Navy Wolf

Chapter 12

Embrace danger like a wolf faces the storm, with resilience and untamed spirit.

☾

The next morning I woke up early, but stayed in my bed for an hour more. Grandma and the boys couldn't have been awake and I didn't want to stroll around their property as if I owned the place. Another sixty minutes of sweet sleep would not hurt so I tossed to the other side.

It had been a slightly crazy past week, since I had stranded here. Living with a family I had never met before and in a house full of grown young men - any other girl would have been scared at that thought - but I wasn't. I mean, not any more.

I felt safe.

You were lucky that Kaven was with you.

Grandma was right. Her words gained an even more special meaning as they passed through my mind once again.

Kaven. If he hadn't been there, I would have been dead.

Which basically meant, he was the wolf that protected me when I had my first encounter with this monster dog at the beach on my first night here in Parksville.

He had shape-shifted back into his human form, before he showing himself to me. And that guilty expression on his face, when he had found out, that I had seen, what had happened behind the car, proved that he didn't want me to know.

I don't know why he didn't want me to know that he was a shapeshifter, but I hoped, it wasn't because of an assumption on his behalf, thinking that I couldn't keep secrets and therefore being an unreliable person.

That thought made me press my face into the pillow.

Deciding not to entertain that type of idea, I got up to change, when I heard the front door unlocking downstairs.

Muffled murmuring sounds echoed through the house, followed by clattering cutlery, which became the hint for me that they were preparing breakfast.

I jumped up and took the steps to the first floor in my borrowed shorts and a t-shirt. I could see the boys standing in the kitchen, whispering. Kavens back was facing me and none of them had noticed, that I was close by.

„She had the right to know!," I heard Kaven hiss as silently as he could, talking to his brother Anakin, who was standing in his shadow, despite the fact being almost as tall as him.

„She wasn't going to stay here forever! You risked our lives by revealing our secret!," Anakin spitted, also trying to control his voice.

Since they were using the pronoun ‚she', and apparently weren't talking about grandma - which I was sure of, because of the word ‚secret', I felt some type of discomfort, realizing they were indeed talking about me.

„We don't know how long she's going to stay! She's already being targeted by them, it'll be safer for us as well, to let her in on this."

Kaven turned away from his brother to cut the bread in his hands, so I decided to enter the kitchen to make it seem like I had just arrived.

„Good morning," I chirped, with an hopefully convincing smile on my lips.

They all turned around. Their faces a work of art portraying the testimony of seeing a ghost.

„River," Kaven blurted, raising his eyebrows at me. „Go-...Good morning."

The rest repeated his words in chorus and went back to breakfast preparation. Almost avoiding me.