Chapter 11

Billie

As David pulled up by the house, he got out and came round the back. "Colt, go round up the pack and tell 'em to come to the house in thirty."

My adoptive brother nodded. He grasped my knee, giving it a squeeze before hopping out of the truck.

An ominous feeling settled over me as if the shadow Hexen Manor was casting was permeating me. It wasn't a coincidence that David was sending my one friend and ally away, was it?

My heart battered against my ribcage as David ordered, "Inside, Billie."

So, we're back to the disobedient dog tone. Great.

Following David, I trudged wearily behind the back of the house toward the kitchen. I eyed the ground around the door but didn't see the PJs I'd shed as my wolf had escaped my control. I wondered who had found them. Had Colt returned them upstairs?

My mind seemed to be scrambling to latch onto something, and I knew why as David turned around and pinned me with his icy stare. We hadn't even made it through the utility area before David spun around, his eyes grazing me like I was one of the elk who were brought into this room ... as if he were assessing the best way to take me apart.

"What you did last night was reckless and could've gotten you killed."

My shoulders rounded, and my chest deflated. The worst part was he wasn't wrong. But then, I hadn't really had a choice. My wolf had broken free. "I tried to stop my wolf," I explained, "but I couldn't get her under control."

David's chilling stare locked onto me. "Well, I'm addressing both you and your wolf now." His eyes pierced me as if he were seeing down to the bone. "You are forbidden from leaving this house. Do I make myself clear?"

My throat tightened, and I wanted to turn around and run. But it was then that I grew conscious of Catrina's presence as she tapped her toe in the doorway. That tap tap tap tap on the stone floor set my teeth on edge as she made it clear she was there and would be all too delighted to fight me if I gave her the opportunity.

Sweat trickled down my spine, and my palms grew clammy as the feeling of being cornered twisted through my gut. My wolf rose up within me, smarting at the sense that our freedom was being stripped away.

But taking on David and Catrina would be as foolhardy as taking on two dragons.

The echo of Aislin's voice sounded in my head, "By Vana, Billie, you did good, girl. You took on two dragons alone. Jeesh, that was some feat."

Even as my mind yelled at me that I'd done that and survived, I forced my wolf to back down. I didn't have the excuse of having to defend the pure-hearted Muriel to excuse such rash behavior. This wasn't the time to fight. I would bide my time, I decided. This was a situation that called for brains, not brawn.

So, I schooled my features, quashing down the stirring anger. "Yes, sir, I understand."

David's assessing gaze swept my face, and my seemingly contrite expression must have been passable because he gave me one brusque nod before dismissing me. "Get up to your room and stay there. I've got pack business going on all morning."

Relief swept through me. The idea of being in my own space where I could gather myself together was its own kind of freedom. I wandered over to my bed, where I found my PJs that my wolf had left by the back door. They had been folded. I picked them up and breathed in the scents on the fabric. Beneath my own perfume, I smelled a trace of Colt. A little of the tension in me unwound, and my shoulders eased. He'd be back soon. No doubt David would make him sit in on whatever pack business he was conducting this morning, but as I breathed in Colt's scent deeply, I looked forward to having a much-needed chat about everything that had happened over the course of the night.

I hadn't been in my room for more than a minute, though, before the door was pushed open. But it wasn't Colt. Catrina stood in the doorway. Her smug look sent a wave of anger washing over me. My wolf bristled, and I felt as if I might snap, depending on what she said. But she only reached around to the keyhole. She took a hold of the little key currently on the inside of my door.

My heart battered against my chest.

"Dad agreed with me that you're safer locked in. Holler if you need a toilet break." She flashed me a smile before tugging the door shut. The sound of the lock clicking into place as she turned the key sent my heart thrumming.

Sickness coiled in my stomach as it hit me that this was so much worse than David's usual indifference or Catrina's prickliness. My free time had always been curtailed by chores, but I'd never been physically constrained before. Dread churned through me as the seriousness of my situation hit home. They'd locked me up. I was a prisoner.

Catrina's words echoed through me. "Holler if you need a toilet break." Angry heat prickled through me. On top of everything, she was enjoying trying to humiliate me. I gritted my teeth, holding my head high as I turned toward the window and looked out. My room was at the front of the house and at least offered a view out onto the meadow. It was the usual way the pack took to go into the woods, so I'd at least be able to keep tabs on their movements.

For the next few days, despite growing restless, I remained locked up in my room. My jailer never changed, and only Catrina escorted me to the bathroom, remaining outside as she waited for me to "do my business,"as she delighted in telling me. She didn't let up in trying to get a rise out of me, making it blatantly clear that she would leap at the chance to physically lay into me. She brought me my meals three times a day, and each time she did, I couldn't help but think bitterly about how these meals were the first any of the Hexens had ever bothered to cook for me.

Silver lining, my mending pile is all done.

After a day of being locked up and seeing nothing of Colt, I wondered whether he'd been sent away somewhere on pack business by David. Surely, he wouldn't have allowed me to remain locked up if he'd known that his father and sister had literally imprisoned me. A whirlwind of doubt and confusion whipped through me as I wondered about my friend's absence.

I used my binoculars to keep tabs on the Dalesbloom pack from my bedroom window. I watched multiple packmates run through the meadow and into the woods. I saw Catrina's black wolf a few times but never Colt's.

Being cooped up gave me ample time for reflection. The most frequent thing that plagued my mind was how I'd come to be adopted by David in the first place. Of course, I'd wondered about it in the past. I'd asked him when I'd been a kid who my real parents were, but the only thing he'd agreed to tell me was that they'd been Dalesbloom packmates who had passed away. As Alpha of the pack, he'd taken me in rather than have me taken from my pack.

Yet, the more I pondered it, the more doubts I had about his story. As I gazed out at the meadow, tracing the blues, yellows, and pinks of wildflowers, I couldn't help wondering whether I'd never belonged here. As I gazed out at the blossoming meadow with the trees beyond, the view became transposed with a wide river, with cabins and mature trees nestled on its bank: Grandbay.

Since getting back from the Grandbay Pack lands, I felt like a fish out of water. That one night that I'd spent there, despite having been injured and smarting from Gavin giving me the cold shoulder, I'd still felt more of a sense of belonging there than I ever had here.

Sure, there were aspects of Dalesbloom lands that I'd enjoyed, like climbing my cottonwood tree. I looked out at the huge tree, a few of its tall branches just visible in the distance from my vantage point. I stared out at the springtime meadow, missing its fragrant perfume. My eyes tracked to the line of trees, and I thought of the Black Canyon beyond them, where I'd enjoyed lying for hours as I scoped the cliff shelves for the nests of peregrine falcons, anticipation quickening my pulse as I watched for them to cast themselves out onto the rising air currents.

But despite all of that, I couldn't help but reflect on how instant and all-encompassing the feeling of contentment had been in Grandbay. Sure, it might have a lot to do with the fact that Aislin had been so nice to me. I rubbed my sternum as an ache of loneliness swept through me at the thought of the bubbly woman. She'd been so quick to welcome me. How I wished that I had a mobile and Aislin's number so that I could let her know what had happened. I felt confident that she'd have come to my rescue if she'd known. But a mobile was an indulgent expense that David had never allowed me.

Muriel, too, had been so grateful for my help. And Helen had shown me care and kindness as she'd tended to my wound. I had been overwhelmed by the kindness and compassion I'd received in Grandbay simply because I'd experienced so little of it in my life. Besides, Colt…

A pang of disappointment moved through me as I acknowledged that it had been three days since I'd been shut in here, and still, he hadn't visited.

But just when I'd started to despair that my friend had abandoned me, the turn of the key in the lock drew my attention, and I was startled to see him standing there.

My heart drummed. Did that mean he'd managed to steal the key to my room? Was it time to…

Before I voiced any of my scrambling thoughts, Catrina stepped into the room, too, grinning like a demon. "Here you go, Billie. You've been so good; Dad says you can have some socialization." She winked at me before pulling the door shut and locking it again.

I heard Catrina's footfalls diminishing and then retreating down the stairs.

An angry flush mottled my face and neck. I couldn't hide the hurt. Worse was seeing the guilt there as his mouth tightened.

I turned my back on him, looking out at the meadow and the forest line but feeling as though the outside had gotten even farther from me now. After all, it was clear from Colt's expression that he'd known I was locked up. But he was only just visiting me after three days.

"Billie—" he started.

"Don't bother," I snapped. My breath was coming in short, angry bursts, and I felt the clawing of my wolf beneath my skin as she reacted to my anger as if there was a threat in the room.

"I wanted to come to see you," Colt blurted out, "but…" He'd come closer, and I swore if he was going to mumble some lame excuse about David preventing him, I was going to snarl.

But he surprised me as his voice dipped to a whisper, "But I didn't know what to do after I saw something the day we got back."

My gaze darted to him as he came to stand on the other side of the window. His blue eyes were cast down, and his fingers gripped his other hand, his forefinger tapping out a beat nervously.

My pulse spiked. What had shaken him up?

"Tell me, Colt," I demanded, the defensiveness of my wolf still evident in the growl in my voice.

Colt's eyes snapped up to meet mine. He took a breath. "The other evening, I was just returning from Joseph's house when I heard Dad's voice in the woods. I assumed he was talking to one of the packmates." He swallowed. "But when I heard this guy's voice, I stopped because I didn't recognize it."

Color crept along his pale skin as he said, "I eavesdropped when I heard Dad mention the Grandbay Pack and the unicorn called Muriel to the guy … "

"What else did they say to each other?" I demanded, adrenaline spiking through me as I thought about my kind-hearted friend. If she was in danger, there was even more reason I needed to get out of here.

Colt shook his head. "Not much else. Something about Eastpeak getting involved in protecting the unicorn." He paused. "Then this guy said that he and his clan would be ready to move when they got the signal." His eyes widened as he added, "And the worst bit of it," Colt confided, "is that I'm almost definitely sure this guy Dad was talking to was a dragon shifter. He reeked of ozone and sulfur," he explained, his blue eyes swimming with apprehension.

My pulse picked up as fear pummeled me. I'd always known David was distant and cold, but was he really working with the dragon shifters that were hunting Muriel? My stomach twisted with a knot of tension, and again, I wished I had a mobile and Aislin's number so that I could text her to be on the alert and guard Muriel.

It hit me that Colt could warn them. "You need to alert Grandbay. You could text Aislin about what you overheard," I said.

He flinched. "I can't go against my dad, Billie."

I gritted my jaw and ground out, "And I suppose because he's your dad, him locking me up is okay, too?"

He paled, and sadness swam in his eyes. "Of course, that's not okay."

I held my breath for a moment but wasn't surprised when Colt said, "We're just gonna have to get you out of here so that you can sound the alarm at Grandbay."

A glimmer of warmth moved through me. I knew it. Colt was good to the bone and would always come through for me. So, by the fading light, we started to hatch a plan to get me the hell out of here.