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FIFTY | A BLACK ROSE
Huling Na-update:
2024-10-29 19:42:56Kaugnay na kabanata
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-ONE | MONDAY
“And you’re sure it wasn’t there when you woke up?” Kathrena asked, cocking her head at me. We’d gone over the case of the missing note a thousand times on the drive into town – and all of yesterday, too – and it was beginning to wear on me.“Positive,” I sighed. “Look, Kath, it’s probably nothing. The window was open, so it probably just blew under the bed or something.”“But you checked under there.”“Yes, I did. But I’m not Sherlock, I don’t carry around a little magnifying glass everywhere I go. I could’ve missed it.”“Okay.” She levelled her gaze at me. “But Sherlock didn’t have supernaturally charged vision, which is why he needed the magnifying glass. You do, which is why you don’t.”“Fine. I’m certain it hasn’t just blown under my bed. I’m also certain that it was there when I went to sleep, and it was gone by the next morning. But we’re running this subject into the ground, and we aren’t getting anywhere with it. And things do just go missing sometimes, Kath. I’ve lost hundred
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-TWO | BOOK OF SHADOWS
“She was unconscious for days,” he began. At our blank expressions, he sighed. “For a wolf, that’s weird. That’s bad weird. Werewolves are protectors by nature, so we need to heal quickly – quicker than the average human by a long way. And when we fall unconscious – which is very rare in itself – it’s never for longer than a few hours at most.” He took a breath, and I felt a small sense of pride shoot through me. Skye seemed less nervous around Kathrena already, and, if I was not mistaken, he was taking a beat to add to the drama of his story. Sure, his leg was still jiggling beneath the table, but he was learning. “We think that something was keeping Pera under,” he continued. “Something supernatural, with enough power to control a wolf. And there’s something else,” he added, his gaze dropping to the warped wooden table. Someone had scratched their initials into it, a wonky R and something too distorted to read next to it.“What?” I whispered, touching his forearm softly. The small h
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-THREE | BLACK MAGIC
“But that doesn’t explain why you think the smudges on the trees are linked,” Kathrena sighed, sitting back in her chair.“Because our witch talks about that, too,” I said, pulling the book into my lap and fiddling with the pages. “In the list of creatures. It doesn’t say what it is, but she has made notes on it. At the end here, look,” I added, placing the book back onto the table, open on the correct page, now, and facing Kathrena.She traced her finger over the words, her mouth moving too quickly for me to read her lips as she muttered them aloud to herself.Skye had flipped up the pages that Kathrena wasn’t reading, his head tilted to the side so that he could see the handwriting, even looking at it side-on as he was. His eyes were narrowed, and I shrugged to myself. Kathrena and I could fill him in, anyway.And I couldn’t deny tha
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-FOUR | EYE OF NEWT
“I recognise it from somewhere,” I mused, squeezing Skye’s hand as we rounded the cobbled corner and came onto the high street. It was raining, now, the sky edged with black and a miserable shade of grey in between.Kathrena, walking on my other side, laughed. “That’s wishful thinking if I’ve ever heard it, El.”Thankfully, Skye seemed to have completely forgiven my cold comment from earlier, and he squeezed my hand back, throwing me a sympathetic smile. “Well, for my part, I really hope you do recognise it, El. If we need a witch to take down whatever this is we’re fighting, a head start – or any leads at all, really – would be great. I mean, we don’t even know what this thing is. Maybe there’s a second Book of Shadows that Herb doesn’t have access too. Maybe she’s still writing it now, even!”“Or maybe she’s dead
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-FIVE | TAROT
“Well?” Kathrena asked, probing me for information with a surprisingly gentle tone. One of her fingers was tapping at the wooden bench, though, so I didn’t want to take too many liberties with dragging out my story.I sighed. Herb had pulled me aside as the others had left the library. I’d told them to go ahead, as I’d been planning to return his papers to him, anyway. They’d been of little use to us, in the end: though there had been a few animal attacks in Hawthorn, they all seemed legitimate. We were near a National Park, which bordered the coastline, and it was plausible that the occasional bear might stray. Even the forest that the Clan house backed out onto was home to mountain lions, and that was even closer to Hawthorn’s town centre.There had been no strings, no sightings, and nothing suspicious. But Herb had helped us as much as he could, given that we’d had very little information to
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-SIX | MIRAGE
My hands were shaking as I scrolled through my contacts list to find Skye’s number. It was dark outside now, and late, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.Someone had been in my room, and that same someone had left a tarot card on my bed. A tarot card that foretold death.I’d hunted with Kathrena, wanting to push it out of my mind. It was an impossibility: I lived in the Clan house, for goodness sake, where other vampires lived, too. Vampires that, right now, were on high alert for an attacker.I’d gorged myself on animal blood, feeding on a number of larger animals so that I didn’t hurt any of them. But only so many deer and moose could dent the terror that was shaking my bones, and I’d told Kathrena about the card on our way back in from the woods.“The death card is only perceived as negative, you know. In tarot read
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-SEVEN | AS THE WORLD FALLS DOWN
“Where are we going?” I asked, tucking myself into his tiny car.“It’s a surprise,” he grinned, reaching over and touching my thigh. His warm hand brushed the soft denim of my jeans, and I shivered with pleasure. Like the sun, he’d burned away the clouds – for the time being, at least – and I was bathing in the sunlight of his golden eyes.Outside, the dark pine trees rose, ragged, into the night sky. My eyes had adjusted, over time, and I could make out shadows upon shadows, and the slight differences in the shades of black that made up the shapes of the world as we drove by.For the moment, cramped in Skye’s small car, with him beside me, I felt safe.“Can you give me a clue?” I asked, settling back in my seat.“Okay,” he said, his tone light and teasing. I liked this side of Skye, a hard and fun edge
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-EIGHT | SIGNS
I couldn’t believe that I’d been so blind. Of course that was where I knew the name from. My truck rumbled beneath me, and I stared into the pretty front garden, unsure as to what my next move should be.The two weeks in the run up to the senior party had passed in a hectic blur of frenzied research. I’d almost forgotten about school, and Kathrena and I had doubled down together, more often than not with Skye, too, in an attempt to catch up on our work. I doubted that catching up was ever a position Kathrena had been in, in regards to homework, at least, and we struggled to find a balance between finding answers to the very real threat facing us, and keeping up appearances at home and at school.My spontaneous date with Skye had relaxed me, though I couldn’t keep up the walls pushing the world away for long. He’d asked me again what had happened, what had got me so shaken up, and I’d told him in quiet, stammering words that I’d found a tarot card in my bedroom. The card that signified
Huling Na-update : 2024-10-29
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She Runs with Wolves 108 | BOUND
The week following the defeat of the demon had been surprisingly normal. Well – as normal as a week could be for two vampires, a witch, and a werewolf.I leant back against Skye, pressing my body against his. His arms slipped around my waist, and I snuggled closer. I could see the darkness swelling outside, scattering the stars and drawing away the purple haze of dusk.Skye had all but moved in to the Clan house, and, whilst most of his belongings were stashed in the spare bedroom upstairs, he slept and spent all of his time in my room.I’d dragged another chair up the staircase and lugged it into my room, so that we could share my desk – though very little homework ever got done, what with our constant teasing and moments where, despite the desk and my laptop, despite the mounds of assignments and text books, nothing but Skye and I existed. Those moments ended in kisses, always, and though I was
She Runs with Wolves 107 | AFTER
The large, red-brown wolf in front of me panted, its claws digging into empty earth. I stepped closer, one quivering hand outstretched. The rain splattered onto its fur, slicking it down as it turned its huge, golden eyes to look at me.There was a nudging glee between our bond, as though we were both too scared to accept that we’d done it. We hadn’t failed. We’d won.I held the wolf’s gaze. He gave me a nod, and his jaw hung open in a lopsided grin.It was raining. I’d made it rain.I couldn’t make sense of everything that was happening. My grip on the knife loosened, and it clattered to the floor. Then Skye was shifting in front of me, and, rain soaked and bloody, we fell into each other’s arms. All around us people were waking up, witches and vampires alike, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. They were going to
She Runs with Wolves 106 | ICARUS
“If you have the power to do that,” I said, yanking the blade out from under my skort, “why not just kill us all now?”Cythraul clucked his tongue. “And what would be the fun in that? The realm I’m from is nothing like your world, Ellis. This place has hope, and fear, and love, and loss. There is duality in all things. It is a privilege for me to be here, you see. I plan to enjoy it.”“So this is just a game to you?” I spat, raising the knife. I tried to keep my eyes on the demon, not wanting to see the lifeless bodies of my family all around us.“Of course,” he grinned. “Though I’m afraid your chances are perhaps bleaker than I’ve made out. Your little witch friend, the red head – she was wrong about that stone around your neck.” He nodded at it. “It doesn’t mean what she thinks. Her first guess was right &n
She Runs with Wolves 105 | SIX MINUTES
“You know?” I whispered. My mouth went dry, and I swallowed thickly, trying to wet my lips. Ice flooded my veins. We had lost. We had failed.He stepped out of the shadows, snakes of black mist pooling around his body as he moved. His smirk deepened, and I saw a flash of white teeth as he struggled to hold in his laughter.He looked, for the most part, human. His skin shone with a pearlescent lustre, but two dark horns protruded from his forehead and his eyes glowed red. He was tall – taller than any person I’d ever seen, be they vampire, human, witch, or wolf – and, as the fog parted, billowing away from his legs, I understood why.He had the upper body of a human, and the legs of a large goat. But, as I watched, they shifted and shimmered in the darkness, stars and sparkles of an indeterminable colour – too matte to shine like that, too black to be so bright; it was impossib
She Runs with Wolves 104 | OBLIVION
“I guess this is where I have to leave you,” I said, though I didn’t slide my hand out of Skye’s, or make any indication that I was planning on walking away from him. I was reluctant to leave him alone, even though I knew that his job was more likely to be safe than mine. That didn’t mean I wasn’t scared for him.“I guess so,” he echoed, though his clutch on my hand grew firmer.We’d agreed before that Skye should stay to protect the humans in the maze. With every second that we put off the inevitable, we were putting lives at risk. Our jaunt through the maze had been undertaken with the knowledge that we would likely be to first to arrive at the scene of any attacks – but there had been none, and, so far, it seemed as though the demon was planning on giving the maze a miss.The thought gripped me with fear, icy and unyielding, a frozen cage that constricted my
She Runs with Wolves 103 | HALLOWEEN
We had an hour to kill before the Clan were due to start their fight. I didn’t want to think that it might be my last, but try as I might, my barricades were struggling to stay in place. The two thuds played on a loop in my head, and I had to concentrate very hard to keep the images of David and Toby out of my mind.No. I couldn’t think like that. Tonight we would avenge David, and we would keep the rest of the town safe. We’d been lucky so far in that there had been only one casualty – there was something odd about that, I was sure, though I was grateful that was the case – but I didn’t want to put anyone else at risk.I took a deep breath. “Do you want to go through the maze?” I asked, turning to face Skye.He slipped his hand out of mine and rubbed it on the thigh of his jeans. “Sure.” He pulled a smile onto his lips, but it seemed that I wasn’t alone w
She Runs with Wolves 102 | TALISMAN
“Okay,” Molly said, clapping her hands together. “I think that’s everything.”“Finally,” Rowan muttered under her breath, and I had to stifle my laughter.It was the night of Halloween, and we were all milling around at the entrance to the maze. The committee had grown considerably since our meetings – we’d needed more volunteers to fill the maze, and there were parents, teenagers, friends and family stood beside us, all in costume. Molly had given out costuming guidelines before the event, much to the dismay of most of those participating, but even I had to admit that she’d done a good job with organising the maze and the activities within it.And, to my absolute delight, she’d made Skye come as a werewolf.“You’re just tall, and muscular, and you have all that hair,” she’d shrugged. “It makes perfect sen
She Runs with Wolves 101 | VISIONS
Skye let out a tiny, defeated sigh, but then he pushed through his disappointment and stepped closer, peering into the window beside me. “Are you sure they haven’t just changed the display around?”“The display is the same.” I groaned, banging my head against his arm. We were being careful not to say what we were looking for out loud – there could be ears anywhere – but I’d been so pent up all day, so focused, and it felt as though our plan had fallen flat before we’d even had a chance to start.“Hey, don’t do that,” Skye murmured, prying my chin off his shoulder. “You almost went through a window yesterday.”I shrugged. “It’s pretty much healed now. But – thank you for being concerned. It’s sweet. I like that you forget what I am, sometimes.” I gave him a tiny smile, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead, rig
She Runs with Wolves ONE HUNDRED | OCTOBER
I’d thought that my classes had dragged today, but they had been nothing compared to the committee meeting that followed.Beneath the table, I linked my fingers with Skye’s. We were in the same dimly lit classroom as yesterday, and, though it was still light outside, the room was cast in shades of grey. Outside, most of the leaves had fallen from the trees, leaving behind gnarled and bony fingers stretching up into the white sky.“So,” Molly said, tapping her stubby index finger against the whiteboard, “we’ll put the tomb right in the centre of the maze, and then I’m guessing you two want to be the ones to jump out of the coffin?” She directed her gaze at Carys and June, who both nodded eagerly, before turning to grin at one another.“Awesome,” Carys said.“Where’s the centre going to be?” I asked, frowning. It looked close
