Aviva
Rage and worry fight for control as Shoshannah stares at us, glancing from face to face. Her mouth and fingers are stained red from feasting from a basket of berries sitting next to her in the cart, but one quick scan of her body in whole shows me she’s dry and uninjured.
I think of crossing the creek only a few hours ago, how easily the current could have swept the cart away with her in it, and my chest convulses.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, but a muffled groan comes out instead.
Freya is the first to act. She brushes past me, her face twisted in confusion, and storms up to Shosh, picking her up and throwing her over her shoulder like a sack of grain. Freya turns to James and Dahlia, who are watching the scene play out in shocked silence, Freya’s blonde hair is wild and coming loose from the long braid down her back as Shosh thrashes and kicks. “Where will I be staying?” she asks politely, smiling kindly at the couple.
“Uhm, I had a room set up for you at our house,” Dahlia squeaks, casting a quick glance at Ryan before motioning for Freya to follow. “I’ll show you.”
“Put me down!” Shoshannah rages, but Freya tightens her grip and walks away.
I move to follow, but Ryan grabs my arm. “Let her go.”
I whirl. “She could have died in that creek. She slept all night alone in the rain and I–” I suck in a breath, shaking as I continue, “Mercy and father are probably frantic right now–”
“James, get Grey and Hunter and send them back to Endova, now.” Ryan’s voice rips through the air as he starts tugging me away from the cart. “Tell them they’re not stopping until they get there.” Ryan holds James’s gaze, and I wonder if they’re sharing a separate conversation over the mind-link as Ryan continues to back away from the cart, taking me with him. Jacob and Andrew motion to a few other men standing around to start unloading the supplies, and things simply… move on.
But I’m fuming. I look over my shoulder in the direction Freya disappeared with Shoshannah, the opposite direction Ryan is leading me in now. “Hey! I need to talk to her!”
“Not right now,” Ryan growls, his hand clutching my forearm so tight it begins to burn as I try to yank free of his grasp.
“That’s my sister!”
“I understand,” he snaps, his voice low and rumbling. We leave what I believe is the center of the village and walk around a two-story wooden building where a narrow dirt road leads toward a trio of small houses. One of them is further away than the others, built on a rise with a deck that overlooks the village. Tall trees brush the deck railing, and a trail of rock leads to a plain, wooden door.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
“Shoshannah–”
“Is fine and will be returned to your father.” He practically drags me up the stone trail, which looks like stairs cut directly out of rock, all while I fight to get out of his grasp.
My feet slide across the smooth floorboards of the deck as he drags me toward the door, opens it, and quickly shuts us inside.
Everything is made of warm toned, smooth wood. The walls, the furniture. A small kitchen with nothing more than a work table and some cabinets greets us immediately. A large fireplace made of stone sits on the far side of the room, dormant. That’s it, other than a narrow, short hallway leading to a door, with two more doors facing each other.
Ryan’s scent is heavy here. This is his house. His things.
Well, this is my house now, too, I guess.
The adrenaline pumping through my veins makes it impossible to really take in my surroundings, however. I whirl on him, sending my fist flying toward his face. He catches it and squeezes until I yelp and back away.
“You need to calm down!” he snarls.
Panting, I shout, “My sister is here. Do you realize what’s probably happening in Endova right now? They’re missing a child–”
“I understand, which is why I just sent two of my best scouts in that direction. They’ll be in Endova shortly after sundown. It’s only thirty miles–”
“She needs to be returned immediately!”
He points to a window overlooking the deck. Dark clouds move swiftly into the valley, swirling toward the sun. “It’s going to rain again. I can’t take her back to Endova until this storm passes.”
I shake my head, frantic. “Why would she do this?”
“You really don’t know?”
That raw emotion flares behind his eyes. It’s grief, I realize with a start. Grief–and anguish, things I hadn’t thought someone like him would feel. Not when he has all of this. This beautiful village. Pack members who obviously adore him. Friends.
Emotions I’ve kept buried since we left Endova burst to the surface, and I find myself gritting my teeth to keep a torrent of sharp words from falling from my tongue.
He steps toward me, but I move away. Shaking his head, he says calmly, “Shoshannah loves you. I knew something was off when she didn’t say goodbye–”
“You don’t know her–”
“She is your spitting image. I thought she was your daughter the first time I met you, when you were defending them from me,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’m not surprised at all that she pulled this stunt because it’s something youwould have done.”
I see red.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He edges toward me, his hands balled into fists.
“I need to talk to her. You can’t keep me from her–”
“I’m not separating you. You just need to chill the fuck out for a minute and think. You’ve been on the road all day. We had a long night–”
I’m trembling with rage as Ryan postures in front of me, widening his stance like he’s preparing to catch me when I attempt to barrel through him for the door.
“She is my sister!”
“And you’re going to go down there and yell at her, scold her for what she did!” he shouts. “I’m the Alpha here, Aviva. I’m not going to allow that.”
“I wouldn’t–I wouldn’t yell at her like you’re yelling at me now! She is my responsibility!”
“And you’re mine,” he cuts in harshly. “You are my wife. Shoshannah is my family now, too. No harm is going to come to her here, and once these storms pass, I will take her back to Endova–personally. Right now, you need to rest.”
“You don’t know–”
“I can feel you,” he rasps. His eyes darken, turning from that fresh, clear blue to something stormy and depthless.
His words catch me off guard. I’m not sure I understand what he means.
He takes a shallow breath and shakes his head as if to clear it. “I can feel you… wanting to… break something, I don’t know. I don’t know how else to explain it, but you’re worked up, and you’re fucking exhausted. I am too, okay? This–” he motions between us. “I don’t know what to do with this, how to act, how to treat you. But I’m not going to put myself through watching another scene play out like when I had to watch you saying goodbye to Lora.”
My lips part in surprise. There’s an edge to his voice–heavy and raw. His eyes shine in the soft evening daylight still whispering through the clouds, bleeding through the windows.
He takes a single step in my direction. My heart is beating erratically as he comes to a stop only a foot from where I stand. “I have a twin brother,” he says, his voice taking on a softer edge. “Sydney. He’s older by a few minutes. You can only imagine how we used to butt heads when we were young.”
I scan his face, unable to read the emotions playing behind his eyes.
“We have a younger sister, Misty. She’s turning twenty in a few months. I know what it’s like to have a little sister, especially one like Shoshannah. Misty and Shoshannah aren’t that different. I get it, okay? That feeling like you’re not in control? I understand.”
I stare at him. He stares at me with the same intensity.
“You don’t know me,” I whisper.
“I don’t, you’re right. I don’t know you, but I know you love your sisters, and I know you’re pissed that she put herself in harm's way. I would be too.”
“She’s ten. She doesn’t understand what she’s done. The other tribes–if my father has already acted thinking she was taken by Navvan–”
“I’m doing what I can, okay?” Ryan’s voice wavers on the words like he’s just as anxious as I am. This is probably why he dragged me here, locking us into the solitude of his own home, where no one is going to overhear or interrupt us. He just told me he needs me to calm down and think. He needs to, too, apparently. “Grey and Hunter will be in Endova in a few hours, I’m sure. It won’t take them long to get there.”
Silence settles between us like a wet blanket–cold and suffocating.
But then he asks, “Why did you scream after killing those rogues?”
I blink. I’d forgotten about that. “It just felt good. I needed to. I don’t know.”
He nods, a faraway look in his eyes as he turns and heads for the door. “Someone will come up to fetch you in a little while. I’m sure dinner is almost ready at the pack house; that’s where we eat together every night.” He doesn’t look at me as he tilts his head toward the little hallway of doors. “I’ll bring your bag up later. There’s a bedroom on the left. Dahlia had some clothing brought up for you before we arrived. You can change, if you want. It’s colder here than in Endova.” He looks at me, his gaze sweeping from my face down to my legs, where the short, wrapped dress I’m wearing hits me mid-thigh.
With that, he tears himself from the house and shuts the door behind him.
I stand in the center of the room for several minutes unable to move. My mind is in knots as I go over our conversation several times. I do wonder why he thought it was best that he separated me from Shoshannah for the time being. She’s with Freya. She’ll be fine, but I’m…
I’m not okay. I blink back tears I haven’t allowed myself to shed since leaving my village–my home. My people. My family.
Had he known that I would crumble the second I arrived? That this would hit me so hard I’d find it hard to breathe, and that matters have been made worse by Shoshannah’s deception now, too?
I wipe my eyes on the back of my hands, refusing to cry. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
And then I do what anyone in my situation would do–I go through all my new husband’s things. I open every drawer in the dresser in his bedroom. He has more clothes than I’ve ever seen one person possess. He likes dark blue and gray the best, apparently. Even the quilt on his bed, which is lifted off the ground on a frame, is a deep, dark sapphire in color. The top drawer of his dresser is a mess of random things–trinkets. I pick up an odd block of what might be metal with a glass cover on one side, turning it over in my hand. It suddenly lights up. I toss it onto the bed with a yelp.
Edging closer, I see… Ryan, and what must be Sydney, reflected on the glass. Ryan’s smiling and Sydney, who looks like a less rugged, more polished version of him, has his eyes closed in a laugh. The image disappears, and the glass goes black. Weird. I decide not to touch it again in the event it’s some magic relic that might curse me if I accidentally summon its light and move on from the bedroom.
I find a simple bathroom with a huge tub made of copper. I close the door, deciding there’s nothing inside worth snooping through, and open the third door. I expect to find another bedroom, for me, but it’s totally, completely dark in here. I open the door wider to let in some sunlight, but I’m met with a thick, coppery smell that makes my nose wrinkle.
“Hello? Aviva?” Jacob’s voice drifts toward me. “I’m here to take you to the pack house for dinner.”
I step out of the strange room, every hair on my body standing on end. What’s in there? Why does it smell so… weird? Why is it so dark?
I turn to Jacob, trying to smile to hide the fact I’ve just spent at least an hour going through every drawer and cabinet in this house.
He sets a stack of clothes on the kitchen table, smiling kindly at me. “Ryan told me to give these to you. He said you might like them.”
“Give me what?”