"What do you think you're doing?" Grayson demanded as he followed her down the corridors of the mansion. "Get back to bed!"
Quinn ignored the Alpha. Her body protested with every step she took, her head was spinning sickeningly, but after her remarkably vivid dream and what he'd told her, she had questions and for the sake of her sanity she needed answers as soon as possible. The people they passed jumped out of her way with surprised expressions, as if they didn't expect to see her, but she ignored them, too.
She was far from in the mood.
Only half an hour earlier she had woken to find that she had been tucked into her bed back in the pack's mansion and it was three full days later. Her body ached so badly, it was as if she had gone several rounds in the Hunter academy training yard with the meanest trainer on the faculty roster. Her head pounded so badly it felt as if her brain was trying to explode from her skull.
She had no memory of what had happened between the explosion and waking up in her bed, but Grayson had told her how distraught she had become when Liam had pulled the dying Sophia out from under the debris. He'd described how Quinn had lost it and fought her way out of Christian's grip to get to Sophia, shoving Liam aside. She'd then placed her hands on Sophia's broken body and then closed her eyes as if she were concentrating. The next thing anyone knew, Sophia's wounds were healing over and Quinn had turned deathly pale.
"When it was over," Grayson had said. "Sophia looked as if nothing had happened, and you looked as if you were a moment away from breathing your last."
Now, she made her way through the carpeted corridors of the mansion as quickly as she was able, determined to get to her destination before someone forced her to go back to her room. Thankfully, Grayson may have been an Alpha, but he seemed reluctant to try pulling rank on her. The moment she was told what she had done, she had quickly picked up an oversized sweatshirt that had been folded up and set on the footlocker and slid it on, not caring who it belonged to or that it seemed vaguely familiar.
"Damn it, Quinn!" Grayson growled, speeding up so that he could overtake her and block her path, bringing her to an abrupt stop. "Do I need to call Christian?"
Quinn's irritation levels were steadily rising the longer it took her to get to where she was going and she resisted the urge to tell him 'piss off'. Although he seemed to be more tolerant of her than Christian had ever been, Grayson Stone was still an Alpha and she doubted he would take it well.
"Call him if you want," she hissed, pushing past the big man. "I'm still not going back to bed. Now, please move out of my way."
Before he could respond, Quinn ducked under his arm and continued through the corridors and through a set of doors that led to the wing of the house that housed the gallery and the library. She didn't care if Christian was called on. Nothing was going to stop her from getting her answers.
Under normal circumstances, she wasn't really allowed in this particular wing without either Sophia or Liam being with her. And when she was there with them, there were certain areas that were forbidden. From what she understood, Christian didn't want a former Hunter learning anything she shouldn't about the pack. It was a security risk.
But right now, Quinn didn't care. Christian yell at her about disobeying the rules later.
All of her answers were in this library. At least, she hoped they were.
With a little bit of effort, Quinn shoved open the double doors. Gods, when had she gotten so weak?
The library was a huge wood paneled room that was at least two stories high, complete with a second level walkway. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books of all genres, from children's books to reference texts to heavy tomes hundreds of years old. Here and there were tables and armchairs, where people could sit and read or do some research and there were several ladders set at different intervals in the room that had been fixed to rails so that they could be slid along the shelves.
The second level of the library housed the older and less commonly used books. There was a room that held the centuries old books full of histories about the packs and the supernatural races. This room in particular was forbidden to Quinn, but it was exactly her destination this time.
Luckily, the library seemed to be empty and she went straight up the stairs to the forbidden room. She took a moment to look around the room, appreciating the dark wood paneled ceiling and the glass cases on wooden pedestals that held precious artifacts rich with the pack's history. There were a few podiums that one could use to prop a book open without damaging the ancient tome.
"Are you serious?" Grayson growled, having followed her all the way into the library. "You're still injured from the other night and you got out of bed for a book?"
Quinn finally turned to him, placing her hands on her hips and giving him an exasperated look.
"This is where all the pack histories are," she said, moving her arm in a sweeping motion to indicate the room. "This is where all the pack lore is. I didn't turn when I was bitten. There are things I can do that I shouldn't be able to do. If there is any place in this house where there might be some answers for me, it'll be this room."
Her words were met by silence and Grayson suddenly looked a little uncomfortable, as if he knew something that he wasn't sure he was supposed to tell her.
"You know," she said accusingly. "Don't you?"
Why did it seem to her that everyone knew something about her that she just didn't? Every time something happened that she found out of the norm, there was someone around her that had an idea about what it was and just refused to tell her.
Without waiting for a confirmation or refusal from the Alpha, Quinn turned back to the room and began scanning the shelves for anything that could possibly help her find her answers. An ancient looking book bound in black leather and decorated with silver filigree, caught her eye and she carefully slid it from the shelf with all the respect that it deserved.
She carried the book over to the closest podium and opened it, her eyes scanning through every fragile and yellowed page she carefully turned. The countless columns of text looked to be hand written in a calligraphy type script, the illustrations all hand drawn. From what she could tell of the script, it was an old form of English and she was suddenly glad for all of the tedious language lessons back at the academy.
An image of a man on his knees, holding his head as if he was in some kind of mental anguish caught her attention and something in her knew this could be exactly what she had been looking for. The text spoke of an ancient bloodline of werewolf that carried the potential to have empathic abilities so strong the descendants of this bloodline could actually see into others' mind and through their eyes, feel what they felt.
As Christian had told her, these abilities were extremely rare, but he had forgotten to mention that they were exclusive to only one bloodline. Quinn scanned the page for any hint of the name of the bloodline, but there was absolutely no mention of a name, so she chose to focus on the extent of these abilities instead. If she needed to, she would do more research and scour the archives for a hint as to who her ancestor might be.
Her heart began to beat with the speed of a bullet train the longer she read. These individuals could give up their life force and channel into another in order to heal them, even so far as bringing them back from the brink of death. Too much draining of their own life force could be catastrophic, however, and the user would often end up dead.
Is that what she had done for Sophia? Given up her own life force to save her friend's life?
Quinn turned the page and began to read how the draining of her own life force would have drained her strength and taxed her body, which was probably why she felt as if a house had been dropped on her. Even as she read, the world around her seemed to turn just little bit. According to the text, the after effects weren't permanent, but it would take several days to for her to recover fully.
"One of these days, you're going to push my patience just a little too far, little Hunter. And you'll regret it."
Quinn looked up quickly from her reading to see Christian standing in the doorway of the room, looking as if he was about to start cracking skulls. Casting a glance around the room, she suddenly noticed that Grayson was no longer there, which meant she was once again forced to be alone with her own Alpha.
As always, Christian took her breath away. Even when he looked positively murderous and as if he hadn't slept in days. That strange tugging sensation in her blood was back and she knew it was only a matter of time before she found her mind connected with his.
"You are not supposed to be in here," he growled dangerously.
She sighed and carefully closed the book. It seemed se was about to be thrown out of the library, losing her chance at understanding just what she was.
She stepped from behind the podium and she watched Christians jaw seemingly drop as his cold blue eyes took in her appearance. He looked to be surprised about something and she looked down at herself to make sure there wasn't anything showing that shouldn't be.
But there was nothing. She wore a pair of light cotton pants and the oversized grey sweatshirt over a tank top. The sweatshirt drowned her tiny frame, but it was surprisingly warm and comfortable, and it seemed to be what her Alpha was focusing on.
"What?" she demanded and he seemed to snap out of his momentary surprise.
"Nothing," he snapped before he stormed across the room and picked the tome Quinn had been reading up from the pedestal. She watched him carry it back to its place on the bookshelf and almost reverently slide it back into place. "What are you doing in here?"
"Just trying to get some answers," she said softly, folding her arms across her chest in an unconscious creation of a barrio between them. "I don't know if you've noticed, or if you even care, but I'm alone here, Christian. I don't have anyone to help me understand what I've become. This is the only place I could think of that might be able to help ..."
With a sigh, Quinn shook her head. It was no use trying to get him understand. He didn't care.
"I'm sorry I trespassed," she whispered. "It won't happen again."
Before he could yell at her, Quinn crossed the room to the doorway and quickly slipped out of the room. She needed to get away from him before he drew her back into his mind again. After the pain she'd felt the last time, it wasn't an experience she wanted to go through anytime soon.
She had just reached the bottom of the stairs when she heard Christian's voice coming from behind her.
"You're right."
Sure she had misheard, Quinn stopped in her escape and turned on the spot to see the man standing at the top of the stairs and watching her intently.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"I said, you're right," Christian said gruffly, as if being civil towards her was the hardest thing he could do. "You were attacked by rogues in my territory. Regardless of what you were before you were bitten, you became a member of this pack and it is my duty to help you ease into pack life."
He sighed and distractedly ran a hand through his hair.
"This is all such a fucking huge mess," he said softly, seemingly more to himself than her. "I'm supposed to mentor a mortal enemy I swore I would kill."
The utter distaste in his tone hurt her more than it should have. She had never done anything to deserve such contempt from someone who claimed he had a duty to help her.
Quinn closed her eyes and turned back to the door.
She was done with dealing with her Alpha and his issues for the day.