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Chapter 22
Dorian
Mr Harding sat next to me on the plane, rubbing his palms on his knees as we prepared for take-off.
“Are you afraid of flying?” I asked.
He glanced down at his hands and laughed. “Not really.” He sighed and made a visible effort to relax. “The last time I made this journey, I was full of nervous excitement. This time I’m afraid of what I might find.”
“Hopefully, it’ll be something that helps Margo.”
“Yeah,” he murmured.
“Are you worried about finding her birth family? About it changing things?”
He shook his head. “I’m more worried that they’ll disappoint her. What if they’re not good people, but she feels she’s defined by their actions? She’s been waiting a long time for answers. What if they’re not what she wanted?”
“She has you and your wife,” I told him. “That’s all she needs. When her biological family couldn’t care for her, you did. That’s what matters, right?”
He ran his hands over his face then straightened. “It should. It should matter.”
He barely spoke for the rest of the journey, so I had no idea if I’d said the right thing or not.
Once the plane landed, Ryan bundled us onto a bus before I even had time to take in my surroundings properly. The stuffy bus remained full throughout much of the journey through Baia Mare. I gazed out the window, wondering where my own family had come from. I’d ended up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, cared for by an awful old woman who had been landed with a whole bunch of abandoned kids.
I wondered what I would feel like if the bus was leading me to my mother, each rotation of the wheel pulling me closer to the answers to every question I had ever had. I shook myself out of that. I didn’t care about blood. I had my family.
A second bus took us further away from the city and towards a small town where the Hardings had first found Margo. The bus was cold though packed with people who left, one by one, weighed down by belongings.
Our foursome was the last to leave the bus. As it trundled into town, the bus driver shouted out something.
Ryan nodded. “This is it. This is where we’re meant to be.”
Outside, we stomped our feet and kept moving, stretching our stiff limbs after the long bus journey. In Romania, the air smelled different and yet familiar all at once. The brisk winter air was a relief after sitting still for so long, but I could already feel the chill seeping into my bones. It reminded me of Margo.
“So cold.” Mr Harding rubbed his hands together. “We came in summer. I didn’t expect it to be this cold.”
Byron surveyed our surroundings. “We should check into a hotel and get our bearings. We need to go on a run.”
Being cooped up for so long had made me edgy. I couldn’t wait to run, too.
“Will Jeremy meet us?” Ryan asked.
Byron shook his head, unable to mask his disappointment. He didn’t get to see his only son very often. The sense of relief I had because Jeremy wasn’t going to show up made me feel a tad guilty, but his presence tended to make me anxious. Being around him was always a stressful experience.
“It’s getting late anyway,” Mr Harding said. “We can head out to the orphanage in the morning. Some places on the outskirts still don’t have reliable power out here. We don’t want to get stuck somewhere in the cold and dark.”
We headed to the only hotel which was more like a small B&B. The four of us shared an unbelievably cramped room that had somehow managed to squeeze in four single beds. We were able to get a hot meal, thankfully. Once Margo’s dad passed out on his bed, the rest of us headed outside to find a place to run together as wolves.
Despite the cold, I was excited. Fresh scents were already fun to explore, and a whole new country would satisfy my wolf. I’d never run with the alpha in such small numbers, and that was a little exciting, like a weird left-over privilege from instincts that had been bred into me. With fewer people around, I felt his presence all the more, but it was a comforting supportive sort of feeling rather than one of overwhelming dominance.
We left the town behind, hiking to the foot of a nearby mountain range. The thrill of new ground to cover had hit the others, and we all became infected with the urge to explore. I could feel it in the air. There were no werewolves in Romania, and that made our exploration more delicious, as though we were the first werewolves to ever set foot there, though that couldn’t be true. Once, werewolves had to have existed on the ground we walked; it was perfect for us.
Snow crisped under my boots, and by the time Byron decided it was time to stop and shift, my wolf was more than ready to burst out of me. We drifted away from one another in a copse of trees. After a moment, I heard Ryan let out a small howl of pleasure before he darted away. I took my time, drinking in the cold scent of snow, the unfamiliar forestry, and the freshness that came with a lack of other wolf trails. We were so lucky.
I finally let the wolf loose, contorting as I shifted, sinking my claws into the earth to ground myself. Human concerns and worries melted away as the wolf came to the forefront, keenly focused on exploring new territory.
Wild wolves existed somewhere; I caught the scent of their old trails, but there were none nearby now. They wouldn’t bother us even if they were around; more likely, they would be repelled by our scents.
