Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (12 page)

Her silence
said everything. “Convince your brother whatever happened back
there was ... I don’t know?” I pressed my lips together. “We’ll
train tomorrow, the last thing I need is you being grounded.” Or
causing a divorce. I already had one of those on my conscience. I
scuffed the sandy dirt.

She nodded like
a scolded child and turned to walk slowly back to her house, not
bothering to use a different path through the trees. I had upset
her and I knew it.

I called low
after her. “Don’t tell your brother anything.”

And I was left
to my own thoughts, to the sound of crickets and birds, the rumble
of thunder in the distance and the bristle of leaves in the trees -
wondering if I had really stuffed up. Thinking and hoping that
Aaron wasn’t the nosy type. I dusted the dry grass that had stuck
to my clothes off my back.

I went and
checked the graveyard. For what, again I couldn’t be certain?
Tormey was there under the statue of an angel. I passed the
recently disturbed dirt over what I knew to be Sky’s empty coffin.
I came to stand before Tormey’s weathering headstone. I touched the
stone, and thought about the river and her hand pulling me from the
water as I pressed my palm to the angel’s cool cheek.

Lightning was
flickering overhead. She could have taught me so much about what
was out there. I wore her clothes, I lived in her home. I even
protected her daughter as she had once done. I looked up and opened
my eyes to the wide night sky.

I knew that
Caroline wouldn’t have many nights left with her family; they would
dry up. One way or another, being a hunter seemed as bad a curse as
being bitten. This was a profession without a choice made certain
the day the crescents appeared - and they would appear in her eyes
soon enough, they had already lightened. I hoped Apollo’s curse
wouldn’t befall her too. That she wouldn’t fall for a creature of
the dark, the insidious curse that had infested my bones. For all I
had become, I was still pathetically weak and vulnerable; no
wishing would make it go away. It flew in the face of everything we
stood for. The lines weren’t as clear as they once were for my kind
and theirs. But just maybe Caroline could change that.

Sky shouldn’t
have left. I wondered what it said about us - and what it said
about him that he had abandoned me. It bothered me that it didn’t
bother me. My hand resting on the cheek of the weathering stone
angel, I asked for help. I knew she knew more than I did, but I
wouldn’t find the answers here.

Somewhere
inside myself I had a feeling that this quiet time was coming to an
end. This moment of peace sat on the edge of turmoil, on the cusp
of a cyclone. On my way back it started to drip rain, the sweat on
my body began to wash away to be replaced by the chill of water.
This had been a wet summer and the Artemis was swollen and had
turned a creamy mud colour as it roared where it usually rippled,
fencing us all in. Tisane said when this happened that Artemis was
closer.

I don’t know if
I fully understood her meaning, but she seemed to see the world as
a magical place, through eyes that saw what others could not. She
seemed closer to the Gods than any of us. Yet she was not a wolf or
a hunter. But maybe she was just more accepting of the Goddess.
Shade was ruled by Zeus, somewhere up in the billowing clouds,
where time meant nothing.

She had taught
me to use another sense and right then, it was alerted. Someone was
following. I stopped mid stride in the trees and my hand again
readied for the gun. It was close. The wind rustled the leaves. I
steadied my stance readying for an attack, muscles tensed.

The ground was
soft and I realized it could have been watching me for some time.
But instead of appearing, I heard the creature retreat rapidly in
the distance. I instantly knew that I had to catch it. My legs
automatically gave chase. I raced in the same direction, narrowly
avoiding trees as my heart pounded. Lightning flashed and the
powerful rumbling roll of thunder erupted over me.

I ran faster as
the trees whipped my ears until I caught sight of a tail and I
increased my speed, gaining on the wolf. A wild wind began to lash;
we were rapidly approaching the river. The trees began to clear and
I could hear the rush of the water. I stopped as my shoes padded
the gravelly sand. I turned looking for her, the grey white wolf.
She was on the edge of the trees.

I aimed the
gun, momentarily wondering if the petite creature was Cres, when
suddenly she phased, staring toward me in human form, standing
rigid, a thin blonde with long wavy curls. Her stillness alarmed
me. I was about to squeeze the trigger when she spoke.

“Please! You
are the huntress. I saw you at Tormey’s grave. Don’t shoot me. I
can help you,” she whispered loudly as her hair wavered in the
breeze.

I didn’t
answer, gritting my molars hard, unable to believe what I
heard.

“Please. I knew
her,” her ghostly face urged.

“Sure you did,”
I affirmed stiff lipped, staring determinedly through the light
rain.

“No, Paws has
brought us in from the city. I ran from here a long time ago.” Her
serene expression widened in honesty.

“What were you
doing at the graveyard?”

“Visiting my
children.”

“What?” I
barked standing more rigidly.

“My babies with
the hunter, Paws killed them.” Her expression intensified.

I wasn’t
fooled. “You’re working for him, tracking me. How long ‘til they
come for me? How much do you know, bitch?” I grimaced, my finger on
the trigger, ready to squeeze.

“I know he
wants to cage you.” Her head shook. “Shoot me and you lose your
only help,” she appealed.

“Why should I
listen to you?” My gaze hardened but my finger hesitated.

“Take me to the
graveyard and I’ll show you my babies,” she pleaded.

Rain began to
pour heavily. I squeezed the trigger as the girl turned. I hit her
but she continued to morph and ran. I shot twice more in that
direction and sprinted after her across the sand and over the rock
as the clouds deluged in the darkness. I tracked her through the
bush but the rain was pounding down heavily, making visibility
impossible.

I knew if I
didn’t find her before she got back to the pack I was done for.
They would know I was still nearby and it wouldn’t be long now
until they found me. I fired another shot in the direction of the
willows ahead, the direction she had disappeared, in a frustrated
attempt. Fuck. Her blood spatter was washed off the rock.

I turned as
water dripped from my face and scuffed the dirt angrily, but it was
now a muddy puddle. That just made me more frustrated as mud
splashed and drenched my pants and flooded into my boot.

Completely
soaked and chilled to the bone, I looked about disorientated since
giving chase and worse, I had let her get away. I searched the
surrounding trees as I caught my breath. At least I wasn’t in my
usual haunt anywhere near Tisane’s, but who knew how long she had
been tracking me, if she knew where my hideout was, or if she knew
where Caroline lived. I tried to think if I had noticed or heard
anything, but nothing came to mind.

I hiked back
through the forest, heading for Tisane’s. The She Wolf had run when
I caught wind of her – it wasn’t an attack. Halfway back home the
rain completely subsided. ‘Now you stop?’ I muttered to myself,
disgruntled as the air cleared and the only drops falling on me
were those cascading off the leaves. My socks were wet, squelching
inside my boots. We had a problem.

I slept in,
exhausted. I awoke to contemplate the strange ghostly She Wolf. It
didn’t like seem I had been followed. The summer wasn’t exactly
scorching in Shade, but a hot breeze had blown up and the full
light of the early afternoon was so bright it blinded me. Tisane
told me summer belonged to Apollo because he ruled the molten star
and for today, it seemed summer had made a reappearance. I worried
they would come.

After a day it
seemed Caroline was allowed out again. She came to the house while
I was out washing in the river. She and Tisane were at the table
talking, and they stopped when I walked in. I ignored the silence
and inspected the contents of the fridge.

I took Caroline
out and we trained a little and then rested by the river; the day
was unusually hot. The grey clouds had given way to blue sky, but
they lingered. Caroline seemed to have forgiven me for sending her
home. I wondered what Tis had said. I had to remind myself that
Caroline wasn’t me as I turned my mind to worry about Aaron and the
She Wolf. She was catching lizards in the scrub as I waited on a
granite rock.

I had a few
cuts on my fingers that I was examining when she sat near me and
asked what the plants were that I had drank out of in the
trees.

“Bromeliads,” I
answered looking up into the canopy. Tisane had told me the
name.

Then Caroline
asked the unavoidable. I knew I didn’t wish to keep it from her.
Inevitably the questions came. Perhaps I would have preferred the
wolves.

“Tisane told me
you loved a wolf once? That’s his tag you wear.”
The proof that
I couldn’t let him go.

“Huh,” I
scoffed and pinched my lips. “And what else did she tell you?” So
this was my pay back.

“That he’s
alive and you thought he was dead.”

“And?” I
challenged.

“I think maybe
you should tell me yourself?” I assumed from the look on her face
she wasn’t being precocious.

I tried not to
show it bothered me. “I did, but I had…bad taste,” I looked up at
her and smiled without humour – it was a bad joke. She didn’t laugh
as though the rawness of it was evident, even to her.

“Why?” she
asked back, unperturbed by my evasive answer. She wasn’t
intimidated by me. I sighed.

“I fell in love
with a wolf, before I knew what he was,” I muttered examining my
bow, knowing full well that this fact that may not have changed
matters. I loved and hated him. Who was I kidding, the feelings
were always there. Maybe they were obvious now.

“Do you still
love him?” She spoke with a lack of judgment. I wished more people
were like her. I looked at her child-like face, wishing she would
never lose her innocent charm. I was reminded that it was I who had
been charged with taking it from her. I wanted for a second to tell
her all of it, every scrap. Maybe I let down my walls with her
because I knew she wasn’t the malicious kind. She hadn’t known
enough of betrayal and cruelty to harbour such feelings of her own.
But I caught myself and steadied my emotions. I cast my eyes across
the river.

“You better get
back; your olds will be worried.” I nodded to the other side,
towards the direction of town.

She looked at
me waiting. Birds sang above.

“Caroline, the
world is a more complex and complicated place than you or any of us
are raised to believe,” I said softly.

“Explain it to
me, then?”

I swallowed.
The truth was I would stop thinking about him if I could.
He was
a fragile monster, he made me weak
. I paused considering my
next words and not wanting to admit them. I squeezed my eyes closed
but the memories remained.

“It’s alright;
I’m not going to judge you.” Her honeycomb eyes gazed towards me,
uncomplicated still.

I stabbed the
end of my bow into the loose wet dirt. “Caroline, I said today is
over.” It was too personal and she was being incorrigible.

“L, Tisane
thought it was important enough to mention. I want to
understand.”

“You don’t know
the first thing about me. You don’t know what I have been through.”
The words were filled with ache. The sick emptiness that he had
left.

She was quiet.
“You’re right – but I want to learn, I do.” Her face was placidly
determined.

“Fine, why ask
that? How can I love someone so much that I hardly know? I can’t
explain it, so it would be a miracle if you could.” That it goes
against everything. I failed to hide the undertone of torment as my
voice broke. My face pulled.

Suddenly the
birds were silent.

“Lila I-”

“Shh, do you
hear that?” I was alerted to something, my eyes rapidly searching
our surrounds. There was a moment of quiet as I scanned the bush,
listening, stone faced like a statue.

Caroline’s face
pinched slightly. “No?” But her eyes widened with alarm as she
looked about in the silence. We paused.

“Exactly,” I
whispered. What the hell was that? Reaching for my gun tucked into
the back of my belt, my eyes scanned the trees. I stilled my
movement and listened to the forest. It could be the She Wolf.

I looked at
Caroline who had silently pulled the large hunting knife. I nodded
at her to get behind me. She frowned but obeyed. We were being
watched. I took a few careful paces into the scrub. I stopped to
listen, hearing a noise and I turned, ready to squeeze the trigger,
but it was only a bird fluttering through the branches. I turned
about, searching the trees around us.

Caroline was on
guard, her back to the river as we looked at each other. I
relaxed.

“It could have
been a fox?” I breathed.

She sniffed and
let her arm drop. My hand relaxed on the gun.

“So would you
kill him?”

I looked
quizzically at her.

“The one you
love, he’s with them right?”

I winced,
annoyed. “Yes.” The one I love
. Urgh
.

“Because if you
didn’t-”

I cut her off.
“I understand all too well the implications of my feelings...so
really, don’t.” It was becoming more apparent just how inconvenient
and hazardous my desires were, not only for myself. She didn’t know
yet that the wolves were capable of wonderful and terrible
things.