Page 4 of Chaos At Second Sight

“Relationships are complex. Because we are complex. We have histories and traumas that we carry with us everywhere, also into new relationships.” She swept her long gray hair back. She never dyed it—any alteration would follow into your wolf form, but most wolves hated their fur dyed. “All I’m saying is to hear him out. Eventually. Let him sit in his suffering for a wee bit.”

“It’s not that easy, Grandma.”

“It’s called the right thing, not the easy thing.”

I hung a few slices of hare over the crackling fire while Grandma hummed a prayer, thanking the animal for nourishing us. When you consume something, it becomes part of you. Beautiful, in its own way, to be eaten. If Emily Dickinson had been a werewolf, she might’ve said something similar.

“I didn’t leave just because of him. I needed a break from my life for a while.” My eyes welled up as she dropped her gut hook, her own eyes watering. “And little Ian…Grandma, I set aside thirty minutes every week to cry about him. I even have to plan when to be sad!”

So that morning, we hugged. We sobbed. We cursed cancer and life.

When the meat became overcooked, we ate it, cry-laughing at our burned tongues, and headed back when two hundred midges joined forces to explore our nostrils.

Grandma’s parting words echoed in my head for the rest of the day.

Do me a favor, my rionnag. Let yourself off the hook for what you have no control over. And stop following your schedule!

Still, later that day, I wrote one final line in my notepad.

Be wild.

CHAPTER TWO

YVAINE

Abreak from our daily lives? Never a bad idea.

Funny how we forget to recharge the one thing that keeps the whole place running: our brains.

In my case, it was my heart that needed the well-earned vacation. It had been two weeks since it began. Twelve days since I’d turned off my phone. Four days since Lachlan and my uncles left for the cloud-covered Fair Isle, famous among humans for having only one phone box and housing sixty inhabitants, all werewolves tracking rogue activity in the area. Thank Stephen I’d already finished my midterms.

That morning, like every morning after breakfast with my grandparents, I wandered through a stretch of woods at the northern edge of the packlands, a backyard of loneliness, wild animals, and low clouds.

I loved it.

A wild, lonely nature, but still my nature.

Patrols were rare here, considering the steep, uncrossable hills that served as natural protection and the deep, silver lake, disturbed only by the dappled trout. A regiment of insects buzzed in the narrow womb of the lake, and wind-stunted thistles crowded the banks.

My gaze lingered on a trapped islet ringed by four tall pines and a dead, bent trunk. There, a tiny bird was making a buzzing noise, like a small electrical fault.

I spread my arms and inhaled the mossy damp earth and the shy spring. Ah. The urge to add morning stroll and meditation to my agenda was strong, but scheduling it would steal away its magic, making it just a task. I’d spent my days with my family, hunting, reading, and practicing the ancient and terrifying art of living without a plan. As a result, I’d also avoided making a plan for everything waiting for me back in Montana.

Real life could wait.

The only things I had kept were my daily calls with my little brother and the sporadic ones with my parents. Together, we had managed to get Ian into a new trial with promising results. There had been community tears, cheering, and an impromptu celebration with Ian and my parents, them smiling from a giant screen while the rest of us crowded around it. Plus, my friends and I still had weekly video calls and reading sessions.

“Callum and I are fine now,” Amaia had told me with shining eyes and a fresh mark on her neck that she kept brushing. “It was difficult at first. He needed space to think, he said. He didn’t trust me after the rejection…”

“I can imagine.”

“He understood eventually. But only after I sent him an e-mail explaining everything. About my parents. My mission. How I don’t want a mate that I could potentially lose too.”

Her eyes had filled with tears. Mine too.

Amaia rarely talked about losing both her parents to cancer. She hated being pitied.

“You won’t. We’ll make sure he gets check-ups every six months and is eating healthy.”