Part 56

Part 56
With a smile on his face, Adrian drove to the daycare; it was quarter-to -two. He sat in his truck parked down the street and waited. Kiran’s Jeep parked up the street, right across from the daycare. Adrian looked at his watch and he was pleased to see that Kiran kept to a routine. It would make his job so much easier.

Kiran was on his phone, smiling as he got out of the Jeep, and walked across the street. A bell rang in the distance and he watched Kiran walk into the school building. He came back a few minutes later carrying Christian in one arm and his backpack in his other hand.

They were laughing and Adrian could tell he was relaxed as he drove off with Christian in the direction of their house. Adrian had been waiting for that. A relaxed Kiran meant Malachi and Adara would also be relaxed and once he kicked off his new plan they wouldn’t know what hit them. He loved it when a plan came together, and this time, he would have the upper hand. They had no idea that he was back in Seward and coming for them.

He went to the warehouse and started making his final preparations. When he was done with Kiran, Malachi Sinclair would be begging him to die. His hatred for Malachi was fueled by the fact that Malachi had killed Igor. Their time together had been so short and Adrian knew that if Igor was alive, a lot more wolves would be dead by now.

Igor was the man he aspired to be. He’d killed so many wolves, and although his own tally of kills wasn’t a low number, he wanted to surpass his uncle’s kills. With the Sinclair family dead, he could sleep peacefully once more.

He drove back to the campsite and bought dinner on his way there. He uncuffed Juniper and smiled at his own little secret. He had been secretly giving her mistletoe. It wasn’t fatal to wolves but caused drowsiness, blurred vision, vomiting, and sometimes seizures, if you were human.

He had ground up the stems of the mistletoe and boiled it as a tea. He kept the cooled down liquid in a flask in his jacket pocket, and when he brought her coffee, he put just a little in at a time. In his father’s diary, it was written down that mistletoe prevented them from turning into their wolf shape.

He had reveled in that piece of information. It would come in handy with the plans he had. He was sure he could take them in their human form, and didn’t want a repeat of what happened with Marrick Goldman. Marrick hadn’t been as large as Malachi, the damned wolf that killed Uncle Igor, but he was still big.

He shuddered as he remembered his own fear as he ran through the forest back to his truck. Even now, he could feel that wolf breathing down his neck. Adrian had never been afraid of anything until that day, staring at that wolf, as it ripped Igor’s head off.

His whole body shuddered. He swallowed back the rising bile and wondered if Igor was looking down at him with pride in his eyes. He should’ve just listened to him, but now he’d make them all pay, starting with Kiran.

Juniper looked at Adrian as they sat at the small table and ate the Chinese food he had brought back with him. She had tried earlier to shift to her wolf; being so close to the edge of the forest had given her courage to shift and run.

Too many emotions flitted through her when she realized she couldn’t shift. There wasn’t even an inkling of breaking bones as she concentrated on her wolf form. ‘You bastard!’ she thought to herself.

He was somehow feeding her mistletoe, it was the only thing that could prevent her from shifting. Anger, hate, and shock, were some of the emotions troubling her. She knew without a doubt that Adrian was going to kill her.

Mistletoe wasn’t poisonous and they could ingest tons of it, but the more you ingested, the longer it took to work out of your system, and the longer it would take to be able to shift again. Juniper only shifted for necessity, or when the itch got too much and made her skin ripple. She preferred things to be easy and comfortable, and shifting was neither; not when you only shifted once every few months.

Juniper was raised in a pack; taught that the gods were their protectors. She was taught to pray but after her bonded half died, she cursed the gods, and it had been years since she prayed to any of them.

She blinked tears away as she lay on her bed, tied up once again, and closed her eyes as she thought back to where her life had gone so wrong. Everything she ever wanted had always been just within her grasp, yet never close enough for her to grab.

All her life she’d been second. Second to Elizabeth with her healing powers, second to Adara, always second to everyone. She had truly believed her life would change for the better when she met Ramos.

Even though she didn’t want Adara, she still took her in, took care of her. She didn’t need to do that, but she did. Where was her happiness? Why did she have to suffer? Every single day, always suffering?

‘My sweet little Juniper. Pray to the gods for your Hamingja, she will protect you and keep you safe. You never need to fear anything if your Hamingja is with you.’

If she closed her eyes tight enough, she could still hear her mother’s voice. The Hamingja was a guardian angel, sent to protect you from all the evils of this world. If the gods found you favorable enough, they gave you one.

Juniper visibly shivered as she closed her eyes, and for the first time in nineteen years, prayed to the gods of her ancestors. She didn’t have the courage to ask for a Hamingja from Thor but perhaps Eir would find pity in her words.

“Please, Eir, send my Hamingja to me. I don’t want to die,” Juniper whispered.