Green - a werewolf story

37. Haunted

Vanessa took a deep breath. She had avoided thinking about this for so long, but ignoring her past clearly didn't make it go away. It was time to try something different.

"When my mother was accepted in their pack, the high priest had a dream."

"A dream?"

"He was said to have prophetic dreams. A gift from the great Moon Goddess who had chosen him as her emissary on this earth to usher the planet into a new era. The era of the white wolf."

Green blinked.

"It was more of a cult than a pack," Vanessa explained. "The high priest wasn't the alfa, but everything he said was treated as law."

"And he made a prophecy about your mother?"

Vanessa shook her head.

"About her daughters."

"Daughters... you have sisters?"

"Had. A sister. She died."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Green said, reaching out to take her hand and squeeze it.

"It happened long ago," Vanessa said, though to her it still felt as if it had happened only yesterday.

"That doesn't matter," Green said.

Vanessa nodded and reached out for her glass of juice. She gulped it down until the tightness in her throat eased.

"Anyway, according to the prophecy one of my mother's daughters would deliver the white wolf into this world."

"And they thought that meant you?"

"No, it could have been either my sister or me. Which was why the alfa and the high priest decided that when we grew up the high priest would marry my sister and the alfa's son would marry me."

She felt Green's hand tense up and she kept her gaze on the red-checkered tablecloth in front of her. She didn't think she could tell the rest of the story if she was looking at him.

"I don't like to think about my childhood. It's not important anyway."

"Of course it is."

"Not to explain why they're here," Vanessa said, clearing her throat. "My sister was three years older than me. When she was fifteen the high priest decided that it was time for her to join him."

"Fifteen!"

"My mother argued that she was too young and refused to give her up. It's the only time I remember her standing up for us, for anything." Vanessa took a deep breath and tried not to remember the screams and the blood. "They killed her. We tried to fight them, but there were twenty of them and three of us so... Isha and the high priest were married that night."

"You mean to tell me that they killed your mother before your eyes and made your sister marry the man who'd ordered it?"

Vanessa nodded. She pushed away the plate of food before she threw up over it. They said time healed everything, but it had been ten years and she hadn't done any healing.

"I'll kill them," Green vowed.

Vanessa had to smile at that. "That's what I said," she told him. "And I would have, but two weeks later Isha managed to sneak out from the encampment. It was set near an old gold mine and there was a high drop and she... she jumped."

"Oh, my god," Green said. "I'm so sorry. You don't have to tell me anything more if you don't want to. We can..."

Vanessa shook her head. She needed to finish this and he had to know. "They got me started on the blue powder the next day. Figured that if they could keep me docile I wouldn't take myself out of the equation like my sister did."