward Milo. “You might have the upper hand when it comes to smell, but my eyesight can detect and analyze every movement you make, so you’re going to try to surprise me. Act errat—”
Before that word can even leave her lips, Milo shouts and barges toward her.
The other children cheer from the sidelines, but Saskia easily sidesteps him, twirls, and grabs him from behind—gently, I notice.
Taking it easy on him. The little shit responds by twisting in her grip, kicking backward, and landing a hit to her shin.
Which makes me have to swallow a growl.
Graceful as ever, Saskia hooks her foot beneath Milo’s ankle and tries to push him forward, but he crouches and yanks them both sideways. She stumbles, he grabs her arm, and the small crowd goes wild as he throws her sideways.
I lurch forward without thinking, but before Milo can fully pin her down, Saskia pops back up and evades his hands with quick, dancing steps backward. Good girl.
“That was really nice!” she calls to Milo. “But maybe this time, don’t shout when you charge me?”
Milo’s mouth parts, then snaps shut again. I barely have time to register the moment he barrels forward without warning when something peculiar happens. Saskia freezes, her mouth dropping open in shock.
But I know what this is. I’ve seen it before—felt it before.
Milo keeps stumbling forward, his shoulders growing and hunching, his neck broadening, his nose lengthening. Fur rips from his back with a sound like medical tape tearing itself off skin. An animalistic growl erupts from his throat as he skids to a halt—
In wolf form.
True, his wolf form isn’t nearly as domineering as mine, and his tufts of hair are sticking up in rough, thin patches… but everyone in the meadow blinks at him in utter shock and silence.
Until we burst into cheers. A round of applause from me. A holler from Merrick. A long, shrill whistle from Soren. The other children run to Milo, screaming and immediately pressing their small, stubby hands over every inch of his new body.
Saskia herself claps her hands off to the side, as if she’s unsure whether or not she should be celebrating with all of us. My heart twists, and I stride toward her, but Vivian gets there first—stalking up from behind her and pushing her into the excitement. Milo nuzzles her in appreciation.
Saskia beams, truly radiant. For the first time, I think she might feel like she belongs.
Then Milo’s mother is there, leaping forward, pride engraved in her smile as she cradles her son’s new lupine face in both hands, kissing him on his snout as he wags a bushy tail and turns in a quick circle.
That’s when I look back at Saskia and notice the moment her own smile slips.
Shit. An emotion I can’t even name presses against my sternum.
I’d gift Saskia the whole damn world ten times over, but I can’t give her her mother back.
The whole reason she wanted to be a Chosen One in the first place was because of her mother, and yet now she’s here.
Helping my family instead of her own. Watching another mother embrace her child.
And fuck if that doesn’t haunt me.
So I push past the celebratory chaos, right to her.
“Hey.”
“Hey!” Her voice comes out high-pitched, but she still won’t look at me.
I run my hand down her arm, lacing my fingers through hers. Finally, she raises her eyes to mine.
“I’m okay,” she insists.
But another voice cuts me off before I can respond.
“What a wonderful thing, to witness a first shift. And what an even more wonderful thing to be the reason it came about.”
We both whip around to find my own mother extending a hand out… and not to me.
Saskia’s eyes widen a fraction. I give her hand an encouraging squeeze before releasing her, thankful for my mother’s appearance and hoping like hell that she can give Saskia everything I can’t.
Hesitantly, Saskia loops her arm with my mother’s, and they walk away from the meadow, toward her house across from the old church.
When they disappear, I turn back to Soren and give his shoulder a friendly shove, pushing him into Merrick.
“Let’s see if you’ve learned anything from her, too, or if I can still beat your ass like usual.”
As Vivian rolls her eyes, the three of us begin to laugh and slam into each other. Even Milo joins in, proud of himself, and the other children shriek with giggles as they root for different werewolves.
Taking in the sight before me with a pinch in my chest, a single thought glows within me despite the chilly air settling over the town.
After centuries of howling and prowling around the Wall, I feel more connected to my pack than ever before.
As if Saskia has already healed a gaping wound I never even realized these last remnants of Veradel had.