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SIXTY-SIX | SAL AND GRIFF
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2020-09-30 05:38:00The police station was on the outskirts of town, and was set against the forest in a miserable grey block building, with a faded sign over the electric front doors. It looked like an afterthought in an otherwise beautifully constructed town, and even less fitting than the suburban houses that ringed around the old English centre.
It looked like the sort of place that people went into, and never came back out of.
I rolled my truck into an empty space – of which there were a surprising number, though it was a Sunday, after all, and Hawthorn, despite the recent attacks, still wasn’t exactly a bustling city with a new crime to report every hour. The drizzle didn’t help the muted grey exterior, and I slunk inside, my hood pulled up over my head to keep the rain off my face and hair. I wondered where Skye’s little car was – I couldn’t see it anywhere, even though his slot had been right before mine.
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I passed Rowan on my way to the car park. She, like Skye, had dark bags under her eyes, and with her pale complexion, and probable hangover, they looked deeper and darker than his had. She smiled at me, a nervous, questioning smile, and I offered her one of the same kind back.We had a lot to talk about before we could be friends – real friends – again. This time, I knew, there would be no lies, and no deceit. Amongst all of the pain, and all of the fear, and all of my regret, I couldn’t help but feel a shock of glee at the thought of having a real friend again. It had been years since I’d been able to be so open with anyone, and part of me – tucked beneath everything I was holding back – there was a glimmer of hope.Falmer had been my only friend for the last four years, and I would be eternally grateful to him for that. But I was changing – I could feel it in myself, with every new day, and every new challenge, every new threat that I faced – and his brand of lazy sarcasm didn’t suit
Last Updated : 2020-09-30She Runs with Wolves SIXTY-EIGHT | COFFEE
“Uh,” I said, wanting to buy myself more time, but wanting to get it over with, too. Torn between my options, I realised that they were both, at their core, the same. I had to tell him, whether it was right now, right this second, or in another ten, another twenty. “No. Vampires don’t age,” I said, taking my foot off the accelerator as I looked at Skye, my eyes narrowed, not harshly, but curiously.He nodded to himself, his expression steely. His hand stayed steady on my thigh, though, and I slotted that reaction into a neat pile, marked ask Skye about later.“Okay,” said Rowan. She’d caught the slight tension between us, her lip caught between her teeth, a tiny smudge of red lipstick on her rabbit-like front tooth. “But you said you drink animal blood?”“Yeah. And if a human willingly offers their blood, then I would drink that, too. But I would
Last Updated : 2020-09-30She Runs with Wolves SIXTY-NINE | ELIZABETH
There was a beat of horrible, brittle silence. We were frozen in place: Rowan with narrowed, accusing eyes; Skye with a wild, desperate gaze, his lips parted; and me, torn between the two of them, scared to even breath.Then Skye reached up an awkward hand to scratch at the back of his neck, and I inhaled a tiny, shallow breath. The tension broke, and Skye let out a nervous bark of laughter.“I mean, we need your help, Rowan. And that of your Grandmother, too. You’ll find out soon enough, and we need you to trust us.” He sounded as though he was listing off reasons to tell her – and, I had to admit, all of them were good, sound reasons for him to share his secret – but it also sounded as though he was stalling.Beneath the table, I squeezed his knee gently. He sighed.“I’m a werewolf.”Rowan shook her head in disbelief, looking betw
Last Updated : 2020-09-30She Runs with Wolves SEVENTY | KAMMERIRITE
“Not Toby?” I frowned.She shook her head, and then tucked her hair behind her ears. “No. He’s only just woken up. Like I said – I like him. I’m not his girlfriend. The Pumpkin Fayre was our first date,” she added quietly, chagrined.“It was?” I gasped, clutching at my near-empty cup of tea.“I was going to tell you afterwards. Like how you told me about you and Skye, you know? I didn’t want to get my hopes up if nothing came of it. Anyway,” she sighed, “his family will want to be with him. It’s not my place to go running over there, no matter how worried about him I am.”“Okay,” I said, deciding that a change of scenery – and a distraction – were in order. I swilled the dregs of old tea around in my mug, and glanced into it.My breath stilled in my
Last Updated : 2020-09-30She Runs with Wolves SEVENTY-ONE | SPELLS
There was a sudden flare of energy in my chest, as though the candle’s flame had been struck deep inside my ribcage. Rosie’s eyes were shining through the fog, her bare toes wiggling in the wet grass.Then her eyes closed, though they kept moving behind her lids, flickering back and forth. Her lips were moving, too, too quickly for me to read, and no sound was coming out.The candle burned higher and brighter, and a pleasant white light filled my vision. There was a probing at my chest, directed to my heart, and I let it in with open arms. I felt as though my ribs were opening up, stretching wide, though it did not hurt. It was calming, a similar lulling sense to stepping into a steaming bathtub. This was peaceful, restful, and no darkness could reach us, not here.I’d always wondered what a mind meld would feel like as a child, back when I’d watched reruns of Star Trek with my
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“You snuck out,” Aradia sighed, settling back into her chair. My hair dripped onto my shoulders, trickling down my back, beneath my coat. I shivered.“I’m really sorry–““Don’t be sorry, Ellis. I only make these rules to keep us safe. We’re not a traditional family by any means, but we are all we have.” She sighed again. “We’ve already lost David. I’m not angry with you, I’m just… worried.”She’d sounded more than just worried on the phone, but I chose to let that slide. I’d had to leave Skye at Rowan’s – I’d felt awful, but he’d said that he could just shift and run home, no harm done. I’d also felt a pang of sorrow that I still wouldn’t be able to hear what he had to say to me, though that had been dwarfed by the age-old fear of a parental telling off as I’d driven home.
Last Updated : 2020-10-04She Runs with Wolves SEVENTY-THREE | SAGE
“You’re here,” I breathed, silhouetted by the warm light of my bedroom behind me. I suddenly felt exposed, my hair up and off my neck, my bare legs pasty white in the damp, grey daylight.“I’m here,” he murmured, taking a shaky step forwards. He was soaked, and the ground was wet, but I didn’t care as I leaped towards him, my tiny body crumpling against his, large and warm and safe.There was a beat of silence, of nothing but raw joy, rising in each of us at the sight of the other. Then my brain caught up with my heart, and I stumbled backwards, my eyes wide and glistening with fear.“You can’t be here,” I whispered, raising my eyebrows to drive my point home.“I can,” he said, pressing a finger to his lips. His other hand dug in the pocket of his coat, and he held up a small bag, no bigger than the size of his palm. Then he shru
Last Updated : 2020-10-05She Runs with Wolves SEVENTY-FOUR | THE WIND VALLEY PACK
“What?” I pulled away from him, my back straight and uncomfortable. “What do you mean, who you really are? I – I thought I knew you, Skye. Pretty well, too.” I huffed, crossing my arms across my chest. I was hurt, but I wouldn’t let him know that.He opened his mouth, dismay warring with hope on his face, and then he froze. A floorboard creaked outside. Someone was there.“They can’t hear us,” he whispered, though I noticed with a dark sense of amusement that he’d dropped his voice. My hardened humour was marred by fear, despite Skye’s certainty that we were shut off from the rest of the world so long as the spell bag was near.The silence was tense and brittle between us, icy cold, the thin layer on top of a frozen lake that might, at any moment, snap. There was a sigh – small, withdrawn – and another footstep. They were right outside my bedro
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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
