It takes a moment for those words to sink in. I close my eyes and feel a cold wave of relief rush through me.
Thank God.
“Where?” I mutter, opening my eyes to look at Kit again. “Where is she buried?”
“In the main cemetery. Just a small stone toward the back. Grandfather wouldn’t approve of a full funeral, but I made sure she was laid to rest.”
There is trouble lurking deep in Kit’s eyes, and the way he hesitates between words speaks of a big story he’s not willing to tell. Normally, this would frustrate me, and I would grill him for all the details. But today, I just don’t care.
“I’m going,” I announce, shoving my chair back. “I have to go right now.”
I turn and run from the house, racing down the street towards the edge of town. My emotions are crashing through me, colliding with each other, and I don’t know if I’m scared, relieved, or just plain crazy.
Why choose, when clearly I can do it all at once?
Chapter 8 - Kit
After Lexa runs from the house, the air seems to echo with chaos. As if something violent and horrific just happened, leaving its imprint on the empty spaces of the room.
Something violent and horrificdidhappen.
My heart is pounding up into my throat, making my head ache. Sweat trickles down my sides as I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself down.
How much does she know?
Obviously, she knows her mother died, but did she find out about that before she left town or after? It seems odd that she didn’t take any of her things with her or tell anyone she was leaving.
Unless she heard the death squad was coming for them. Maybe she found her mother’s body—maybe she was even there when they killed her. For all I know, Slade, Bolton, and Wick dragged them out of the house and tortured them both before Lexa got away.
Of all the questions I have about this situation, that’s one of the biggest. It doesn’t make any sense that those three would let her get away. Their actions are always very thorough.
Unless Laura fought them to give her some time.
From the look of the body and surrounding area, this is entirely possible. My heart goes out to Laura, pitting herself against brutal, violent monsters, giving up her life just so that her daughter could get away.
But does Lexa know that I was involved? The two of them were supposed to die by my hand. If she knows that, then she’ll never be able to trust me.
Too many uncomfortable thoughts jam through my brain, twisting my mind. Lexa might suspect I killed her mother and was given orders to kill her as well. Or maybe, she knows who killed her mother and knows I’m involved, that it was supposed to be me, and hates me for that.
Piled on top of that mind fuck, there’s the horrible way I used and discarded her. The timing of it all comes together in a hard knot, and I put my head in my hands, groaning softly.
How was I supposed to know that they were next on Grandfather’s kill list? Why didn’t I just tell him where to go that day she came to the house?
Maybe I could have saved them both.
Maybe I would have died with them.
My phone buzzes again, and I get up slowly, putting it in my pocket. The last thing I want to deal with right now is a council meeting, but since I just got married, I know the pack elders would like to set up plans for the future.
So would I.
As I walk to my car, I think about where Lexa has been all this time and what happened to her when she was away. I tried so hard to find her, and my scouts always came up with nothing.
But I didn’t go out into the human world, and there were just a few packs we didn’t search.
Most of Wolfshade is amicable, or at least neutral, but there are a few territories we don’t go into. It’s important to keep the peace because the series of valleys is the only place we are free to be what we are.
There are other places of magic in the world, but they belong to different creatures. This is the home of wolves, and ifwe don’t keep peace within it, the entire Range could tear itself apart.
