Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (34 page)

“Then why? What
was the point?” Sky shook his head.

“What is the
point of anything? The cards don’t tell you anything you don’t
already know.” Again she glanced narrowly to Reid.

Sky looked down
in contemplation. “We can get her out? Can’t we? With your
help?”

“My help?”
Tisane asked, confused.

“You could
smash that place to pieces and tear Sam to bits.” He straightened
up.

“I can’t
control it, I didn’t know that I could do…that until just then.” It
was raw and still just barely sinking in.

“But you must
have known it, that you were like us. How old are you?”

“I’m
thirty-six.”

Sky piped up,
“Well there’s a sign right there, you don’t look over thirty,
younger even.”

“But I look
older than you,” she pointed out, avoiding his bare chest with her
eyes.

“Yes, you’ve
got me there. Tisane what are you? You look like us, just bigger,
less hairy, uglier - more like a, like some mythical beast than a
wolf.” He frowned.

“I just… I
don’t know.” Her wide eyes began to water.

Sky quieted his
voice. “What are you?”

“I don’t know,”
she said, growing more distressed and terrified as a tear
overflowed her eye and a second threatened to follow.

“You must know?
There must be a reason. Who were your parents?”

“My mother was
a hunter.” Her voice was sticky with sorrow.

“And your
father?”

“I never knew.”
She shook her head.

“Maybe it was
him?” Reid urged Sky.

“Is it
possible?” Sky narrowed his eyes in scepticism and cast them over
her. Wondering if it was one of the mountain pack. Most likely
Bert, though he was now dead.

“It might
explain the myth?” Reid urged wide-eyed.

“I just don’t
know. I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Sky mused. “It’s
never happened before. There’s only one place I can ask. The
mountain pack are the oldest. If there’s something, they will
know...otherwise maybe, you are what you are,” he said glumly.
Though they might not be willing to tell. Sky met Reid’s face,
raising his brow as they exchanged a look.

“Narine was
your half-sister, right?” Reid interjected.

“True.” She let
it settle over her. “Her mother wasn’t a hunter, mine was.”

“What was your
father?” The question lingered as Reid and Sky looked at each
other.

She rubbed her
eyes. “Um...the name on my birth certificate is Robert Hills.” She
recollected. “I found it when I packed up the house after mum’s
death.” She rubbed her fingers into her brow. “I was told that he
was dead.”

Reid and Sky
briskly climbed the hills as the trees grew taller and closer
together and the terrain became a carpet of ferns and cycads. With
heavy breath, they quickly neared the thickening landscape of
trees. In search of answers.

Reid questioned
him away from the woman. “What do you think?”

Sky took a
breath. “She’s got to have some connection, he told me to find
Tisane.” Bert had raced out to Reid and warned him that it was an
ambush. Because of that he had been killed, but in the affray Sky
had escaped. With quick thinking Shell had covered him, feigning
idiocy, for that she was almost fatally wounded. Maybe if she
hadn’t been hurt she would have run with them.

“You don’t
think that he would send you on a wild goose chase?”

“Well, he’s
dead now. It’s not like we can ask,” Sky commented with irritation.
Reid felt a twinge of guilt for shooting Bert, though his bullet
hadn’t been the one to kill him. Sky wondered himself if this could
become a trap but he marched on. “Look, I want to get her out just
as badly. As soon as we are done here, if we find nothing, we head
back, get some ammo and go for it.” The steady way he said it let
Reid know his friend meant it. “Come on let’s phase.”

The terrain was
covered with grass, bracken and rocks, but soon it was littered
with green boulders and streams that fed into the Artemis River.
Reid picked up a scent a few kilometres from the compound through
the wet. Greta and the two remaining boys had retreated back into
the dense landscape that was their home. Aylish had joined them and
she stood naked by a fern. They stopped; her stare was
expressionless. Patrick stepped in to meet them.

He looked
tense. “What do you boys want? We asked to be left alone.” He said
with authority but made a guttural noise, not unlike a disturbed
animal. “I’ll be happy if I don’t have to phase for another fifty
years,” he bellowed angrily, breathing deeply, the hair on his
shiny chest heaving as his centre of balance threatened to tilt
further forward in anger, back into the form he had known for so
long.

“We just have a
question for any of your pack who knows the answer. We have heard
of a beast, it’s larger than us with less hair and more human-like
claws.”

Patrick scowled
with a piercing intensity that threatened more as his chest rose
and fell heavily.

“Don’t bother
us with your imagination,” Greta threatened, her ice-white skin
looking almost deathly blue under the canopy.

“Please, you
are the oldest. If we are going to know anything about it, you have
to tell us.” Sky looked amongst them.

“Where would
you find a creature like that?” Patrick turned his dirty
sweat-kissed face up, his startling eyes suspicious.

“We can’t tell
you where we heard it.”

Reid stepped
closer. “Please,” he begged.

Greta suddenly
became interested in answering the intruder’s question. “The only
thing that can create a creature like that is a union between a
huntress and a wolf. It is illegal.” Her round emerald eyes seemed
to narrow.

Sky noted the
intense hostility. “What do you mean?” he enquired.

“The child
would be killed,” she said harshly. Then the blonde Christian
appeared, eyeing the visitors. Greta disappeared into the
trees.

Her voice rose.
“The huntress isn’t pregnant is she?”

“No,” Sky said
to the trees around them, unsure of where the female was.

“Then how do
you know about such a thing?” Patrick asked. “Is there a child
hidden?” He narrowed his bright eyes threateningly.

“No,” Reid said
wide-eyed and he and Sky exchanged a dumbfounded glance.

“You lie,”
Patrick replied steadily, stepping closer with his shoulders back
to sniff the atmosphere nearer Sky with an animal-like look on his
face.

Aylish spoke
up. “They ask because I told them,” her voice became quieter. “I
warned them about it.” A breeze ruffled her crimped blonde hair
over her stoic face.

Sky and Reid
exchanged glances.

Greta showed
again from the trees. All turned to her as she dropped her
shoulders and angrily scolded, “Aylish. Our secrets are our own,
I’m surprised at you.” She scowled her emerald eyes
incredulous.

“I am the
reason you know of it at all Greta,” Aylish snapped
self-righteously, as she stepped closer to Reid and Sky.

Sky took the
chance to ask what weighed on him, appealing to her sympathy. “We
came to ask if you would help us set the huntresses free. Sam will
keep them caged until they die otherwise,” he uttered.

“No, we won’t
be interfering with her,” Greta’s grating voice replied with
authority.

“Please won’t
any of you help? You respect the elements and natural law, what Sam
does isn’t natural. If she didn’t want to grow the pack, Lila and
Cres would leave them be. As long as no innocents are taken there
can be a treaty,” he pleaded.

“We have just
lost our dear friends; we don’t wish to lose any others from our
pack. Go away,” Greta ordered. Patrick sneered at them.

“Why don’t you
join us?”Aylish queried, staying behind, arms by her sides. The
others hopped over rocks and branches and retreated away like sand
in the wind, rapidly becoming invisible in the green surrounds. She
waited as they drew back into the darkness. Sky and Reid relaxed
slightly as the pack retreated, along with any immediate
threat.

“Maybe one
day,” Sky offered apologetically. He gave a smile of thanks at the
corner of his lop sided mouth, almost exposing his stark white
teeth and nodded in polite thanks. He and Reid then receded away
and ran in the opposite direction. Back to the dry forest farmlands
and sunlight, where the wolves still favoured human skins.

They ran at a
pace back down the mountain, having wasted the better part of a day
that could have been spent planning to save Lila and Cres. Suddenly
they heard something on their heels. A rough looking white wolf was
on their tails and gaining on them.

They looked at
each other. Reid stopped and transformed to face her. “You make a
bad spy, Aylish.”

She shook and
became a woman before them. “I’m not spying, I want to help you. I
know more about everything than you think.”

“Are you some
sort of spy for them?” Sky glowered.

“Ha, no. I only
just joined them. It was my best option up until ten minutes ago,”
she confided.

“Why?” Reid’s
expression was sceptical.

“I want what
you were talking about: fairness. I believe we can cooperate,
hunters and wolves. They can stop monsters like Paws and protect
our society for the rest of us,” she pleaded.

“Why should we
believe you or that you won’t turn us in to Sam? Or report back
here to them?” He gestured back up the mountain.

“You don’t, I
suppose. But she’s taken Lonnie from me – caused Dahlia to be
killed. Sam is like Paws. When I was running my own pack I wasn’t
like that, we were a family and we didn’t have to be scared. I had
children once, Paws took them from me; he said they were monsters.
They killed my partner and he slaughtered my babies and had me
arrested for their murder. Why do you think he let me go all those
years? He was waiting for my wounds to heal. But pain like that
doesn’t go away.” She shook her head and pressed her lips into a
straight hard line. “If I can help you I will, I want to see this
creature – please.” Something about her face when she asked made
them curious.

“We didn’t say
it existed.” Reid tilted his head. His amber eyes focused on
her.

“Fine, but I
would like to come with you, please.” Her clear blue eyes burnt
with some emotion not unlike desperation.

“Why did you
cover for us back there?” Reid challenged. He eyed her
suspiciously.

“I want to
protect it.” Her voice was fast and littered with emotion.

“Protect it?”
Reid gave a quizzical look.

“Fine, but both
Reid and I and the creature will tear you into pieces if you’re
against us,” Sky warned.

“So there is a
creature in existence.” She looked hurt, but her thin lips parted
to smile. “I swear on my baby’s lives that I won’t betray you,” she
said looking relieved as her expression softened.

“Okay,” Sky
confirmed nodding. He noticed a clear, tiny tear that rolled from
her light blue eye.

“No,” Reid said
aghast towards his friend.

“What?” Sky
turned to Reid and shared a moment with his pack brother.

“Let’s discuss
this,” Reid urged outraged, looking back at her.

“She says
she’ll help us.” Sky shrugged a shoulder.

“And you
believe her!” Reid bellowed, clearly unconvinced.

“Maybe. She
never hung out with the pack and the first night she was there I
saw her run away.” He mentioned towards his brother in a low
tone.

“So?”

“Sam brought
her back unwillingly. She couldn’t stand Paws, he used Sam to bring
her back from her home in the city. And back there,” he pointed up
the mountain, “she covered us. We’d be in more trouble if she
hadn’t and she knows things, she’s older,” his eyes widened.

“So?”

“Even now she’d
rather go with them, than with Sam,” Sky said with conviction.

“How do you
know Sam hasn’t thrown her out?”

“Sam, throw
away a member?” Sky raised his brow; in past times they would have
laughed. But as it was, the humour sprouted and quickly sank away
in the midst of a precarious decision.

Reid flexed.
“Okay, so we let her come. Sus her out a bit and then what?” he
pursed his lips, his eyes hard.

“We go from
there, Tisane can check her out, don’t tell her it's…” Sky gave a
sideways nod and brow raise to indicate Tisane, “- and see what
happens.”

“Alright but
it’s your decision.” Reid wasn’t convinced. “If we go down because
of the ugly bitch…” he muttered in warning. His muscles rippled
again. He let Aylish have a lingering narrow stare. She understood
his implied meaning but remained agreeable as he glared at her in
warning and phased.

Tisane was
taken aback to see a thin, pale woman appear on the back lawn from
the tree line by the river with Reid and Sky.

“This is our
friend, Aylish.” Sky introduced her with a certain tentativeness
when they reached Tisane.

She decided to
ignore it and smiled pleasantly as she politely addressed the slim
blonde. “Hello, Aylish.”

Aylish gave a
soft, friendly smile, which touched her liquid eyes.

“She was with
the mountain pack,” Sky explained glumly.

Tisane watched
her in return. “Will you help us?” she found herself asking
instantly.

“Yes. I’ll be
your eyes and ears inside Sam’s,” Aylish offered with an alive
glimmer in her steady eyes, as they remained delicately resting
over Tisane.

“I’m afraid I
don’t follow.” Tisane’s face pressed into a show of sceptical
interest.

“Yeah, Aylish?”
Reid muttered, very uncertain of where this was leading.

Aylish let an
annoyed breath escape her nostrils. “If you’re so worried that I’ll
be a spy here for her, then why am I going back?” she pouted
angrily at Reid.