17
Dad went on a hunting trip
Artemis
A wareness is like an icy splash against my body. One moment, I'd been dreaming. Now, I'm awake. Cold sweat pools along my neck, between my breasts. I feel as if I've been sleeping inside a swamp. Without moving, I know I'll need to strip the bed and wash my hair. Almost the entirety of my loose bun is slick with sweat against my skull.
Thankfully, I'm alone. There is no one to wake with my clammy skin or the way I jolted into consciousness. The feeling of stepping off a stair you believe to be the last, only to realize there are several more when your foot falls through the air lingers, making my heartbeat thrum in my ear. I'm sure the violent jerk of my leg from the half-awake dream I had of hiking with Ethan, of all people, and falling off of a cliff is what woke me.
At this hour, I know Jay and Dante will have gone to the Forge long ago. And I know today is a prep day, so Saint will be at the Packhouse for a few more hours.
I am delighted to be alone because there is no one here to see as I strip the bed and toss the soaking sheets over the railing to be washed.
What rattles me, though, is the conversation I'd had during the dream. I could have sworn my imagination-crafted version of Ethan had been talking about his father hunting. That there had been a large wolf on the Estate recently. They were tracking it. Just as they had once when Ethan had been just a boy.
My stomach churns the entire time I bathe and get dressed in work clothes: leggings, a cropped tee, a flannel, and feet stuffed into Converse. I spend as little time as possible on my hair, only bothering to dry it with the hair dryer because I know it's cold outside, and I don't want wet hair for the foreseeable future.
Around and around, the dream swirls in my mind while I sort through the memories of dozens of family dinners at the Whites estate. How much of that conversation had I imagined? How much is based on memory, not a stress-induced hallucination?
Unfortunately, I've always had a nasty habit of tuning out of conversations when they bore me. A… tradition that I leaned into while with Ethan. There had been dozens of family dinners at the Estate, and I couldn't even say what the usual topics of conversation were because I'd tuned most of them out.
But.. the more I think about it, the more I go through the catalog of the White estate in my mind, the more the dream starts to make sense.
Once, I think during the first few months of our relationship, Ethan took me to the Estate during the day for a quick stop. He left me in the parlor with the Corgi while he and his father entered Stephen's office.
I'd gotten one singular glimpse inside the office before the door shut firmly behind Ethan. It'd been filled with taxidermied animals. Some had complete bodies, unusual coats on full display. The once gorgeous, vibrant animals were reduced to mere trophies on a wall, a trinket on the shelf of a man who doesn't even deserve to look at them. I'd forgotten all about the room in the year afterward. I never entered Stephen's home office. Or even saw the door open again, to be honest.
And I can't help but feel like I've made a monumental mistake—staying with them for so long, coming home with the Stingray, and leading them straight here.
While doing a low-effort makeup look—just mascara and about a metric ton of highlighter across my cheekbones and on the inner corners of my eyes—I debate whether I should mention anything to the boys. I have no concrete evidence, nothing but a bad feeling.
But… then again … The night I left, I couldn't tune out the conversation as effectively as usual. Ethan's annoying grip on my thigh put me on edge enough to be aware, at least a little, of the conversations around me. I can't say for sure, but I think Stephen had been inviting the Senator and his boys on a hunting trip… The very rational part of my brain says they were just talking about hunting pheasants or something equally posh .
That glance into Stephen's office, though. Those weren't just stuffed quail and rabbits lining the walls and shelves. Those animals were present, yes, but the nagging feeling in my gut tells me that other specimens in Stephen's office would have been his prized possessions.
My stomach is too tight to grab anything from the fridge as I leave, even though I know Saint has prepared all kinds of delicious meals for the four of us.
Still, with nothing other than a funky feeling and an admittedly hazy dream to go off of, I'm hesitant to say anything. The dream could have been triggered by any number of things.
Namely , a dark-furred coyote being found.
I'm just overreacting to Magnus's news the other day about the body, and my subconscious is filling in the blanks, turning Ethan into the villain.
That's all. Right?
Right?
My wolf stays silent; not even a whisper of her fur shifting echoes through my subconscious.
On the way to the bar, I don't start my playlist or even choose a radio station to listen to. The ride is silent, and I do my best to reconcile what my instincts are screaming and what the rational part of my brain is saying.
Just because Dad was killed by Hunters doesn't mean that I'm next. Just because Stephen likes to hunt doesn't make him Dad's killer. Just because Hunters are in the area now doesn't mean they followed me.
I do agree with Magnus on one thing, though.
The timing is too… Coincidental to be pure chance.
As soon as I pull up to Coyote Bills, I park between Ivy's Impala and Sam's Bronco. My fingertips tremble so hard that I nearly drop my keys as I walk inside to find Sam. She'd been at work yesterday during the Pack meeting, and I don't know if her roommates have told her about what was said before she arrived. Either way, she needs to know, but I also desperately need her help sorting through my thoughts.
I spot Sam at the register, clocking in. When she sees me in the mirror, she quickly shouts, "Hey babes!"
"Hey," I greet, pulling her by the elbow towards the back and pausing by the open office door. Ivy's inside, so I tell her I'm going downstairs to do inventory and taking Sam with me.
The perk of working with and for your friends is that they know when something is going on just by looking at your face.
Ivy merely replies, "Got it. Slap shots later, though, yeah?" My friend's intense gaze puts me at ease, somehow.
"You got it!" I reply with a thumbs up as I walk away, Sam in tow. My hands feel clammy, and I have to wipe them on my leggings a few times to remove the excess moisture.
"So, what's wrong?" Sam asks as we descend the stairs. I grab the clipboard we use to track daily counts, flipping through it while debating where to begin.
"You know my Dad died when I was seven, right?" I start, glancing between the columns on the paper. Anywhere other than her face.
"Yeah, you've told me a little," Sam's voice is gentle, as if she's treading carefully. I hate it.
"Well, he was killed by Hunters," I blurt, and then the rest just tumbles out. "I had run off because my brother was being miserable to me, and Dad went out to look for me. He shifted, of course, to be able to find me faster."
If I'm allowed only one regret in this life, it's that night. Running off when Apollo said some dumbass kid shit to me.
"Okay," Sam murmurs, grabbing the other clipboard to jot down her counts to compare against the records I'm reviewing. I know by the creases in her brow that she's listening to every word I'm saying, though.
"Well… he found me. Right before a group of hunters did," I whisper, the night rushing back in.
"What's going on, Artemis?" Sam asks, leaning against a post, clipboard resting against her middle.
"I have to tell you this so you know, so you can tell me if I'm overreacting," I rush to get the words out. "They killed my Dad, Virgil... He was a Beta when he was alive. Anyway, I saw one of the hunters raise a gun, and I screamed for them not to. There's a lot I can't remember about that night, so I don't know what any of them looked like before you ask. But now there are Hunters in the area again. Someone died last night."
"Woah, woah, woah. Slow down. Someone died?"
"Yeah. Coyote with dark fur."
"What does that have to do with your Dad besides the hunters?"
"Dad was a black wolf. I don't know if you know, but we're not common. Among wolves, we're rare. Among Direwolves were… like ultra diamond rare. The coyote had an unusually dark coat." Chewing on my lip, I make a few laps around the basement, clutching my clipboard.
"Ah, okay, I see the connection. So, what's making you spiral? I know it's not the mere thought of Hunters. If that had been the case, you wouldn't have shifted on your trip at all." Sam says, watching me circle the basement, stepping around kegs and boxes of beer.
"I had a weird dream, and then I got to thinking more and more… At the Estate…" Sam makes a retching noise at the back of her throat, and I huff a quick laugh. "I saw Stephen's office once. It was filled with taxidermied animals. With unusual coats."
"You think the Whites are responsible?" Sam hisses, grey eyes widening comically. I charge over to her, whisper-yelling my response.
"I don't know, Sam! I can't tell if I'm going insane and overthinking everything or if my paranoia actually has merit!"
Sam grips my forearm, nodding at me. "Alright, alright. Tell me everything. I assume you went to the Pack meeting?"
I nod and lay it all out for her while resuming the counts. If I focus only on what I've been obsessing over since waking up, I may just have a meltdown. When I'm done explaining, she isn't looking at me like I have five heads anymore. Unfortunately, that is not as comforting as I had hoped.
"I just have this awful feeling, and I don't know if I need to say something to Jay or Magnus. He already thinks it's too coincidental that Hunters reappear right after I came home after shifting all across the country," I finish, struggling to resist the urge to pull my hair out.
"I think…" Sam hesitates, sighing. "That you may actually be onto something. Ethan is a little bitch boy. It does sound like him to kill beautiful things for no reason," She eventually agrees. " And , you said that the night you left, they'd been talking with a Senator about hunting?"
I nod, gripping my middle.
"You don't need to tell the Alpha if you don't want to or if you think you may just be being silly. But you should tell Jay. That wolf will protect you. On the other hand, if your intuition is correct , then you'd want everyone in your house to be aware, right?"
"I guess," I reluctantly agree with Sam.
"And Ivy is a black Bear?" Again, I nod at my friend. "Does she know about the Hunters?"
"She's not in the Timber Hollow pack, so I don't know."
"You should tell her, too, then."
"I don't want to get into all the Ethan bullshit...I can just tell her that my Pack believes hunters are in the area specifically looking for animals with black coats, right?"
"Sure. That is true, at least, right?"
"Right."
"Well, alright, then. We'll do the rest of the inventory quickly, then we'll go back up, and you'll tell Ivy what you know. At the end of your shift, you'll go home and tell Jay what you told me. Yeah?"
I take a deep breath and then another. I don't feel quite so overwhelmed anymore, but now I'm just left with the urge to run. One that I will not give in to. Not tonight. "Yeah. Okay. I can do that. Thanks, Sam."
"Of course. And suppose you so happen to be right about Ethan, and you need somewhere to hide a body or something... In that case, I can always swallow the little rat bastard whole," Sam says cheerfully, smiling a cherub's smile at me with her manicured nails tucked under her chin.
It makes me huff out a surprised laugh, a bead of tension broken. "Very demure."
"Yes, I know," Sam grins.
"So what's new with you?" I ask, needing to change the subject now before I rip my skin off.
Like always, my friend picks up the switch in me and answers with an almost absent-minded reply: "I'm looking into design stuff around here. There's a Rodeo in the spring. I'm going to see if they need anything."
I whip my face back toward her, nearly dropping my clipboard. "Aw, does that mean you'll be leaving the Coyotes?"
Sam snorts, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Nah, I like it here too much, and I'm making the same as I had been in California right now with less than half the stress. I just like designing."
"So this is just freelance stuff?"
"Yep, I'll still be here four nights a week," Sam winks, blowing a kiss at me.
"Good," I concede, blowing a smooch back at her. "I would have been distraught."
"Inconsolable?"
"Positively miserable. I would yearn for your swift return."
This is why working with your besties is the best. When I walked in here, I felt like I was going to implode, spill my guts all over, and make a mess of everything. Now, I could conquer the unknown realms as long as my friends had my back.
"Are you ready to go back upstairs and bitch slap some assholes?" Sam asks, waggling her eyebrows at me.
I laugh and answer, "Well, when you put it that way, how can I resist?"
When Sam and I go back upstairs, I manage to corner Ivy to tell her to be aware of Hunters.
Quickly as possible, I lay out the facts, including my Alpha's suspicion that they are specifically after shifters with dark coats.
Ivy takes the news in stride, her shoulders squaring.
"Thank you for telling me, Artemis," Ivy replies, squashing me into a quick hug.
"Don't die, yeah?" I say, returning her hug.
"Don't die," She says back. Then, the hug ends, and I feel about another ten pounds lighter.