Updated: May 5, 2019
Corvo
Maybe it was the change in weather, or a shiver that travelled from the tips of my fingers to the small of my back, but something happened far from Emerald. The smell of the air shifted, damaging the insides of my nose with stormy flavors: humidity and brisk winds pulling the northern air south. The hair on the back of my neck frizzed up. I stood at the large bay window in my office and looked out at the surrounding mountains surrounding Emerald. Around me were mixed colognes in tastes of smoky oak and sandalwood. Dark clouds hovered miles off the horizon, their water filled tufts threatening to spill over onto the earth below. Mountains peeked through the clouds, their peaks painted white with snowcaps.
Jax and Dean lounged in nearby chairs. My Beta had his legs strung up on the sides of the couch, and Dean sat, his posture impeccable, while he looked over a couple medical charts. Since L's disappearance from Emerald, and her jumping to her death off the cliff at the Council, he buried himself in his work and cut off people around him. If not for Erin's cooking and the endless library on the second floor of the pack house, he would huddle down in the pack hospital and burrow underneath piles of medical supplies and gurneys. Jax had his face buried in his phone, fingers furiously tapping on the screen.
"If you keep that scowl on your face for much longer you'll be stuck with it forever," Dean said from behind a vanilla folder with a patient name on the front of it. "Your reflection hurts to look at," he added.
"Your tales don't scare me, Dean." I huffed and turned sharply to return to my desk but just as I about sat down the main door in front of me peeled open. Damien stepped through. His hair bore streaks of metallic black that glittered with each of his movements. His shoulders were coated in water droplets, hands reddened from vicious hot water he had come from.
"Not my face," Dean remarked and set his folder down as Damien came into the room, making a B-line toward the desk in the center of the room. As he passed Dean and Jax straightened up in their chairs. My brother didn't hold a position of power within the pack but he still had Edwards at the end of his name, and that alone meant more than any position.
"Tyler wants to talk to you," Damien said without any pleasantries. "He's downstairs, calmer than the other day but his hair is still on end."
I stood from my chair faster than my Beta or pack surgeon could react. The large wheeled chair swung out from behind me and it narrowly missed the wall once the wheels caught the carpet. Tyler took up residence after his surprise visit, but he had yet to be seen out of the guest room since his arrival two days previous. His anger died down after hearing my defense but I still saw the white-hot fury behind his dark eyes after our discussion about his sister. Mia's inhumanity wasn't the news Tyler wished to hear but I had nothing else to give him. Unless he wanted to hear about Jeffries' untimely demise via guillotine. That blood bath would go down in Lycan History books along with L's name strewn across the page in bold letters and harsh stories told by witnesses.
"Alright," I said and came out from behind the desk. Damien moved out of the way just in time to let me pass but took up pace right behind me. Jax and Dean followed at the rear as we descended the master staircase in the center of the house facing the front door. Wide, curved steps, carried us to the first floor. A banister made from trees in Emerald's backyard, with emerald stones on each spindle, one stone per column. Gaudy but appropriate for a pack house of its caliber.
"Did he say what he wanted to talk to me about?" I asked after we reached the first floor. Damien swung around and took the lead. The living room, positioned directly to the right of the front door, splashed in shades of green and beige with touches of bronze on door fittings and chair legs. A large chandelier glittered above the velvet, tufted couches. Bright sunlight sizzled through the room from the floor to ceiling windows, their curtains drawn open and tied off to the sides so the tops curved downwards, green velvet drapes that hung like phantoms trapped in time.
"No, just that he wanted to talk," Damien didn't make eye contact as he found a seat across from Sapphire's Alpha positioned on one of the couches. His clothes had less noticeable wrinkles than the other day, and his hair didn't bear the same kind of unkempt as it did. Emerald healed his heart a little, even if just with a few stitches on the worst wounds.
"Tyler," I said, approaching him. He stood almost immediately and took out his hand for me to shake. I returned the gesture with a firm grasp on his slightly larger hand but he let go first. "You look much better today," I noted out loud.
"Your maid, what's her name again – Erin, yes, Erin is a wonderful hostess," Tyler beamed toward the kitchen where our housekeeper prepared food. His eyes twinkled with splotches of dark brown and gold, with a solid yellow ring that branched out like stalagmites in a cave around his pupils.
"She's been with the pack for a long time now," I answered. "Erin treats every guest here with the highest of honor and respect. I expect nothing less of her."
"And yet you refuse to look her in the eye while visitors are present," Tyler criticized. I turned my gaze up, eyebrows cocked on my forehead. While I knew his friendly demeanor wouldn't last I figured the cold comments would remain at bay until he wandered off Emerald property and back to Sapphire where he belonged.
"If you came down here to criticize, I suggest you leave," I said.
"Only an observation, my friend," Tyler said. He held one hand up in defense but from my angle that thin wall didn't help: transparent just like his comments. I stifled a laugh but kept it in my mouth in case he dared say anything else about Emerald.
"Erin knows we mean no harm to her or that we look down at her while guests are around. It's simply a gesture that's been used in my family for several generations." I explained, although I didn't remember why I felt the need to do so. At this point Tyler strayed so far from being a guest that he wore his welcome clean off his face as he retrofitted back into his old self.
"If you're feeling better, you better get going back to Sapphire," I stood, uncomfortable with the long stare since I sat down. He set his cup of tea down on the table with a loud ting from porcelain meeting its match of wood.
"I want to know what happened to my sister," he puffed out his chest, a clear sign of Sapphire pack's unwillingness to back down to a challenge. A fault seen in many of their failures throughout history. I saw the anger rising in him the same way it did two days ago. My patience wore thin, but his comments about how I treated Erin teetered me over the edge. Zane pushed through the barrier in my head, to reign as Alpha over Tyler. I held my wolf back the best I could, knowing if he did get out blood would surely spill on the plush carpets.
"Your sister lost her humanity the day she signed herself over to the council," I snapped. "It's not my responsibility to make sure she hasn't completely lost her nuts, now please leave," I said through clenched teeth. Dean, Jax, and Damien were behind me, arms folded. They were my main defense from an Alpha whose relationship with Emerald remained rocky and sour.
"My pack is larger than yours, Corvo," Tyler threatened.
"Numbers do not trump power, Tyler, now leave." I threw my hand toward the front door seen through the open entry to the foyer. Damien stood next to me, closer than my two friends. I didn't need his help but I refused to reject the obvious sign of support from my nearly estranged brother.
"Where is my sister," Tyler hissed, leaning across the table separating us. The contents of his cup shivered, rippling like terrified fish in a great pond while predators circled around them. "If you refuse to help me I'll go find her myself!"
"By all means, Tyler, go. Go save your sister who doesn't want to be saved. Go find her and free her from the mind controlling council she's being held at!" I grunted, refusing to break eye contact with him. Tyler's refusal to leave began to threaten the safety of the people in the house and I wasn't about to stand for it. "She's gone, Tyler. Mia is gone, a lost cause at this point. Her humanity isn't salvageable, now get out of my house!" I practically yelled, my voice reverberating through the walls of the living room until it came and smacked me back across the face with a powerful hand. I drew back slightly away from Tyler and waited for his next move but he stood frozen as if he were contemplating my words. I wanted to point again. Throw my finger at the front door but I couldn't move any of my muscles. They strained to move but my brain froze up, firing in all directions.
"She's not lost," Tyler choked on his words. "I can still save her."
"She's damned, Ty." I used his nickname in hopes that would calm him down but the fire in his eyes didn't waver, only strengthened and illuminated. A burning inferno of reds and yellows atop the normal brown iris'. "She made her choice, and you have to make yours," I said. "If you go there on some ridiculous resume mission you'll end up dead. Your pack will be without a leader and your sister will watch her brother die. Do you want that?"
He thought for a moment, eyes wide and quivering slightly. All the anger and disillusioned thoughts bubbled to the surface and expelled through his nose with one heavy breath of hot air audible throughout the room. At that single breath, his shoulders fell from their stiff places, and he sunk back onto the couch. He stared down at the cup on the table with his lip marks on it, and went to grab it but my voice stopped him.
"I think you should leave," I said. My form towered over his, a shadow cast over his face as he looked up at me from below. He gulped and nodded. Tyler drew his hand back toward him and stood up to leave. Any ill thought he had before vanished from his voice as he held a hand out for me to shake. I took it willingly.
"Thank you for your hospitality," he said.
"Take care, Tyler," I responded with a stiff shake and let go so he could leave. "Be careful out there."
I said my parting goodbyes at the door and watched him as he crossed the terrace toward his parked car in the turnaround. He waved once while he entered the vehicle and drove off without another glance back at the pack house. The smoke from his exhaust puffed up in a dark cloud of soot and dust with stones from the driveway in his wake as he disappeared into the surrounding forest. I waited until the trees engulfed his car before I retreated into the pack house where Damien and the others waited. They hadn't moved from the living room.
"That was," Damien started but couldn't quite find the right words to finish his thought.
"Interesting," Dean said with a nod toward my brother. Damien thanked him with a return gesture and took a seat in the same spot Tyler inhabited only minutes' prior. His hair didn't glisten in the lights anymore, and the water droplets had long since dried off his neck and jaw, but parts of his shirt were still speckled in excess shower water.
"He's going to get himself killed," Jax noted and tossed himself into the arm chair across from Damien. He threw his legs up onto the side of the chair and pulled his phone out just as it let out a loud ding into the air. Just as the phone lit up his eyes did the same. A message from his son, no doubt. He had hoped to bring Ryder back with him but after a long day in court with the grandparents and himself, he settled on partial custody twice a month. It wouldn't be long until he brought his son back for a week, but those seven days were never enough. They would slip by in a blink. Their time together was fleeting, and Jax knew it. At the end of each visit he would watch his son leave in the back of the grandparent's vehicle while it stormed down the driveway away from the house. They didn't agree with the pack way of life, and that alone was enough to keep Ryder away.
"Then so be it," I muttered. Everyone else in the room found a seat but I refused to sit down. My legs bounced. The numb feeling would return as soon as I fell back into a seat and I'd force myself to stand again. It was easier to stand and pace about the room while my friends and brother looked on. Their faces didn't spell worry – no, not quite. Damien's face scrunched at the thought of Tyler's exit. Jax didn't take his eyes off his brightly lit phone, and Dean stared up at the ceiling with a blank expression of boredom brought across his features. A flat mouth without a curve, and straight eyebrows groomed by his wife and curious daughter. The two men I trusted most in the pack didn't care to pay attention to Tyler's escape from Emerald. They had their own concerns, lives, and fears to deal with. Mine were an afterthought for them. But Damien, no matter how many times I betrayed his trust, he always returned.
We looked nothing alike but were so similar. Our father taught us both the core values of Emerald: loyalty above all else, and courage to speak one's mind. We learned to love and forgive, and to forget the problems of the past. I guess Ethel was too young to learn by the time our father's disease started to progress, and because of that she would never understand.
*****
Ethel insisted on a siblings' dinner. Whether to discuss the looming fate of our mother or the untimely turn of events since the previous winter, either way I wanted nothing to do with it. But she dragged me from the house and into her car, a sleek four door sedan the color of midnight, flecks of starlight riddled throughout the dazzling paint. Her headlights lit up the drive in a soft blue as soon as she pressed the ignition. A blast of music emanated through the car from her speakers forcing Damien and I out of our seats in a flash of panic. Ethel cranked the volume dial down to a lower number as soon as the noise started, but not soon enough. I caught my breath in my throat and swallowed. My eardrums buzzed, an echo of death metal ringing in my memory.
"Oh don't be a baby," Ethel threw the car into drive as soon as our seatbelts clicked.
"What the hell do you listen to in here?" Damien screeched from the backseat, his ears still recovering from the onslaught of bass and drums.
"Clearly you don't know good music," Ethel beamed, ignoring the question with ese. "Don't judge it till you actually listen to it, and feel the music inside of you." She held the wheel with one hand at the bottom, positioned perfectly at six. The other rested on the gearshift, where her fingers tapped along with the soft music that played through the speakers.
"Alright, Lester," Damien rolled his eyes in the backseat and got comfortable for the long drive ahead. We didn't live too close to the city and the nearest forest dense enough to hide our world from human civilization was over an hour away. So we settled at the heart of it, deep enough that the overgrown trees sheltered us with thick layers of green and brown.
"You know there's towns and cities nearby with food just like in Manhattan, right?" I cocked a look over to Ethel who stepped on the gas as she weaved in and out of traffic. Every so often the radar detector beeped, a sudden, dense noise that burst through the quiet music that barely sounded through the car. She adjusted her speed to the radar, but ultimately kept her speed well above the posted limit. My head slammed into the headrest as I watched the road zoom by us.
"We never get out to the city!" Ethel complained, frowning deeply while she drove without taking her eyes off the road. Cars around us blurred as she slipped through traffic with ease, without breaking but stepping on the gas when she had the chance. My shoulder blades connected with the seat back a couple times; the car jolted forward with a purr from the engine. "We always go to the same places and we never go to the city," she pouted and ran a hand through her shoulder length mousy brown hair that hung straight around her neck.
"I guess," I shrugged and leaned back to enjoy the ride. We zoomed in and out of traffic, our car a malleable form amidst hundreds of stagnant ones. Damien, in the backseat, hummed and tapped his foot to the soft tunes that played just enough to reach our ears but not enough to strain. My siblings and I were so different from each other. Ethel would never truly forgive me for what happened with our father but I hoped one day she would learn to move on and understand that during the heat of the moment no other option emerged. I was left with two choices: watch my father die at the hands of my mate or kill him myself. Turns out the former was the most selfish of those two choices.
_________
Hey,
Hope you enjoyed! I'm excited to see where the beginning of the end of this book takes me, and then I'll be onto the third (and final)! But ot to worry, there is still a lot of plot left in BAF2!
QOC: What do you think will happen with Tyler?
What about Penelope? She's been rejected twice now.
Comment, like, and follow!
Much love,
-Kate