Lily
Lily’s hands shook in Morvand’s too-hot grasp. “I’ll come with you,” she said again, eyeing her father.
He screamed behind the hand that covered his mouth. Hot tears left streaks down his cheeks in the wake of the dirt that plastered his skin. The moonlight made him pale, waxy, and made his familiar brown eyes gleam where the light caught his as yet unshed tears.
Lily’s heart broke at the sight of him. This was the only way. She tried to communicate that to him, shouting the words in her mind and staring desperately into his eyes. Whether or not he understood she did not know.
The wolf – Affande – circled her, jaws dripping with saliva. Lily repressed the urge to shudder as his Morvand’s warm breath caressed her exposed neck.
“As you wish,” purred the handsome one. He inclined his head, brown hair swishing softly to the side, and Morvand knocked her forwards. Stumbling, Lily realised this might be the last time she stood on home soil. Fingers trembling, she quickly eased the garnet ring from her finger and let it drop to the ground.
She only hoped that someone from Sea Pine would find it, and that Elijah would know what it meant. She had not left of her own free will. She had been taken. It was a slim chance, and it meant losing the only part of her mother she had left, but the hope it afforded her – slim though it was – was enough that she could allow Morvand to steer her away from her home.
Unspent sobs caught in her throat, but Lily held her head high as they began to walk away. Unspent, because they were leaving Sea Pine behind. Unspent, because, for now, it seemed that Elijah and her pack were safe.
Going with Red Ripper was the only option, so she would make it count. No matter the cost, Lily would find a way to keep her father, and her pack, safe.
* * *
It was still dark when Morvand finally released her from his sweaty, long-fingered grip. Other men and women had shifted for the walk, baring their teeth at their prisoners. Lily and her father had been herded in the middle, cloth wrapped over their mouths to keep them from speaking and loosely around their ankles to keep them from running.
Not that they’d have got far. Lily didn’t know how big the Red Ripper pack was, but she had to assume that more than half their number were escorting them to – to wherever they were going. Unlike traditional werewolf packs, they had no territory, no land to call home. She’d kept quiet and listened as she’d trudged along, tripping over her own feet with the short steps she had been forced to take.
Other than learning that the handsome one was really called Apollo, Lily hadn’t picked up any useful information. Lost in the midst of the pine forest, she’d not even been able to pick out any constellations or landmarks to decipher which direction they were heading in. So she’d made herself content to march on, sending glances in her dad’s direction every few metres to make sure that he was okay.
His shoulders were looser than when he’d first seen Lily. And, though there were heavy bags beneath his eyes, they were brighter, sharper, now, than they had been before. The sheen of tears had long since dissipated, which brought Lily abject relief. His pain had been a knife to her heart.
“Keep moving,” grunted Morvand, releasing her. “We’re almost there.”
Lily stumbled forwards. Her legs were still hobbled, her mouth still gagged, but having her hands free felt like a blessing. Cool air drifted across her palms. Tingles ran up her back at the feel of it after hours of being entrapped by Morvand’s too-hot hands.
Her father was being pressed onwards still. Lily reached up to remove the cloth wound around her lips, but Morvand slapped her hand away.
“Don’t think you’re out of the woods yet. You’ve been permitted to live – not to speak.”
Lily’s lip curled beneath the cloth, but she made no effort to retort. Her own eyes felt heavy with exhaustion, and they were itchy along the line of her lashes, but she did her best to ignore the urge to scratch them. Morvand would only think it some sort of deception, of that she was sure.
Already she loathed him. His breath was sticky, and his unnatural body had brushed too close to her back as he’d shoved her through the densely packed forest. At times, Apollo and Morvand had held up their hands, and using a magic Lily had never dreamt of, let alone seen, they had bent the trunks to their will. Turning back, she had witnessed the forest curving back into its original position once they’d made it through the tightest parts of the woodland.
Lead had settled in her stomach. Sea Pine relied on the pine trees as their foremost form of defence. To Red Ripper, that meant nothing. They could remove trees with a wave of their fingers.
What would they be able to do to a werewolf?
“We’re close,” hissed Apollo. The others surrounding them all seemed to hear him, even though Lily struggled to make out his words over the rhythmic beat of their feet against the forest floor. Twigs groaned and snapped beneath their weight, and thorns wrestled with their boot soles.
The group split apart, and Lily at last saw what they’d been walking towards.
A veil of shimmering purple fell upon the evergreens. It moved like the fabric of a skirt following a pair of moving legs, though it hung suspended in the air, stationary, stagnant. Impossible starlight glittered against the navy backdrop of the night, and, if Lily looked close enough, she swore she could see a world that was not there, like a mirrored reflection staring back at her in a calm river.
Lily turned to her father, aghast. This had to be magic, of a kind she had never dreamed. He looked surprisingly unruffled, but the droop in his spine and the pallor of his skin made her think he was so exhausted from his capture that nothing could shock him anymore. She had so much to ask him, so much to apologise for, but with their gags in place all they could use to communicate was their eyes. His were hooded, and she began to wonder if he was truly awake at all. His captor still held him firm; though Lily ached for him, she hoped that Morvand letting her go was a sign, albeit a slim one, of trust.
“Walk straight through,” said Apollo, nearing them with an unusually kind expression. His blue eyes turned purple as they closed in on the strange, otherworldly light. “Come on, darling. It’s not so scary as it looks.”
Lily nodded. Through the fog of her own weariness she had to remember why she was here. To fight them now, in the face of this strange magic, would only harm her cause. This was her chance to learn how they had fought their way across Eldda and, if she played her cards right, Lily might have a chance to influence their next movements.
So much of her situation did not add up, but her mind was hazy and her muscles weak. Rather than questioning where she was, why she had been taken, or how they had captured her father, Lily closed in on the shimmering purple veil and stepped through.
The veil was cool, like fresh rainfall after weeks of blistering summer heat. It roused Lily enough that she could see the thousand refractions glittering around her, a kaleidoscope of worlds and spaces that both did and did not exist. A hundred eyes faced her, woven into the very fabric of the veil, staring intently, as though she held the key to each of their destinies somewhere deep within her.
And then she was through, and the world snapped back into place. They were on a dirt pathway, marked every few metres by a glowing lantern. As Lily looked out across Red Ripper’s territory, she saw it as a thrumming heart, veins stretching out to the network of small wooden buildings that dotted the flat expanse of land. The largest structure of all hung over their heads, a creaking wooden mansion with a wide wraparound porch. Wolves strode freely along the tracks, the slowly rising sun catching their fur and draping gold across their backs.
It was impossible, and yet there it was. They were nowhere, but somewhere. Despite her situation, despite everything, Lily couldn’t help but feel awed.
The others that had accompanied them on the journey dissipated, vying off towards the multitude of other buildings. Some shifted into their wolf forms, others returning to their human-like bodies.
“This way,” grunted Morvand. “You two don’t have the luxury of staying in our pack house.”
That was their pack house? The sheer size of the building to their left made Lily shudder. It bore similarities to Blood Moon’s, with the veranda, but it felt unnatural to see wolves strolling up the steps and nudging doors open with their noses and paws. Everything here seemed to have been accommodated for wolf forms: doors were wider, taller, and there were, as far as Lily could see, no doorknobs or anything small and fiddly that would be difficult to use with paws instead of hands.
“For now,” said Apollo, his face scrunching up in what Lily almost thought was an apology.
They were jostled around a sharp corner that seemed to follow the edge of the pack house. The main pathway circled it, with a myriad of other, smaller, tracks leading away from the centre. Houses littered the landscape surrounding the pack house, and Lily was struck anew by just how large the scope of the Red Ripper pack had become.
They’d taken only two wolves from Sea Pine, but there were over a hundred packs across Eldda. It seemed as though Sea Pine had fared remarkably well, considering the sheer scale of Red Ripper’s magical territory. Feeling overwhelmed, Lily turned her gaze to the path.
Morvand pushed her towards a well-locked wooden building on the right. Below it, a few craggy pine trees grew, hiding anything else from sight. “You’ll be in the cells,” he said, looping his hands around Lily’s wrists again while Apollo deftly unlocked the front door. It, too, shimmered, with the same effervescent quality of the veil.
Lily and her father were forced through the door one after the other. It felt as cold as the veil had; that strange, refreshing chill making her shiver. It stayed with her, as though it had sunk in through her skin and down to her bones.
The cell was dimly lit by a single flaming torch, which cast light up the windows and was reflected back across the stone floor. The sun had not yet reached the height of the high glass panes, but the lack of light did not bother Lily. Her head ached, as did her back, her thighs, her neck; even the hard stone looked like a comfortable enough bed.
Her joints clicked as Morvand forced her further into the room. She stared up at herself in the dark mirror of the window as he undid her bonds: dark eyes shadowed by exhaustion, hair mussed with strands straying down the sides of her face, and abnormally pale skin stark against the velvet night.
Then the Red Ripper wolves left, locking the door behind them and leaving Lily alone with her father for the first time in months.