Since arriving in Louis and Peter’s pack, our plan was to get the four of us back home safely in time for the inevitable war, which could erupt at any moment. Now, with three deadly werewolves coming for me, our timeline was compressed. We had three days, meaning we had to leave in two. This required not only an evacuation plan but also contingency plans from Louis and Peter.
Danger and death had followed us, putting all these white wolves at risk. An entire city dedicated to their safety, maintaining invisibility for ten years, had been jeopardized in an hour.
“They’ll find you no matter where you go,” Louis said, shaking her head as she saw the turmoil in my eyes. For a moment, I wondered if she could feel emotions too, or if she was just incredibly attuned to everything around her. “These people live here knowing it’s their safest option, though not infallible. They understand discovery could happen at any moment.”
“If we leave in two days, can your warriors divert the trail around the town?” Ethan asked, his dark eyes brimming with ideas. “We could leave tomorrow, just as the sun sets.”
“It’s possible, but the priority is ensuring you four make it back to your pack,” Louis said, squaring her shoulders and looking at me. “Everyone in this town knows who you are, and they would sacrifice their lives to get you out. I know you don’t want your life put above others, but you are the head of this movement. Packs that have remained quiet for decades are finally speaking up because of you. If you die, so does the courage that many of these packs are experiencing for the first time. You are hope to them, someone too strong to be controlled.”
How far things had come-from a mundane human to a hunted fugitive. Louis’s words echoed in my mind as we left the house. Lara’s humming sounded like a funeral dirge as I descended the porch steps, a weight in my chest.
We had no time to relax. Peter and the twins stayed behind with Lara to figure out a plan to get us out safely. Contacting anyone outside the town wasn’t possible without risking exposure. Louis and Peter could mind-link their pack members, no matter how far away.
With Louis at the wheel, we drove into town and pulled into the parking lot of a modest building. Made from red brick with rectangular windows, a handmade sign read “Public Library.”
“We won’t have all the answers, but there might be something helpful here,” Louis explained as we entered, listening to the golden bell on the door ring. We were enveloped in the comforting smell of rose incense and warm tea. She bypassed the front desk, where a woman in her fifties smiled warmly, and headed straight for a door labeled “Employees Only.” “Maverick likes knowledge, which means restricting it from everyone else. This is the only safe place for our pack’s collective knowledge. Everything we know, passed down through generations.”
We descended a set of metal stairs into a dark, damp basement. Another door led us to an old meeting room lined with shelves full of dusty, old books. Two wooden tables held multiple books, some pried open with tools smoothing down the pages.
“We try to preserve the older ones and repair them when we can,” Louis said, gesturing to a wall of small boxes. “Most of these boxes are official documents, but there are also news articles going back at least a hundred years.”
“Are all of these recountings from your pack’s ancestors?” Kat marveled, eyeing a bookcase full of journals with peeling covers and yellowed pages.
“Many of them are. That was how we recorded our history,” Louis nodded. “You’ll find some scientific journals as well, but I’m not sure if any are on the subject of white wolves. You both may take as long as you need. I’m going to coordinate with some of the other pack members on aiding your evacuation.”
“It would take weeks to go through all of this,” Kat said, trailing her fingers over the dusty journal spines, her mind clearly elsewhere.
“Unfortunately, we only have a few hours, but at least I have the best assistant a girl could ask for,” I teased, smiling as some of the worry faded from her eyes.
“Assistant!” She scoffed, pulling a few journals from the shelves and setting them down on the nearest table. Her flaming hair bounced as she plopped down, gingerly lifting the cover with her fingernail. “Now that I know Lunas can have Betas, I think I’d like to request a raise.”
I was caught off guard, knowing how rocky things were between her and Zack. If there was ever a chance for them to be together, I could never hold her back from that. For a moment, I wondered if Kat had temporarily taken my abilities, because she read the look in my eye exactly as it was.
“I know, I think the same thing sometimes,” she hummed, glancing down at the journal. “What-ifs and all that. It just hurts more to think that way, to plan some kind of future with him when he clearly doesn’t want me there. I can’t put my life on pause for him, and if that means never becoming a Luna-well, there’s a lot of good I can do as my best friend’s Beta. Don’t you think?”
“That was well said,” I mused, unable to help the smile that overtook my face. I grabbed a few journals, crinkling my nose at the scent of dust and cracked leather. “Besides, he doesn’t dictate whether or not you’re a Luna. You might have the official title as a Beta, but you’ll always be more than that.”
“So, does that mean I got the job?” She smirked, wiggling her eyebrows in a very Kat-like fashion.
“Well, I’m not sure yet.” I shrugged, tapping my chin. “There’s a lot I’m going to need from you. References, a drug test, past employers-”
“I’m pretty sure none of those things matter now that we’re fugitives,” she smirked, her emerald eyes warm and light for a change.
We laughed and joked for a few minutes, stealing back some normalcy from the man who had thrown both of our lives into chaos. Through the bleary-eyed chuckles, we could almost forget where we were, even with the scent of old books lodged in our heads.
We got to work, trading laughter for quick comments on what we were reading. The clock had long expired, ticking away even though the hands never moved. Time crept by as my eyes dried and the spot between my eyebrows ached.
“There were so many white wolves back then, with so many different powers,” Kat said softly, both amazed and horrified.
“There still are just as many white wolves,” I said, “They’re just not free.”
I swapped between musty journals and brittle newspaper clippings about pack politics and murders. Things were different when white wolves roamed freely, living within their packs.
As always, some white wolves craved destruction and violence. They did as many humans do-they murdered, stole, and took what they wanted. The difference was these werewolves had magic, making them more dangerous than common murderers.
There was always a price for freedom. This was that price: the white wolves let out into the world wouldn’t all be peaceful.
The first thing I would do once stepping into power was to ensure our survival, to make our kind flourish, and to remove those who wanted to hurt the innocent. I trusted my mates and family to mitigate my lack of experience.
I trailed my eyes over what felt like the hundredth journal. The tiny black script made my eyes ache, each arc and curve of the letters feeling like agony. Then, a single phrase caught my eye-one I almost missed.
**1732**
*I saw her with my own eyes. Lady Sarah healed the blacksmith’s boy.*
The village crone had fixed his broken and brittle body after a fall from a great tree. A scream of fright was not foreign, especially from a child. The plague and dysentery slaughtered our villages, devouring our young and rotting them before our eyes. We felt the loss less than the mortals, but still deeply when our devout were among the diseased.
Initially, I had planned to turn away from the ill child. Having children of my own and two lost to the creator, I could risk no more than anyone else. Lady Sarah held no home, no devout bonded to her soul. The village had long awaited her death, for disease to claim her. Lady Sarah was among the few untouched by its cold grip. No one knew her health was a curse from the creator.
I knew it as I turned, as I watched Lady Sarah approach the boy’s broken body. Cartilage and flesh, bone and sinew. A bloody canvas highlighted by the boy’s melancholy song, now a mere whimper. The way her eyes grew bright when she touched him, the way my own life flickered and ebbed. Lady Sarah was cursed with devouring life-my life. It was that very life she was then giving to the blacksmith’s boy. My breath fueled his heart, the blood in my veins knitting the wounds on his skin. I blacked out shortly after, hearing nothing but the rush of blood in my ears. I hadn’t seen Lady Sarah since that day but had long watched the boy grow into manhood, free of illness and plague.
“I’m not sure how this helps us, but I think I’ve found something about my abilities,” I frowned, glancing up at Kat. Her hair was a tangled mess from how many times she ran her fingers through it, meshing the curls together. “It’s kind of discouraging.”
Kat had just enough time to skim the delicate handwriting before the door wrenched open and Louis came through. The sharp edge to her worry had me standing from my seat, grabbing Kat’s hand to follow her without a word.
“Something’s wrong with Lara,” she said through clenched teeth as we sped through the center of town. Few cars were out, the sun already setting. Louis easily wove between traffic as we coasted forward.
“She has episodes, understandable considering everything she’s been through. Sometimes they’re worse when visions flood her too fast for her to process.”
We swung into the driveway, kicking up dirt and gravel as we clamored from the SUV. A quick patter of feet on the porch and we were inside. Lara’s episode wasn’t what I had expected. It was eerily quiet. As we came upstairs, we understood what was going on.
Ethan and Kieran leaned against the wall outside what looked to be Lara’s bedroom. Both pulled me into their embrace, but quickly let go as I noticed what was happening. A door of pure white painted in splashes of pink and swipes of neon green was open, showing Lara and Peter inside. Peter stood off to the side, pleading with his eyes while gently speaking to Lara.
“What happened to her?” Louis asked fiercely, following Isaiah from the hall. “She has never acted like this, even when you slipped up and said his name.”
Lara made no move to show she had heard Louis. She stood in her room, coated in dark paint as she furiously splashed and swiped at the walls. Colorful art was covered in splotches of black and blue, walls of pure crimson. Her movements were twitchy, her eyes wide and glossed over.
“Is she having visions?” I asked Louis, stepping into the bedroom for a closer look. Her eyes were clouded, pools of blue that seemed just a tad too hazy. There was some awareness there, but not much. Her emotions were a whirlpool: fear, disbelief, horror, outrage-a festering mess of negativity all at once.
I stumbled back, my head pounding and vision blurring as her emotions passed through me. Delicate sparks trickled up my wrists and arms as I felt Ethan and Kieran’s touch.
“You alright, doll?” Ethan whispered, his words tinged with worry.
“It’s her emotions,” I shuddered, stepping back into their warm embraces. Ethan’s spicy scent and Kieran’s rich one, both masculine and delectable, but noticeably different. “I understand why she has these episodes. It’s like she feels everything from her visions all at once. Anyone would get overwhelmed if they were constantly being swarmed all the time.”