Chapter 324 324
Sabine POV
A new week dawns on the farm, and for the first time in a long while, I wake up genuinely curious about what it might bring.
The weekend had been anything but quiet. I now know that my friends Didier and Caroline are secret werewolves, each carrying their own hidden burdens, living in the shadows just as I am. There’s a strange comfort in that knowledge. Misery loves company, perhaps but so does survival.
I have a fresh supply of tablets to keep the stomach cramps at bay. Didier and Caroline remain blissfully unaware of my own ties to the werewolf world, and for once, I actually feel good. Lighter. Steadier.
Life doesn’t feel quite so bleak anymore.
It will never be easy not for me but at least it’s a life I’m finally choosing on my own terms.
Didier and Caroline leave my caravan and head back to theirs to clean up. I collect the eggs Didier left outside Gilles’s caravan and get to work preparing his favourite breakfast over the campfire.
He’ll emerge from someone’s caravan any moment now.
And I’m fairly certain I know whose.
I’m crouched beside the fire when I hear the familiar creak of a door behind me. I turn my head slowly.
“Why am I not surprised?” I mutter under my breath as Gilles climbs out of a caravan just as I begin plating his breakfast.
Exactly as expected. Not his.
“There you are,” I call out lightly as he ambles toward me, one hand pressed to his head. “I was starting to worry.”
“Worried about me, Sab?” he teases, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “So you do care.”
He’s playful as ever but there’s less bite to it this morning. Less charm. The lingering scent of alcohol clings to him, heavy and unmistakable. Whatever he got up to last night, it was excessive. No wonder he was absent for most of the day yesterday. Whoever he’d been with is probably just as rough this morning.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I shoot back, tossing him a wink.
“Oh, you must,” he says smugly. “Couldn’t sleep from jealousy, knowing I was keeping another woman warm. All you had to do was ask.”
I laugh. Gilles has a gift for making me smile every single day but today, something is off. Even now, as he drops down beside me, his head falls into his hands.
This isn’t just a hangover.
“A heavy night?” I ask, passing him a plate. The soft groan he makes at the smell of the freshly cooked eggs doesn’t go unnoticed.
“You have no idea…”
“Morning!” Didier’s voice cuts in cheerfully as he approaches. Caroline follows close behind, handing me the long T-shirt I’d given her yesterday after she shifted back into human form.
Gilles looks between us, confused. “Did I miss something?”
“Not particularly,” Didier replies curtly before taking the pan from my hand and dousing the fire with cold water.
Smoke billows thick and white. Through it, I catch Gilles scowling at Didier.
And I could be wrong but Didier seems to be scowling right back.
So much for a calm day.
There’s an odd tension between them, some unspoken contest simmering beneath the surface. Both men are in foul moods, bristling with something sharp and unresolved.
Even Caroline is unusually cautious around Didier tiptoeing in a way I’ve never seen her do before. Not around her own brother.
Something is going on.
And I’m not letting another day like this drag on.
I escape to the farthest fields with Caroline, desperate for space, for quiet but even there, they follow.
“What is with you two today?” I finally groan, lifting my tools and rubbing my aching lower back. I’ve pushed myself too hard, just to stay away from whatever storm they’re brewing.
“What do you mean?” Gilles asks as he catches up, with Didier and Caroline close behind.
“You and Didier,” I snap. “You’re locked in some ridiculous power struggle.”
“You can feel that?” Gilles asks.
“It’s impossible not to,” I say. “So what is it?”
“He’s just pissed,” Didier cuts in, “because he’s been trying to sleep in your caravan for six months, and I manage it after one afternoon alone with you.”
“Ha. You wish,” Gilles scoffs.
Seriously?
We hadn’t done anything. Caroline was with us the entire time. Yes, she’d fallen asleep but it had just been Didier talking, telling me about the pack they left behind. And why.
“Then sort it out,” I snap, spinning to face them both. “Because I am not doing this again tomorrow.”
I stop, holding their gazes one after the other, making sure they understand how serious I am.
Then a sound cuts through the air sharp and distant.
A sound I haven’t heard since my city days.
Sirens.
My pulse spikes. I start moving toward the noise and then I see them.
Police cars. Vans. Skidding to a stop at the main entrance of the farm.
Blue lights flash, slicing through the peace, the sirens shattering the fragile tranquility of this place.
That old, familiar dread spreads through my chest, tightening until it’s hard to breathe.
I need to move.
I turn back just in time to see Didier already dragging Caroline toward the caravans, panic blazing in his eyes.
“We can’t be found!” he shouts over his shoulder.
Neither can I.
I break into a run, sprinting toward my own caravan, heart pounding.
No they can’t be found.
And neither can I.