The Wolves and the Vipers

Chapter 21 - Safe and Sound

Kara was pressed up against me as we trotted across through half a mile of rough terrain. She had Tyler on her other side, so when she stumbled — which happened very often with Kara — she would just knock into one of us. I suspected Tyler's motives had less to do with helping her and more to do with making sure she didn't run off again.

Bradley was the one leading us, and he seemed very confident about where he was going. Not once did he pause or change direction. And when the silhouette of a house loomed out of the darkness ahead of us, I felt a strange coldness come over me. My shoulder started throbbing — at first, it was a dull ache, but it got sharper whenever I put weight on it.

When we got to the entranceway to the house, it was Ashley who slunk to the front of the group. He disappeared behind a low wall to shift. I saw a lot of bare skin before he started pulling clothes out of a plastic bin and putting them on. The others were milling around me — restless and watchful. They had their eyes fixed firmly on the forest, except for Tyler, who was still watching Kara like a hawk.

I moved my weight from foot to foot. The pain in my shoulder was starting to overwhelm me. Soon, there would come a moment when I would have to look at how much damage he had done, and I was not looking forward to that.

Ashley had picked up a garden gnome from the steps and was now reaching inside it. I watched him with my forehead furrowed, hoping sincerely that he wasn't losing his mind. But when he pulled his hand out again, he was holding a key. He used it to unlock the door of the house.

The moment it swung open, I was ushered into the hallway. Ashley stood and waited for all of the wolves to be safely inside before locking the door behind us. Away from the wind and rain, it felt very quiet, all of a sudden.

And then I spotted the middle-aged man at the top of the stairs. He was wearing nothing but pyjamas and brandishing a baseball bat with terrifying ferocity. I understood why. From his perspective, a bunch of wolves had just broken into his house. We could have been rogues. Ferals, even.

"Whoa! Put it down," Ashley said quickly. "It's just us."

The man lowered the bat, looking a little bit sheepish.

"Sorry," he said.

A woman of about the same age appeared at his shoulder. She was wearing a very old-fashioned nightgown and regarding the lot of us with a very dismayed look on her face. "Ashley? You gave us such a fright! It is four in the morning — what on earth are you doing here?"

Ashley shrugged helplessly at her. He reached over and flicked the light-switch, leaving us all blinking. The décor reminded me a lot of my grandparents' house — all flowers and strangely muted colours.

Bradley nudged past me. Like Ashley, he had shifted. He was wearing a pair of joggers from the bin outside and absolutely nothing else. "Sorry, Mrs Morgan. We're going to have to commandeer the house for an hour or so."

"Oh, Goddess! Must you?" she asked shortly. "I've just had the carpets steam-cleaned."

A muscle writhed in Bradley's jaw, but that was all.

"Let them stay, Ella, for goodness' sake," the man muttered. "The carpets be damned."

"We will be staying whether we have your permission or not," Bradley warned her. He nodded very deliberately at me. "That is your Luna. She'll need clothes and first-aid."

It wasn't just the middle-aged couple who turned to look at me. It was all of the wolves in the hallway, too, and I was starting to feel a bit self-conscious. No doubt a lot of these fighters were wondering what their Luna had been doing in the woods in the first place.