Turning eighteen is a significant milestone not only for humans, but also for wolves. But for them, it is certainly more severe change in age. Carys gets to experience it on her own skin, starting with the compulsory participation in the Mate Harves...
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The rope bites the skin around my wrists as I pull on it, but nothing happens.
I loosen my grip and breath out in frustration. I mean to check the state of my burning hands, but their freshly healed skin instantly takes my thoughts back to that night. To those warm palms and long fingers. To their softest caress. I mimic their path, the tingling still strongly present, just like the memory.
Unwanted memory.
I grit my teeth and for about the hundredth time, I pull hard on the rope, determined to achieve its freedom. With no such luck. Annoyed, I groan and let go of that cursed thing. All my battles seem doomed to be lost lately.
"Hey, let me." Hanni nudges my hip to make me move and releases my hands from the rope. She wraps it around her elbows and pulls it taut, carefully testing it.
I don't argue. I let her take my place and lean my back against the nearest tree, silently watching everything that's going on around. The forest is far from calm or empty today, it's buzzing with people all over the place. Everyone is trying to lend a hand and help secure the entire territory before the severe storm hits tonight, Silver Meadows' or Pine Valleys'.
Well, there may be one more reason behind their sudden cooperation...
"So, to sum it up," Hanni starts, studying that linen piece of snake refusing to move. "Your dad catches you on your way from the Packhouse in a total breakdown. Just after you snuck out to hang out with us. Alone. In the night. So basically after violating the most important of your stupid rules." She pauses to give the rope a hard pull, testing its strength. "And he decides that the best way to punish you is to give you some pack chores? Which you're supposed to do with us?"
I consider her words. "Pretty much."
Adjusting her grasp on the rope, she looks at me with a puzzled frown. "Sorry, where exactly is the punishment in that?"
Right after her question, she sways on her knees and yanks for the rope, putting all the weight of her body in it. The frayed end flies effortlessly through the tight metal eye of the wooden case hiding a tin water tank – something I've been trying to achieve for the last twenty minutes – and the treacherous thing lands at my feet.
I blink. "That I have to do them with you?"
She grins and gives a shrug. "It was just a little rusted."
Yeah. A little.
She's got a point, though. Ever since my dad stopped me in front of the Packhouse just as he was heading to take my place inside, he's been looking at me... differently. As if he expects me to go into another nervous meltdown at any moment. Not the finest feeling, having your parent looking at you like that, but I can't say it would make it onto the list of what bothers me most right now.
What has made its way up the ranking is what happened when my dad returned from his meeting with Tarquin that night, far from initiated by the poor man. I expected him to tie me down in our cabin and never let me see the moonlight ever again. Instead, he informed me that the Alpha and he had agreed to loosen the rules of our stay here.
