Page 37 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
It wasn’t a lie, but she was holding back, not telling me everything. It was plain as day in her eyes.
“You’re keeping secrets,” she continued. “You know more about what happened today than you’re admitting. That’s why you said what you said back there.”
I smiled, enjoying the dance, the verbal jousting, attempts to pry and discover what the other knew, or didn’t know. Normally I hated such conversations. But with her, everything was fun.
“You would know all about holding back,” I countered without answering her question.
“Why are you holding back your secrets?” she asked, not bothering to deny my accusation at all. She crossed her arms.
I fought down the urge to stare at the emphasis the movement brought to her chest. Did she do it on purpose? Probably, I surmised. She was a smart woman. But did she know just how close she was to me losing the battle and crossing the line between us? I doubted it.
Her question held such interest, and such naivety, that I couldn’t believe she had any idea what she was getting herself into. Nor was she acting. Not unless she was the best actress on the planet, who had missed her true calling.
No, she has no idea who, or what, she’s descended from, or what I am. I doubt she knows the world she’s trying to push her way into even exists. She’s reaching blindly in the dark.
“Well?”
“Because,” I said, “not everyone is ready to hear them.”
“Not ready to hear them,” she repeated, twisting her mouth as if she’d bitten into something sour. “And when would someone be ready to hear what you have to stay?”
I stared deeply into her eyes. “When they’re ready to believe.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sylvie
“When they’re ready to believe.What a crock of shit,” I muttered, the mocking words dying away as I turned onto my grandmother’s street.
Those were the last words the forest-man, a.k.a. “Lincoln” had said to me before he’d gotten in his truck and departed, leaving behind a town in panic. By now they were probably getting torches and pitchforks ready to go on a witch hunt.
There had been a point behind his speaking up like that. I was sure of it. Knowing next to nothing about him or not, it was pretty clear for anyone to see that he wasn’t the type to say words like that on a whim. Something had propelled him to open his mouth.
The question waswhat? What could have been so important that he would try to drive a wedge between the townspeople? He couldn’t really believe one ofthemwas actually some sort of evil. Could he?
And why was he staring at me the entire time before he spoke.
The car bounced slightly as it went up the driveway, tires rumbling over the compacted gravel.
Could he have been insinuating that I’m the evil? That makes no sense, though. I haven’t done a thing to him or anyone in town. It must be something else.
I pulled to a stop in the driveway, staring out the passenger window at my grandmother’s house.
My grandmother’s house.
That thought penetrated deep into my psyche, past the mundane weirdness of the day, striking right at the very center of my being, of who I was. And shattered it.
It wasn’t her house anymore. It wasmyhouse.
Because she’s dead. She’s not coming back.
That sharp thing that had been sticking into my stomach since the moment I first read her letter chose that moment to twist. Driving itself deeper, it lodged itself firmly, a heavy reminder of that simple fact.
She was gone and wasn’t coming back.
The brittle chains around my soul snapped and broke free, flying away and leaving me untethered, exposed to a sudden, brutal acceptance of the fact.
She’s dead. And you’re all alone.
