Page 48 of The Wolf and the Chimera
Had Hermod, the roguish messenger-god been involved? Or, perhaps Selene, the moon goddess favored by many wolf-packs, had wanted to punish the sun-blessed chimeras out of an age-old rivalry with Helios? Had the Goddess of magic, Hecate, sought our power?
The questions piled on top of each other, none more answerable than the last.
I flipped to the next page, but it was empty of annotations. I turned to the next page, then the next. I flipped through the book until a drawing made my breath catch. It depicted a circle of predators—wolves, tigers, bears, hawks—circling the beastly form of a chimera.
“Tired of the meddlesome gods,” I read from the annotation, “and wary of the chimera’s innate power, the other shifters hunted them out of existence.”
“Other shifters?” Ryder whispered.
I found another line of English text near the bottom of the page.
“Once they were out of the way,” I continued, “the Blood Wars were waged, and the wolves emerged victorious.”
When I finished reading, the stark silence was oppressive.
“Have you ever heard of the Blood Wars?” I asked. “Or of any shifters other than wolves?”
Ryder shook his head.
I flipped through the last few pages of the book, but there were no more annotations or drawings. Whoever had combed through it had either been unable to translate all of it or had been looking for specific information. Ryder took the book from my hands and slipped it back into place, and I searched the shelves for any other relevant tomes.
“We need to leave,” he said.
I scoffed. “We just found out about secret species, war, and origins of my kind, but you want toleave?”
Ryder tapped on his watch. “We need to get back before we raise suspicion.”
“Really?” I said and crossed my arms. “Or are you just afraid to uncover what the wolves did to the other shifters?”
“We don’t really know if they did anything,” he argued. “All we have is a few vague sentences and a drawing!”
“Exactly.” I stepped closer, until the heat radiating of his body pressed into mine. “We’re on the cusp of a real discovery, but you want to run.”
He scoffed. “I’mtryingto keep you safe.”
“Is that your excuse for everything?” I asked.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he growled, “but it’s kind of a full-time job.”
“Then quit!” I snapped. “I’d rather know the truth behind who and what I am than cower back to Lyall’s party.”
“We made a plan—”
“Do you really trust Kieran with this information?” I asked.
“You’re the one who insisted we should trust him—”
“Well, I didn’t know we would find anything this big.”
We stood at a standstill. Only our ragged breaths filled the cramped hush of the alcove. Ryder checked his watch again.
“Three more minutes,” he said, “then wehaveto go back.”
I grinned in triumph and scanned the shelves. Unfortunately, it turned out we had argued over nothing because none of the other books were annotated and all of them were in ancient, unrecognizable languages. At the three-minute mark, I sighed in defeat.
“We’ll keep looking another time,” Ryder promised.
“When?” I asked. “The next equinox?”
