Page 8 of The Clash of the Damned
When I returned from the sit down covered in my parents blood and in shock, Jayden was the one that helped me through it, no questions asked. I’ve been so lost in my grief over everything that happened, I’ve almost forgotten about the good he represents in my life and how much worse it could have been without him. Seeing how he handled and prioritized my well being during the tough times has given me a glimpse of the life we could have together, a true partnership.
When we reach the foyer, we find a very unkempt Autumn pacing like a caged animal. I try not to cringe at the trail of mud she brought in. “Where is he?” she screeches. The hairs on my arm stand on end. It feels like violence is around the corner, my Druid instincts recognizing it as my human instincts take a moment to catch up. Autumn and Parker were supposed to go on their honeymoon straight after their wedding. When we found out about Lexie’s murder, they delayed it until after her funeral. For someone recently back from her honeymoon, she looks anything but rested with her dirty, dark blonde hair in a scrunchie and beigesweats. No one in this family would be caught dead insweats.
“Well, hello to you too,” Jayden mutters, unimpressed with the disrespect that Autumn shows to her new empire leader.
“Where’s who?” I probe, trying to understand what the hell is going on. Autumn narrows her eyes and glares at me with so much hatred, I can feel the venom in her stare.
“Druids, you’re stupid.” She jabs her finger into my chest. “Eric, the father you never deserved. He can’t be dead. I won’t believe you until I see the body. You’re lying!” Grabbing her finger, I twist and break it, and the sound of crunching bone rings throughout the foyer. Autumn grunts in pain at the unwelcome injury.
“Point that finger at me again, and I’ll do much worse than break it.”
Jayden comes at it from another angle. “We called you and Parker on the honeymoon. Eric and Edie both died at the sit down. You know this.”
“Eric Rhodes would never be murdered by a fucking child like Sebastian Vance!” The veins on her neck strain from the effort of screaming at Jayden. It’s never been a secret that Autumn was desperate for my father’s attention. I suspect that is why she agreed to marry Parker in the first place, the Druid my father picked for her. She always thought our life seemedglamorous, full of money and excess. But no one ever told her about the self loathing and doubt that comes with it.
Being ten months older than me, and with only a human parent around, Autumn practically grew up in our home as my father wanted to ensure she had proper Druid instruction in her life. While it’s been a while, there was a stage of my life where she was like another sister. One time we were playing Barbie’s, our favorite thing to do up until the age of ten, and Autumn stole mine from me and broke its head off, leading to my tears. When my father ran into the room to see what the issue was, he congratulated Autumn for taking what she wanted, and he told me to toughen up.
While we’re all related in some way, biologically, Autumn isn’t related to me. She’s from the Rowe Druid family, through her father’s side. When she married Parker, they were supposed to take on his surname, through the Wilder Druids, but they took on neither, and instead adopted Rhodes. I guess the promise of male heirs was enough for Eric Rhodes to agree to that.
Beau, ever the pacifist, tries his best to smooth things over. “Miss Autumn, if you come with me into the kitchen, I can make you some hot cocoa like when you were a child, and we can talk this out.” Autumn screeches again. At this rate, I wonder if we have a banshee in our family.
“Shut the fuck up, Beau, no one asked you. Go clean something.”
The fragile hold on my temper snaps, and I stalk towards her. “Apologize to Beau. Now. Otherwise, I will tear you to shreds. Baby or not.” We stand chest to chest, seeing which of us is the more dominant of the Druids.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she challenges.
“You should be.”
Autumn shifts into a light brown wolf, petite in stature. An interesting choice, considering how many animal forms we have at our disposal. It’s not my first choice when fighting for leadership, but it’s the one she chose, so I’ve got no choice but to follow. The challenge I’ve been expecting from leadership is coming from my own family. I’ve become used to betrayal, so it doesn’t hurt as much now. I have Dominic and Sebastian to thank for that. Following her lead, I will the Druid magic to take over my body and choose my favorite gray wolf form; she feels like the right fit for a fight to the death.
The coldness I’ve come to associate with the magic of my second nature takes over. The transformation is fast and brutal as my bones shift to accommodate my new form. When I land on my paws, it takes me a second to adjust to all the new sounds and smells around me. I hear a car alarm from miles away, and I do my best to ignore it, in anticipation of the fight that is about to take place. I case the foyer, looking for strategic advantages. Considering there are large wolves in it, it’s still pretty spacious. I can work with that.
Autumn snaps at me, and I dodge as we clash with each other, our claws scraping against the marble floor. She throws me into the bannister, catching me off guard, an impressive feat, considering I’m much heavier than her. While the attack hurts, I ignore it, jumping back onto all four of my paws within seconds, ready to go again. Diving towards Autumn, my teeth find their target, and I bite into her shoulder, blood coating my mouth while her howl echoes through my home. I shake my head, taking her with me, throwing her against the entry hallway statues, and the sound of breaking china surrounds us. Beau is going to be pissed about that one. I’ll buy him a year’s worth of statues to say sorry.
Legend says werewolves grew up in packs. Sure, while each Supernatural family remains close to each other, we’ve never once lived like that, or even in clans. We’ve always been more evolved. The one thing they did maintain? This challenge for leadership and the ceremony that normally goes with it. Autumn decided to ignore that today, which is even more disrespectful than the challenge itself. I do think this is impulsive and wasn’t her plan in coming here, but it doesn’t matter now. She made her decision. Beau and Jayden stand by the sidelines, watching and witnessing for the Druids. I find their presence comforting, rather than distracting.
“Jude? What’s going on?”
Brooklyn is awake and standing in her PJ’s in the foyer with the trademark Rhodes bedhead. Fuck. Of course she would have heard the howl and the china breaking. For the first time since the fight started, my heart races as I panic. If I die here today, Autumn will go after Brooklyn next to completely eliminate the Rhodes line. While my little sister is a beast in her own right, I can’t let that happen on my watch. I need to end this, fast.
Feinting to the left, I quickly switch to the right to confuse Autumn, and I pounce on her, using my weight to my advantage. My paws are the size of dinner plates, and I place one on her chest to hold her down, yet she keeps trying to shake me off. I place my powerful jaws around her neck. I don’t break the skin, but one wrong move on her part and my teeth will puncture her jugular. I’m giving her the choice she never gave me. Her struggles subside, and I can see her reach the same conclusion. I remove my teeth and jump off her body. Eric Rhodes never showed mercy, but I still believe in it. I’ve seen enough death to last a lifetime.
I let the Druid magic take over my body again as my bones shift to accommodate my human form, taking the spare robe that Beau offers tome, since my clothes are now laying in pieces. The evidence of my missing memory, now laying in tatters. Quickly covering myself, I wait for Autumn to shift. Her tears flow to the point of hysterics. “Don’t you get it, you dumb bitch, there was no baby. I lied.” You could drop a pin in the silence as shock sets in. I decide to ignore her insults, already having proven my point. She wipes at her tears angrily as she tries to breathe through her hiccups. “It was all for nothing. I’ve lost everything.” She walks to the debris from the entry hall table, grabs a newspaper, and throws it at me. On the front page, I see a man posed partially in the form of an animal. The image is black and white, but I can see his face is a mask of pain.
“What am I looking at?” I ask her as Jayden looks over my shoulder.
“My dead husband displayed on the front page for everyone to see.” You would think she would be more sad about the loss of her husband, but we’ve established that Autumn is not in her right mind. “He was murdered by The Children of Christ in retaliation for the business with Brooklyn and Eden. Now I have to suffer and be a widow at my young age.” I’ve always known that desperation makes people do crazy things, but I don’t know what I’m more shocked by: the news of Parker, or the baby.
“Start from the beginning.”
“Oh my God, do the math, Jude! We got married less than two months ago. You can’t tell the sex of a baby until you’ve reached fourteen weeks of pregnancy, minimum. I hoped the prospect of a grandson would finally make Eric choose me and give me the position in the empire I always deserved. You three never deserved a loving father like him.”
Loving? Eric Rhodes? Did we grow up in the same house? We remember two versions of the same person. To her, Eric Rhodes was a picture ofstrength, everything she wanted to be. To me, he was the father I hoped would love me, but I never conformed, so I was never good enough.
“We raced home after your call. We needed to see what was going on for ourselves, but they took Parker and blackmailed me to stay quiet. They knew my pregnancy was a lie, but I have no idea how. I tried to find him on my own and instead found this today.”
I’ve lost another family member. Though Parker and I weren’t close, he didn’t deserve to die. I begin to wonder if there is something wrong with me since this keeps happening to those around me. Beau comes out of the kitchen, and I didn’t realize he had disappeared. He says, “I’m sorry to interrupt, Miss Jude, but you need to hear this.” He walks over to the TV and turns it on. An urgent news report declares that shapeshifters are real and that viewers should stay tuned for the developing news story. Autumn falls to her knees in hysterics again.
