Chapter 242

Chris

“Chris! Wake up! Chris!”

My eyes fluttered open at the sound of my sister’s voice. Overhead, the leaves swayed gently in the summer breeze, little dappled pools of sunlight swimming across the lush grass. I had been dozing, and the dream I’d had was so… strange.

A moondeer. Blood. So much blood. Was it my own, or the moondeer’s?

But it was just a dream, and I was seven years old again, and my sister wanted my attention.

Sitting up, I looked around, confused. “Livvy?” I called out. “Where are you?”

A soft giggle carried across the breeze. Sighing, I rose to my feet and followed it. I found her perched in a tree branch; she was clutching something in her arms.

“What have you got there?” I asked, leaning against the tree to get a closer look.

Olivia was just a year older than me, so I hadn’t remembered a time without her in my life. We were inseparable; always playing together, coming up with some game or another, watching out for each other.

I furrowed my brow as flashes of that dream echoed through my mind.

Blood. The moondeer’s head… Olivia had betrayed me? How?

“If you want to see, you’ll have to climb up here,” she giggled, scooching further up on the branch.

I quickly shook that strange dream from my mind and laughed, gripping the lowest branch to hoist myself up. The bark was rough and cool beneath my fingers, the branches perfectly spaced for climbing. As I made my way up onto the lowest branch and then began scrambling for the next, another soft breeze blew through my hair.

I didn’t know, then, that I would be leaving for the human world in a year. I didn’t know that I would be sent to a prestigious boarding school and that I wouldn’t see my big sister again for almost twenty years.

And I didn’t know that, when I saw her again, she would be changed. Different. No longer the little girl holding a bushel of…

“Apples,” I said, slightly breathless by the time I perched next to her.

Olivia grinned, holding one out to me. It was perfectly round and red, so clean and shiny that it reflected the sunlight. Smiling, I took it from her and bit into it. The juice ran down my chin, sweet and crisp and perfectly ripe.

We perched there, on that tree branch, and ate apples until we got sick.

I forgot about the moondeer’s head on a spike.

…

“Brother,” Olivia’s voice said. “Let’s talk.”

My blood ran cold at the sound. I hadn’t heard her voice in months, and now here she was, calling me as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t stolen the moonstone and plunged our pack into chaos. As if, from her perspective, she hadn’t essentially killed one of our own.

“Olivia,” I managed, struggling to keep my voice steady. “This is... unexpected.”

“Is it?” She chuckled. “I heard about Leonard. I wanted to offer my condolences.”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from sounding relieved. She had bought into our ruse, just as we had hoped. Part of me wanted to curse her out, say all of the horrible things that I had dreamed of saying over the past months, but I bit that part back, too.

“Thank you,” I said, trying to inject just the right amount of grief into my voice. “It’s been... difficult.”

“I’m sure it has.” Olivia’s voice was syrupy sweet. “Losing your Beta, dealing with this blight... it must be overwhelming.”

“There’s a simple solution, though,” I said, perhaps a bit too quickly. “Just—”

“I know, I know.” Olivia sounded almost annoyed. I could practically hear her checking her nails on the other end. “Come home, give the moonstone back, apologize… It all sounds so easy, doesn’t it?”

“Because it is.”

“Well, not for me.”

I gritted my teeth. “What do you really want, then, Olivia?” I asked. “What will it take to get you to just… fucking cooperate? I know you want something.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and I cursed myself inwardly for temporarily losing my temper.

“You’ve seen the havoc the artifact is causing,” I continued, a bit calmer now. “I know you want to take over Moonstone as the Alpha. But there won’t be a Moonstone left if you don’t step up.”

Olivia laughed, a sound that sent chills down my spine. “Oh, Chris. You always were so naive. But I won’t just hand the moonstone over so easily.”

“Then what will you do?” I growled, my patience wearing thin.

“I am willing to bring the artifact back to Moonstone,” she said, her voice suddenly serious. “But I won’t be letting go of it. You know I am the rightful heir to Moonstone. Not you.”

I clenched my fist, willing myself to stay calm. Olivia was older than me, but tradition always indicated that the first born male would take over as a pack’s Alpha, unless there were no male children.

An antiquated rule, I knew. But it wasn’t my choice.

“Look, Olivia, I get it,” I said with a sigh. “I know it must feel… shitty that your little brother would get the pack over you, just because of gender.”

“So perceptive,” Olivia cooed.

“But,” I continued, gritting my teeth, “you lost the right to challenge me when you started acting insane. When you started harming our own, engaging in sinister plots to take me and Ava down…”

“All things that I wouldn’t have done had the pack just given me what was rightfully mine,” she hissed.

“You tried to burn off Ava’s tattoo and banish her in front of everyone.”

“Because she was the one thing that stood in the way of my happiness! First she got to have Ethan, and then just when I thought I had won him over and gotten rid of her, you showed up and just had to—”

Olivia’s voice suddenly cut off, as though she had stopped herself. I could hear her breathing heavily, gasping for air as if she hadn’t even remembered to breathe during her outburst.

But she quickly schooled herself back into her usual coy demeanor.

“Look,” Olivia continued, her voice softer and more cloying now. “If you want what’s best for your people—our people—all you have to do is stand down as Alpha and let me take over. This is your one warning, Chris. One chance to do the right thing.”

My mind raced. We had anticipated something like this, but hearing it out loud was still a shock. I needed to buy time, to keep her thinking she had the upper hand.

“That’s... quite a proposal,” I said slowly, carefully. “I hope you understand that I can’t just make a decision like that on the spot. I need time to consider.”

Olivia hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s fair. Very well, I’ll give you until tomorrow. I’ll contact you at the same time as today.”

“And if I agree?”

“If your answer is yes, you’ll have a set amount of time to take Ava and that human scum Ophelia and leave the werewolf world forever. You’ll be free to live out your days in the human world, far away from Moonstone. You have plenty of money and influence there; you’ll be just fine.”

I had to bite back a snarl at her mention of Ava and Ophelia. “And if I don’t accept?”

Olivia’s voice turned cold. “Then I will destroy everything you love. Your pack, your friends, your precious Ava. Everything.”

I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “We’ll talk tomorrow, then.”

“Indeed we will, little brother. Choose wisely.”

With that, Olivia hung up, leaving me standing alone in the forest clearing. Overhead, the leaves swayed gently in the summer breeze, little dappled pools of sunlight swimming across the lush grass.

But I wasn’t seven anymore. And my sister had been gone for years.