Page 13

Chapter

Thirteen

I’m about ready to grab my bag and run. Either Harek is a wolf or he was eaten by one, and given the wolf had his eyes, it seems obvious which is most likely. Plus his torn clothes didn’t have a drop of blood on them. If an animal attacked him, he’d look like Vog and the other guy on the ground outside this nest. And there is no body.

Footsteps sound, twigs snap.

Out of habit I reach for the sword. Gunnar took it.

My palm isn’t even glowing. I’m defenseless without being near it since my palm has only glowed when I was near it. It began at Harek’s house, where he was secretly stowing the weapon all along. So much for Mother giving it to them for protection. Now my stepfather has it anyway.

Harek appears outside the nest’s entrance. He’s in human form and wearing different clothes than before, ones that don’t quite fit properly. They seem more like his father’s style.

I have so many questions, and they all come out at once in a jumbled mess. “You… what… how… You’re?—”

“Eira, I can explain.” My best friend gives me an apologetic look.

Anger takes over me with a sudden surge pulsing through my body. Everything takes on a red hue, and I scramble from the nest and lunge myself at Harek. I don’t even care that he’s much taller and stronger than me—and can turn into a wolf, apparently. Or that Gunnar took my powers along with the sword.

We fly back and crash to the ground. He grunts and blinks his eyes, clearly surprised I would come at him like this. Maybe he should’ve thought about that before hiding something so huge from me.

I pound on his chest.

“Eira…” He frowns but doesn’t even try to fight back. Typical. Harek probably wouldn’t hit a woman even if she was beating him to an inch within his life.

“Why did you lie to me?” I punch him as hard as I can until tears well and blur my vision. Then I roll off him and sob. It’s too much to take now, after losing everything—Mother, my siblings, my father’s sword.

Harek wraps his arms around me. “I was going to tell you.”

“When?” I demand, snot bubbling out of my nose. At least he can’t see me from this angle. “I may have waited to tell you about being a halfling, but at least I told you I had a secret! You’ve been keeping this from me for what? Your whole life?”

“I was going to tell you soon, I swear. With your mother dying and you finding out about your father being fae, I couldn’t throw one more thing at you. I was going to tell you before we enter the fae city—that way you wouldn’t worry I’d be a target.”

I wipe my nose, sit up, and turn to him. My fury returns. “You’ve been hiding this from me for our entire lives! How could you?”

“For your safety. And for my own. My parents warned me all the time. Your stepfather is a dangerous man. We’re lucky we were able to be friends at all.” He sighs. “But when our mothers were pregnant with us, yours told my mom everything after finding out my parents were shifters. They made a pact agreeing to watch over us if anything ever happened to the other. My father was furious when he found out, but he respected my mother’s wishes.”

“What? You were surprised when I told you I was a halfling.”

“I honestly was. Really. I had to go with it, because that wasn’t the time to get into all of this werewolf stuff. Plus there’s more?—”

“Wait! Your father didn’t want to help me?”

“Obviously he changed his mind over the years. Now he’d risk his own life to protect yours, just as I would.”

Some of my anger lifts. “How did you turn into a wolf? It’s the middle of the day and the moon isn’t even out.”

“But it’s full. You saw it last night. I can shift at any time for about a day on either side of the full moon. That gives us about a three-day leeway.”

“So, it doesn’t just happen? You can control it?”

“Basically.”

“What does that mean?”

He releases a long breath. “It’s complicated. Not all werewolves are as fortunate as us, and that’s why we can live in a human establishment. It’s also why we’re so much more successful at collecting meat than other archers.”

“Like yesterday.”

“Exactly. When we turn into wolves, hunting becomes a thousand times easier.”

“So, you don’t have to turn if you don’t want to?”

“No. We do need to shift at least once during the three-day window, or it’ll happen on its own at the end. But because we want to take advantage of hunting, we shift a lot.”

I pull at his sleeve. “Do you keep clothes hidden in the woods?”

“Yeah. Sometimes we have to shift without warning, and you saw how well that works out. So we go somewhere we have clothes hidden, turn back to human form, then quickly get dressed.”

The thought of him without clothes on makes my face flush with heat, so I look away. “You, uh, say other werewolves can’t shift at will?”

“Most can’t. It’s a special line. It’s too complicated to get into now.”

I turn back to him. “You were really going to tell me about all of this?”

“Yes, definitely. I didn’t mean for you to find out like that, but I couldn’t let those dung lickers hurt you. I’m not sorry for what I did, but I am sorry you found out like that.”

“It’s a lot to take in.” I heave in a deep sigh.

“Which is why I wanted to wait to say anything since you’re already dealing with so much.”

“I guess I can appreciate that.”

Harek gives me a playful nudge. “You guess?”

I shrug.

His expression turns serious. “Before we get back to traveling, I need to return to the city and warn my parents about Gunnar. Now that he knows I’m a werewolf...” His voice trails off and a pained expression crosses his face. “They need to be prepared.”

“We’re going back?”

“Just me. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

“Safe like this nest?”

Harek shakes his head. “There’s a cabin protected by magic. Humans can’t see it.”

“Why didn’t we go there last night?” I ask. “That would’ve been helpful.”

“Obviously, but I didn’t think humans would be a problem. I was wrong, and that’s why I’m going to have you stay in the cabin until I come back.”

“I want to go with you. Gunnar has my father’s sword.”

“It isn’t safe.”

“Then what makes it safe for you?” I cross my arms and glare at him.

“I’m used to sneaking in and out of the wall. Plus I can run a lot faster in wolf form. I can leave and return before you know it if I do this on my own.”

“But Gunnar has the sword. I need it for my magic to work! At least I think I do.” I hold up my normal right palm, trying to make sense of it. “It hasn’t turned orange since I lost the weapon. The only thing that makes sense is that I have to be near the sword. It lit up at your house when I was near it, even though I didn’t know it was there.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything. We might have to try and get it later.”

“How can I enter a fae territory without any of my powers?”

“You’ll be fine.”

“And you know this how?”

Harek glances up at the sky. “I need to go before it starts getting late. It’s going to take some time getting you to the cabin.”

I really don’t see how anything could get worse, but I don’t tell him that because things can always get worse.

We start on our trek to a secret cabin. Hopefully a half-human can see it, otherwise I don’t know where I’ll be able to hide while Harek returns home to warn his parents about Gunnar. They’ll have to leave the town. Once exposed, the leaders will throw them out into the wild.

All because of me.