Still… I can’t help but wonder.
Is she looking for me? Is there a place for me? With her? I shake those thoughts away.
For now at least. Too many questions linger, but the biggest ones just won’t fade. If she was alive, why did she give me up? And perhaps more importantly, what does she want with me now?
The woodland is shoulder to shoulder with every member of our pack out beneath the stars to celebrate this year’s Dark Moon. The open space is lined with trees and plenty of room to run. Which is good for the wolves who will be ripping out into the world for the first time.
Mary leans against a tree, standing alone in her white lab coat as if she came right after work. Her gaze shifts over the crowd and she spots me. We lock eyes. She stares blatantly at me as if she’s picking me apart where I stand.
And then she looks away. She shifts and fully turns her back on me.
“Hi to you too, Mom,” I mumble to myself. My eyes roll, but the raging lover of violence inside of me snarls.
Calm down,I soothe the wolf.
She’s a cunt. Not a threat.
Smiles and laughter flit through the night, and I’m so incredibly lucky nothing has started yet. A heavy breath pushes from my lips as I slip into the crowd unnoticed, until a hand complete with paper thin skin clutches my wrist.
A jolt of nerves spikes through me.
My neighbor, Mrs. Linskey, pulls me to a stop with surprising strength for an elderly lady. Her hands are so cold. She isn’t dressed for the light snowfall tonight.
None of us are.
Brown eyes stare back at me with more clarity than I’ve ever seen in her eighty-three-year-old gaze.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Linskey?” I’m half afraid she’s having a stroke.
She shouldn’t be out here in the cold.
I’m partial to the sweet old woman who used to bake me cookies when the other kids in the neighborhood wouldn’t play with me.
Other than my friendship with Bea, it’s the only kindness I remember from my childhood. Unless providing basic food, shelter, and clothing counts. Then Mary would have to be added to that sparkling list.
Some asshole barrels past me, fully knocking me into Mrs. Linskey. I stagger. Afraid we’re going to tumble to the ground together, I try to twist to the side so I don’t take her down with me.
Surprisingly, her grip tightens, and I’m yanked forward until I’m steady on my feet.
A strange sensation presses against my chest. I study her closely, but she doesn’t speak. There’s no bright light of charisma in her eyes.
There’s just emptiness.
The uneasy feeling within me spreads, but I try to just calm down after the asinine day I’ve had.
White eyebrows furrow on her face in a look of pure confusion.
Anxiously, I glance toward the gathering in time to see the festivities commencing. Alpha Morganson’s rich voice bellows across the clearing, commanding everyone’s attention.
I attack my bottom lip with my teeth, but my decision is already made.
“Why don’t we find somewhere off to the side to sit?” I offer as another jerkwad rams their shoulder into my back to get a better view of what’s going on up ahead. Like listening to a politician drone on is the highlight of their whole year. I glare perfectly ignorable daggers at the wolf who doesn’t seem to care that he just branded my body with the bruise his shitty manners have surely left on my back. “This place is practically a mosh pit.”
Mrs. Linskey stares at me like I’m a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle she can’t figure out. A wave of warmth washes over me—magic I can’t ignore—and I try to push it in her direction. I know my mysterious magic makes people feel good.
Her eyes widen, and I know she feels the unexplainable effects, even if she doesn’t understand them.
Deafening cheers rise through the crowd at something Alpha Morganson said in the speech I’m not paying attention to.
