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I remembered what Lena had said about white wolf guardians being driven away, the unexpected anger her people expressed towards us, and the fear of one werewolf I had met as a child. “You hurt people like us, don’t you?”
She looked indignant for a second, and then her face fell. “Women aren’t allowed to do anything of the sort. Once, my people believed that your kind shouldn’t exist. You upset the balance. You live too long, disturb everything we hold sacred. We’re told that our ancestors risked their sanity and their lives to drive you out, but a curse fell upon your kind, and the balance skewed back in the other direction. You became rare beings, hiding, moving, harder to track down.”
“So your people stopped hunting us,” Byron said. “And now?”
“We must have grown too careless because now you are here, somehow connected to my child.” She let out a soft sigh. “She must be driven to destroy you. It’s in her blood. It’s nature.”
“I doubt that,” Niall said blithely. “You’re sitting next to her boyfriend.”
She scowled at me. “An impure birth, and now an impure life. This isn’t right. This cannot be allowed. The Elders—”
“You lost any right to tell her what to do when you abandoned her,” Niall said, shifting in his seat so he didn’t have to look at her. He was angrier at her than I had expected.
“I saved her,” Vira whispered under her breath, though he didn’t hear her.
“What did you save her from?” I asked her. “You didn’t want your people to know about her. What would happen if they found out?”
“A few might be happy to use her.” She twisted her shawl around her fingers. “Most would fear her existence. Either way, she would die.”
My heart raced at the darkness in her words. “I would never let that happen.”
“You can’t win this war.” She sounded miserable. “You never have before.”
Byron stared at her. “We were cursed before. Not anymore. We’re different now. Stronger together.”
“You don’t understand. There are reasons we don’t mix,” she said. “Being around you must be what’s killing her. You all bring death to her feet, and she swallows it whole. You’re murdering her slowly, and none of you has any idea what’s even happening.”
I inched away from her, my heart sinking, frozen by a new fear. Did the harbingers hunt us because we hurt them unknowingly? Was I the reason Margo might be dying?
How could I fix that and be with Margo? How could I stay close to her knowing that I could be hurting her? Vira had to be wrong. I badly needed for her to be wrong.
Vira grew more panicked at the airport.
“What do we do if she bolts?” Ryan asked Byron while she hid in the bathroom.
“Is there a chance?”
“I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t. She’s terrified. I don’t see or sense any sign of her people, but she’s expecting them to follow her.”
“Nobody’s here,” I said. “I’ve been watching. She’s frightening herself.”
“She’s afraid of everything,” Ryan said. “I think we can agree that the compound isn’t a good place.”
“The things she said. Do you think they’re true?” Niall asked.
“No way of knowing,” Ryan said, shooting a glance in my direction. “She knows what she’s been told. Doesn’t mean it’s true."
“Perhaps she’s afraid of facing Margo,” Byron said, glancing at Niall. “How will that go, do you think?”
Niall had been pale and quiet all day. “I have no idea.”
“Margo isn’t interested in a big reunion,” I said. “She wants answers.”
Vira came out of the bathroom and stared at us gathered outside. “I won’t run. I’ve come this far.”
“They didn’t follow you,” Ryan said. “You’re safe with us.”
“You have no idea what that even means,” she muttered.
