Ketura let out a sigh of relief at a mission accomplished when she and Tempest, who was still in her copied state, dropped Margo and Zipfarah on the longest couch in their sitting room. “I will be heading back to the containing room. Or rather to my place in the other side of the forest. You can come over to communicate with me whatever information you have. I still don’t think it’s a right idea that any of them know of me yet.” Ketura nodded, understanding what Tempest was talking about. They couldn’t afford a hole in their plans now, holes they couldn’t predict how it would come about, and so they would altogether eliminate anything that might look like something to trigger a hole. “We can leave them here. I’ve already activated the safeguards. We can talk in the adjourning room. I think that they would be out for more than an hour.” Tempest gave a slight nod, and headed to the particular room in question. “So, we have achieved the first phase of the plan. What do we do next?
Emma Makonel. Why not Emma Drackson? When was the name changed? Or was it her real name? Emma cocked her head to the side, unconsciously ruminating on this matter and the other details of the dream. However this one stood out. A change in her name. “Emma, what are you thinking about?” The question drew Emma out of her thoughts into the present, into the real world where she was having dinner with her family. She noticed the three were looking at her with a querying look, and shrugged her shoulders, indicating nothing. She wondered what her family would do if they found out what she had seen this last month in the place where they had sent her to school, and bit back a chuckle, imagining her father’s incredulous face. Emma Makonel. She would use the google after dinner, after the family meeting that her father had claimed they had to have after this dinner. Her mother looked like she wanted to inquire more, but then stopped short as if held back by an invisible force, and retur
It took about ten minutes for Emma’s father to gather his thoughts and speak again. Emma couldn’t help the feeling that whatever he said would change her life forever, would shake her orbit more than her orbit already has. She kept her resolve to stay and listen as steel, no matter how hard whatever her father had to say would hit her.“The woman’s name is Tempest. She had been an ex-girlfriend. My first love actually.” The fact that her father could speak of another woman so lovingly in front of his wife was quite disturbing, but seeing the resigned look on her mother’s face, Emma knew that the latter had accepted her place in the man’s life. Tempest. The woman who still had the larger portion of her father’s heart. Tempest. The name sounded familiar for some reason. Where had she heard it from? Emma tried to remember, but nothing was coming up, or rather her mind chose not to stress itself. It was rather full, and then concentrated on whatever her father was saying. “She di
“Was I the only child of my mother?” Emma asked, letting her hands slip into the crack between her thighs, her heart thumping more than usual. She found it surprising that she so wanted Freya to be her sister. Her twin.“Tempest didn’t say. But if I should take a guess, I would say no. The nurse we had hired to take care of her, mentioned that she must have given birth to more than one child at that time.”Emma sighed in relief.Hearing her mother’s answer solidified the already staying motion that Freya was her twin. But she had left her sister back at the pack. Emma scratched her hands, a bit unnerved and frustrated, balancing when she remembered that Freya wasn’t alone. No, her sister was with the species that was stronger than the werewolves. Emma paused here, coming to a startling realization. If Freya was her sister, and Sheila was her mother, then it would mean that she was part of the pack, that she could be a werewolf. Had that been the reason why Tempest had instructed
Emma looked at her watch for the second time since they started the journey to the area where Jason had made sure that her mother had been taken care of. They have been enroute for more than twenty minutes now. She let out a soft sigh and relaxed deeply in the car seat. Her parents were both occupying the front seats. She thought of Amelia then. When they had stood up from the conversation all done and dusted, she hadn’t felt the presence of her sister anymore. She hadn’t known when she had lost the touch, the contact, but all of a sudden, she hadn’t felt the presence. Emma had thought to check in on Amelia in the latter’s room, but had then thought better of it. it was best to leave without informing the latter. If not, the latter would want the whole story, and if she got it, would want to follow to the ends of the earth. Emma sighed again. At least she had one faithful person in her life. She picked up the phone, and looked. There was no reply from Annabel yet. Immediately she
It was really a cabin. A cabin all alone in the woods. If Emma hadn’t known of their species, she would have been angry with her father for keeping Sheila in a place devoid of human interaction, in a place devoid of life. She wondered how the nurses had coped with this sort of distance, way far away from town. Emma had checked the time when her father had come to halt in front of the cabin. And from her calculations, it had taken more than forty-five minutes to get here. She looked at her father’s car in envy, a car that could rival Ferrari in speed. A normal car would have taken no less than an hour and thirty minutes to get here. “I give her enough for transportation and other things. And she doesn’t come everyday though. You can see the distance. But she is trustworthy, and very reliable. We have known each other for quite a while, from back in school days.” Emma wondered if they had dated too. “Let’s go in. You know we have to return back tonight.” Emma knew that the ‘we’ did
Her mother was gone. Emma tried to calm herself down. When the nurse and her apprentice-as she would come to know in a few minutes-saw her, and then her parents, she had shot up to her feet, and had kept her head bowed. There was no happening, no bad scenario that Emma didn’t think had happened to her mother. “Sir, I’m sorry. But I don’t think I would have been able to stop it. This is my apprentice, Rose. On days when I am coasted at work, she comes here to take care of Sheila, and make sure that her treatment is going well. A few days ago was no different. I had been away from the state on a mission, and so she had been here to take care of Sheila. According to her, Sheila had woken at that time, one of the days. She had queried Rose on a lot of topics, of which Rose had tried to the best of her ability to answer; for I had given her the entire information you had passed me too, so that she wouldn’t lose sight of the goal. According to Rose, she had just stepped aside to tell me a
“Are you sure you want to stay back here? I can book a close-by hotel for you to stay in.”Emma shook her head to her father’s second attempt to stop her from staying at the cabin. Probably because it smelt of medicines, coma and despair. It needed a whole lot of cleaning too. But Emma knew that if she was to undergo a shift now-Maya had told her the morning she had left the pack about the intricacies of being a werewolf-she would need to do it in a place that was void of people. She couldn’t afford to be seen. And so, here was the best place to do that. That was if she even had the werewolf gene. Freya didn’t have that. But she wasn’t taking any chances. “Well, since you have chosen to do your mind intent…” Emma watched in incredulity as her father took out his cheque slip from his pocket, and began to sign on it. Did he carry that everywhere? A soft smile graced her lips when she caught her mother looking at her with an amused expression. The woman had known what she had thought
Emma’s eyes were as active as anything active as she watched the elders slowly walk into the hall reserved for judging cases, like Annabel’s. As she watched them, her feet kept dancing on the floor in a funny unsteady motion; she was unsteady. One, one. Then two, two. Then one two. Once, Amelia had looked at her, with a piqued eyebrow. ‘What is that?’ Her eyes seemed to ask, but Emma had given no answer. What is it? It should be what are they?! When they were hurrying over to the hall, after convincing the guards that they would be around for the trial too, her sister had whispered that the cabin, her parent’s cabin, had been burnt by the master, Slediv. It had brought Emma up short, making her stagger on her feet for two reasons. That Slediv had really traced them, even without her then, and that the cabin was burnt; the loss it meant for her parents. Would they regret helping her then? Prescott didn’t think so. But Emma was still worried about it, just like her mind had tried
One week later:Emma had run to the clinic, immediately Adah had burst into her apartment with the news that Annabel and Amelia were awake. Over the couple of days in class, they had bonded over gossip, and training, seeing as the latter was the only one that had been sincerely interested in her. Emma had run with Prescott in her hands, and Adah right behind her. And when she arrived at the room she had frequented daily with prayers, and saw her sister and her friend chatting tiredly, she let out a scream of happiness and hurried over to them. “Amelia! Annabel!” She called gaily, garnering the attention of the two females sitting cross-legged on the same bed. Before they could let out a shout or smile of their own, Emma’s hands were already around them. “Oh my goodness, I am so happy for both of you…” she paused. “but give me a heartache again, and I will skin you both alive..” Annabel and Amelia divulged bouts of laughter, with the nurses. Prescott and Adah weren’t left behind,
Caden sighed in relief at his mate’s words, wanting to believe at all costs that the years he had spent with her, that the love they had shared, hadn’t been in vain. He didn’t know what he would have done otherwise. Cry, brood? Neither was acceptable in these times. And so, he wasn’t moved when his son piqued an eyebrow at his mate’s words, or when his daughter’s lips turned up—in disgust or curiosity, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t care. He just hung on to the thread that his mate was spinning with. “I didn’t cheat on my mate, I’m sure he would have found out if I had done so, considering the mate bond and all that…” There was a pause, where relief sunk its foothold the more in Caden and his children. “So, if that’s what you are thinking, Caden… if that’s what you all are thinking, cut it out. I was surprised too when Claire had met me with the news at first, and I didn’t tell you, Caden, because I wasn’t sure how to explain the phenomena to you. I knew you held the lineage of you
Chyra didn’t know what Clem was talking about—the end of the world, and all that—but she knew that she was to blame for Claire rejecting her mate considering what she had soaked into her daughter’s mind about the alpha’s family, about how the Luna seat was her birthright. She also knew that she shouldn’t be working with Arnold. But she was too proud to concede to that, to concede to anyone, and so she shrugged her shoulders to Clem’s question. In the next second, she saw why that had been a wrong play on her part. When she saw Clem fume in anger, when she saw Claire glare at her stinkingly, when she saw her mate watch her like she was foolish, she knew that she had made a mistake. It would have been best if she had kept quiet, than giving off that nonchalant attitude. But her pride held her back from apologizing. Why should she apologize for being a mother caring to give her daughter the best? “Mother, are you so daft that…” Clem was saying when his father shouted him down. Caden
At this point, Clem didn’t know what to think about his sister, Claire. He had thought that their parents had been her motivator to reject Curtis, to follow Curtis up and down, to join the meetings that prince Nathan held with the others, but from the thick astounded silence that dwelled in the room, it could be safe to say that his sister had been acting on her own, without any external influence. He didn’t know what to think of that. He looked at his mother; she looked more shocked out of her shoes and mind than his father, quite expected since the mother and daughter duo were quite close, since his sister had no mind of hers, except put into place by his mother. As much as he was not happy with his twin, he was happy that for once his mother had no part to play in her recent escapades. “What do you mean…Claire?” Caden asked, pushing himself ahead, his elbow resting on his knees. “What do you mean when you say that Curtis is your mate? When did that happen? When did you find out?
What Claire saw first when she stepped into her father’s room was her parents sitting in the living room, with Clem, their backs hunched, the air filled with pregnant silence, waiting. They were waiting for her. She knew it from the moment she had dropped a note in Clem’s mind that she was on her way home. That he hadn’t bothered with a response, should have been enough to let her know that her twin was still angry with her. But she had held out hope, until she had reached the borders of the pack and he hadn’t been waiting for her. This was very different from the times they had quarrels. She knew, however, that this quarrel was different. She had denied her mate, because of the throne; had gone ahead to push Emma away from the pack; and when Derek still hadn’t chosen her, she had returned to Curtis because he was an Alpha. Would she have returned to him if he wasn’t that? She didn’t know. That was the truth. She didn’t know. She might have gone back to Curtis, even if he wasn’t a
At Wind Winders Pack.“Dad, what is this? What was Zoe doing in my room so early in the morning?” Curtis questioned, a second after he rushed into the dining room where his parents were having breakfast. He had slept in obviously, but he didn’t care. Yesterday’s training had been rigorous after all. He darted his eyes between his mother and father; his mother’s widened eyes told him that she had no idea what he was talking about; quite expected since this turn of event hadn’t been part of their plans. Hence, he trained his eyes on his father; the old man just continued eating his breakfast like he hadn’t spoken. Curtis thought of repeating himself, but thought better of it. He walked up to his father, and took away his plate of food; an act that he wouldn’t have been able to try before; an act that might have spelt his death; but considering his father’s few options of allies, he knew that he had a chance to live. And so, when his father glared at him heatedly, he didn’t quake in hi
“Hey…how are you feeling?” Emma whispered, touching Prescott’s head softly, as she watched him open his eyes for the second time. The first time, she had screamed and had called for the nurse in charge of his treatment, not minding that Adah was with her. Nothing could have dampened her joy. She had just checked on Annabel and Amelia, who although their vitals were stable, was still asleep, yet out of coma. According to the chief nurse, a week was enough for them to wake up now. Then she had checked on Prescott, and only touching him with fondness had elicited the response of his eyes opening. Emma had been overjoyed. “Prescott, can you hear me?” She asked softly, dragging a seat to herself, whilst Adah watched on, not understanding the communication method of the squirrel and Emma. Like the people in the community, she had never seen a talking animal, or rather an animal that communicates as Emma had painted Prescott to be. Her friend who was in the upper echelons of the community
No professor spoke to her, and Emma couldn’t help but wonder why. Had Prince Shiloh ask them to avoid her? Or had professor Brooks’ defeat scared them away from her? Well, if that was the matter, then she believed it was for the greater good. She had no interest in making affiliations after all, so long as they taught her what she wanted to know, and treated her fairly. “So, do you think you can cope?” She heard Adah ask, and turned aside to see her new seat mate. The mischievous glint in the latter’s eyes made her smile, howbeit small. “I believe I can.” She answered, before getting on her feet. She took her bag which Gira had provided that morning and slung the straps across her shoulder. It was time to go home, or rather check on her friends. Classes were done for the day. “Where are you going?” Adah asked her, getting to her feet. As they walked toward the door, a couple of the students swiftly moved, and stood before the door, causing Emma to furrow her eyebrows. But she chose