I stand there long after they’ve driven away.
There is a noose around my neck, and it’s getting tighter and tighter.
Before I can do anything else, the pack gets back. Riot grabs my hips and spins me around, murmuring something in another language.
“What does that mean?” I ask softly, leaning into him.
“You are so beautiful it makes my heart melt.”
Khaos walks into the house and explodes back out.
“There were shifters here!”
I nod. “I know.”
I need to trust them a little.
I know I need to, but I don’t want to. I hunch my shoulders.
“My dad and sister.”
Khaos’ mouth falls open. “You’re a wolfless? I assumed you were human and just raised in a pack.”
I flinch hard.
“Khaos!” Riot snarls.
“You were born with wolf parents, but you don’t have a wolf?” Khaos asks again, stunned.
“Yes! That’s right. I am broken, and I don’t have a wolf,” I shout at him.
He jumps down the stairs, grabs my wrist, and yanks me to his chest. “How does your pack treat the wolfless?”
“How most packs treat us, I assume. Like we are broken and humiliating blights on their proud legacy.”
His eyes glitter as he stares down at me.
“What?” I shove at him, but he picks me up and puts me inside.
“You stay here. I need to talk to my pack. We will be back by night.” He pauses, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t care if you have a wolf, are wolfless, or human, you are Casey, and that’s enough.”
I glare at him as he leaves and then, to my utter mortification, tears start falling, and though I roughly try to wipe them away, they just keep coming back.
I put my head in my hands. “What is wrong with me? I don’t care about what they think; I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
Instead, I go to the stockroom and go through my supplies. I need to give my dad enough that will tide him over, but I’m going to make sure there’s enough for me to last. He’s not getting everything.
Casey
I’m sitting on theporch steps staring up at the night sky. It’s only visible just above the clearing; the trees hide all the rest of them.
“The stars remind me of my mother. She used to say that we were only one step away from going out to explore them, just the two of us, where we’d find a world that offered us so much more than the pack life.”
Wrath sits beside me, but I can feel the others around me, listening intently. It’s only right that I should say this to them. Only right that they hear it from me on a night like this. I don’t just drag myself into the hell that’s awaiting me; I drag them, too.
I need to tell them everything.
Well, not everything.
