Chapter 22

22

I landed in the icy water, the cold shocking me as my wounds burned from the contact. Gravity plunged me to the bottom of the river, and I’d barely slowed when I struck a submerged boulder. New pain erupted at the jarring blow, and my air escaped my lungs. The river swept me downstream with startling ferocity, spinning me about until I couldn’t tell up from down.

Though I pawed at the water, trying to swim to a calmer spot or at least find air, I couldn’t make progress against the whirling current. I clipped another boulder and lashed out in frustration, snapping at the water.

A boom cracked from nearby. What the— Was that a gunshot?

Finally, I flowed into calmer water, the pool I’d noticed before, and managed to get my snout to the surface. My paws brushed against the pebble-covered river bottom. I longed to surge onto solid land, but the gunshot made me hesitate to crawl out. Staying low, I peered toward shore.

On a rocky ledge overlooking the river, two camo-wearing men pointed rifles. I tensed, but they weren’t facing me. Their firearms angled skyward, upriver and toward the bridge. The water had carried me thirty or forty yards downstream, but the trestle remained visible, silhouetted against the night sky. Two wolves on it were also silhouetted.

My first thought was that the hunters were aiming at my cousin’s thuggish allies, and I started to wish the men good luck. But wait. That was a white wolf up there. And a silver female wolf. My mother and Lorenzo. They must have come out of the woods and onto the railroad trestle to look for me. Now, with a gunshot fired, they were running toward cover.

“Get them this time,” one man blurted.

“I will,” the other said, finger tightening on the trigger of his rifle.

I snarled and surged out of the water toward the hunters.

As had happened so long ago, my wolf instincts took over completely. The wild rage of a hurt animal, an angry animal, drove all rational thought out of my mind. I barely felt the pain from my wounds as I sprinted at the hunters. All I knew was that I had to keep them from killing my mother, from hurting the pack.

The men heard my splashes as I raced out of the water and paused.

“Look out for that one!” One hunter swung his rifle toward me.

“That message wasn’t kidding.” The other man pointed in my direction. “Wolves are all over.”

I dove sideways as they fired. One bullet ricochetted off the rocky bank. One grazed my shoulder, fiery pain blasting me.

They swore and took aim again, but, by then, I’d reached them. With nothing but werewolf instincts and savagery guiding me, I tore into them.

My last conscious thought before my awareness disappeared into a red and black haze was that it was happening again. It was like it had been all those years ago when I’d killed Raoul. I couldn’t stop the magic and wildness that took me over the edge. I bit and snarled and knocked my targets down, driven by fury, driven by the instincts and intense power of the werewolf.

That magical imperative didn’t wane until the hunters lay dead, their rifles fallen near their bodies.

Awareness returned slowly, as my ragged panting sounded in my ears, and water and blood dripped onto the rocky bank under my paws. My numerous wounds tingled with warmth as much as pain, some unfamiliar magic affecting them. Healing them? The tingling wasn’t something I’d experienced before, so maybe it had to do with that locket. I didn’t know, but I was on my feet when I probably shouldn’t have been. And I had the strength to turn and look for more threats as my rational mind returned, along with the awareness that my cousin had laid this trap. I had no doubt that he had told these hunters that wolves would be available to bag tonight in this spot. He and his allies had intentionally driven me in this direction.

On my side of the river but downstream, the dark-gray wolf that was Augustus limped into view, wet and glaring at me. I snarled, ready to rip his throat out. Wanting to rip his throat out.

Emilio padded out of the woods and onto the rock ledge, not far from me. Jasmine and several others followed. Finally, my mother and Lorenzo came out of the trees, her pelt even more silver under the moonlight. Fortunately, she didn’t appear wounded. Neither of them did.

Uncertainty trickled into me, displacing the rage. Or maybe it was simply that my battle lust was fading.

Mom stopped, sitting on her haunches, and gazed at the dead men. Later, I would feel regret for allowing the savagery of the werewolf magic to take me over, to turn me into a crazed monster. I had been defending myself and my mother, but it was too similar to when I’d lost Raoul.

As my fury waned, the magic did too. I’d answered the call of the wolf, and that was done for now. I changed back into my human form, as did some of the others. With the absence of fur, the chill autumn air was biting, but I didn’t shy away from it. In my human form, the memory of all that I’d longed to learn returned to me. It was time to get some answers.

“My daughter,” Mom said, having also changed. “You have returned to us.”

I grimaced and glanced at the bodies. There probably wouldn’t be ramifications when the authorities found them, since their wounds proclaimed they’d been killed by a wild animal, and the law didn’t acknowledge the existence of werewolves , but I couldn’t help but worry and feel that I’d been forced into this. To kill. Again.

“Were you part of setting this up?” I didn’t think she had been, but… I had to ask. I had to know .

“Not I.” Mom frowned sternly toward Augustus.

His battle lust must have also cooled, because he slumped against a tree in his human form, chest abraded and bleeding from the fall.

“Come here, Augustus,” Mom called. “I will hear your explanation, or I will ask you to leave the pack.”

Scowling, he looked into the woods behind him, as if he was considering leaving of his own accord. But, ultimately, he walked up the bank toward us. The rest of the pack, some still in wolf form, stood or sat on their haunches to watch.

Augustus stopped several paces away. “You said you were going to leave the wolf medallion to your daughter. Even though she rejected our pack and our kind. Until this night, she kept mutilating herself with magic so she wouldn’t turn into a werewolf anymore.”

“I’m aware,” my mother said coolly. “But when I tested others, including your mate, nobody else caused the artifact to react with acceptance. Even with her power dulled, the medallion desired her touch above all others who gripped it. ”

I rocked back, feeling dense. Mom had told me about that testing and that Augustus’s mate had been in consideration for inheriting the artifact. But I hadn’t realized it was so valuable, so important, that it would prompt someone to kill for it. Augustus must have resented me already. For a long time.

“It glowed some for my mate,” he said.

“Little. It glowed more for my daughter.”

“ She rejected us.” Augustus pointed a finger at me. “What does it matter?”

“Once, she did leave us, yes,” Mom said. “For reasons that made sense to her at the time. But now… Now she is here. I knew she would return.”

I swallowed. I hadn’t decided to do that. All this had been about figuring out why Augustus wanted me dead. That was it.

Well, maybe that wasn’t true. Since I’d learned Mom was dying… That had changed something too, hadn’t it?

“She wasn’t going to return to us,” Augustus said. “It wasn’t until I— Until this week, she wanted nothing to do with us.”

“Until you attacked her,” my mother said. “That was what you meant to say, yes?”

He stared at the ground. “Yes.”

“She did not challenge you.”

“No, she was a puny human who couldn’t challenge anyone .”

I bristled and almost waved to the dead hunters, but slaying people, especially in a fit of animalistic rage, wasn’t anything to be proud of. I resented that my cousin had set this up. That a bunch of my family members had been in on it.

“The only reason she came here was to cry to you that the pack wasn’t treating her well.” Augustus pointed at me again, his finger accusing.

“I came because I wanted to know why you were trying to kill me,” I said. “I didn’t care about treatment in general.”

“Whatever brought her,” my mother said, glancing toward Jasmine, “does not matter. Luna is here. She has returned to us.” Mom lifted her chin and met my eyes. “ She is my heir. And you will not attempt to harm her again unless she challenges you for your position in the pack.”

Jaw clenched, Augustus didn’t answer.

“Did you steal the case from my apartment complex?” I asked Augustus, hoping he would continue to answer and speak the truth with my mother watching. “Or tell someone to do it?” I realized he couldn’t have been there, attacking Bolin, at the same time he was at Mom’s cabin, getting ready for the hunt.

Augustus glanced at Mom. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Case?” Mom asked, watching us both.

“A magical artifact with a toothy wolf on it.”

“I’m not familiar with any such artifacts in the area that would have significance to the pack.”

I was about to say that it’d been made with druid magic and might not have anything to do with werewolves, but I grew aware of all the eyes watching the conversation, not all of them friendly. Maybe I would talk to my mother about it in private later. It was hard to read through Augustus’s surliness whether he had been responsible for the theft or not. Duncan was the one who’d been trying to get it all along. Bolin would have recognized him if he’d been the attacker, but it was possible he’d hired someone to help.

The tingling in my wounds had worn off. They didn’t seem to be bleeding, but weariness settled into me, and I didn’t have the strength to ask any more questions. All I wanted was to return home and curl up in bed and sleep for days.

The white wolf, Lorenzo, had stayed back during the discussion, allowing my mother to handle it, but he stepped forward now. With the moon shining on his back, he shifted, morphing into a man I hadn’t seen in a long time. He was younger than Mom but not by much, his white hair thick and straight, but his skin weathered and creased. His body was still lean and muscular. Powerful. He stood at Mom’s side to face my cousin.

“If you attack my mate’s daughter again,” Lorenzo told Augustus in a gravelly voice, “you will answer to me.”

“And no matter what happens,” Mom said, “after this, neither you nor your mate will inherit anything from me. Certainly not that medallion and the hope for our people’s future survival.”

After giving me a dark look, one that promised he wasn’t done with me, Augustus stalked into the woods. Several others took off after him, those who were his allies, those who’d been willing to help him end my life.

I licked dry lips, distressed that I might not have resolved anything tonight.

“I am glad you have returned, my daughter.” Mom nodded at me before she and Lorenzo took their wolf forms again to leave.

I pushed my hand through hair wet from my soak in the river and wondered if I could so easily command the wolf to return. After a change and a hunt, the insatiable urge to do so usually faded until a threat or another full moon bestirred my wild instincts again.

Before I could test my abilities, Jasmine walked up. “Are you okay?”

“Bruised. Battered.” I glanced at the dead hunters but quickly looked away. “And rattled.”

“I would be too. I’ve never been forced to…” Jasmine waved at the bodies.

“Yeah.” I appreciated that she’d used the words been forced to for me. I hadn’t wanted this. She understood.

“I need to make a confession.” Jasmine looked around, but the rest of our kin were leaving, most as wolves, but a few as people, perhaps not able to summon the magic to change again .

I recalled the look my mother had given to Jasmine and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“I heard about you being Aunt Umbra’s heir and her wanting you to have the medallion and her cabin. She actually called me in along with some of the other female werewolves with reasonable power and strong ties to the pack. She wanted us all to touch the medallion.” Jasmine’s mouth twisted. “It didn’t so much as glow or pulse for me.”

“Sorry.” It might have been better for my life if it hadn’t reacted to me in any way. Would it be wrong for me to be envious of my niece?

“I overheard some discussions I wasn’t supposed to, such as that Augustus might want to get rid of you to ensure his mate was chosen as the heir. I think he was researching that medallion and knows more about it, maybe even more than your mom. Anyway, I thought about going to warn you, but I knew you weren’t… uhm, quite yourself.”

She’d known about the potion, yes. She’d already admitted that.

“I dragged my sister to Shoreline, and we… convinced the alchemist lady in your apartment complex to return to her native land. She was from Ireland, did you know?”

“You convinced her?”

“Well, we strongly suggested that it was time for her to leave the area. We didn’t threaten her, but we did change in front of her, and that might have scared her. She left, which was what we were hoping for.”

“Why?”

“So she wouldn’t continue to make you potions. So you’d have to come back to us—to your mother . Your mom believed it would happen without intervention, that you’d see the light—the moon light—and eventually come, but it had been more than twenty-five years, and she was dying… so… we felt we needed to help her. And to help you . If Augustus was going to come gunning for you, you needed your wolf power.” Jasmine shrugged.

Maybe I should have been mad at the manipulation—and certainly that they’d scared an old lady away—but at least Jasmine had been looking out for my mother. And, I supposed, for me. If I hadn’t been out of potions, would I have had a chance of surviving Augustus’s attempts to kill me?

Maybe not.

“Beatrice is okay?” I asked.

“She should be. We didn’t hurt her. I think she just moved.”

“In a hurry. Without leaving her key, collecting her damage deposit, and notifying the leasing office.”

“Well, a wolf did growl at her right outside her front door.” Jasmine touched her chest. “That can hasten move-outs.”

I rubbed my face but didn’t contemplate the situation for long. Naked and damp, with the cold night air nipping at my bare skin, I was ready to go home. And I needed to check on Bolin too.

“I should have talked to you about the situation,” Jasmine said in an apologetic tone, “but I didn’t know you or how you would react or if you hated the pack. None of us have been real sure about you.”

“I haven’t been real sure about myself either.” I’d always thought I would have my whole life figured out by this age, but it seemed more chaotic than ever.

Jasmine smiled uncertainly. “Maybe the witch lady will come back or call when she’s recovered from…”

“Being scared off her ass by a giant wolf?”

“It wasn’t a giant wolf. Just a medium-sized one.”

I sighed. “I don’t know whether to thank you for wanting to help me or resent you for meddling and terrifying one of my tenants. ”

“If you decide on the former, I like sausage logs.”

“What if I decide on the latter?”

“You can club me with a sausage log?”

“As long as I leave it on the ground for you after I’m done?”

Her smile grew a little braver. “Ideally, yes.”