Chapter 48: Chapter 47

Vera

Blood spurted as I tore into the rabbit, a dead squirrel at my paws for dessert. Small game wee the only ones available in these parts, which wasn’t a problem since Archer and I were just doing this for kicks. I felt free and refreshed spending time in my wolf form, feeling muscles burn from the pleasure of the run. I bit into the rabbit, feeling the meat and juices slide down my throat. As a human, I wouldn’t dare eat such a meal, but as a wolf, I couldn’t help but enjoy it, quite literally guts and all. Archer sat beside me, devouring his own kills.

Satisfied and finished eating, I sprawled on the grass, soaking in the noon sunlight, its warmth a delight on my fur. Birds chirped in the distance and the clearing we occupied was filled with flowers: wildflowers, sunflowers, tulips. I wanted to forever lose myself in this moment of perfect, still peace.

The sounds of crunching grass met my ears before gray-black paws came into my line of sight. I peered up, Archer’s wolf form looming large above me. Then, he laid down close, nestled his head on her front legs, large gray eyes steal staring at me.

What? I asked, wondering if there was something on my face.

Nothing, just admiring the view.

I rolled my eyes. You’re so lame. If you’re talking view, I’d say look around. I truly love it here. The sun, the grass ,the flowers.

Sure, he said, humor in his tone.

Something tickled the back of my mind, a faint memory. Speaking of flowers... hey, those are tulips right? I pointed my paws in the direction of a few tulips of white. Archer hesitated, then nodded. A while back, I must have shifted during the night and when I came to the next morning, I had a bouquet of tulips. IT was so weird.

Interesting, Archer said delicately, as if choosing his words with care.

When asked Thelma, she said - oh they were white and red by the way - she said the red stood for love while the white symbolized forgiveness. I have no idea where I got them from or who would have given them to me. A wave of sadness swept over me. They must have dried up by now.

Archer stared at the flowers thoughtfully. They must have come from someone who really honored your opinion.

Can you think of who it could have been? I asked.

Instead of responding, Archer came closer his nose an inch from mine. I stared deep into his eyes, wondering if he would kiss me or something in wolf form. I didn’t think that was possible, but I was wrong anyway because Archer nuzzled his snout into the thick fur of my neck. I purred at the intimate gesture, loving how it felt to be close to him, how it felt to have him touch me so affectionately. After a few moments of silence and Archer essentially laying on me, he whispered into my mind, Vera. Transform back.

Shocked by his suggestion, I didn’t do anything for a second, wondering what he was thinking. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anyway.

Noticing my hesitation, he explained: I want to see you.

In a few seconds, I felt my bones morph back to human form, my naked body feeling the dewy grass beneath me, my long hair spread out across the green like a streamer. Blinking, I realized Archer had changed back at that same moment, and was now resting his head on my collarbone, the tip of his nose touching my jaw, his fluffy dark hair tickling my shoulder and face. Did it bother me that we were both nude? It was not what I was thinking about, my thoughts completely wiped away by the passion he ignited across my body.

Archer’s lips dusted against my chin. He pressed a another soft kiss along my jawline, then after, then another, like tiny petals. When he reached the crook of my jaw beneath my ear, he lifted himself up, turning around to face me, planting a hand beside my head to balance himself. He lowered until he held himself up on his elbows, arms on either side of me like a cage. A shadow fell over me as his upper body hovered above mine, his lower body across the grass. His face was mere inches from mine as he grazed at me with a heated look, not perhaps not unlike the one I might have donned. He leaned closer, lips touching my chin.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he murmured against me skin, breath making goosebumps rise along my arms.

Then he kissed me. Somehow the fact that he was neglecting to touch the rest of my nude embody made the kiss almost unbearably enticing, passion welling in my lower belly with his restrained seduction. We continued making out in long, smooth movements, with the perfect balance of friction and softness.

Pausing to let us both breathe, we remained attached by our eyes as we heaved in and out.

“Vera,” Archer said between breaths. “I…I wanted to tell you that…”

He trailed off, a look of indecision on his face.

“What is it Archer?” I caressed his cheek. “You can tell me anything.”

“Just that....your eyes looked beautiful with you laying on the grass,” he said, with a small smile, a tinge of pain in them.

I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me. Despite my foolishness at times, I wasn’t a total idiot. There was little I really knew about Archer, this was clear. Although I sensed a deeper connection between us, I knew he was private about his personal affairs. I didn’t want to pry, not on his past nor the things he wasn’t telling me.

Besides, his compliment was really nice to hear, whether it was what he wanted to say or not.

I gave him a peck on the cheek. “Let’s go back to the apartment.”

“You meant that dump?” he grumbled.

I laughed. “It’s a lot better than my attic back home!”

Gray eyes going wide, he placed both hands on my cheeks, framing my face. “You lived in an attic? In Dane’s gigantic house?” He was astonished, and it was then that I realized there was no way he could have known.

“Oh yeah, you never did visit me, did you?” I said, scratching my head. I got up, and his hands fell from my face. As much as I wanted to stay there forever, we had to return eventually.

“No, I didn’t,” he stood, looking dumbstruck. “But I guess what did I expect when I knew he locked you up in the basement for so long...”

We started dressing in the clothes we took off and packed in our backpacks before we had shifted.

***

Archer

I almost told her. I almost told her who gave her the flowers. I almost told her what I felt about her.

But I couldn’t. Couldn’t give myself away, couldn’t reveal my true feelings about her, feelings that had grown to peak-level after we had run away from the pack. More than anything else, I couldn’t tell her who I really was. Because love needed trust. How could you love without allowing another to know you? How could you love without giving permission to another to see the many different sides of you?

Even worse than it all, I knew that I was still on a mission. I was on-duty and my father could call at any moment for me to give him an update. At the end of he day, I was a spy with an ulterior motive that destroyed any chance of love with Vera. My father could snap my neck if he knew. Love, to him, was a weakness. A dangerous weakness. It could cause illogical thinking and dumb moves. It could cause shifting loyalties. If he even had the slightest idea that I lked Vera more than normal - and he was extremely perceptive - he would find a way to destroy it. He had a habit of successfully destroying anything I loved.

Then there was the problem of Vera finding out who I was, if I chose to tell her what I felt and who I was (because you couldn’t have one without the other). Would she even believe me? How convenient it was that a spy from Beartown fell in love with her? She would just think I was pulling a Reily - trying to get her to trust me by revealing my feelings to lure her to Beartown and break her… which was true regardless.

No matter what, Vera would hate me and Sigmund still had my fate in his grip.

As long as I was under his grasp, Vera and I could never be together. And she would know soon enough anyway when she eventually allowed me to lead her Beartown.

“What is it Archer?” She had said sweetly, her hand on my face making my skin tingle. “You can tell me anything.”

No, no I could not. That’s what was running in my mind. I was sure she had picked up on it by now, the fact that I barely divulged any information about myself, my past, my hobbies, my family... nothing. It was what made her hesitate the first few times I couldn’t help myself and took things farther than I was supposed to during my mission. I respected her, and I cursed myself for letting my emotions get the best of me. My father would give me a month’s worth of lashings if he knew.

As we walked out of the woods surrounding Cianwood, fully dressed, I thought about Sigmund. Even Vera’s warm hand clasped in mine couldn’t extract me from my origins. My father was to call anytime now, and he would want to know of any developments. We were so close, this was as good of a chance as I could get to finishing the mission and finally getting recognized by my father. I wanted freedom. I wanted to feel like I was my own person, not my dad’s failed son.

But I also knew the eventual consequences of completing the mission. My father’s ultimate goal made me sick to my stomach. Back when I elected myself, the Lycan’s human body was just that: a vessel that would be a tool for my father to do what he wished. Now that it was Vera... well, let’s just say if I went back in time, I would have rather drowned than volunteer for the mission.

Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

***

Dane

The attic was a lot cleaner than I remembered. Along one side were a bunch of boxes and old items I kept up here and out of sight.

I had gone through the entire house looking for anything that could speak of Vera’s Lycan bloodline, anything in our family history or line that hinted at it. I found nothing. I had assumed the tiny attic that girl inhabited would have nothing of use, but it was the last place to check, the final chance to find a clue. If there was any incriminating evidence against Vera knowing the truth, then all the better.

Even with her own room, an indulgent generosity on my part, the girl still managed to keep it shabby and depressing. She never was the grateful.

Soon after I began my search, the attic began looking like it was flipped upside down and inside out. I had thrown the books off the dresser, the cracked mirror laid on the floor, the drawers out of their sheath, clothes and other items splayed out everywhere.

Letting out a growl of frustration, I punched the wall by the hollow dresser, creating a deep dent that cracked out like spiderwebs. There was nothing here.

A weird thought entered my mind. The mattress. It lay on a low bed frame that had a dark, narrow space beneath it. Creeping towards it slowly, I held my breath, realizing this was the one place I hadn’t checked. Too impatient to lean down, I hefted up the bed frame, and found exactly what I thought I was looking for: A suspicious looking cardboard box shut tight.

Kneeling down, I roughly opened the flaps of the board, stuck down with some dainty tape. Inside, a pile of bones sat amongst other miscellaneous items.

Bones? What the hell were bones doing under Vera’s bed? What was that bitch hiding?

Picking one up that was relatively long, I assessed the gray-white thing, something about it tugging at my senses. I brought it up closer to my nose to sniff it.

My skin crawled at the familiar scent. Although the bone was long dried and its owner long dead, my wolf’s senses could still vaguely pick up on where it came from.

It belonged to Rachel, my daughter.

Staring at the bone in my hand and then the pile of more bones in the box, not nearly enough to make a whole skeleton, but a lot of them regardless. Human bones. My daughter’s bones.

A stone dropped into my stone. How did she manage to get these? How dare she collect these secretly, piling up her mother’s bones up here in a shoddy box rather than give them to me for a proper burial.

Rage burned through my veins like lava. My hands shook so hard with shock and fury that I dropped the bone back into the box, and it landed with a hollow thump. I could not put into words how floored I was at the discovery. Oh, had that disgusting girl been in front of me, I would have snap her like a toothpick. My daughter was reduced to bones in an old cardboard box.

I had to find her. I needed to chase that little girl until I grabbed her and cut her down - Lycan powers or not, she didn’t deserve to live. But all the teams I’d sent out had yet to bring me good news. At this rate, I would have to go out myself and bring her back.

A book caught my attention, and I could only see the spine from where it stood. How to Tame Your Mate. Hmm, it was a peculiar title. I picked it up, making sure I read it right. Indeed, the book was a non-fiction How-To guidebook on taming one’s mate, although I couldn’t be sure if it was genuine or satire. Not that it mattered; I just wanted to know what it was doing in Vera’s room. Why would she have such a book? Did she perhaps hope to use it for her mate, that Reily.

An idea suddenly begin forming. I had no idea what the book was for, but it certainly gave me a rush of inspiration. Vera and Reily never did actually finish the mating ritual or consummate it - as far as I knew. However, they were still bonded and thus were still connecting mentally and emotionally. While pack members could use mind link as wolves, mates had a deeper transmission even as humans, one that went as far as feeling the other’s pain.

Pain. That’s it.

I could not reach Vera now despite the numerous teams I had sent out to get her. But I could send a message, couldn’t I? After all, we had the closest connection to her that we possibly could, right here in our pack. Her mate Reily. I could easily show her exactly what I meant to tell her through Reily. And pain would be the best message to send. It would be a warning for her to come back. Whether she cared about Reily or not, I was certain Vera would not do anything to put anyone in danger, not even her enemy. Because at the end of the day, Vera was weak. Her Lycan would never make up for it. She was not worthy of the ancient being; that was why her existence offended me, especially knowing that she was the target of the Beartown.