Quinn
Shit! I cursed all through the day. I could feel the energy. I looked at my brothers and knew they felt the same way that I did. They could also feel what I was feeling and the fear coursing through my veins was by no doubt running through theirs as well.
This was not good but what I knew would happen. It wasn’t possible that there would be no full moon night throughout our journey here. Maybe I had hoped that we would easily find what it was we had been looking for and be out. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. We had been here for almost two weeks and hadn’t gotten to the Aselia tree even though we were on the Gayalluc island. Of course, treasures were always hard to find.
I looked at Mia, hating that we might put her in danger. I feared that we should shift tonight and kill her as the dark wizard had predicted. That would be a disaster. I would want to kill myself but I wouldn’t because we had to save dad and couldn’t let our family die out like that. I also couldn’t kill myself because the absence of one of us was going to affect the other brothers so we had no choice but to stay alive and live out our long lives in misery and agony, without our mate and bearing the burden of guilt on our hearts, knowing that we had killed her.
I sighed. We should have been harder with insisting that Mia stay at home and not follow us. We shouldn’t have let her sway us. I snorted at myself. Who was I kidding? She didn’t sway us. We chose to be swayed because we wanted her with us deep down in our hearts or she wouldn’t be here regardless of what she said.
She turned to us, her face pinched with curiosity. I knew that look. She had caught on to something. Her lips were also lined with a scowl.
“What is wrong with the three of you?” She scowled.
“What?” I snapped out of my thoughts. I had only been walking forward but my head wasn’t in the journey. “What do you mean?” I repeated, glancing at my three brothers to wonder what they had done.
“The three of you have been sighing all through this journey as if you want to dig a joke into your chest.” She said.
I sighed. I was so absorbed in my own worries that I didn’t know what else was going on. I should have known that my brothers would be worried and acting the same way as well.
“We are sorry for making you worry. Let’s go. We won’t sigh again.” I smiled, though I wondered how I was going to do that. I tended to sigh unconsciously.
“Bullshit.” She rasped out in annoyance.
I chuckled, always amused by her temper. “Mia.”
“Don’t Mia me.” She hissed. “What is wrong with you?”
We were all silent. I didn’t think I could talk. I couldn’t tell her what the problem was. Then she was going to be the one with the burdens. I couldn’t put that on her. I looked at my brothers and they didn’t seem like they were going to talk as well.
“Aren’t you going to talk?” She asked, her eyebrows arched up.
I almost laughed at how serious and demanding she looked but I couldn’t. She would flare up and demand for my head.
“Let’s go, Mia.” I said instead. “It’s getting dark and we need to find a place to rest.” Hopefully, one that wasn’t an open field.
“Not until you tell me what the problem is.” She snorted. “We are partners on this journey. Even though I am not as strong as you are, if there is a problem, you have to tell me. That is how I can survive. You can’t keep me in the dark.”
She was stubborn and wouldn’t let us move forward unless we tell her.
“Don’t worry, Mia. It’s nothing serious.”
“Don’t patronize me, Quinn.” She scowled at me.
“It’s the night of the full moon.” Jack blurted out. “That’s why we have been worried.”
All the blood drained from her face and she went pale with worry. I knew she was shocked but I couldn’t tell what else she was feeling. She didn’t seem like she was scared as I thought she would be. She wasn’t freaking out and I didn’t know if that was a good thing. Maybe she was still in shock and would have her mega freak out show later.
I stared at Jack in disbelief. What was he thinking? How could he tell her that? She was going to be afraid now and I didn’t want that. I thought we all agreed that we weren’t going to make her worry.
Jack shrugged at me. “She was going to find out eventually. How else would we explain to her that we wouldn’t be with her this night?”
I knew that but I wanted to keep it away from her for some time. Now, she would have to think of fear till it was time for us to shift. She was going to wonder if she was going to die this night. I didn’t think she was going to smile throughout today again.
“You shouldn’t have told her.” I chided Jack.
“I can handle it. I’m not that weak, Quinn. Don’t make me that.” She rebuked me.
I sighed. “It’s not that but you can’t stop us when we shift into wolves. Have you forgotten what the dark wizard said? I’m afraid that I will lose my humanity as she had said and tear you into pieces. It will break us if we do that to you.”
“You won’t.” She said, convinced of her words.
“Why?”
“Because you love me.”
We all blushed at her words. “And that is why we are trying to protect you.” John said.
“Don’t keep on protecting me. Let’s protect one another.”
We stared at her. I couldn’t help the smile on my face. Mia had changed and I loved that.
“Okay.” I said but I didn’t agree with that. I knew that my brothers didn’t as well. Regardless of what she thought of, she was always going to come first and we were going to protect her and ourselves in the process before we allowed her to protect us.
“Stay away from us tonight though.” Jack warned her. “Let’s not take any risk. I would turn back to human and find your corpse beside me with claw and bite marks.”
“Yes, Mia. We won’t ever forgive ourselves.” I added. “Run if you can tonight, as far away as you can from us except you want us to live our days in regret.”
“Let’s continue.” John said.
We continued on our journey. I was so happy when we found an old temple. It was old but not bad enough to sleep in for the night. We walked inside, hoping we could find a place with a door that Mia could sleep in tonight. That would be good and safe for her. We would go out to the open field and sleep there so when we shifted, we wouldn’t harm her. Even if we come to the temple, the door would keep us out.
That was good and I was relieved that my prayers were answered.
“You will sleep here tonight, Mia.” I told her.
“What of you?” She blinked at us.
“We will be fine.”
“There should be somewhere here that you can shift without having to go out. Don’t pretend those chains and ropes are not meant for you to tie yourselves up on the night of the full moon. Let’s find somewhere you can do that in the temple. You should also sleep under a roof today.”
“Mia.”
“Don’t argue with me.” She said. “Just listen.”
I smiled at her bossy time. “Okay, mum.”
She rolled her eyes at my jibe and moved forward. We followed her and kept searching the temple till we found a cellar in it.
She was glad more than we were and turned to us with a smile. “See?”
We nodded, looking into the cellar. “This will do.” It had hooks that we can put the chains through. By my guess, this had to be the torture room for offenders. I shuddered. This was only for tonight. I was certainly going to get back at the dark wizard for this. If not for him, I wouldn’t have felt any need to chain myself up on a full moon night as I was always in perfect control of my senses.
“Let’s get dinner and then we come back here to strap ourselves real good.” John said.
“Don’t come down here when we are in this place, Mia. Never.” I reminded her. “I’m glad it has a door so you will lock it from outside and go back upstairs to have your sleep. Are we clear?”
“I hear you.” She replied.
Good. We were set for tonight. I felt a bit relieved that we had precautions in place and wouldn’t hurt her.