She’s not actually going to act on her ideas. She’s chastened. Haisley’s wolf tore her up. She’s painfully aware of her limits now, and besides, I don’t think she can take me by surprise again. I know the sensation of an oncoming shift now. I’ll be able to stop her if she tries to take our skin.
I’m sorry that she’s disappointed, but she’ll get over it. We both will.
I hustle back to my room, wrapped in my towel, after listening to make sure Kennedy’s playing her video games out front. Mari, Annie, and I don’t mind a little nudity—or in Mari’s case, a lot—but Kennedy is bashful.
I sit at the vintage school desk I use as a vanity and take my time brushing and braiding my hair. Old Noreen never really needs us until it’s time to serve. She says we get under foot.
My oval mirror hangs on a nail from the wall. I scavenged it from the white elephant table at the farmer’s market. My seat is a step ladder that I found in the outbuilding across the path. Mari’s terrified of the place, but it’s just an old groundskeeper’s shed. There’s not much in there except cans of dried-up paint and glass jars filled with cobwebs and nails.
Sometimes I wonder what the other female’s rooms look like, the ones who mated at first heat, or the ones with fathers or uncles to live with. The “protected” females. Do they have nice, matching furniture? Framed pictures and padded satin hangers for the clothes they buy from town?
I watch HGTV. Do they have an accent wall? A window seat filled with pillows?
I’m not jealous. Not much. In a way, it’s my worst nightmare. I don’t want to be accountable to a male for where I go and what I do. But I do wonder. What’s it like knowing there’s a powerful male looking out for you?
A memory flashes. Killian’s wolf laying sprawled on my lap, his sharp eyes taking in everything—me, the garage, Liam and Annie, the birds overhead, the distant forest hoots and cracks and snaps. I wasn’t alone. No one would have dared approach us. Touch my arm. Prick my skin with their claws.
I rub my biceps. The nicks are already healed.
My wolf yips and waggles and rolls. She likes remembering. She wants me to rush down to the lodge. Find him. Lick his face. Tickle underneath his chin with our fur.
Down girl.
I purposefully picture the other night. Haisley’s wolf leaping for my wolf’s throat. Killian watching. Not moving a muscle.
She whimpers and slows her roll. It’s tough love, but she’s going to have to learn. He’s a dead-end street.
I take my time picking out my outfit, settling on a periwinkle blue maxi dress with long sleeves and sandals. It’s a synthetic fiber, but I like how it flows when I walk. Silky and soft. I don’t have a lot of sensation around some of my worst scars, so I like soft fabrics that whisper over the skin I can feel.
I wash a cereal bowl Kennedy left full of milk in the sink, and I fold a quilt Mari dropped on the floor, laying it on the back of our secondhand sofa. I shut the windows. There’s a hint of an approaching thunderstorm in the air. Then, finally, when I can’t think of anything else to do, I stop putzing around and head for dinner.
The evening is cooler than it has been. There’s that undernote of rain, but the sky overhead is cloudless and almost purple as the sun sets.
I can’t imagine living anywhere else. The ridge, the ravine, the river, the caves, and the foothills. The seesawing mountain breezes and valley breezes. It’s my territory. It runs through me like veins, connecting all my parts to the earth.
But I also wish I was a million miles away.
With each step, my dread grows. The pack is going to stare. Talk shit. Laugh. I lost a challenge, and that’s how a pack works. It teaches you your place.
And the Byrnes will be there, smug that they’ve put me in my place.
I’d happily skip dinner, but Annie, Mari, and Kennedy expect me. They went ahead, always anxious about being late. God forbid a male wants a beer and has to get it himself.
I shouldn’t be so critical. I was just like them when I was their age. Being a lone female messes with your mind. You’re consigned to the kitchen, the furthest cabin from the commons, the jobs where you don’t have unsupervised interactions with unmated males—in other words, the sucky ones. You’re pack, but not. You’re a satellite.
Easy to pick off.
Humans like to talk about “alone time” as if it’s a good thing. That’s how far they are from their herd origins. “Alone time” means you’ve been left behind. It means you’re on your own, and no one has your back. And there are predators out there. Still.