Aviva
I barely slept that night. Actually, I didn’t sleep at all. I paced the living wishing for the first time since Lexa was born that she’d stop sleeping through the night to give me something to focus on other than the fact Logan saw two white wolves.
Sure, some wolves have white fur. Like Sarah, for one. Misty, too, is a pale gold, but neither of them have sightless, silver eyes.
Another chill snakes up my spine as I pace across the living room again, rubbing my eyes.
I did my best to convince Logan he’d seen some of our pack members, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that’s not the case.
The last time I saw two white wolves was before the war, and I now consider them a warning. A warning of things to come, of trials coming my way, of the threat of death.
Part of me hopes it was just Maddox and Isla paying us a visit, but the creeping sensation in my chest makes me think otherwise.
I don’t have powers. I don’t have visions. But I see these fuckers when no one else can… until Logan did, just a few hours ago.
A soft whimper echoes from upstairs, and I bolt, tripping in my haste to scoop Lexa out of her bed, which she’s been sleeping in now with Logan tucked in the next room, I have no idea why.
I hear my bedroom door open when I fall a second time, and Ryan hisses at me, asking what the hell I’m doing, but I’m already upstairs and darting into Lexa’s little bedroom.
She blinks at me as the hall light fills her room, but her smile melts my heart as her chubby hands reach for me. She looks like Ryan when she first wakes up–all disheveled and utterly content. They’re the only people I know who wake up happy every morning.
Ryan’s shadow passes over us as he stumbles into the room, yawning. “Is she okay?”
“She’s just fine,” I whisper, feeling at ease again with her in my arms.
“Why’d you run upstairs like you were being chased, then?” His hands rest on my hips, leaning his weight against me and resting his chin on the top of my head to peer down at our daughter. “You’ve been awake for a while, haven’t you?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer, and it’s the truth. Most of the truth.
“What’s going on with you?”
I turn toward him, shrugging my shoulder free from my robe and guiding Lexa to my breast. Ryan braces a hand on the doorframe as he runs his fingers through his hair, blinking a few times to clear the sleep from his eyes, and then he meets my gaze.
“We need to talk,” I deadpan, and he rolls his eyes to the ceiling.
“Breaking up with me, are you?”
“Will you shut up and just listen to me for a moment?”
He smirks, tilting his head toward the stairs. “I will, but over coffee. These late nights you’ve been having are starting to wear on me, and I have meetings today to talk about our pack’s journey to the harvest festival this fall.”
I follow him downstairs, skillfully nursing Lexa while navigating the house. I’ve found it easy to nurse her while standing up, walking around, whether she’s in my arms or tucked in her sling. If I stop moving, she tends to get handsy, pinching my breasts with her sharp little fingernails. Right now, she’s delirious with glee from milk and getting woken up by both of her parents and coos excitedly before latching again with renewed fervor.
I wince a bit, adjusting her weight in my arms, and rock side to side as Ryan rummages in the cabinets for the coffee. “What’s going on? Something’s up, obviously.”
“You feel it, too?”
“My beast does, for sure,” he says under his breath, straightening up with a brown sack of ground coffee in his hands. He weighs it, sighing and murmuring something about trading for more coffee while in the sacred festival grounds between the three tribal packs, but then his deep, dark blue eyes hold on mine. “What’s in that building you and Misty found?”
“We think it’s a forge.”
He purses his lips as he turns to the wood fired stove, crouching to stoke the still shimmering embers. I continue rocking from side to side as he goes about his morning routine–filling the kettle, putting it on the stovetop, preparing to pour boiling water over the ground coffee beans. He’s meticulous about it and makes the same comment every single morning, without fail. “When Ryatt builds his highway to the Deadlands, I’m buying us a real coffee maker.”
But right now, he’s staring blankly at the kitchen table, turning his empty mug in a circle as he loses himself in thought. “We don’t know a lot about the forges,” he says absently, thinking out loud.
“No, we don’t. What we do know is only legend–stories told around campfires.”
“There’s a forge in Moonrise,” he says.
“Have you ever seen it?”
“No,” he replies in a whisper, shaking his head. “Neither has my aunt or my uncle.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not sure if it’s accessible, honestly.” He sighs over the hissing of the kettle, turning to grab it and gingerly pour the water over the coffee grounds. “You know, my aunt used her powers–used the mask to raise the Firestone castles from their resting places. The castle in Moonrise was under the lake–totally submerged for millennia. But… there’s been talk from time to time about unfinished sections of the city–places that didn’t rise from the lake. Hidden temples, hidden squares, other places of worship that stayed hidden for whatever reason. I don’t know much about the Mystics, but they’re the guards of the secrets of the Moon Goddess, and based on what we know about the Firestone witches, they were Her right hand.”
I chew my lip, focusing on the way the coffee drips into the glass carafe he covets like it’s his prized possession, similar to my feelings about my golden bow. “You think the forge in Moonrise remains underground.”
“I think it’s in the lake.”
“But isn’t it active? That’s what I’ve been told. Fire and water don’t mix.”
“Maybe the forge isn’t what we think it is,” he says in conclusion. “But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”
I lick my lips. “Ryan, I can’t ignore this. It’s only thirty miles away from our pack. You feel the pull. Misty feels the pull.” I hesitate before adding, “I feel it.”
His eyes meet mine in the darkness, the sun not yet ready to breach the horizon. “You feel something?”
I step toward him. “It’s like I’m being yanked in a direction that’s totally unfamiliar to me. Last night, I visited Misty, and she’s… something is wrong. Something’s wrong between her and Cole, and she’s suspicious of our healer, and the forge…. It’s too much for her right now. I need–I need her to research The Book of Whispers, but I already know she’s struggling and can’t bring herself to even look at it yet, but it might give us some clues about what the forges were and what they’re capable of.”
Ryan furrows his brows. “Cole and Misty are having issues?”
“They fought yesterday morning before we returned to Silverhide. I don’t know the details.”
“I’ll talk to Cole,” he says under his breath, shaking his head. “Misty has always had a flair for the dramatics but I agree that the war hit her hard. My parents are already aware she’s having a hard time–”
“I don’t think it’s her memories, Ryan. I think her powers are trying to ignite, being pulled toward this–this place, and she’s ignoring them, and it’s messing her up. Just like when you feel the need to shift into your beast form and fight it.”
He rolls his lower lip between his teeth, his hands braced on the table. “She’s going to be fine. I’ll see to it. I’ll make sure her mate understands–”
“I need her to help me find the forge and destroy it.”
“Destroy?”
I nod. “Somethings wrong. Everything about this feels wrong. Last night, I was walking home and I heard–I heard voices in the mist. I don’t know how else to explain it, Ryan, but I wasn’t alone. Logan was there and heard them too, and he saw–” I cut myself off.
I’ve only ever kept one secret from him. A damning secret that makes my chest convulse when I think about it.
I nearly died a year ago, when Hardan of Navvan called in the rogues, leading to a vicious battle. At the same moment I received my gift from the Goddess, my bow, two white wolves tried to lead me away into whatever afterlife awaits all of us.
I hadn’t been ready.
I haven’t told him that those same wolves followed us through battle in the desert of Tarsian. I haven’t told him that I heard them last night, calling out to me, warning me of what’s to come, and that Logan had seen them.
“What about Logan?”
“I think he’s different. I think he’s more than a shifter.” I straighten up, turning my spine to steel as I come to a decision, something final. “Logan needs to be evaluated. I need to speak to him. He trusts me, and I believe he’ll talk to me about Emberfyll and what happened there. I think Sarah should come here to look into his mind, too, to paint us a clear picture, to give us an idea why he’s here at the same moment all of this is happening. And, while that happens, Misty and I will uncover the forge–together. I need her help and her powers to do so.”
“We need to call Ryatt and Ella–”
“And we will, once we understand what we’re working with. But we are the Alpha King and Luna of the Deadlands, and the Deadlands are waking up, coming back to life. This affects our pack, our people. We need to know what we’re working with and why.”
He pours two cups of coffee, stirring in fresh cream and the last pinches of sugar. “What can I do to help, Aviva?”
I breathe, relieved, and feel my mouth kicking into a smile. “Deal with Cole and the healer. I can handle everything else.”
And that’s exactly what Ryan does. I sip my coffee on the porch while Lexa takes her early nap in my arms, snuggled and cozy in the folds of my robe while Ryan stalks into the village, parting the mist as he walks toward the crop of trees where Misty’s cabin rests.
The door leading to the deck opens slightly, and I hear a boyish yawn and grunt as Logan steps outside, rubbing his eyes.
“Good morning,” I smile at him. “Ready to go get breakfast?”
He shakes out his gangling arms and rubs his face repeatedly. I get it. I don’t like waking up either. “Okay.”
“There’s some new clothes for you upstairs. Freya made them in the style that’s so popular with the boys your age here… I bet you’ll make them jealous with your new frocks.”
He’s trying not to smile, but his eyes shine with unease.
I shrug, turning back to the sleepy village, the first few figures appearing in the mist to start their daily chores or head to the pack house for breakfast. “It’s hard making friends at first, but once you do, you’ll feel like you belong somewhere.”
“But I don’t belong here,” he says, and it guts me.
“Do you want to belong?” I really don’t have it in me to tell him he can’t go home, but judging by the look on his face, he’s already well aware of that.
“I do,” he says quietly and turns back to the house to go change.
And on the horizon, just as the first inklings of sunlight breach the peaks of the mountains, a ripple of energy fans out over the fading stars.
Another person arrives–a family–and just in time, too.
I’m powerless, but with the help of Ryan’s family, I can get to the bottom of the mystery of the forge.
I rise from my chair and wave as a family of five appears, the oldest of the children shrieking in excitement as she darts between her parents and beelines for my house.