We Are the Wolves

[15] And...Scene!

"Well you're home early," Cassandra commented when I got home. I had entered through the back door because it was a short-cut to the stairs up to my room, but there's no way I could've gone unnoticed since she was sitting in the dining room with Charlie Bourne. In the distance to the dining room table, I tried and tried to fix my sour demeanor on my face. I didn't want to ruin their apparent date night.

"Any chance my son is with you? I feel like I haven't seen him all week," Charlie asked, his concern as a parent growing the more and more time he spent with Cassandra.

"He's still at the party with Ryder and them," I informed since it was the last I knew after dismissing Colin.

"Wait, then who dropped you off?" Cassandra frowned. Instead of answering her, I began walking backwards towards the stairs to the loft to dodge the question. Not that I would ever be successful once I heard the front door close at Andrew's arrival. When I saw him enter the kitchen, which was between me at the foot of the stairs and Cassandra with Charlie in the dining room, he looked at me as if he had chased me here from Tank's...well, technically he did considering I stole his car because I couldn't phase.

I took off from the party as soon as it was clear that Milkner was gone. I was so confused that I wanted to ignore everyone. But unlike a week ago, Andrew and Ryder were begging me to talk to them. I feared the magic herb wearing off and my mind being flooded with their thoughts and pleas.

"Tomorrow, you'll understand," Andrew told me calmly as if I had no right to be upset with him or Ryder or Milkner. He said it as if I had no right to be upset that I was kissed by someone I didn't want kissing me (again), that my brother was coming into town to ruin something he knew not of, and that my mate was back to his plotting and planning! "Trust us."

Trust us, he said as if he hadn't gone completely silent on me this week. He suddenly handed me the mini, black velvet draw-string back that I recognized from Milkner trying to slide it into my hands. I frowned at the conflicting gesture of returning something to me that someone Andrew allegedly fought with just tried to give me. "You might want to open that tonight before you no longer have the option."

After minutes of contemplating whether I should open Milkner's apparent gift, I found myself doing so upstairs. There had been too many weird events of the night for me not to want clues and answers to.

"Dear Ash," the small folded note read. "One day, he's going to give you a ring and make you a promise that will mean more than anything I can tell you. I'm not him. All I can do is give you this for protection." When I had opened the note, a long beaded necklace of silver had fallen out with an end wrapped up. I didn't even finish Milkner's note before I was intrigued by it. After realizing the long chain was coated in something like clear nail polish and didn't cause me any pain, I started carefully unwrapping the pendant. It was a simple triangle, half the size of my palm, that read Milkner's full name and what seemed to be the word Koryos etched in over a dozen different languages until the pendant ran out of space. Though I could touch it now, I knew it was a quarter of an ounce of pure silver no matter the extra weight of black gemstone fused to its back.

And on that homage to my family's symbol, there was a small sticky note telling me when Andrew and Ryder would be meeting me at 4253 Obsidian Pass tomorrow.

So I was right earlier...The altercation from earlier was on purpose.

***

"I'll explain when Ryder gets here," Andrew told me the next day. We had driven separately to the old home that once housed our family before we were even born. There was a strangeness in the air past Andrew and Ryder being weird and secretive together. Even the weird magic of the Everton house couldn't subdue it...much like my lycanthropy. Ever since Milkner's humanizing herb, my wolf wanted to burst out of me after being on a leash. I felt different than a hangover; my senses were back, my strength was enhanced, my temper was...thin, my mind was...weak.