Dark Lies: Chapter 21

Savannah

I was exhausted after my shift, but Jaxson showed me no mercy. He’d made it clear that I was going to run with the pack.

Sam drove us through Dockside, and I watched the lights of Magic Side drift by. There was no moon tonight, but I couldn’t see the stars because of all the city lights.

I remembered driving this road on my first night in Magic Side with Jaxson. The place had been so foreign. Now, it was home…or had been home. I didn’t know any more.

I was feeling a very light buzz, which helped me forget my sore feet. Sam and I had grabbed a couple beers after the happy hour rush.

You’d think after my bender and spending the afternoon at the biker bar the day before, we would’ve taken an evening off, but I had a lot to come to terms with.

The situation with my family was still messed up, and I had no idea what to do about it. Sam listened but pushed me to focus on the problems at hand, which miraculously seemed so much more manageable than the prospect of dealing with my aunt: Dragan was back, and he’d rounded up a bunch of psycho cultist bikers to do his bidding.

That, as well as a rumor that we’d really pissed off the Order…which seemed fair.

But none of that was my immediate problem—the pack run was.

Jaxson had insisted I participate. It’s part of being a wolf.

Wolfie and I had been fine with our solo runs along the lakeshore. And despite her early enthusiasm, neither of us was quite sure how we felt about running with a hundred werewolves.

Sam pulled her truck up into a packed parking lot, and I let out a low whistle. “Man, that’s a lot of vehicles.”

A hundred werewolves might be an underestimate.

What are you complaining about? my wolf asked. All you have to do is strip in front of a hundred people. I’m the one who has to avoid getting trampled by a bunch of furry lunatics.

I took a deep breath as we slid out of Sam’s ride.

There were shifters everywhere, all talking, laughing, and drinking in the glow of the headlights. So many people. Most I didn’t recognize, but they probably all knew about me by now. The new wolf. The redheaded LaSalle in their midst.

Ex-LaSalle.

“Ready to run?” Sam asked.

“For sure—but I’m thinking of maybe running in the other direction.”

“You’ll be fine, Fury.” She laughed and grabbed a beer from someone as she pulled me headlong into the milling crowd. Sam was aglow and totally in her element. I, on the other hand, was as far as I could be from mine.

People I’d never met jostled me left and right as we waded through the bodies. None of them looked directly at me, but I could feel their eyes on my back.

It was all too much. The lights. The voices. The music blaring from someone’s car. The scents of anticipation and excitement and comradery. My breathing quickened as the crowd began closing in around me.

We’ve gotta get out of here.

A few people that I didn’t recognize came up to Sam and gave her a hug. She started laughing and joking with them, and I took that moment to slowly back away.

I wasn’t running, just taking a breather.

I slipped past the periphery of the crowd and slunk off into the shadows of the trees. Pressing my back against a trunk, I closed my eyes and focused on breathing in and out and let the cool darkness wrap around me like the waters of the lake.

“You okay?” a woman asked as she approached across the grass. Not Sam. Regina?

I glanced her way, and my face flushed. “I’m fine.”

Regina crossed her arms and studied me. “You don’t look fine. You look like you’re having a panic attack. What are you doing over here alone?”

My heartbeat raced as my embarrassment blossomed into anger and shame. “What’s it to you?”

She held up her hands apologetically. “Hey, I’m just checking in.”

“Well, I’m fine. This—this meetup is just a lot.” I turned back to the darkness. But I wasn’t fine, and I was certain she could smell my panic and hear my racing heart.

So many people I didn’t know. My pack.

I’d stared into the gaping maw of a living nightmare, yet tonight, the prospect of all these folks was more than I could bear.

Regina slowly circled the tree. Her eyes flashed gold, and her power vibrated the air around us, pressing in on me. “Savannah, you need to stop worrying. You’re going to be all right. I know this is more werewolves than you’ve ever been around before, but you’re one of us. It’s okay.”

I caught the scent of hickory, and the taste of cinnamon burned my tongue.

“Don’t use your alpha voodoo on me,” I growled, but in spite of my resentment, my panic had drained away. I hadn’t known she had powers like Jaxson, but then again, she was his second in command, and probably for good reason.

Her presence didn’t let up. “You don’t need to be afraid. You’re one of us now.”

Her voice soothed my nerves, and my heartbeat slowly returned to normal. That irritated the hell out of me. This woman had no right using her power on me or playing with my emotions.

“One of us?” I laughed. “That’s rich coming from someone who wanted me tried for murder and strung up under the Old Laws. I was abducted and drained and almost killed, and you wanted me dragged before a pack of wolves to plead for my life.”

Anger clouded her expression for a split second, but then her eyes flickered, and the gold was replaced by a shimmer of shame. Regina shifted uncomfortably and looked down. “Look, I’m sorry for that. It was out of line. You were a LaSalle, and I didn’t think we could trust you. Billy’s involvement could’ve landed the pack in deep shit, and I was afraid you’d turn on us because of everything that had happened to you.” She looked up at last and met my eyes. “I shouldn’t have threatened you like that. It was wrong. I was wrong.”

I’d been so traumatized at the cabin that I could barely think, horrified that Billy had been planning to execute my family, and then she’d dropped that bombshell on me.

“It was fucked up,” I snapped, surprised by the sob in my throat.

Silence stretched between us. Finally, she shuffled her feet and said, “I know. But I was scared and fucked up, too. You’d just…” Regina’s voice caught for a second, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and soft and sorrowful. “You’d just killed my best friend’s husband. And sure, he was a monster and a bastard, but I’d known him as a good man almost my whole life. He was all I had left of her.”

She looked away. A hairline fracture in that hard, hard exterior.

My stomach churned. Seeing Regina’s unbreakable façade crack a little was like cracking myself. I could smell her sorrow and practically feel the ache in her heart. I’d killed a monster, but that monster had been her family.

Billy had fucked up both our worlds.

I started to take a step toward her, but Regina tensed and snapped her head up, all signs of the fracture gone. “I was looking for someone to blame for everything falling apart—someone other than myself. For that, I’m sorry.”

I absently touched the unhealed wound on my shoulder and steeled my nerves. “And I’m sorry that I took someone that mattered to you. I didn’t want to kill anyone. I was running for my life, and things got out of control.”

She crossed her arms again, closing herself off like the gates of a castle, and raised her chin. “I don’t expect you to forgive me for the way I’ve treated you, and I can’t entirely forgive you for what happened.”

I started to open my mouth, but she held up a hand. “I know that’s unfair, but I have my own demons, and that’s the way it’ll be for a while. Still, you need to understand this: you’re not alone, not with us, not even when you’re off standing in the shadows. Regardless of how I feel, I’ll always fight to protect you, and so will the others.”

I swallowed, unsure of how to respond. “Okay.”

“And not because you matter to Jaxson or Sam. You’re part of this pack now because you earned it. You fought for us the way we’ll fight for you. We’re family now.”

I hung my head, not feeling strong enough to make eye contact without breaking down.

Jaxson and Sam had told me I was part of the pack before, but coming from Regina, someone who couldn’t quite let go of her anger and hatred, that was different.

And for the first time, I really understood the stakes. Yesterday, I’d lost so much. Casey. Aunt Laurel. Uncle Pete. The last of my family.

Could the pack really replace the thing I’d come to value more than anything I’d ever owned? Was this why Jaxson insisted I come? I wasn’t sure, but at least Regina was offering an olive branch.

“Thanks,” was all I could muster.

Regina gave an undecipherable huff. “For what it’s worth, none of us would have followed through with the threat. They’re called the Old Laws for a reason.”

“Well, they’re fucked-up laws,” I muttered bitterly.

“They are. Because they come from a fucked-up time. Our pack was almost hunted out of existence.” Her voice was hard and angry—though not with me.

Hunted out of existence?

A knot slowly formed in my stomach. Had that been my family’s doing? My grandfather Simon, and those who came before him? Dread coiled around my heart, and the darkness pressed in.

Biting my lip, I looked up out of the corner of my eye. “Was that here? In Magic Side?”

An inadvertent snarl twitched at the corner of her mouth. “No. It was before we came to the New World. Before Magic Side and all the trouble with your kin.”

“Oh.” Relief flooded me. The LaSalles had done a lot of messed-up shit, but at least not that.

Regina looked at her nails. “Our ancestors were from southern France. After generations of living side by side with humans, things started changing. Witch hunters and zealous priests whipped the local people into a terrified frenzy, and they turned on us. The Church paid for each wolf pelt they could bring in.”

She met my gaze. Suddenly, instead of the reflections of headlights glinting in her eyes, I saw flickering flames. Howling wolves hunted down and skinned alive.

Not just my imagination. Magic. Actual memories of horror. My stomach twisted. “You fled.”

“Not at first. We fought back. To survive, we had to become the monsters they’d been taught to fear. We abandoned the restrictions that had kept the peace and adopted new laws of reprisal—what we call the Old Laws now. If an outsider hurt a wolf, we killed them. If they killed a wolf, we made their family bleed three times over.”

Regina’s words were bitter, as if she’d witnessed each atrocity herself.

I dug my nails into my palm. “I’m gathering that the Old Laws didn’t work in the end.”

Her body trembled with anger, and she hid her hand behind her back as her claws erupted. I could smell her disgust. “Oh, the laws worked. The villagers who’d been our friends learned to live in fear, and the land became polluted with blood and hatred. In the end, the Church stopped sending priests. My family, the Laurent family, and the other families here all left the pack and sought a new life in the New World, but we’ve kept the Old Laws ever since. That way, we never forget that our first duty is always to protect the pack.”

The hatred in her eyes was fresh and raw and unforgiving. I studied the lines of her face. Had she witnessed all of that? She couldn’t be that old, could she? How long did werewolves live?

“You speak like it was yesterday…you weren’t there when it happened, were you?”

She snorted. “What are you implying? Do I look like an old hag?”

My face heated. “God, no. I just realized I don’t know how long werewolves live…”

Regina gave me a wry but reassuring smile. “Time comes for us all, just like most people. But we keep a living history. Our loremasters have powerful magic that helps us remember the past. When they tell a story, it’s almost like being there. We die, but the pack remembers. You’ll experience it tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“At the end of the run, the pack loremaster always tells a story. It’s…a magical experience. Remembering is part of who we are. Part of being wolves.”

An eerie howl suddenly cut through the air. The hair on my neck stood on end, and my body jerked forward involuntarily, like someone had just yanked on my shirt. Jaxson.

Regina moved slightly, too, called by the howl. “The run is going to start. Stay with the pack and follow Sam and Jaxson, and you’ll be all right. We’re all watching out for you.”

“Thanks.”

Regina turned to go.

“Hey, Regina?”

She paused and looked back over her shoulder.

I shrugged. “Perhaps it’s time for new laws.”

She looked me up and down. “I know, but it’s hard for us to let go. Sometimes, it still seems like the world is against us. I’m sure you know how that feels.”

Boy, did I ever.