Lily
The bark was rough against Lily’s back. She drew comfort from it, from that subtle brush of pain. It reminded her that she was alive, that she had survived. She had made it out of the cell in Red Ripper.
Dropping her head into her hands, she let out a ragged sigh. Writing a letter for Elijah had filled her with nerves, the kind that felt more like snakes writhing in a dark pit than friendly butterflies flapping their wings in her stomach. He’d seen Atticus take her, but… She was more worried about him that what he thought of her.
There was something else, though – something Lily didn’t want to admit, even to herself. Writing to Elijah had suffocated her with guilt. Last night, she’d felt something for Atticus. Not in the same way that she did Elijah, nowhere near, but when he’d called her beautiful… She’d felt it. It was the way his eyes, limned from within like sunlight streaming through summer leaves, had burned into her.
Then she’d broken her own rule, and she’d shuffled further into the bed to sleep. Every centimetre had felt like a betrayal.
And she’d been a fool for it, too. Not four hours later Atticus’s temper had got the better of him again. The back of her neck prickled as she remembered the scorn in his eyes as he’d used that horrible nickname again: “Alpha Idiot.” He was an arrogant brat, and Lily could feel a blush rising in her cheeks, caught between anger and embarrassment as she stewed over Alpha Atticus.
The thunder of footfall growled through the earth. Her head shot up; the blood drained from her cheeks. Were they under attack? Nobody had struck last night; most packs had been decimated by Red Ripper by now, and those that hadn’t couldn’t afford to lose wolves with such a great enemy nipping at their heels.
Lily stood on shaking legs. If it were the Red Ripper pack, she’d stand and fight. She wouldn’t hide from them. And if they’d hurt Elijah, then she’d burn every last one of them.
Her breath snagged in her chest. Her heart filled her throat.
It wasn’t the Red Ripper pack.
It was Blood Moon.
* * *
“Lily?” Her dad’s voice rang out, sharp and clear and filled with raw emotion. “Is it really you?”
She ran to him. He enveloped her in his arms; she sucked in breath after breath, her eyes stinging with tears. “Dad?”
“Oh, Lils,” he breathed, grabbing her shoulders and pushing her back, his eyes roving every inch of her. “Your face… You’re hurt.”
She tried to shake off his concern. “I’m fine. I’ve been here for the last month.” Her lips twitched into a grin, even as tears rolled, hot, wet, down her sallow cheeks. “You’re late, you know.” He laughed; the sound undid something in Lily. She clutched him close again, pressing her face into his broad, familiar chest. He was home. He was safe. “I thought…”
“I know,” he murmured, patting her back. “But I’m here, and you’re here.” He drew back again slightly, fixing her in his gaze, with eyes so alike her own. Brown flecked with gold. It was a relief to see him – really him – looking back at her out of them, rather than seeing Efaffion’s glamour masking his ruby eyes. “I’m never letting you go again, you hear me? I’m not losing you, Lily.”
Lily bit her lip. She wouldn’t ruin their reunion by saying she had every intention of returning to Elijah, to the Sea Pine pack, at the first chance she got. “Yeah,” she mumbled, ducking her head to hide the lie surely blatant in her eyes.
“Lily!” Rose’s shriek cut through the knot already re-tying itself in her chest. Her dad squeezed her one last time before letting her go.
“Happy Mabben,” he said, scrubbing away his tears before any of the other members of the pack rapidly surrounding them could see. They may have been apart for months, but this was still Blood Moon. Crying was never acceptance. “Go see everyone. We’ll have dinner together – a roast? With lots of wine.”
Lily’s heart twisted. “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Yeah. I’d like that.” She took his hand and squeezed, as he had, before she turned to search out Rose amongst the surging crowd.
Her afro was longer, the tight curls unruly, but she’d tucked flowers into her hair and, somehow, despite having spent over two straight months of travelling across the breadth of Eldda, Lily thought that Rose still looked better than she did. Her dark eyes gleamed, and the prolonged exposure to skin had darkened her brown skin further. She was lean, her muscles thinner and ropier from walking and running rather than training and fighting, and her jaw was sharp enough to cut anyone who wronged her.
“Rose,” she choked out, her throat too tight. “Rose!”
Suddenly, it didn’t matter that they’d grown apart after her mother’s death. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that they hadn’t spoken in months. Lily ran to Rose like they’d never been parted, and though their bodies were both thinner, their bones more prominent, it felt like nothing had ever changed between them. She felt the brush of textured hair against her cheek –
Then Rose pulled back and smacked her. “What in the stars were you thinking, Lils!”
“Hey!” Lily clutched her face, the sting of the smack sharp enough to make tears glitter in her eyes. “What was that for?”
“For leaving.”
“You understood!”
“Yeah – before you left!” Rose’s chest heaved, but then she grinned brightly. “I missed you.”
Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “I missed you, too – before you hit me, anyway.”
“You’ll get over it.”
A shocked laugh burst from her. “Yeah. Yeah, I will.”
Rose tugged at the citrine fabric in Lily’s hair. “You can’t polish a shit, but I’m glad you’re trying.”
Lily slapped her hand away, her eyes narrowing though her smile widened into a grin. “You have a funny way of showing that you missed me.”
Rose looped her arm through Lily’s, towing her beneath the auburn trees before anyone else could steal her attention. Even though Rose was a typical Blood Moon wolf, her emotions masked by callous jokes and biting remarks, Lily felt more human than she had in months. At least since that morning, when Atticus had called her beautiful… She gulped.
“Come on.” Rose gave her a yank; Lily stumbled. “You’ve got a lot to fill me in on. Where did you go? What happened to you?”
“I went into the woods,” Lily began, her thighs aching as she kept pace with Rose, “and I was caught by an eleve…”
* * *
“So, what’s going on with you and Alpha Atticus now? I know he wants you back, you don’t have to tell me that twice – he said we were marching across all of bloody Eldda to reclaim our pack’s honour and to get food and blah blah blah, but we all knew it was about getting you back. So? You’ve been here with him, alone, for a month…” Rose trailed off, the insinuation clear in her tone even before she started waggling her eyebrows.
They sat at one of the picnic benches in the gardens. Overhead, citrine bunting flapped in the light autumn breeze. Rose had scrounged up two glasses of sweet cider – Lily had no idea where or how; though there were usually copious drinks at moon festivals, Blood Moon was still shorter on supplies than normal – and she took a great gulp of it before answering.
“I – I’m not sure.” Lily wrung her hands together. “He seems… Different, now. Not entirely changed, obviously, but different.”
“That’s it? You haven’t–”
“No!” Lily’s face flushed. “I still – I mean, I wrote Elijah a letter today. He’s my mate, Rose.”
Her face fell. “Oh… But, if you and Alpha Atticus, you know – then you could stay here. You wouldn’t leave again.”
Lily stilled. “But I don’t love him,” she murmured, her gaze fixed on the grass.
“Could you?”
“I… I don’t know. He rejected me. I think I could have, before. I felt like I did, when I followed the pull of the mate bond and found him. It made sense to me. But now? Now, when I think about it, it doesn’t. So… No. No, I don’t think I could ever love him.”
There was a rustle in the long, swaying grass behind them. Lily twisted at the waist, her eyes locking on a blur of honey brown hair and tanned skin.
Atticus had been listening.