Chapter 25: Billie

Chapter 25: Billie

Last night was the most beautiful evening I’d ever spent with someone. Going on dates wasn’t something I was used to; in high school, I was asked out once by a boy I wasn’t sure I liked and we went to see a movie. Another night we went bowling, but it didn’t pan out after David forbade me from going out with the boy again. He claimed he didn’t like that I spent so much time away from the manor after school. It felt like a small mercy to me because I didn’t think I could be the girlfriend to that boy wanted anyway; I was quiet and nervous and couldn’t make very good conversation. That was the extent of my experience with dates, and I thought it would stay that way. But Gavin showed me what a real date was like, he showed me that I was deserving of that serenity shared with another person, and even after we got back to the apartment and fell asleep, I kept waking up in disbelief that it was actually real.

Over the next week, the Grandbay pack had developed a routine to cope with the looming threat of Dalesbloom. They ran patrols twice a day in groups of two or three, ensuring somebody was always at the pack house so that if a call went up, whoever was at the pack house could alert the others, then go see what was wrong. We didn’t howl unless it was for help. I joined the patrols too, usually alongside Gavin or Aislin, but sometimes with Oslo and Gretel. Hunts were reduced to once a week and took four or five of us. I finally felt like I was really part of a wolf pack, and the feeling of belonging and purpose it provided elevated me to happiness I’d never known before. It felt right to be by Gavin’s side.

Dalesbloom and the Inkscales didn’t strike, but we knew they were just biding their time, especially since Eastpeak and the Mythguard could get involved. It was more of a bluff on our end; we didn’t know if David was aware that Everett wouldn’t act until they attacked us, but maybe he was counting on that. The longer I spent in Grandbay, the more my thoughts ventured back to Colt. I missed my brother. I ached, knowing that he was trapped with David and Catrina, knowing that he had suffered at the hand of Gavin, but what could I do? I wanted to liberate him from Dalesbloom and bring him into Grandbay with me. Maybe he and Gavin could make up. Since Colt hadn’t answered any of my texts before my phone plan was canceled by David, I was without the means to communicate with him.

I didn’t have an obsessive personality type, but the thought of Colt wouldn’t leave me alone. He was so close. If he’d come to the borders once before looking for me, who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again?

On a hot, mid-August night, I couldn’t sleep. Gavin snored softly beside me, his hand draped over my hip. It was difficult convincing myself to leave his warm cocoon of safety, but easier once I’d actually slipped out of bed and my feet hit the hardwood floor. I got dressed, crept through the darkness, put on my shoes, and carefully closed the apartment door behind me. Outside, the air was humid and stars glimmered in a clear black sky above. The tranquility of the night soothed the havoc in my mind about what I was doing. I was endangering myself by going out to the Dalesbloom perimeter alone, but by now, I had quite a bit of experience with lone trips into the forest. I knew I was a capable wolf. I’d turn back if the scents of Dalesbloom and the Inkscales were too strong.

As a wolf, I made a beeline for the northern perimeter. Wolf and dragon alike saturated the air, triggering my flight reflex, but I pushed on. When I caught a whiff of Colt and his healing wounds, it encouraged me to keep going. My heart pounded with relief that he was out here too. He was still searching for me, even after crossing Gavin. The edges of Grandbay territory arrived, towering birch becoming broad, green conifers into the buffer zone between our packs. The wind picked up, stirring all kinds of scents. I zeroed in on Colt’s smell, anticipating the moment I’d see his midnight black fur in the moonlight.

A large shape materialized in the trees. Dark and slender, it prowled through the bushes without noticing me yet, but Colt’s scent was so strong it had to be him. I woofed at him, unable to stop my tail from wagging. My misgivings toward Colt and my inability to trust him had all faded for the sheer joy of seeing my brother again; but when the beast raised its head and the breeze carried its scent toward me, I realized it wasn’t him. The reptilian monster locked its flashing yellow eyes on me and growled.

But Colt… I could smell him. He was here, he had to be…?

Gasping sharply, I backpedaled and searched the forest, expecting to see my brother somewhere, anywhere nearby, but the bodies emerging all around me weren’t canine. They slithered and hissed, flaring their wings in threat. I sought an escape, but they surrounded me. The dragons swiftly overwhelmed me while I struggled to understand how Colt’s smell had deceived me so badly.

A dragon lunged at me, grabbing my leg. I yelped and wrenched away, but the dragon had too tight of a hold on me; my paws scrabbled helplessly at the dirt while teeth sunk into my flesh. Then came another dragon, its jaws wrapped around my lower back. Fear exploded in my mind. It could take a chunk out of me, paralyze me, or even kill me if it wanted to. It took longer than it should have for me to realize how badly I was screwed over, but as the dragons all crashed down on me, the threat of death suddenly became very real. I snarled and squirmed, flinging my teeth at anything that got too close, but it was futile. They had me.

All I could think to do was transform, hoping that they would respect the unspoken rule of the shifters.

The dragons didn’t back off when my body twisted and my bones began cracking apart. They kept their teeth on me, uttering guttural noises at one another while my skin pulled and my anatomy reshaped itself. By the time I was human, I was sprawled in the grass with my ankle in the teeth of a dragon, another dragon pinning my abdomen with a heavy, clawed foot, and another with its teeth on my throat. The sharp points of its fangs threatened to puncture my windpipe. I breathed fast, knowing any breath I took could be my last, and gazed wildly between the dragons. “Stop, please,” I begged.

But I didn’t expect them to let me go. They had more reason to kill me than to spare my life.

One of the dragons had transformed, introducing a tall, pale figure I found immediately recognizable, even in the dark. His blond hair hung behind his shoulders, his fierce gaze regarding me with amusement as he stood at my feet. He was already wearing jeans. “I’d think you were surrendering yourself, walking into the jaws of death,” said Lothair.

“I’m looking for Colt,” I mustered. It was hard to speak with teeth around my throat.

Lothair tilted his head. “Did he call you out here?”

“No. I smelled him.”

“What were you doing alone?”

My breath trembled, but I wasn’t willing to admit I’d been stupid enough to come here without telling anyone.

Lothair chuckled darkly behind his lips. “Does Mr. Steele know you’re here?”

I caught Lothair’s eye. He knew the answer.

“What a shame. I’m sure David would have enjoyed the look on Gavin’s face as he ripped you away from Grandbay. No matter; he’ll be delighted all the same to have you in his possession,” said Lothair, clasping his hands behind his back. “Get her to her feet. She’ll be coming with us to the manor,” he instructed the dragons.

My stomach dropped. “No, please. I can’t go back.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”

I thought the worst that would happen was that I would smell dragons and be able to flee. I didn’t imagine that I would get caught. I didn’t think I’d be going back to the manor, trapped under David’s thumb again. As the dragons withdrew from me, I sprang to my feet and tried to run for the bushes behind us, but the pain in my shorn ankle caught me off guard. I stumbled, then the dragons closed around me again, imprisoning me with their teeth.

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Jesper,” said Lothair.

It took all I had not to cry. My throat swelled and my eyes watered, but I stared defiantly up at Lothair and found my voice. “Where is Colt?”

Lothair smiled thinly. “I’m afraid you just missed him.”

If only I’d been a few minutes quicker…

Despair kept me silent on the journey back to the manor. When I saw the massive house looming out of the forest, its shingles and chimney washed in moonlight, I was reminded of all the years I’d spent confined within its walls. I had only been free for a little under a month, but it felt like a lifetime. It wasn’t a home. It was a prison. They dragged me into the familiar back yard I had played in, ran across, looked out at, and they dropped me in the grass as the glass porch door slid open.

I looked up at David, Catrina, and another woman—her belly round, very obviously pregnant—stepping out to gaze down at me. Catrina smirked, her arms crossed. The blond pregnant woman was unaffected by me. But it was David I dreaded seeing the most, his face without emotion as he regarded the daughter he adopted, who had run away, who now meant nothing to him. “You’ve returned,” he drawled.

I felt terribly exposed, standing naked before my family and the dragons. Their eyes crawled all over me. Hunching my shoulders, I avoided their gaze and tried to hide as much of myself as I could. “I’m not coming back,” I said. “I only came to talk to Colt.”

“What makes you think I’ll even allow you to speak to my son?”

His son. As if I was no longer his daughter. I never was, I supposed.

“He won’t let you hurt me,” I murmured.

“My son does not dictate my actions,” said David. “You’re trespassing. I have the right to do with you as I please.”

“Let me at her. I’ve been dying to cut up that pretty face of hers,” snarled Catrina.

I flinched at her harshness.

David dismissed Catrina with a gesture. “Not yet. I want to speak with Billie privately while she’s still able to speak at all.”

Slowly, I summoned the courage to look up at them. Just seeing the way David stared back at me lit a fire in my heart. All the years he’d spent raising me, claiming he was protecting me, they meant nothing to him. I loved him like he was my father… but to him, I was just another pawn.

“Lothair, have all your dragons hunt along the south borders tonight. I anticipate someone will come searching for Billie soon,” instructed David.

Lothair ascended the steps to the porch and slid his arm around the pregnant woman. “Sibyelle, my love,” he purred, “have you ever dined on wolf before?”

The woman curled the corner of her lips. “No; it will be a first for me, but perhaps it will give our unborn a taste for finer things.”

David grunted. “You’ll have your choice of meats only once the rest of Grandbay falls.”

“Relax, Hexen. I’m only taunting,” said Lothair, kissing Sibyelle’s brow before leading the pregnant woman down the steps. “My wife and I shall inform our clan of this development.”

They walked past me, their eyes shining wickedly in the night. Sibyelle licked her lips and regarded me with unnerving hunger. The rest of the dragons followed them until it was just me standing alone in the yard under the judgmental stares of David and Catrina.

David stepped into the grass, frowning at me before taking my arm. His grip was rough and unforgiving. He jerked me closer, bending his neck to growl into my ear, “Don’t expect any goodwill from me, Billie. You insulted our family when you left us for Grandbay. When you took Gavin from Catrina. Now you’ll face the consequences of slighting us as a stranger, not the powerful Hexen you could have grown up to be.”

Every word he said just made me angrier. I met his eyes and filled my lungs. “You were never going to let me be strong enough.”

David sneered. “I pitied the frail little girl I took into my home fifteen years ago. I wouldn’t have hurt her. But you…” His voice darkened, his grip tightening. “Pray that you can handle what I intend to do to you now.”

Rage and terror churned within me. David wanted to hurt me, and I abhorred finding out exactly how he planned to do that.

My fate lay in the manor ahead of us, and as David dragged me back into the prison I thought I had escaped, my only hope was that Gavin would wake to my pain before it was too late.