99 - Sick Stillness
99 - Sick Stillness
Nick
Linda left the following day with William and her daughter, and she strictly forbade the rest of us to communicate with anyone outside Eastport till they send a signal about it. This habit of ordering me around is trying my patience and Goddess knows I have too little of it remaining. She said she’s concerned that the coven might be able to locate us if we attempt it. Still, I have a pack to run and Greg has people who are worried about him, especially after his recent unstable status. Nel is quiet on the outside, but I can sense that she’s boiling inside. She’s silent most of the time and doesn’t reach out to me or Greg, which is unnerving. After Irena departed with her mother, the other two girls who accompanied her when they examined my amulet stayed behind, but Nel doesn’t seem to consider that an asset. She’s growing explosive, like the period she was locked up in my penthouse. Remembering what she did after that fills me up with the urgency to force her to open up to me, but I recognize it would only make things worse.
“Where is Eleanor?” one of the girls, whose name escapes me no matter how many times she repeats it, asks me.
“Possibly in her room,” I answer, not shifting my eyes from my mug of coffee.
September might be much more comfortable here than in Southville, but it will never grow to be my favorite month. It’s better than the summer, but it’s still too hot for me. As if on cue, Nel arrives at that same moment, but instead of entering from the main entrance of the kitchen, she emerges from the porch door.
“Eleanor, I was just asking about you! When did you go out? I didn’t hear you!” she says, trying hard to sound cheerful.
“Am I supposed to ask for permission to leave my own house now, Jean?”
My mate’s timbre is frigid and I turn, surprised, as it’s her old friend she’s talking to. I’ve observed that as days go by, especially after Linda left, her aura grows darker, like surrounded by a dark mist, when she gets agitated or angry. And she does that way more often than before. The other young woman doesn’t seem to take offense in her words, though.
“No, of course not, Eleanor. I just dropped by to ask if you wanted to go for a swim together. That’s all!” she shrugs.
It makes sense, but Nel seems to consider it an excuse, because she doesn’t warm up towards her or even acknowledge her anymore. She turns to me and I automatically pull her into my arms, squeezing her as hard as she allows me. Maybe this will brighten her spirit. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun, and its tips are wet, so she most probably has already been out swimming.
“What if I make the same proposition?” I whisper in her ear, nibbling her earlobe.
A soft purr leaves her chest as she turns to face me. Not giving a damn that we’re not alone in the kitchen, she knits her hands behind my neck and leans in to lick her mark on me. I involuntarily shudder at the voltage her minor act sends running through me.
“There’s a small bay close to here, with no path leading there. Humans can reach it only from the sea and most of the time it’s all empty. If we hike half way, we can shift with no one seeing us and descend in wolf form… But… whooopsie… then we would have to swim naked!” she says and her eyes flash with mischief as she reaches for her backpack that she had just thrown to the floor a couple of minutes ago.
All the dark mist has vanished from her aura, but she still ignores her friend, who strongly opposes to the plan. I send her a dissuasive growl. She should know when to recede and I follow behind my mate. It becomes harder to bring her back to her normal self after each episode. I think I now understand what Linda meant when she mentioned we’ll lose her if we don’t hurry. And the worst thing is this darkness derives from within, so I’m not sure how to fight it. My actions and affection suppress it, but never drive it away. I sure hope Linda sends her signal fast enough, because, no matter how much I enjoy resuscitating her, I’m petrified there will soon be a time I won’t be able to achieve it...
Bob
Nicholas has been gone for ten days. For the past three of them, we’ve had no news of him. Matt’s disposition is getting darker with each passing hour. I keep monitoring all the weird movements in the pack with Leo’s help, and the suspicious transactions increase each day. Marco has been gathering his minions a lot these days. He even asked for a private meeting with Matt, but he used all the tasks left on him as an excuse to avoid it.
Our associates from the branch in Northam all confirm that both Nicholas and Greg took off in a hurry the night we lost contact with them and after that, they practically disappeared. Although I tried to keep focusing on the bright side of things and not imagine the worst, it’s getting harder as hours turned into days and we still get no sign of them.
The most worrisome fact is that apart from Marco, our other two elders, Ralph and Karen, have been going in and out of our territory way more often than before as well. The Alpha’s absence seems to have reinforced their hopes of regaining their control, and given how much we’ve already unraveled from the dirty past, this idea terrifies me. I remember my parents praising Nicholas when I was a child, for, despite his young age, he managed to unbind the pack from the witches and gave us back our freedom, made us an independent werewolf community instead of the battle puppets of the neighboring coven. I can’t even bring myself to imagine how things would go if he was to fall.
My gloomy thoughts are interrupted as the door to my lair opens up without a previous knock and Liberty’s head pops in. Liberty manages the real estate issues of the pack. She’s probably our most invisible commander, hardly ever in our territory, or even in Southville for what it matters. Her post requires traveling around the country and evaluating all the properties of the corporation and collecting the reports on all of them. She lives in the same building as Nicholas and James, and that’s usually where you are most likely to find her. But these days are different. Matt has called everyone back in the pack house. It’s kinda scary, coz he’s acting as if we’re expecting an attack any second now.
“What’s up, Liberty?” I ask her as she plops on the seat opposite my desk.
“The night patrol reported witchcraft presence in our west borderline and the Black Moon just requested to meet with Matt. Good luck in both!” she answers.
I narrow my eyes at her. She’s a gorgeous woman; tall, dark, full of curves and curly black hair that caresses all her back. I know Nicholas trusts her blindly in her domain and they regularly work closely together, but she feels out of place here. Her proximity to the Alpha alone, not even James, whose field is related to hers, has often fueled rumors about the nature of their relationship. I’ve always wished to think of them as hollow gossip, but lately I noticed that paying attention to gossip may save you many hours of potential research when the need arises. Let’s just say this is one more piece of information I’ve stored on the hard disk of my brain for further investigation on some other occasion.
“I’ll handle the report of the patrol, but why don’t you announce the Black Moon’s request to Matt yourself? You’re a commander, you know. How about acting like one?”
“No way, Jose… Haven’t you noticed his mood these days? I’m not that adventurous. Plus, I may be a commander, but my field is completely irrelevant and I’m never here. People don’t even recognize me. I need to explain each time just to pass through security,” she says without a care in the world.
One would think that no chief would appreciate that under normal circumstances, yet she almost seemed to enjoy the fact. I huff, annoyed. There’s something so unnerving about this woman. I just want her out of here.
“Fine, I’ll do both myself. At least go find James and hand him this,” I say, handing her the list of the new people we agreed to hire for the last vacant posts and their personal details.
“That I can do!”
With a graceful hop, she’s on her feet again and turns to disappear the way she entered in the first place, gifting me a pearly white grin. Leastways, her presence here lightens up our spirits with her carefree disposition. I’ve never seen her in action. It’s really hard to imagine her on a ruthless bargain about the price of a new property or bitching around while managing the expenses. She’s got quite a reputation following her, but it’s too tough to connect it with her actual figure.
With all this in mind, I get up and exit in search of Matt. It doesn’t take long to trace him. In fact, I don’t even have enough time to mind link him when a blast of a deadly aura stops me in my tracks. Anger and exasperation flood me uninvited and I instantly recognize neither is mine. It takes all my willpower to fight my urge to run away and approach its source instead.
“What the hell, Matt?” I ask to the normally reserved Beta, who was now ready to pounce on one of his fighters in the training field.
My voice seems to snap him out of whatever trance he was in and he turns to peer at me, surprised by my presence here. He doesn’t speak to me, but his aura abates and the poor fighter gets his chance to breathe again. With one swift nod, he gestures to the man to leave, and he runs off, relieved to be dismissed.
“When he’s away, apart from his duties, does he also pass on his aura to you?” I joke, but the darkness in his eyes shows that he’s in no mood for jokes.
“What did you want, Bob?”
“Liberty said the Black Moon requested to meet you.”
He quirks a brow in a silent question before I get to the second point, which is even more serious, so I left it for the end.
“Yeah, I know. Don’t ask… She said she doesn’t want to take the risk of approaching you because of your mood these days.”
His fingers move to his temple, softly massaging the area. Liberty’s frivolousness is about the last thing he needs right now.
“Who made the request on their behalf?” he finally returns to the point.
“Beta Terrence, but it’s Alpha William who wishes to see you.”
“How would William know that I’m the one he’ll find here and not Nick?”
That’s a pretty good question. The request was specifically for a meeting with Matt, meaning they were already aware that Nicholas was absent and he was replacing him. Since I don’t have the answer, I just shrug.
“I don’t see how I can avoid it, so call them back and tell them to proceed. Inform the guards as well. Anything else?”
“The night patrols traced witchcraft near the border of the territory,” I say with hesitation.
“The night patrols are stupid and incompetent. So is about every guard around here. A witch materialized out of nowhere right below their nose and came all the way here, even met with Marco and they only sensed the witchcraft presence at the borders. What are we? An open air playground?” he spits out.
“Maybe you should reconsider your decision to avoid him. Keep him close, Matt. He’s up to something again,” I state the obvious that he no doubt already knows.
“I’ve already called for him. He has a lot of explaining to do.”
The Alpha’s disappearance has taken a toll on all of us who know about it. Of course, the pack must not understand a thing or there will be chaos. Thank Goddess, Nicholas is often away in the human part of the city or on business travels, leaving most of the Alpha responsibilities on Matt, so we have some more space till we need to announce anything or make a true decision, but this sick stillness is nauseating. It’s more than obvious that all wheels are turning in the background and soon they’ll lead to an explosion, but our information is too little and we can’t get ourselves or the pack ready for whatever is coming our way and this magnifies the size of the threat...