But maybe that was for the best.
At least he’d be alive to hate me.
Our footsteps sounded strange on the pale limestone canyon floor. So different from Washington’s forests or the sandy ground of Yemen. Something told me no other place on Earth was like this island. Spongy moss covered the walls in thickpatches of emerald and gold that… undulated, grinding against the wall disturbingly sexually. Not a sight I wanted to traumatize myself with, so I averted my gaze to the shallow pool in front of me.
Instead of reflecting the cloudless blue sky, a scene played out on the mirror-like surface that I suddenly understood as if I were there.
Dad and Rust were barely more than kids playing dress up in fatigues, each equipped with an old-school musket that shook in their unsteady hands. The enemy was closing in. The two of them were the only survivors of their company, and they didn’t know where to go. An explosion ripped their attention to….
“Eyes ahead.” The alpha’s voice cracked through the air. “All of you. Don’t look at the pools.”
The command snapped my gaze onto Rust’s back, but my brain kept chewing on what I’d seen. Dad and Rust, young and armed with Civil War-era weapons, tracked. They’d enlisted to earn passage from Ireland during the potato famine, trading one hell for another.
The pools we passed kept trying to snag my attention. They glowed faintly like the screens in the security room, making it almost impossible not to look. Compelling sounds drifted from their surfaces. Voices. Laughter. The crack of a gunshot. The off-key warbling of a drinking song that was so familiar, my head nearly turned before I caught myself.
Then the canyon narrowed, and the pools became the least of my problems. The moss on both walls strained toward me as the passage shrank until we had to turn sideways to get through.
When Mack and I were kids, one of our teachers demonstrated static electricity by handing out balloons and instructing us to rub them in our hair. The charged balloons made nearby hair stand on end, reaching for it as if it couldn’t help itself, which was exactly what the moss was doing. Every tendril on the canyon walls leaned toward me as I squeezed past, close enough that I could feel the faint tug of its eerie magic.
I held my breath, sucked in my stomach, and sent up a prayer of thanks that my C cups weren’t any bigger.
When the canyon widened again, I thought we were past the worst of it, but a pool appeared without warning, set into the floor directly in my way. I sidestepped, but my gaze dropped before I could stop myself. The air whooshed out of my lungs as the memory sucker-punched me right into the past.
My belly hurt.
That happened sometimes. I was supposed to tell the alpha whenever the pain hit so he could take me to Sereana, but I didn’t want the witch to hurt me again. The table was cold, the spikes were sharp, and Sereana was mean. She didn’t seem to like anyone, but especially not me.
I just wanted Jillian.
She always knew. Before I could even raise my hands to ask for what I needed, she scooped me onto her lap and pressed her palm against my stomach, humming the song that made the bad feelings go away. The scent of lavender soap and the oatmeal cookies she snuck me from the mess hall wrapped me in a protective cocoon, like a caterpillar.
“There, there, sweet pup,” she said, tucking my hair behind my ears with calloused but gentle fingers. “I’ve got you.”
I buried my face in her neck and breathed her in, trying to hold on to her warmth.
The cocoon could no longer hold me, and the beast inside of me was no butterfly.
A searing heat started in my belly and spread through my bones like wildfire, cracking me open from the inside. My spine twisted. My skin tore. Something ancient and savage clawed its way to the surface, and then everything went black.
I screamed.
Or maybe Jillian did.
Everything went dark.
When I regained consciousness, the floor was red. Blood was everywhere, but I couldn’t stop watching it drip from my hands.The smell of lavender and oatmeal cookies was gone, smothered beneath copper and death.
And Jillian…
Jillian was in pieces.
The alpha was there, also covered in blood and gore as he cleaned up the mess. My mess. I must have made a sound, because his gaze snapped to me, and for the first time ever, I saw fear in my father’s eyes.
“What have you done, Ziara?”
“Zee!”
Firm hands gripped my shoulders and yanked me backward, hard enough that it rattled my brain and clacked my teeth together, interrupting my moment with the puddle.
