Suddenly Fated (Wolves of Riverton #1)

6. Esyn

6. Esyn

I lay on my cushy new bed face down, my arms stretched out to my sides as the room slowly darkened. I refused lunch and the day out that Ari originally planned for us. “Please just let me be alone for a while so that I can think,'' I pleaded with him. No matter how much I tried to make sense of this situation, the same thoughts kept echoing through my mind. I don’t belong here. I’m not Luna material. I’m not worth all of this. All I needed to do was leave, and this whole thing would go away. Everyone would be safe, no scandal, no potential war. Surely the Goddess didn’t mean for my presence here to cause so much potential trouble for the whole pack.

I slowly pushed myself up and off of the bed. I’d just sneak out of the house, make my way to the edge of the woods, shift into my wolf, and run. I’d run from the manor, the pack lands, far away to somewhere else where they didn’t know me and I’d keep everyone safe. I’d have my parents ship my camera to a general address, pick it up, and move on. Ari would just have to learn to understand. So would my mother and father.

I cracked open the bedroom door and checked the hallway, my heart pounding. No one was around. The lights were dim, and I could hear no sounds coming from Ari or Avelin’s rooms. I left my shoes on the floor of my room; I wouldn’t need those. I crept down the hall as quietly as I possibly could, holding my breath, until I hit the stairway. Then I sped down the stairs, hoping to find a back door and get off the grounds as quickly as possible.

I ran headlong into a body, nearly toppling us both. “Miss Stone! Where on earth are you going in such a hurry?” It was Harris, the butler. Drat. “Harris, I’m so sorry! I was in a hurry because I wanted to go for a walk outside, get some fresh air. Could you please point me in the direction of a back entrance?”

Harris looked me up and down, noticing my mussed hair and bare feet. Thankfully, he made no comment. “The back entrance is this way, Miss. Please follow me.”

We walked through the entry hall and down a smaller hallway past the kitchen. I could smell dinner cooking and my stomach growled audibly. Harris gave me the side-eye. “That smells delicious. I will be back from my walk by dinner!” I assured him in a voice that came out a bit too forcefully pleasant. Dammit, I really need to work on my lying, I thought. Finally we reached a door that led outside. Harris held it open for me.

“Please be careful, Miss. Alpha Michael would have my head if you were injured outside.” He looked genuinely concerned, and a bit suspicious. Or was I just being paranoid?

“I’ll be careful, I promise,” I assured him. He nodded and closed the door.

I drew a deep breath. Now to make it to the trees, and I was free. Funny how the word ‘free’ didn’t give me pleasant feelings in this case. Instead I felt like I was leaving behind my entire heart, and it actually physically hurt. The pain centered in my solar plexus, sharp and throbbing.

I made a show of meandering around a bit, just in case Harris still watched me. When I reached a grouping of tall shrubs, I turned and ran as fast as I could to the tree line. Reaching it, I spun around and took one final look at the glowing windows of the manor house. “I’m so sorry, Ari,” I whispered. I stripped off my clothes, leaving Avelin’s dress neatly folded at the tree line. It was too nice to ruin, and someone would find it. I began to run as I shifted into my wolf form. I hadn’t shifted in a long time, and I would feel exhilarated in any other circumstance. The farther I ran from the manor, though, the more awful I felt. To make matters worse, it began to rain as I ran, getting my fur soaked. Thunder rumbled overhead and my breath huffed in and out, but still I ran. After about an hour, I reached the border of the River pack lands. I knew it was risky crossing over into another territory without permission, but I had no choice. I’d just have to be quiet and hope that no one spotted me.

I passed over the border quickly and without trouble, seeing no one out patrolling. I breathed a bit easier. I’d just begun to let my guard down a bit when I heard the distinct sound of other wolves running in my direction. I sniffed the air, but they didn’t smell familiar. They smelled awful. Shit. Shit!

I picked up my pace, but they were on me within seconds. One knocked me on my back and the other used his massive front paws to hold me down. I twisted and struggled, growling as fiercely as I could, but it made no difference. The second wolf shifted into his human form, an average height, lean man with a head that looked like he shaved it in the dark and a scar across his face from his chin to his left ear. Scars on wolf shifters could only be caused by silver, and anyone using silver weapons was not a person you wanted to be around.

“Well, well, well. What have we here? Be a good little wolf and shift back now, or I’ll have my friend here rip out your throat.” The wolf holding me down let out a vicious snarl. Fearing he’d have his friend rip my throat out either way, I shifted back into my human form. At least this way I could use my voice and try to reason with them.

“Hot damn, Ollie! We got us a nice one!” He stood over me, eyeing me up and down as if I were the last piece of pie, practically drooling. ‘Ollie’, the wolf pinning me, sniffed my head and neck and growled low.

“Please, please don’t hurt me. I was just out for a run and I got lost. Alpha Michael will be looking for me, and he won’t be happy if he finds out you hurt me.”

“Well, little girl, seein’ as how I have no clue who the hell ‘Alpha Michael’ is, I can’t say as I rightly give a damn what he thinks about anything.”

“Ok, well, what will your Alpha think of you attacking a defenseless woman?” I asked him desperately. He sneered.

“We ain’t got no Alpha, so we do what we feel like,” he answered in a disgusting, smarmy voice.

Oh, my goddess. Rogues! I’d heard of rogue wolves, those that belonged to no pack and just wandered aimlessly, stealing, robbing…and worse. I’d never seen one until right this minute, growing up protected in Riverton. I thought I never would. My heart felt like it lodged in my throat. I tried to stop the tears from flowing but couldn’t control them. The man approached and knelt down beside me. He leaned close to my face and I could smell his awful breath. He smelled like death and garbage, and I nearly gagged. He put his dirty finger on the tip of my nose, trailing it down my lips, chin, neck, and between my breasts. His breath started coming faster. I began struggling again. I knew what was coming, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. One of Ollie’s claws pierced the skin of the juncture of my neck and shoulder deeply and I let out an involuntary scream that echoed through the trees.

“Ok, little girl. You gotta stop that shit right now. You don’t put up no fuss, and I promise we won’t kill you. Ok? You just be a good girl, and we’ll let you get back to Alpha Mitchell real soon.”

“That’s ‘Alpha Michael’, you rogue scumbag. Now let her go.”

Ari! Thank the Goddess, Ari!

The shifter rogue jumped up, spinning to face Ari as he stood there menacingly. Ari was twice as tall and twice as muscular, but there were two rogues and one of him. In the blink of an eye, Ari shifted into his wolf and launched himself at the rogue in human form, tearing into his throat before he even had a chance to shift back. Ollie abruptly let me go, knocking me sideways as he leaped toward Ari’s wolf. Suddenly free, I army crawled to a grouping of vegetation, making myself as small as possible. I used my arms to cover my head, ears, and eyes, but I could still hear the growls and snarls as the two wolves fought. My shoulder throbbed with intense pain and bled heavily, and I began to feel dizzy. The fight raged beyond my hiding place, but for me, everything went dark.

I opened my eyes, seeing not the stormy dark forest but a calm, blue sky with no clouds in sight. It startled me, but the sun gently shone on my body, warming me pleasantly, a relief after my cold, wet journey in the forest. I could hear water cascading somewhere nearby. As I sat up, I realized that I was no longer naked, covered with dirt and blood. I wore a flowing dress, almost unnaturally white and deliciously soft. Flowers bloomed here and there, perfuming the air beautifully. I felt so calm and at peace, certainly calmer than I’d felt the last couple of days. “Where the hell am I?” I said out loud.

“You are definitely not in hell, I assure you.” A woman’s voice intoned just behind me. I whirled around, jumping to my feet as I beheld the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. Though her face appeared youthful, her hair was pure white, and so long that it nearly touched the ground. Her skin and eyes were luminous as if lit from within. Her eyes were dark, but ringed with silver and glowing with silver flecks that made me think of looking into the Universe itself. Her eyes held all of creation, and I was spellbound–so much so that I nearly missed it when she began to speak to me. I shook my head to clear it.

“Um, I apologize. What did you say?”

She stood there looking at me like I was a naughty child. I felt slightly ashamed of myself, though I had no idea what I’d done to this woman that I’d never met.

“Esyn, child. You have a singular talent for running amok, do you not? In all of my eons, I do not think I have ever seen someone get off course as quickly as you have.” Her words were censuring but her smile was kind.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You know exactly who I am,” she answered, and she was right. From the second I saw her I knew, but I told myself that it was impossible. It was impossible, right? It had to be. Because if not…

“I just said ‘hell’ in front of the Goddess herself,” I blurted, face red and eyes wide. She laughed, the sound musical.

“Indeed you did, and I must say I enjoyed it. Most people bow and scrape in my presence. It is refreshing to have a child of mine behave normally.” She smiled brightly at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. A warm feeling spread through me but turned to bafflement when in the next second, she reached into the air and pulled out a notebook and pen from nowhere. My eyes went wide in awe–and a bit of fear–as she checked the book.

“Now, let me see here. If I am correct, you discovered your mate, tried to run away from him, tried to deny the life I have preordained for you, actually ran away, got yourself attacked in the forest, and ended up bloody and muddy, all in less than twenty-four hours’ time. That is the way it happened, is it not?”

I looked down, feeling more than a little ashamed now. “Yes Ma’am.”

She chuckled a bit, I guessed at being addressed as ‘Ma’am’. She made a few notations in her book and then pushed it back into the air, where it disappeared. “I need you to hear me, Esyn. I will not lie and tell you that there will not be hard times for you. Even I do not have total control over the decisions that wolves make. But I have given you several gifts for a reason, and you must trust in me. I chose you because I sense in you the potential to be more than you are and to change the way of things. Take your gifts, accept them, and run with them. If you do not, I am not sure I can help you a second time.”

“A second time?” I asked her.

“Yes child. You lost a lot of blood in that forest. That wolf’s claw did not pierce just your shoulder, but an artery. Even with your wolf healing, there would not have been enough time.”

My mouth fell open in shock and dread. “Are you saying that…I died?”

She walked toward me as confusion filled my brain. “But what do I need to do? What sort of gifts? You said I was going to change the way of things. If I’m dead, how can I? What do I-”

I didn’t get to finish my questions. She reached out and touched my forehead. It felt like electricity filled my body, and everything went black again.