Dead of Night

Soon after Declarations Victor, Huntley, and Chase took me to their two-level hut.

It was a large, dusty space with a table, chairs, fireplace, and three rooms off of each wall. It was marginally tidier than my hut. A ladder led to a room of my own above the main living space.

“When did you build this?” I blinked at them, stunned.

“Last year,” Victor said, looking at me levelly.

“Before you knew I was binding myself?” I asked in a high voice.

“Before that,” Chase said.

“Why?”

“We knew we wanted you,” Victor said.

“But you didn’t know what I looked like.”

“We knew what you smelled like.” Huntley sniffed the air pointedly. “We knew we’d have to have you.”

I climbed the ladder and insisted I recover. I reminded them of our agreement, and while Huntley and Chase teased me, my males agreed. They were eager to fetch me whatever I needed and give me pleasure when I was ready.

But I needed time. Both to physically recover and make sense of the memory that had come back to me.

***

Without warring with my she-wolf, without warring with the Faber brothers, everything became clearer. Pieces drifted back to me like branches in a pond. I could gather them up and begin to build something that would make sense.

I could remember the plague that had decimated so many packs. I could remember vaguely the alpha that had led us from a pack and deep into the woods. I remembered his face, seeing him barking orders and knowing that I trusted him completely.

~But I can’t remember his name.~

~Or who he was to me.~

But as I envisioned him, I felt a deep belief in him and mourned that I was no longer part of that pack. Though I couldn’t even remember what pack they were.

~Dammit.~

But things had changed slightly a few mornings ago. More memories came to me now that I lived more aligned with my wolf.

Dreams and images of seeing my former pack alpha and his mate, lying on a wood floor covered in blood. There was a humming sound and I realized it was my voice screaming.

~But was it a pack?~ I wondered.

Though I had imagined that strong male was an alpha, because he exuded that kind of power, I felt like the group I’d been with was less a pack, and more of a family.

In this dream, there were two men I didn’t know, dragging me back by my ankles as I tried to crawl to the corpses on the floor. Sobbing wildly. I looked to my left and could just see the pool of blood I was sliding in. It coated my clothes and hair. I was laying in it.

But it was from someone else…As my eyes moved to settle on whoever it was, I woke with a start. I was panting, only half awake.

“Shh…” There was a head laying on my calves, arms wrapped around my legs as he reached up to pat my thigh reassuringly. “You’re okay, Valerie.”

It was Victor cuddled around my legs.

“The dream again?” Huntley asked from where he was strung sideways across my giant bed with his head cradled on my belly.

“More of it.”

“What was this one about?” Chase asked against my neck from where he was cuddled against my back. His legs bent behind my knees so Victor could be strung across the foot of the bed.

Over the last few days, I’d learned that when I had nightmares they would often filter upstairs from their cots on the main level and lay on my bed.

~Trying to comfort me. ~

“There was more to this one. I could remember a dead family. The alpha and his mate and someone else…”

“Someone who meant something to you?” Victor lifted his head from behind my calf with interest.

“I think so.”

“You’re having them a lot more often,” Chase commented as he burrowed his face in my hair.

I sighed. “How did you all become part of the Borders?”

“You’re changing the subject,” Victor said.

~Damn him for always being razor sharp.~

“Just let it be,” Huntley said.

Victor’s head whipped to give him a long look, upset Huntley would dictate anything to him.

I purposely kept Huntley from turning his head to meet Victor’s look, knowing they’d be challenging each other if they did. My palm on the side of his face was enough to keep him gazing up at me.

“Our alpha collected us. He’s the one that nicknamed so many of us,” Victor said.

“What are your real names?” I asked.

Victor shrugged and plucked at a bit of lint on my bare leg. “I hardly remember.”

“We don’t like to think about those times.” Chase hugged around my belly a bit tighter.

“Those were plague times,” Huntley whispered.

“It makes me angry someone hurt you,” Victor said abruptly. His arms tightened around my legs. “I’d kill someone.”

“I know,” I murmured, giving him a fond look.

The sun filtered in through the shutters, but we were slow to leave my bed. Eventually, my rumbling stomach sent us all out for a hunt and wash by the river.

***

I woke to a dull thump from beyond my window in the night. I froze, expecting to see Huntley in my hut, but I was up in my own loft in the Faber cottage. It was still strange to wake in a new place.

The silence stretched on and the night air felt heavy. I peeked through my shutters and saw a border guard limp on the ground, his head bleeding near a boulder.

~Dead?~

But what was even more troubling than that was the old, aggravated woman sitting across from him.

~Martha?~

On the stump between them were two wooden cups.

~Martha’s tea?~ I tried to put together what happened. The scene didn’t make any sense. ~Unless she’d poisoned him?~

I looked at the old woman’s salt-and-pepper hair and her wrinkled, old face. I thought that she could never murder anyone. I was reassured when I saw the man’s side move as he drew a deep breath.

~Surely, she’d go get the healer? It wasn’t her fault.~

But Martha didn’t. She stood slowly. Tilting her head, she looked at the man with an icy expression. The kindly, old woman I’d known seemed banished.

She turned and walked away. Her tattered brown dress and shawl billowing behind her as she walked purposefully in the direction of the wall.

I scampered down my ladder and out into the night. Rushing to the man’s side, I found it was Sabar. Rage flared in my chest.

~He was the first one to show me kindness. And he’d certainly done no wrong to Martha!~

I thought of how furious Sara Jane would be. ~As I would be if this were one of my mates.~

I didn’t like the protective streak in me, but when it came to my mates, there was no fighting it.

~And this was my pack.~

~Our Alpha had allowed me to come in. To stay.~

For the first time it occurred to me how much Martha really had been damaging the pack. Even though I sought her out and ~needed~ her. I acted without thinking, weaving through camp to the healer’s hut.

I had heard the same rumors as the other us females. Whispers that some of the she-wolves didn’t know her tea was sterilizing them. That she was using it to keep the pack from bearing any young.

~Why would Martha want the Borders to die off?~

That thought was utterly perplexing. I was already at the hut in the back of the camp. I pounded on the door. “Healer!”