Hidden in Sheridan (Tainted Series: Book 1)

Moon: FIRST QUARTER

Levi - The quiet, mixed with my embarrassment causes every mistake I have made in the last 24 hours cycle through the forefront of my mind. It’s safe to say, I haven’t been at my best.

“I’m sorry.” I say. “About all of this and, how I treated you at school before.” Ity doesn’t respond. Which makes the regret sink deeper into my stomach.

As we approach the Wolfe home I watch her carefully. We’d parked the motorbike back at the beginning of the road. Sterling had run ahead and stopped us at the end of the gravel road.

“My nieces and nephews are out in the woods, I don’t want to draw their attention.” He had explained that the younger the Lycanthrope are oblivious to what had happened in the woods. We agreed it was best to keep them that way … well, Sterling and I agreed. Ity wasn’t giving any input, verbal or otherwise. So we walked the rest of the way in silence.

I secretly hoped the walk would give Trinity a chance to process what was happening. Logically being bitten by a Wolf would take some time to process, but I’m quickly getting the feeling Ity has a better handle on all these things then I did.

The rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath our shoes eventually falls into sync. When the house comes into view, Trinity’s feet alone pause. She scans the woods from left and right, the silent sounds of the trees hum around us. I let my hearing pique, I hear the rustling of squirrels, and other quiet critters scuttling through the brush in all directions. The air bristling through the branches, accompanied by the soft drip of melting snow from the sunlight.

Hearing all this made me wonder if Ity’s pause was due to her abilities already appearing. The manner she’d fought through the pain of the bite gave me reason suspect her strength had surfaced.

I open my eyes and look to her awed face. For a moment, a spark appeared in her eyes when they rested on the house. It was unique, covered in snow but that didn’t explain why she’d paused. Then she did the most unexpected thing.

Trinity pulls her hoodie securely onto her shoulders zipping the tattered piece of clothing tight, before she slips the hood over her no longer pony-tailed hair. I suspect her hair band had broken in the scuffle, but she manages to pull most of her hair beneath her hood. I can see her consider tightening the cords around her chin but she stops. Leaving a few whips of hair caressing her jaw line. Lastly, she pulls her sleeves low over her fingers.

“My family won’t hurt you,” Sterling says, as reassuringly as he can.

“Uh-huh.” She responds without making eye contact.

“It was a lot to take in,” I try to add my own reassurance. “It was for me too. But they’re good people, they wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Her eyes close and her head drops down, allowing her to put pressure on the spot between her eyebrows with her knuckle. “You’re one of those.” She looks back up at the house and begins her approach.

I glance over at Sterling and mouth, ‘One of what?’ Sterling shrugs and we follow her to the house.

We enter on the main door, which again I had barely used in all the years I’ve known Sterling. The main entryway always surprises me. It has an open floor plan. You can see the stairs leading up the right side to the top level turning into a closed hall. The floor itself is made of dark wood that looks like it has been refinished recently or never used. A polished chandelier hangs from the top, constructed from buck antlers and mounted with white LED lights. The room glows with gray and white trim.

Sterling directs us to the bench to the side where we sit to remove our muddy wet boots, placing them in the underneath compartments. It’s then I really wish I had a change of clothes as we are coated in mud. Some of it had dried so it crumbled off onto the clean floor.

Hearing the commotion, Sterlings mother came hustling through the entryway door. Her cooking apron on, covered in the aroma of English sausage and biscuits. Don’t ask me how I know that, but it’s a comforting smell.

As she approaches her words drip with sincere worry and relief all rolled into one. “Your father called explaining enough. What took you so long getting back?

He said someone else got bit,” her eyes drop on Ity. Spotting the holes in the girls red jacket, the blood stains slightly darker than the fabric, Mrs. Wolfe’s face twists with worry. “Child I am so sorry.” She reaches gently out to help but Trinity backs away, pulling her shoulder behind her.

Mrs. Wolfe pauses.

“It’s okay, Trinity,” Sterling says, trying reassure her. “This is my mom. She won’t hurt you.”

“I know who she is.” Trinity says shortly

“Trinity and I have met before,” Mrs. Wolfe adds softly.

“Yes ma’am,” Ity says formally, and though her tone was guarded, she was still polite. “It is a pleasure to see you again.” It doesn’t look like a pleasure as she kept out of reach from the woman.

Mrs. Wolfe doesn’t try to push contact on Trinity, but I can tell she’s uncomfortable with it. “Come in, let’s get you patched up, and stop the bleeding.” She motions to the door behind her.

“Truthfully Mrs. Wolfe, I really am fine. As in better, it’s better.”

“What do you mean?” Sterling’s Mom asks, that’s when she caught a scent. Mrs. Wolfe takes a nice deep breath and afterward, Trinity doesn’t have to answer her. “Your human scent, you’re losing it already. What changes have already taken affect?”

Trinity pulls her hood tighter around her and she steps back, as if she’d known. I haven’t been paying attention to her scent. I’ve been around Sterling and I know the scent of the Lycanthrope pack, maybe I’ve grown used to it. It was all around them at the Wolfe home and now it begun to stick to Ity. In her hair and jacket that human fragrance I’d always been attracted to, was steadily being taken over by another smell. A smell that was no longer human.

Trinity sighs, “It’s already healed.”

Sterling, and I are unable to keep the surprise from our expressions. I reach up and grab a hold her shoulder determined to pull her jacket down to reveal the same puncture wounds that used to be in my side, pouring out blood and struggling to heal for the next several days. But once my hand touches her shoulder, Ity pulls sharply back.

“You don’t need to look,” she says. “It is healed.”

My hand returns to my side as the rest of me floods with the sheepish embarrassment from again being too aggressive.

“I did it again.” I swallow, my face flushing with heat. “I’m sorry. I meant … it took me three days before mine healed. I don’t understand that for you, it took an hour.”

“It might have something to do with the moon phase,” Mrs. Wolfe admits.

I can feel what she meant, the moon, brimming just below the horizon. I don’t know how I know this, but it was easy to tell. As if it buzzed deep inside my bones. Briefly I wonder what that means for me. In hours, I could be in more pain and even worse, Trinity could be as well.

“The moon … What faze is the moon in?” Trinity asks

“First Quarter,” We all answer in unison. Ity’s eyes dart between us.

“I know you’re tough and brave, Sweetie. But in order to find out what’s going on, I need to see it.” Mrs. Wolfe says gently, as if talking to a frightened animal. Her words calm me, much more effectively this time than she did early today. I look at Ity, expecting her to comply whole heartedly, but her expression is not at all what I expect.

Beneath the low brim of her hood her green eyes spark with a flicker of fire. Her eyebrows knit tightly together, her jaw tight, and a deep frown on her pinked lips. The makeup she had on earlier had worn off but her natural beauty out shines her painted version.

Several moments pass, then a deep breath rolls from her throat, not a growl of defiance like I’d heard before, but one of reluctance.

“Yes ma’am.” She agrees.

It’s that moment I realize I love her voice. Her tone is more beautiful than I had imagined. Not high and soprano but right in between.

Mrs. Wolfe lead the way through the oversized sliding barn doors into the living room that sits adjacent to the dinning area, which had been cleaned from previous rambunctious meals. Then we went through the swinging door into the quiet country kitchen. The back utility room door is propped open as usual. A cold arctic breeze fills the kitchen but none of us shutter.

Ity sits exactly where instructed and pull off one side of her jacket, revealing the flowery blouse she’d been wearing which was no longer lovely but crimson colored petals and deep holes.

Mrs. Wolfe brought scissors and cut across the fabric revealing Ity’s shoulder. Beneath the blood, which the veterinarian carefully cleans with a small alcohol swab, was smooth and untouched porcelain skin. Perfectly healed.

“See.” Ity says triumphantly. “As if it never happened.”

“She said his bite was strange.” Sterling chimes in, one English Sausage rolled in soft crumbly pastry in each hand. “She even wanted me to bite her so she could compare.”

Mrs. Wolfe seemed amused by this.

“Well, young lady you are sure full of surprises.” She laughs. “Did you think that would make you sound brave?”

“Perhaps you’d be proud to know your son didn’t do it.” Ity says.

Mrs. Wolfe sat a bit taller, “Actually I am. Had it been Rory he’d have bit you a few times just because.” She takes a flashlight and went into full check up mode. “But how do you feel now?”

The flashlight surprises Ity, and she shrinks away. “Other than thoroughly irritated?”

“Any overwhelming urge to kill, mame, or otherwise cause harm to someone?”

A chill ran across my spine as a new look crosses Ity’s face. One of her eyebrows raised, and a half smirk touches her lips. She looks genuinely amused.

“I guess that was a silly question,” Mrs. Wolfe corrected. “Are you in any pain? Levi’s first night after healing, there was a lot of pain.”

“No, no pain. I have a question though.” Ity sits back, folding her arms across her body. “How is it an entire rival wolf pack entered this town and no one noticed?”

Mrs. Wolfe opens her mouth and then closes it again.

No one had an answer for that, so Ity continued to fill the silence with her own voice.

“I understood one Omega hiding right under your noses, but the rest of the pack sneaks up on you. Has that ever happened before?”

“To be fair we had our eyes on something else.” Mrs. Wolfe tilts her head toward Levi, who gave a weak but agreeing toothy grin.

“True,” Ity agreed then she turned to me. “That actually answers that questions.

“What question?” I ask.

“The ‘Why you’ question.” She says.

Everyone exchanged confused glances.

“You were the only mortal close enough to become a distraction.” She says and I suspect she’s right. Rory doesn’t have any human friends and as I thought about his interaction with those people I knew, he wouldn’t be loyal to any of them. I had been a part of the Wolfe family and in their home many times before. If another wolf was going off of scent, he would have noticed I had the pack smell on me 70 percent of the time.

The rest of the group in the kitchen seemed to understand this as well. Each head bobbed up and down as their eyes scanned the floor.

“That might explain Levi, so why you?” Sterling interjects sending the same question back at Ity. “Did he really attack you because we were following you?”

Ity shakes her head while scratching her healed shoulder, “No. Contrary to what I said before, He was surprised when you sprang out of the woods. He had no idea you were following.”

I tried to process this. If their intention wasn’t to draw the packs attention, then … “The bite was the intention. They picked you because of me, and when the Wolfe family showed up they had to reveal themselves all for the purpose of getting the bite.”

To Levi’s surprise, Ity nods easily. Agreeing with his conclusion.

“I am so sorry.” I say.

“You keep saying that,” she sighs sitting back in her chair. She pulls her red hood tightly around her.

“Sterling close the door, Ity seems cold.” At his mother’s request Sterling runs through the laundry room and pulls the door closed. For the first time since I’d been to their home, I heard the door click shut.

“How did this bite change you, a human into a hybrid dog-boy?” Ity asks.

“Werewolf.” Sterling and I correct her and then the smell in the air changed. Each hair on my arms prickle upward and my stomach knots inside.

Mrs. Wolfe abruptly pushes out of her chair,

“Your fathers here,” she whispers.

There’s no phone, no message or anything that would have given her that knowledge but with a brief breath I know it too. The smell was impossible to describe but with it a picture forms in my mind. Three more wolves appear as a colorless image, their size and form crisp and clear. One bleeding from an injury toward his back leg, making the sound of his steps uneven.

“Take Ity and Levi to the basement,” Mrs. Wolfe continues. “I’ll talk with him before he meets you.”

Mrs. Wolfe rushes us out of the kitchen, down the hallway, into the far bedroom.

Ity follows. Her mannerisms calm and collected, as if none of this frightens her. I am. I’m confused and frightened out of my mind and I am not going to bother hiding it. Plus, my honesty has always been part of my charm… at least that’s what I choose to believe.

CHAPTER END