“Our ancestors would be ashamed of us if we ran away from a fight when it came to us.” I scanned the faces of my pack. Many disagreed but fewer than I had expected. More agreed with me than I had dared hope.
But was it enough? I wasn’t sure. Too many weren’t looking at me. They were still looking past me.
“All right. I can see that many of you are finding it impossible to focus on the true problem facing us. So let’s have it out. Shall we? Get to the yelling and screaming about Sylvie still being here.”
I gestured, giving up the floor to the entire pack. Silence reigned for five seconds, and then it exploded into a dozen or more voices at the same time. I let it go on, and on, until one familiar voice began to exert some semblance of control.
“Go ahead, Noel,” I said, gesturing. “Speak.”
“We have distanced ourselves from her bloodline on purpose!” he shouted.
“Indeed we have,” I agreed, nodding. “Aftergenerations of working alongside them. And look where it’s gotten us. Has anyone besides me made the correlation that since her grandmother died, the last of her bloodline to be close with us years ago, since then things have grownworse
? Or did you all miss that the Chained has grown stronger since then? I can’t be the only one who can do that math.”
I waited.
Elder Jackson spoke into the void that followed my outburst. “It has grown stronger sinceshe came back. Its power has grown the closer she gets to it. Willing or not, she is tied to the Chained in some way.
That is why we chose to sever ties with her bloodline. It is why we …you … must move away from her. Your plan to grow close to her and discover the truth has failed, Lincoln Silkweaver. Either she has seduced you and you are too stupid to see it, or the Chained has the power to hide its actions. Even from you.”
I could curse the old man.
“Plan?” Sylvie whispered from behind me, speaking for the first time. “What plan?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said with a curt shake of my head, simultaneously glaring daggers at Rome’s grandfather.
I hadn’t planned for that, for the mention of the plan. I should have. But I hadn’t, and now it was going to bite me in the ass.
“We must be rid of her,” Noel said, interrupting my train of thought.
I took a step in his direction, snarling furiously. “She is under my protection.” I swept my gaze over the entire pack, not just Noel. “Is. That. Clear?”
Silence greeted me.
Noel shook his head sadly, not backing down. I had insulted him too much. He had nothing to lose anymore.
“What is clear,” he said, speaking to everyone, “is where your loyalties lie. You will bring us to ruin.”
“No,” I said coldly, “I am simply no longer afraid, Noel. Like you, I do not want to live in a time where the Chained is able to do such things. But neither did our ancestors. They did not run from the darkness when he first walked this earth. They rantoward it.”
I swung my gaze from him, up to through the rows of seats, addressing my entire pack as I spoke now. “For too long, we have ignored the slow growing power of the Chained. The darkness at the heart of the forest has grown stronger, but we ignored it. Instead of fighting back, we simply said that we no longer will cross the river. We gave it territory, gave it room to grow stronger. You’re uneasy, yes.
Iam uneasy too. And that is okay! But what we must not be isafraid. We must not shy away from the duty given to us. I will not run. In fact, I intend to lead another expedition. Back to the heart. To stop it this time.”
Shocked silence followed.
“You would goback
?” Noel asked, aghast at the notion. “It nearly killed you the first time!”
I smiled. “So that’s support for this idea from you then?”
Noel bristled at the notion of cowardice, that he hoped the Chained would take me out. But everyone knew it to be true.
“I am going back,” I told the vast majority of y pack, “because I thinkit’s scared.”
“Scared?” Elder Germander asked. “Why? How?”
“Because,” I said, stepping to the side and pointing at Sylvie. “it’s tried to kill her more than once now. It fears her, and it’s past time we find outwhy.”
Sylvie
“Sylvie!”
I ignored the shout, walking on. I didn’t run. I just kept walking. Away from the meeting area. Away from the hate.
Away from him.
“Sylvie, wait!”
I didn’t. If he wanted to, he could catch me, so why should I slow for him? My car was in sight. I could get in it and leave. Just go home.
Only if you ignore the storm and how it wants to kill you.
How that was any different than staying, I wasn’t so sure.
“Sylvie, please stop.”
He was right behind me now. A second later, he was in front of me. Blocking my path. I stepped around him and kept going. I’d gotten three more steps before Lincoln appeared back in front of me. He grabbed my shoulders, stopping me.
“Please-“
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, shaking his hands free of me. “I want no part of your plan.”
“You don’t understand,” he growled, twisting to keep facing me as I moved around him once more.
I stopped, facing him. “You’re right, I don’t!” I shouted in his face. “Because nobody will tell me a damn thing, including you. I thought you were, but it was just lies. You didn’t even have the decency to tell me that you were using me to get closer to me. You had a plan to take me to bed because somehowthat would prove whether I was evil or not to some senior citizen wolf who probably can’t even see me!”
Lincoln’s mouth opened, but I didn’t let him get a word in. Not yet. He could damn well wait.
“And to think,” I said quietly, the anger fading, replaced by cold disdain, “I was starting to care for you. To think that maybe, somehow, there was something between us.”
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