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Chapter 30
Dorian
It was the cold that finally woke me, slipping into my dreams, making me think Margo was close by. Except that, somewhere in the pit of my stomach, a warning stirred. My wolf rose, protecting me from the chill. Margo was the first word on my lips when I opened my eyes. But it couldn’t be Margo. That left only one option.
A harbinger.
I reached out to shake Niall awake, watching for a stranger in the darkness. The others were already waking, looking as uncomfortable as I felt. Ryan shuddered, a flash of panic in his eyes before he gathered himself together.
He rose into a crouch as I whispered to Niall. “Someone’s here. Feels like Margo’s sleepwalking.”
I wondered what he could feel, but apparently, it wasn’t fear because he lurched to his feet, ran to the barn doors, and swung one open. A tall, slim figure, shrouded by a shawl, slipped inside, slammed the door shut, and then pressed against it as though keeping something out.
“Are you alone?” Byron’s voice sounded calm in the darkness, but my heart was beating so loudly, I was sure everyone could hear it.
The stranger removed her shawl, revealing a pale, narrow face, blue eyes, and Margo’s white-blond hair. I moved towards her without thinking, seeing Margo’s cheekbones and a similar chin. The rest of her features weren’t familiar, but it didn’t matter. She was the one we had come to find; I was certain of it.
Her eyes remained fearful. “I came alone.” Her English was heavily accented. She fell silent as though unused to speaking.
“Are you here to help?” I asked.
She looked at each of us with huge, unnerving eyes as though considering her options. She wasn’t exactly old, but she had the weariest, jaded look about her.
She looked to Byron, holding his gaze. “You asked about a girl. How old is she?”
“Seventeen,” Niall answered.
She slumped against the door. Niall reached out a hand to support her, but she side-stepped, neatly avoiding his touch as though she’d executed the move a thousand times before.
She turned her back to us, swaying as though she might fall. “She’s sick.”
“She’s always been different from other kids,” Niall said. “But now everything has changed, and those differences seem to be hurting her.”
She turned to look at him, confusion in her eyes. “Hurting her? You’re not a shapeshifter. Not like these ones.” She waved a hand at the rest of us. “I don’t understand how you all came to be here, what it has to do with them.”
“We’re here because we care about her,” Byron said.
Her gaze lingered on him before turning back to Niall. “You said she’s always been different. You’ve known her for a long time.”
“I adopted her over fifteen years ago from a dank orphanage where she was kept alone in a tiny room and neglected. Did you know about that?” The quiet anger in Niall’s voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.
“Safer there.” She glanced at me. “I thought.”
“Are you her mother?” I couldn’t resist asking.
Her lips trembled. She looked physically incapable of answering. She drew the shawl over her head with shaking fingers, pale and long, like Margo’s. “It was a mistake,” she whispered at last.
“What was?” Byron said in a soothing tone. “What happened to you and her?”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it. I wasn’t supposed to speak to the boys in the village, but I did, and I thought if I could just get away, things would be better. Life would be better.”
“You were young,” Byron said.
“So young,” she whispered. “Only a girl, really. Younger than the child is now, but I was about to be sent away to be married. All I wanted to do was escape, and I found somebody to escape with.”
“You ran?” Byron asked. “Was that your mistake?”
“I thought nobody would know, that we would be safe, so we ran away together, but then it was hard out there, living alone. People noticed me, feared me if I was lucky. He missed home, and I was terrified of everything. We struggled to cope. We both knew it was a mistake, but he refused to admit it. I had to do something before it was too late.”
