Marianne

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

            We walked until we reached the park. Lynx chose a bench that was facing the west. I sat beside him, keeping quiet, waiting for him to speak. The moon, I noticed, was just a few nights shy of being full. I could tell by the way the veins in Lynx’s neck were jumping, that he was having a hard time trying to find the right way to word what he had to say. So, we just sat there in silence.

            After several minutes, he started to speak, albeit softly. “When your family first came to my territory, you were but only a week old. They begged me to give them protection. Seeing as how they posed no threat to me or the pack, and they had a newborn with them, I agreed. I offered them a house here in town, enough room for several growing pups. But they refused. Made excuses on how they would be constantly worried about you getting hurt or lost. After weeks of looking, they finally chose the house in the woods.

            “As the years passed, they came to town only when they had too. One would come only if the other stayed at home with the pups. A few years after they joined us, their old alpha came to visit. He didn’t know that they were here, and when he saw Jon Bellflower in town, he was surprised. Alpha Randy had come to ask me to help him search for his missing daughter. He told me that she had been kidnapped. And that whoever took the child had murdered her mother. Because there had been Mutt attacks around the time of her death, and many of the wolves were choosing to seek protection or shelter away from the carnage, he had no recollection of which wolves were gone.

            “I gave Randy almost twenty of my best trackers to help him find his pup, so did all of his allies. They searched for months, but her scent had disappeared. Someone had deliberately hid her scent, and very cleverly at that. After Randy left, Jon and Marcella hardly ever made it back to town. They come in maybe once every month. At first I thought it was because they were scared that Randy would make them come back. Then…” He stopped and looked at the moon. Running his fingers through his hair, he took a deep breath.

            “Almost a week before the Mutts attacked, Jon came to see me. I was surprised to see him at my front door, but I welcomed him. We went into the den, and talked. He seemed nervous, upset, and afraid. I just sat there, not speaking, letting him talk at his own pace. He told me that when the Mutts attacked Randy’s pack, everything turned to chaos pretty quick. Everyone thought that the alpha was dead, and no one had seen his wife or child. Jon was taking his family out of town by a secret tunnel that led into the forest.

            “They had just emerged from the entry when they stumbled across the body of Isabella Cortez, Randy’s mate. She was wearing a black cape, which hid her entire body. Thinking of moving her back to the alpha’s house, Jon turned her over. There, tucked away in her arms, lay a newborn girl pup. When she was stabbed in the back, Bella curved inward, protecting the girl from the fall. Since the cape hid the pup from the Mutts view, they didn’t know that Bella was holding her. They were probably so busy killing, that they didn’t even notice her scent. Marcella took the pup as Jon and Tomas started to carry the body back to the tunnel. But they caught sight of a large group of Mutts moving toward them. So they did what they had to, they dropped Bella, took the child and ran.”  

            I watched as he rubbed his temples. Shaking my head, I stood up and faced him. “I’m confused. What does that have to do with me?” He sighed. “You are not the daughter of Jon and Marcella Bellflower, but the daughter of Randy and Isabella Cortez. I would have told Randy the truth after Jon talked to me, but when I called him, I was informed that he was moving his pack west.”