AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was quick out of the truck, eyes on the packed square. People poured out of the space and into the street, some pressed in close like they were trying to be nearer to the center, while others hung back in groups and pairs, talking and laughing, relaxing and waiting for whatever would come.
“What the fuck?” Red said from behind her.
“This isn’t any old ceremony,” Dani declared as she joined them. “Something’s going on.”
A flash of familiar dark hair in the crowd caught Violet’s attention. She ran before she thought, before she drew another breath. Her feet pounded the pavement until she reached the edge of the square and faltered momentarily. Breaching the wall of people wasn’t easy.
“Violet!” Mikel’s voice rang at her back as she pushed through the outer row, dipping under an arm and squeezing sideways between a gap. The closer she got, the less she cared to be polite, shoving her way between bodies, commotion erupting around her, until the dark-haired girl was in sight again. She turned at the disturbance in the crowd, and Violet came face to face with a stranger. Her heart fell.
“Attention, please,” a voice at the center of the square demanded.
Adrenaline surged; then she was pushing again, darting in and out, bulldozing her way through bodies while they as a collective turned inward to the center where she knew her sister must be.
Lila.She stumbled out onto the bare cobblestones, just a step in front of the innermost row of spectators. Pale skin, long, dark hair, and familiar hazel eyes greeted Violet.
“Violet!” Lila screamed. An unknown man held her arm in his grip, her skin white around his tight fingers. The minute their eyes locked, Lila started to tug, struggle, and lean toward her, using her body weight to try to pull away. “Violet, he killed Mom! He killed Mom!”
She was frozen. The words doused her like ice water. Something hot and thick built in her blood. She’d suspected it, told herself she knew it, but hearing it confirmed was a punch to the gut.
The man holding her sister fought to wrestle her under control. Kane stepped up beside them. Violet’s eyes snapped to his, then he was bathed in the amber glow of her wolf’s eyes.
“Violet!” Lila screamed.
She lunged.
“Violet.” Mikel’s breath was hot on her neck, his arm like a vice around her middle as he caught her. “Enough.” It was a growl.
She thrashed against him, reason lost to adrenaline and the hot bay of vengeance in her blood.
“Enough,” he insisted again. Another arm came around her and she was lifted back against him, up off her feet while he dragged her back into the crowd.
Kane smiled.
Mikel’s hand covered her mouth before she could shout and held tight.
“Control it,” he demanded in her ear, and she railed against him, pushing and pushing and struggling in his hold. She needed Lila, free and safe; she needed blood, hot and sticky, falling on her face like rain. Kane, Magnus—they had to pay.
“Enough,” Mikel demanded again, the pads of his fingers pressing into the sides of her jaw. “Enough.”
The command struck something in her, and she was still, shaking in his hold, dazed, and no longer struggling.
“State your name, young lady,” Kane said to her sister. When she didn’t react, Mikel’s hand fell away from her mouth.
“Lila—Lila Page. Violet—”
A clap rang out. It took Violet’s brain three long seconds to realize her sister had been backhanded. Mikel’s hand was back over her mouth, and she was held in a vise-like grip against his chest, breathing hard while everything in her demanded she destroy the man who had hit her sister.
“Wait,” he breathed into her ear, and she wanted to punch him.
“As most of you have realized judging by the turnout today, this isn’t a typical claiming ceremony. In fact, this outsider wasn’t brought here by one of us. She came to the Bluff of her own accord with knowledge beyond what is permitted outside these walls.”
A concerned murmur rippled through the crowd.
Lila found her gaze again between the bodies in front of her. Their eyes met, and Violet watched Lila’s face twist from fear to confusion.
“Your eyes,” Mikel whispered in explanation while Lila stared at her with a look Violet could only decipher as horror, maybe disbelief.
The warm, safe feeling allowing her to change her irises back was so far out of her reach that Violet didn’t even try. She did try to convey with just a look that it would be all right, to tell Lila to just hold on, that she’d fix this like she’d fixed every scraped knee, every bad day, for the last twelve years.
