Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (10 page)

He
reconsidered. “A princess like you? Let me ask Paws if there’s a
roll up mattress somewhere,” he offered and turned around.
“Actually, you take my bed. I’ll sleep at home in my own bed.” She
learnt later that he had a place in town as well as his own room at
the compound.

“Are you
sure?”

“Yeah we can
all get a good rest and sort it out tomorrow. Actually I’m not
often here anyway. My presence as a disciple here is still under
wraps.”

“So you hide
then?” Her head tilted.

“Yeah, there’s
a lot of sneaking about.” He blushed.

“Anyone would
think you were a criminal.”

He smiled as
though he wasn’t actually happy but understood the humour “Maybe,”
he agreed sheepishly.

She could tell
that her comment pinched at him.

She giggled.
“Do you all have jobs?”

“No, Tyler’s a
laze about, the rest of us have pack duties. Genna and I work in
Shade.”

“Okay. Hey, can
I ask where Shell is?”

“Uh she’ll be
back soon, in couple of days. You’ll like her,” he nodded.

“Oh, hey
Blair.” She said his name for the first time unsurely.

He stopped.
“Yes.”

“If you see
Aylish out there tell her I’m in here okay?” Dahlia looked openly
concerned.

“ ‘Course,” he
assured her, and strode away more casually than he had approached
her. Determined to bring Lonnie back for her.

She looked at
Blair’s bed. He hadn’t offered clean sheets, but she wasn’t sure
she minded. She lay over the bed and tried to fathom this new place
and the last few hours here. Was Aylish right? Or should she just
go along with it? Would they really not be allowed to leave?

Blair didn’t
seem trapped. He was freely leaving tonight to go to his home,
Genna worked in town. She started to think of a thousand questions.
Here, when it was a full moon night she could run freely wherever
she wanted without having to make plans to run in the park or to
drive out to the outer 'burbs and await her transformation, and the
thought was exhilarating.

Dahlia would
have been happy had Aylish not dampened it. She wanted to
assimilate with the pack. She wasn’t like Aylish; she couldn’t go
it alone. She liked the company, the possibilities. But in a way
she felt very alone then, as her elation at finding her kind
waiting for her was shrouded in doubt. Suddenly not having Aylish
made her anxious.

If only she
would comply, or just try it for a while? She told herself if her
pack sister left she would stick it out without her, despite the
home sickness. How she wouldn’t have to hide what she was, how she
could share it – something she hadn’t known she would feel so
strongly when she left all those years ago. She half smiled
thinking of Blair, inhaling the air filled with his musky
scent.

“You look
pleased.”

“Aylish,”
Dahlia looked toward the door and shifted to sit up. “I was just
thinking of how it could be if we stayed here,” she urged.

“Yeah,” Aylish
scoffed. Her face pinched.

“Please don’t
be this way, Ay.” But she turned and left before Dahlia could
explain why she lay on Blair’s bed and where they were to sleep,
and before she could tell her how frightened she was to be here
alone.

She heard the
sound of a T.V go on somewhere in the house, but decided to get
some shuteye, even though her thoughts circled. Despite the foreign
sounds, the warm air and all the wolf smells and sweat, the musk of
Blair was so comforting. She liked the perfume in the sheets and
admired his straight minimalist belongings lying about the room and
she escaped to sleep, clinging to the soft sheets a little too
tightly as though she worried about being swept away.

Aylish had
recalled his words, but as yet not much else, just flashes of
blood. His words rang in her ears and she couldn’t take another
moment in the house. ‘It’s regrettable there should be so much
bloodshed but it is unavoidable.’ His awful, horrible, blood
curdling words, said a lifetime ago, burnt her like it had been a
second, a heartbeat since he had said them. Not an apology or a
hint of remorse or regret for her sake. Aylish was carved up, she
couldn’t stand to be back, it made her sick, angry, and it caused
an anguish to rise inside her that threatened to bring her to her
knees.

Aylish stormed
away, intent on phasing to escape the thought of finding Dahlia
there, her closest ally, smiling like the cat that had got the
cream on another pack member’s bed. Aylish hit the night air out
through the ground floor and flung herself violently into the
beast. She didn’t care about her jeans as they tore away. She knew
only the sound of her paws thudding the undergrowth and her own
panting breath, only slowing her pace when she was in the forest
she had abandoned many years ago. She breathed in the cool night
air under the trees and only then realized she had missed it, how
much her body had craved the perfume of the earth, grass and rain.
How she missed the stars. The atmosphere untainted with the hideous
pollution she had choked on for years until she didn’t even notice
it anymore. She was dead inside from the excruciating hurt of
losing the babies. But she let herself be lost for a moment, in the
freedom as she ran for their graves.

She turned up
unasked, full of energy and questions. I had tested her
determination by not seeking her out. In the next few days,
whenever she came to the house from the forest, Tisane spoke with
her and told her where I was.

“You’re Lila
Crain.” She approached me casually through the grass outside
Tisane’s house in the afternoon light, as I fiddled with my bow,
inspecting the brace height, as the smell of wood smoke drifted
across from the chimney.

“You showed.” I
breathed out and pursed my lips, glancing at her with an expression
that suggested I was less than impressed. I turned back to the
task, positioning my bow. There was a silence as I took sight. “How
do you know that?” I asked focusing on my arrow. I turned to meet
her dark brown eyes, and mine were hard.

Her features
widened. “Internet.”

I smiled wryly.
No doubt Tisane would have filled her in anyway. “You afraid?” I
turned my eyes to aim the taught bow, finding my target in the
trees.

“No. Should I
be?” I could almost hear her heart beat with fear as she pouted at
me. She shifted a little as though to cross her arms and instead
rested her fists on the front of her legs.

“Maybe,” I
admitted, noticing her fidget. I released the arrow and a black
bird was struck through the chest. It came tumbling through the
branches to the grass below the trees. I knew then that I would
train her. I strode over to the dead bird, she followed me. “The
legends are true, there is a war going on out there,” I admitted,
shrugging at the trees as I placed my foot on the wing and ripped
the arrow from its breast.

“Between whom,
exactly?” she asked concerned.

She was
fishing. I shrugged “The wolves and us.” I wiped the bloodied arrow
with a cloth and took out my knife to cut a notch along the shaft,
in a row of other identical marks. I returned it back to the
satchel on my back and tucked my knife back into my bra.

“Why?”

I half smiled.
“Tisane would say it’s the Gods, the three curses of Shade,” I
said, slightly amused.

“I read about
that.”

I put the bow
down on my foot balancing the other limb in my hand and stood to
face her. “Okay,” I sighed, “do you want to learn?” I wiped my brow
with my forearm.

“To do what?”
she uttered.

“Fight.” I
wondered if she would like this new reality.

“I suppose,”
she said in the same tone.

“You suppose?
Ha.” I turned my face to the sky. “Yes or no?” My eyes blinked
heavily towards the clouded heavens. I felt a few misty raindrops
on my skin.

“What?” she
enquired, unsure.

I winced “Yes
or no, do you want to learn to fight?” I repeated more harshly, but
my eyes were softer as I waited for her reply.

“Yeah, yes,”
she responded to placate me, but her voice was full of curiosity. I
was sure it was something she said as only a means to an end. I
took heart from the fact that she had agreed no matter how
transparently. It was fate.

“Then I will
teach you. But remember, you wanted this and once we start, there
is no going back.” Like Cres before me, I had to accept it.
Unfortunately she would be pulled into the underworld by a force
that none of us controlled. And worse yet, she was following me
down this dark hole with naive faith, faith that would be
tested.

“Pluck the
bird.” I pointed my glance at it. She took a moment to stare at it,
no doubt trying to make sense of my request. “Pull out the
feathers, we’ll need fletching.” I challenged her.

I was about to
give up when she kneeled in the grass and ripped a handful of the
black feathers.

“Good, get a
few more. We’ll need them.” She reefed a handful more and put them
in a pile by her knees. “Good.” I was testing her.

I showed her
how to make arrows. If she stuck with me I would show her other
things. But for that afternoon we moulded arrow heads and crafted
shafts from staves by the woodpile. I handed her a branch too thick
for me to break, she pressed down on it and too easily she creaked
and snapped the wood in half. I was fascinated. She was not as
fragile as she looked. “Impressive.” Tisane was right, I huffed,
massaging my neck. She had more strength than me.

You can’t get
out of people what isn’t in them. Caroline was a fast learner, her
reflexes where sharp. Maybe I felt a little better about training
her when I saw the signs. She instantly found her anchor point and
she wasn’t a bad shot. It was almost summer holidays, which was
fortunate because time wasn’t on our side. We had a huntress.

We spent hours
out in the forest. It seemed the wolves didn’t trespass here any
longer though. Their cries came from the mountains. It seemed they
favoured the distant thick bush land for hunting. I knew they
weren’t actively searching for me, they were smart enough to wait.
While I remained hidden I was out of their hair. I wondered again
with unease what exactly had happened to Tormey to result in her
death.

Without
hesitation, Tisane mopped the mud we dragged through the living
room and she gave me her mother’s clothes. Someone who didn’t fit
in socially with society somehow fit in so well with me and made
such lengths to accommodate me. So much so that I began to watch
her with suspicion, while Caroline watched me with interest. She
came to Tisane’s cabin and every day she would tell her where I
was.

I taught her
how to aim the gun. How to never point the muzzle at anything she
didn’t want to shoot, just in case, and how to aim the sights and
reload the ‘mag’ fast. “Normally we would aim for the torso, but
the wolves can take the hit, so we aim directly at the head and the
heart.” I touched the left side of my chest, where the invisible
void existed. She nodded, wide-eyed as I passed her the handgun.
“They regenerate.” I admitted. “The first rule of Fight Club is we
don’t talk about Fight Club. Second rule is we chase them, they
don’t chase us. Got it?” I said seriously.

I hoped for her
sake that she wouldn’t come back. Until then, I played hardball.
Her classroom was the forest and I was her teacher. We were Shade’s
most undervalued resource.

She shrugged.
“So what do I do?” She intently anticipated my answer.

I found myself
echoing Cresida’s words.

“Shoot and
shoot again,” I advised with a somber expression. “Aim for the head
and the heart. Don’t drop your guard, and be ruthless.” I was
teaching her to survive, and to do that we had to use every trick
in the book. “They could be anyone anywhere.” I taught her the
signs - the warmth, mismatched or torn clothing, the lack of marks
on the skin, bare feet and the way their eyes shone fluorescent
green under torchlight. We didn’t have a lot of time. “Forget the
valley you thought you knew.”

“Always have a
weapon on you, always have a torch and if they come for you, get up
high. They’re less likely to find you in the trees.” Wolves didn’t
like to climb, but they could try. “They have good hearing and a
very good sense of smell.” Though this went without saying because
the wolves were hunting machines. I hadn’t yet told her the thing
that protected us most from them was the Goddess and not any
physical power or strength that we possessed. But despite this, she
bravely faced the truth. I hoped as Cres had done, that maybe my
protégé would be the one to change things.

“Again,” I said
as I held her in a headlock. I knocked her down, over and over
again, using techniques that Cres had taught me, until she began to
falter under the repeated blows. I had given her quite a thumping,
until this time she didn’t bother rising. I outstretched my hand
and helped her up. “Always get back up after a fall.” Emotionally
she’d had enough for tonight. Maybe I felt a little bad for going
so hard on her, but I needed her to be strong, inside and out.
“Have the bruises been healing quickly?”

She rubbed her
arms and nodded. There were two large, purple welts on each of her
knees. Tisane would treat them.

The relentless
schedule I devised for Caroline was the benefit of Cresida’s
training. It seemed Artemis had definitely given me a gift. I
wasn’t going to waste it. Tisane and I arranged for her to have a
hunting knife. I showed Caroline how to use my bow out in the
forest. “Position yourself in line with the arrow.” I saw her eyes
resting on my arm. I pulled up the fallen strap of my singlet top.
“It’s Artemis,” I offered when I caught her gaze. It was a
trademark. She momentarily looked chagrined, as her freckles
coloured.