Lily
Her hand ached with tension as she tugged the zip downwards. Cold air stung her face as she peered through the gap, her heart stilling in her chest as she looked up at her father.
“Dad?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, the words strained through a throat that suddenly felt too tight.
His familiar face was a punch to the gut. He smiled down at her, crouching slowly, as if approaching a wild animal. Letting out a long, relieved breath, he extended a hand towards her. “I didn’t dare hope that I’d find you so easily.”
Stepping into the cool night, Lily allowed her dad to heave her up. Fear churned at the knowledge that she’d been so easy to track, but she forced it aside, allowing an uneasy joy to fill her instead. This was wrong, she screamed internally, but something about his presence made her forget all the unpleasantness of the pack she’d left.
His eyes searched hers, and hers searched his in return. They stood in silence for a moment, the only sound between them the steady intake of breath.
A sob rose in Lily’s throat, her shredded heart thumping hard in her chest. There was so much between them – so many unspoken words, so many broken vows, so much anger and regret and a host of scarred dreams.
“I’m sorry,” she managed eventually, the words wet with unshed tears. “I’m sorry I left.”
His brow furrowed. “Why did you leave me, Lils?”
Gulping in a breath, she said, “Because I thought it was the right thing to do.” Steeling herself, she added, “I still do.”
He laughed, though the sound was dry and humourless. “I don’t see what could have ever made you think that.”
She frowned, trying to pick out more of his face, his expression, in the darkness. “I know I didn’t say much in my note, but I thought Att – that he – would have told you by now.” She choked on his name, unable to speak it. “I thought that, even had he not noticed, the words I left you with would have been enough. Or – or Rose would have explained, after I was gone.” She sniffled. “How – how did you get away?”
Unable to help herself, Lily took a half-step backwards. Her boot knocked a tent peg, and panic flared. The woods were wild, untamed, full of thorns and thickets to get lost in. And this… this didn’t feel right.
But her dad’s voice was gentle, soothing. “Rose thought you’d said more in your note. To be frank, I didn’t wait around to hear more. I had to find you. I had to. So I just… left.”
“And what of him?” Lily paused, snorting. “I doubt he has even noticed my absence.”
“I do not know,” he said, just as softly as before. “I left as soon as I could.”
But there was something in his eyes, Lily thought – something that was different, unsettling. Her own gaze sharpening, she roved his face for clues as to why this felt so unnatural. She found nothing.
Resolve sagging, she moved closer to her father. He smiled, holding a hand out towards her. She reached for it, skin prickling, when it struck her.
“Say his name,” she said suddenly, holding her palm inches above his.
His face distorted into a grin. “What?”
“Say it. Who’s our – your – Alpha, dad?”
He froze, and then, a second too late, raised a collected eyebrow. “Alpha Att.”
“That’s not his whole name.” Drawing her hand away, realisation snapped into place. Bowstrings were not the only creatures Rose had warned her about, and many of them were far smarter than that which she’d already faced.
The blade wouldn’t work – not if this was what she thought it was. Such creatures could only be killed by trickery, not steel. And there was only one way to remove a glamour, if the eleve had already cast one upon her. She was sure it had. How else would her father be appearing before her, when he was undoubtedly sequestered at home, alone, in their cabin?
If there was one thing Lily was sure of, it was that her dad was a coward. He may fight in the pack’s battles, but he would never fight for himself, for what he truly wanted. And he would certainly not fight for her.
Stumbling backwards, she turned in a tight circle. The only way to dispel a glamour was to spin three times. If this truly were her father, he would only laugh, and perhaps feel a tug of pride that his only daughter was doing her best to protect herself.
He did not laugh.
He snarled. His hands bent unnaturally as he grabbed her, yanking her shoulders to him. Holding her still, he growled, spittle flicking her ear and cheek. Unable to wipe it off, Lily shuddered.
“I tried,” the eleve shrugged. “I thought I was doing rather well, too, all things considered.”
Lily’s top lip pulled back, baring her teeth. “I didn’t. Show me your true form.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” the eleve teased. “I had you going for a minute there. And, as you well know, it seems, the only way to break the glamour is to spin. Unfortunately for you, I am certainly not going to allow you to do that.”
“Duel me. Not with swords – with words,” Lily offered. “A riddle for my freedom.”
The only way to kill an eleve was with trickery. In her father’s stolen form, he was stronger than her. Unless she could get him to reveal his own body – one which was hopefully frail and infirm – Lily had little chance of breaking free of his hold.
“You have piqued my interest,” it said, lightly, mockingly. “I think I should like to keep you around for a while longer yet, Lily.”
“Get out of my head,” she growled.
“But there is so much in here – all of it so delicious, too,” the eleve purred. “Heartbreak and loss are a bitter cocktail, but in you they are so sweetly packaged.”
“You’re vile.”
“Indeed,” it smiled. Gripping her impossibly tighter, it began to shove her away from the tent.
Trying desperately to remember years of training, Lily flung her body up and then down, digging her ankle around the eleve’s calf, working to throw it off balance. It merely chuckled.
“I shall tire of you soon,” it warned, in a friendly tone that did not match it’s words. Ignoring it, Lily writhed in it’s grip, her palm aching to find the blade’s hilt. Panic choked her as she realised how utterly stuck she was, how entirely incapable of freeing herself. Her fear was a living thing, snaking around her guts and filling her throat. Dry lips parted on an empty scream.
Fear that was not her own pounded through her veins, running alongside the terror that shone in her blood. It echoed her panic, shadowing it with anger that she did not recognise. And, in that moment, the on-going ache in her heart seemed to dull, if only for the briefest of seconds. Lily scarcely noticed it, terrified as she was, but it gave her muddled brain pause, even as she kicked and clawed at the eleve.
It sighed, hoisting her into a new position. Tucked tightly against it’s side, Lily was unable to move, save for the dragging of her feet along the mossy ground. Her toes ripped apart vines of death’s ivy, their white flowers stark against the carpet of shadowed night that clothed the woodland floor. Tears stung the back of her nose. She’d bested a bowstring, and her pride at that feat – such an easy feat – had made her gullible.
A renewed sense of vigour struck her, and she spat with all the might she could muster at the eleve. It merely sighed again, as if disappointed but not at all surprised.
“I told you this would happen,” it said, and then, with a gentle touch to her forehead, everything dissolved into darkness.