2
No! I trembled with fear for my brother, now the target of Gavin’s wrath. Despair mounted inside me with each stride Gavin gained on Colt. If Catrina allowed him to hurt my brother, I would never forgive them. I could barely watch. Even from afar, I wanted to keep Colt safe. I couldn’t stomach being so helpless, seeing Gavin get closer and closer, his teeth bared—
Gravel crunching on the driveway up to Hexen Manor ripped me out of the scene. I gasped, dropping my binoculars and twisting around to see a black truck pulling up to the house. That was Alpha David’s truck. He was home two hours earlier than he said he’d be. If he caught me out here, I’d be dead meat.
Shaking, I stood up on the branch inched my way closer to the trunk that the branch split from, then stuck my leg down, searching for the gall in the tree bark I had used as a foothold. Bark scratched my skin as I hastily climbed back down, my ears ringing with fear, making me dizzy. This was the bravest I’d been in a long time, and I had a sickening sensation that I was going to seriously pay for it.
When my feet hit the ground, I brushed bits of bark off my denim shorts and grey t-shirt. My hair bobbed wildly over my shoulders as I sprinted back to the manor, across the manicured backyard and up to the porch. Grass trimmings clung to my feet, further testifying to my betrayal of responsibilities that evening, and my binoculars bounced against my chest, feeling heavier than they should. When I slid the glass door open, my heart plunged into my stomach as I realized I was too late.
Across the dinette and the grand parlor, past the half-wall adorned in familial knickknacks that divided the parlor from the foyer, David had already stepped in through the front door and was pulling off his suit jacket. The sound of the porch door opening drew his attention to me, standing there red-handed in a cold sweat. His grizzled face wrinkled up in annoyance as he dropped his jacket on the floor.
Knowing I was done for, I closed the door behind me and took a couple meek steps into the dinette. My head hung, and my cheeks burned with guilt as each one of David’s thundering footsteps intensified my trepidation. Clenching my fists, I waited for his anger—a different kind of wrath than Gavin’s. Not hot and unpredictable, but slow and familiar and shame-inducing, the kind that ate away at my heart. I didn’t know which wrath I’d prefer, but at the moment, I almost wished I could be feeling teeth on my skin rather than the sting of Alpha David’s words.
“Billie,” he growled when he was halfway across the parlor, “why were you just outside?”
My throat closed up. Words became difficult to grasp as I tried to rationalize why I had so blatantly broken his rules. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I—I just wanted to watch them—”
“You wanted to watch what?” He grabbed the strap around my neck. “Don’t tell me you went outside just to watch the birds, Billie.”
“The hunt,” I mumbled.
“The hunt?” David paused, but I didn’t know where his gaze had gone since mine was still averted. He roughly pulled the strap over my head, tousling my hair as he took the binoculars off of me. “Where did you even get these?”
I didn’t want to tell him that Colt had given them to me, or else he’d punish Colt, too.
My silence only meant I’d have to answer for the binoculars later. Instead, he set the binoculars on the white table beside me, then lifted my chin with his knuckle and clutched my jaw. I barely peeked up at him. I hated disappointing him, and I could see that I had in his furrowed eyebrows, his dark blue eyes.
“How am I supposed to protect you if you sneak out of the house when I’m not here?” he said lowly.
I swallowed, unable to raise my voice above a whisper. “I didn’t think it would be that dangerous.”
“Of course, it’s dangerous. Even in our own territory, some monsters could hurt you, or worse—they could kill you, Billie. You wouldn’t be able to hear them sneaking up on you. You wouldn’t be able to smell them. Not while you’re still without your wolf.”
“B—But our pack never lets the bears or mountain lions get so deep into the territory…”
“Don’t be stupid. You know I’m talking about more than bears and mountain lions.”
My lips pressed tight to keep from quivering. I did know what he was talking about—the same monsters that could kill me were the ones responsible for my parents’ disappearance. There were more than just wolf shifters out there in the world, far worse kinds of shifters than us, capable of far worse things.
David’s grip on my jaw eased. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.
“I know.”
“Then why do you fucking disobey me?” It tightened again. “Until your Moondream arrives and you can channel your wolf, you’re helpless out there. Even around your packmates. They’ll push you, they’ll test you just to see what you’re made of, and I know you can’t handle it. That’s why you need to stay in the house when I'm gone,” David reiterated.
My head fell again. “I just wanted to see…”
“Then you should have asked me.”
But I knew if I asked, he would have said no. He would have come up with some kind of excuse: watching the hunt would frighten me, the scent of blood could attract other shifters, or more likely than any of those, he would have been too busy to dedicate an hour out of his busy schedule to watch over me. I sniffed and nodded.
David leaned in. “It baffles me how you can be so foolish, Billie Jesper. You’re old enough to know better. Don’t disobey me again.”
The cutting edge to his words made me hunch my shoulders. That was always how his anger manifested, vacillating between care and scorn. I tried to be well-behaved, but every misstep was treated like the worst mistake I could ever make as if David assumed the slightest leniency would get me killed. I’d gotten brave enough to go outside after Colt gave me the binoculars, but I knew then I had only tricked myself into thinking I could get away with it.
He turned from me, running his hand through his greying hair and beard before grabbing the binoculars off the table. “You’re not getting these back,” said David. “You’re grounded. I don't want you down here when the others come back from the hunt.”
The vision of Gavin gaining on Colt flashed in my mind.
I wanted to confess my worries about the aggression I’d seen from Gavin, but that would only exacerbate David’s simmering anger toward me. It would only prove how too-soft I was to participate in hunts in the first place. Surely, it would only remind David how much of a burden I was without my wolf, so I kept my mouth shut and scuttled down the corridor connected to the parlor.
David sighed and grabbed my binoculars, taking them to his office.