Page 38 of Wolfkissed
True enough. I say nothing, and after a drawn-out moment, she sighs and spills some alcohol over the cut. I hiss between my teeth at the sting while she grabs a towel to pat it dry and wrap it around my forearm.
I’ve known her for most of my life and know so little about her. Kier and Bert, too. It has taken me this long to let my guard down enough to wonder about it, and just in time to leave them behind.
My heart aches.
I don’t want this pain. I’ve wanted to leave this life behind and start with a clean slate for a while. As if moving away willempty my mind of memories and the past. As if everything at the new place will be perfect.
But surely, it has to be better than a home where your family wants you gone or dead, or both?
“You’re shocked,” Della says, helping me into my nightgown and letting my hair down. Grabbing a brush, she sets to work, untangling my long, dark locks.
“By your drinking habit?”
“And the attack. Your family’s actions. Any act of cruelty. The men’s innuendos and advances.”
My brows wing up. “Well, of course I am.”
“You grew up too sheltered.”
“It looks like you and the wolf agree,” I say drily.
“I only mean… this is a small place. You’re going out into the wide world, and…”
“Nobody will be holding my hand?”
She sighs. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t. But I’m not that sheltered.”
The wolves stripped away many childish illusions all those years ago. The illusion that your parents can protect you. That if you’re good, nothing bad will happen to you. That if you beg, the big bad monster will let you go.
That others will understand the trauma you went through and help.
All lies. All false expectations.
When something bad happens, you’re alone. That’s the truth of it, and I learned my lesson. In my opinion, that was the most important lesson of all.
The night passes wreathed in dark snatches of dreams. I’m dancing in a shadowed hall, indistinct figures gathered in a circle, a candelabra flickering overhead.
A wolf is watching me from the shadows, tongue lolling, sharp canines glinting.
I swear I can smell the coppery tang of spilled blood. Then my feet slip in it, and I’m falling and falling down an endless hole… until I wake up to a crash. It sends the door rattling on its hinges, followed by a howl right outside my bedroom door.
I sit up with a gasp. “Who’s there?” I call out, but nobody answers me.
After a moment, I realize that rain is lashing against the windows. Thunder crashes. That has to be what woke me up. The weather is turning.
I get up, shivering when I leave the warm mound of blankets, and grab my robe, wrapping myself up in it. With my feet inside my slippers, I walk to the window and touch the frigid glass.
“This is a small place. You’re going out into the wide world.”
The night sky is split by lightning, illuminating briefly a copse of trees, a distant hill, a meadow, and a flying dragon. It’s a storm. The worst time for a journey. And then, a thought strikes me.
I bet Stepfather will order me to go now when it’s the most dangerous time to travel.
Because he wants me dead.
I pull my hand back and press my cold palm to my cheek. This awareness of his hatred is new, and I wonder if the signs had been there and I’d missed them. I’ve never known real affection from him or his wife and daughter, but I also never thought their dislike of me went that deep.
