Page 21

CHAPTER 21

A shley

Me: The sunset was beautiful last night. Did you see it?

Just in case he hadn’t, I send the picture I took last night of the gorgeous sunset against the backdrop of the mountains.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I got Christophe the phone. We text throughout the day. Mostly random thoughts or pictures of cool things we’ve seen throughout the day.

He always indulges even my most mundane messages, just like he did when we were locked up in that place. He would listen to me ramble on about nothing … at least, nothing serious to most other people.

“Who’re you texting?” Emery asks as she enters the living room.

I’m still staying with my sister and her mate at their home. I turn over my phone. “Just Reese,” I tell her. “She and Alpha Chael are returning from up North this evening, and she asked me if I can braid her hair tomorrow morning.”

Emery nods. “That’ll take a while.” She lifts her head, cocking it to the side, thinking. “Maybe I can take the baby out for a walk while you do her hair.” She looks over at me with a sparkle in her eyes. “I’ll get Chance to come with us. He loves that little guy,” she says cheerily.

Emery plops down next to me on the couch, patting my jean-covered thigh.

“I can’t believe how adorable he is with Echo. You should see how cute he gets when he’s holding him, thinking his hands will crush him or something.” She laughs as she shakes her head.

I picture Chance, and one of the last words that comes to mind is cute. Not in the soft, cuddly way Emery’s talking about, but I have seen him soften when she’s around. I suspect he’s even more so when it’s just the two of them.

The longing that occurs whenever I see them, or Reese and Alpha Chael together, stirs in my chest.

“What are you up to today?” I ask, since it’s the middle of the afternoon. “I thought you were going to be out at the caves all day, working.” Emery spends a lot of time in the caves around the pack’s commune, excavating and writing notes about the pack’s history.

She loves her work in anthropology, and her role as the pack’s storyteller fits right in with her passion.

I glance down at my hands. It’s only been about a month since I’ve come to the Nightwolf pack, but a heaviness settles around me when I think about the fact that I have yet to figure out what my role is.

Not here in the pack and not anywhere.

I never had specific dreams or aspirations for a career before I discovered my true history of being a shifter. Now, it seems even more uncertain.

“Right,” Emery says, causing me to snap my gaze to hers. “I got that book that you asked about. The one that mentions the different roles within a pack.”

I raise my eyebrows. And hold out my hands while Emery rummages around in her bag.

“I have to get it back to the library in town tomorrow, but I’ve taken all of the notes I need,” she explains, handing me the book.

“Folktales & Lore from Beyond,” I mumble, reading the title of the book.

Emery has marked the pages that go into detail about the pack hierarchy. I immediately turn to that page, not even noticing that she’s watching me as I read.

“Omegas serve as the emotional outlet of the pack,” I read. My mouth falls open the more I read.

When I turn back to Emery, I’m outraged.

“This says that omegas play an essential role in their packs, but it sounds like they’re abused.”

Her forehead wrinkles, and she takes the book for me.

“No.” She points at the pages. “They serve as outlets for the rest of the pack’s tension.”

“And aggression.” I point at the words she somehow skipped. “Aggressions from wolves I remind her.”

Emery rises to her feet, closing the book and holding it against her chest. “I think you’re overthinking it a little. The role of the omega is vital for that of the survival of a wolf pack, at least in the past it was.”

“So that means it’s okay for the other wolves to abuse them?” My voice pitches higher than I planned, but I can’t help it. “Are you saying that they deserve to be harmed just because of some pecking order they were born into?”

“Of course not. You know I don’t believe that,” she defends. Emery’s shoulders slump, her expression turning sympathetic. “What is this about?”

“You know what this is about,” I counter.

“Christophe wasn’t abused,” she says adamantly. “You’ve met Chael and Chance, do you think they would stand by while one of their wolves was being hurt?” Her voice raises in volume as well.

She’s defending the integrity of her mate, which I can’t hold against her.

I shake my head and answer honestly, “No. I don’t believe that.” From everything I’ve seen and experienced around both Alpha Chael and Chance, they’re both honorable men and shifters.

But I can’t get the words of what I just read out of my head.

“No, they didn’t intentionally encourage abuse, and I believe Alpha Chael and Beta Chance likely discouraged it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“Ashley, are you saying that the reason Christophe betrayed and almost murdered our entire pack is because he was resentful about being hurt?”

Her words slice through me, causing pain. I don’t like to hear the accusatory tone in her voice or anyone else’s when they mention his name.

“You weren’t even here when that happened. You don’t know the full story.”

“Neither were you,” she counters. “And I know Chance wouldn’t lie to me about what happened.”

I shake my head. “I’m not suggesting that. But maybe he doesn’t have the full story, either. Despite how powerful they are, no alpha or beta can be everywhere all of the time.”

“And you’ve met the rest of the pack members. Do any of them seem capable of what you’re accusing them of?”

“I’m not accusing them of anything,” I reply, throwing my hands out at my sides. “But I know Christophe was hurt. I know he was abused!”

I place my hands over my mouth, not meaning to have admitted that out loud. That isn’t my story to tell.

“What are you talking about?” Emery asks.

I shake my head, not wanting to say anything more.

“Ashley,” she calls my name in that big sister way of hers.

Pushing out a breath, I drop my shoulders. “His father. The pack omega before Christophe. His father was mean, real mean to both him and his mom.”

Emery’s eyes widen as if she’s hearing this for the first time. Did Chance not tell her this part?

Despite her shock, Emery’s face quickly morphs. “Wait, are you saying that gave him a right to do what he did?”

“What? No, of course not. It’s not an excuse.”

“Then why are you bringing it up?” she asks, her hand on her hip.

“Because, you don’t know him,” I accuse. “You’re making all of these judgments about him.” I hold up my hand when she goes to speak. “No, you haven’t said them out loud, but I can read them in your face. You think he’s this horrible person who actively sought out the destruction of his own pack. That’s not who Christophe is!”

Emery’s gaze quickly moves from me to over my shoulder at the sound of the door opening.

I spin to see Chance entering the house. He instantly comes to a stop, I suppose sensing the tension in the room. His gaze shifts from Emery to me and back again. Then he narrows his eyes, in a questioning manner.

They’re doing that silent speaking thing, I know they are, and the urge to be anywhere but here overwhelms me.

“Ashley,” Emery calls me, but I don’t stop as I rush out of the door, shutting it behind me.

I love my sister, but she doesn’t get it for some reason. My first instinct is to head in the direction of the road that leads to the road out of the commune and into town. The same road Christophe’s house is on.

“Where are you going?” A friendly voice breaks my concentration, stopping me.

I’m unsurprised to see Ms. Elsie coming up to stand beside me. She always seems to be around when I’m feeling at my lowest or most uncertain. Her company is definitely appreciated.

Realistically, it’s not like I could’ve gone out to see Christophe in the middle of the day, anyway. There are too many pack members milling about. I suspect most of them would have a problem with my visiting him.

“Did you see him this morning?” I ask.

Her dark brown eyes light up, and the wrinkles around them grow as she smiles. “I told you I would,” she answers before wrapping an arm around me.

I’m just about to ask her how he looked before she says, “Why don’t you help me make this cake batter and we can talk?”

I frown, not because I don’t want to spend time with her, but because, “I don’t think baking is my thing.”

Ms. Elsie laughs. “I didn’t think so either. Not in the beginning.”

She doesn’t give me time to question what she meant by that before she’s pulling me toward her small home.

This is the first time I’ve been inside of her house. The arched doorway opens up to a tiny living room with a cozy-looking sofa and a beautiful wooden rocking chair in the corner. To the right is the kitchen. It’s actually larger than the living room.

“I spend most of my time in the kitchen,” she says, as if reading my thoughts. “I always wanted a large kitchen. When we settled here, I finally got it.” Her tone is so giddy.

“Were you always good at cooking?” I ask, taking a seat on one of the wooden stools at the bar separating the kitchen from the dining space.

Ms. Elsie shakes her head. “I was terrible, at first.” She laughs and it’s infectious so I laugh along, although I can’t imagine her being anything other than a master chef.

When she waves me over, I wash my hands and then retrieve the eggs and butter from the refrigerator.

“You looked angry when I saw you walking down the street. Is everything alright?” She asks this while expertly cracking an egg into the mixing bowl that holds a mound of flour and other baking ingredients.

I stare at the soon-to-be cake batter as she cracks another egg.

“Nothing important,” I murmur.

“Anger is always important.” She pauses, whisk in one hand. “Unchecked, it’ll fester until it becomes cancerous.”

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks for some reason. It feels as if she’s trying to tell me something without mentioning it.

“Emery thinks Christophe is a terrible person,” I admit.

She holds out the whisk, surprising me.

“Your turn.” She passes me the large mixing bowl. “Make sure to get all of the clumps out.”

Her eyebrows lift when I hesitate in taking the whisk from her. I know a silent chastisement when I encounter one. Though, unlike my adopted mother, the reflection I see staring back at me when I look at Ms. Elsie isn’t one of disdain.

There’s a kindness that she couldn’t hide even if she wanted to.

“Like this?” I ask, unsure of the way I’m mixing.

“Just like that.” From the corner of my eye, I see her watching me. “And what do you think of Christophe?” she asks after a few beats of silence.

“What do you mean what do I think of him?”

She points back to the bowl when my hand pauses as I look over at her.

A smile tips the corners of my mouth, and I go back to stirring.

“What are your thoughts on Christophe? You’ve probably spent more time with him than anyone else in this pack in years.”

That reminder tightens my lips.

“I think he was lonely,” I tell her. For some reason my vision blurs from tears. “I know he was lonely and had no one to talk to about anything. A loneliness that becomes so deep and pervasive that it becomes part of who we are, making it our whole identity if it goes on long enough.”

“We?”

Her question has my head popping up.

I hadn’t meant to say we. I meant Christophe. While it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her as much, I don’t let the words come out.

Instead, I nod.

“I know what it feels like,” I admit. “I knew ever since I was a little girl that my adopted parents hated me.” I shrug. “Or, at the very least, merely tolerated Emery and me. I always felt different, like there was a piece of myself missing. For the longest time I thought it was because my real parents died when I was so young.”

I stare, unseeing, into the bowl of cake batter. I move the whisk over one particularly large clump of flour and start whisking until the lump breaks apart and dissolves into the rest of the mixture.

A burst of cinnamon and apple sweetness hits my nose.

“But?” Ms. Elsie continues.

“It wasn’t that,” I answer. “I was usually the outcast in any group I was a part of. None of the kids at the rich private schools where our parents sent us wanted to play with me because I enjoyed being outside and getting dirty. They didn’t like my bright colors and patterns.”

Unconsciously, I peer down at the tie-dyed T-shirt and black and white striped pants I’m wearing. I know it’s an unusual pairing, but looking at it brings me an odd happiness.

“Anyway, I didn’t make friends easily, and at some point I gave up trying. I became obsessed with finding out my history. About my birth parents. Which, well, got me in a little trouble.”

I laugh, but it comes out in a snort.

Before I have my next thought, a warm hand squeezes my shoulder.

“No one is an outcast. You just hadn’t found your rightful pack.”

I look over at her, and her expression is so full of love and bright that it wraps me up in a warm hug.

“Until now.”

She peers over my shoulder toward the door.

“For others it takes them a while to realize they were in the right place all along,” she adds, cryptically.

I open my mouth to ask what she’s referring to, but she points to the bowl. “A little more stirring and then we’ll pour that into the cake pan and let it bake. I have something for you while it bakes.”

She doesn’t give me time to ask what it is she has for me before she starts ordering me to grease down the pan and then pour the batter inside. While I remain certain that baking isn’t for me, I don’t mind it so much when Ms. Elsie allows me to help.

I’m pretty certain that as long as I do everything under her watchful eye, it’ll turn out edible, at the very least.