The weekend was a whirlwind of getting everyone moved in and settled with at least a degree of privacy. Ben ended up moving into my room so that Joshua and Brice could share the dining room we’d turned into a bedroom. Tony moved into Raven’s room. I could tell he wasn’t ready for that, but Raven doesn’t like to take no for an answer. Melanie was camping out in the living room. I had a discussion with the contractors and asked them how much longer it would take for the addition to be ready and was told a couple more weeks. I wished I could just magic it into being done, but I wanted to make sure everything was done right, and there’s no guarantee that woul
“Well, this is awkward,” Brice joked as he pulled out the chair next to me at lunch. He was implying that it was weird that Ben was on one side of me and he was on the other, but there really wasn’t anything awkward about it. I laughed, and Ben greeted him. It wasn’t Ben who still had a problem with Brice--it was Sam. So when Starla came over to take the final vacant chair at our table, she was forced to sit between Brice and Melanie.
Over the next several weeks, the addition to the house was completed, which was amazing. We’d added four more bedrooms, and all of them were larger than the original ones. Raven and Tony moved into one of them so they’d have more room, and more privacy, since the addition had better insulation than the older part of the house. Sam moved into one of the other three bedrooms. I figured that was so that, if Starla decided to move in with him at some point, he’d already be settled in a bigger room. That, and he probably didn’t want to have a room right next to mine anymore. Ben moved into the room he’d been sleeping in, the one that had been Grayson’s.
The plan was fairly simple. Our discussions were more on strategic teams and placement than how the attack would actually go since we were limited in our scope and the location. Essentially, we would go in early, before Verina had a chance to prepare for what we assumed would be a middle-of-the-night attack on us. Since Brice had been in her home and knew the layout, where they were likely to be gathered before Verina ordered the wolves out, we were banking on the element of surprise. I decided to take advantage of the early hour, so we set out at around 8:00, too e
Verina’s wolves fanned out on either side of her, all of them large, dark, with glowing red eyes, crouching down, ready to hurl themselves at my pack. My wolves were equally prepared, stooping low, finding their centers of gravity so they could launch off of the ground and meet any attack midair. Or be the first to strike.I expected Verina to make some sort of grand
It only took a few moments for me to regain my ability to move. Once my arms and legs were under my control again, I scrambled to my feet and took in the situation. It was Brice! He’d flung himself at Verina and knocked her down. Now, he was attacking her. She hadn’t seen him coming, so she was completely caught off-guard. But now that she had recovered from the shock of it, she was rearing back to strike. As I stood, pulling my staff to my hand, when sent him flying off of her.
The weather seemed perfect for a funeral this time. Unlike Grandma’s funeral, which had been during the summer, it was fall now, and a light breeze stirred the leaves as they dripped from the trees along with the falling rain. I stood there with my feet rooted in the ground, near the casket, listening to the pastor talk about eternity and all kinds of things that didn’t seem to apply under the circumstances, but my mind wasn’t focused on what he was saying. I was stuck in the past, in what had happened three days ago, that night when my pack had successfully eradicated Verina’s, pushing them out of our forest for good.
The representative from the council did not look intimidating by any standard measurement. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps if he had been some huge, hulking man, or some evil looking mage, I would’ve found his presence more worthy of concern. I did need to be concerned. Both Ben and Sam had taken me aside since Verina’s death and told me how serious something like this can be. When the council gets involved, especially in the New World, and yes, the body was old enough to think of it that way, there was a problem. They didn’t just come all th
“That cooky old man is here to train you?” Raven asked, stifling a laugh and covering her mouth with her hand.I nodded. My pack mates and I had gathered in the living room after Mr. Nuthatch had retired for an afternoon nap. He said he couldn’t quite get over the jetlag, and I didn’t blame him for being tired. It’s a long way from England to