Poisoned With Love

2.

I remember the first time I ran through the running sprinklers in the courtyard of the city museum. Seems like only yesterday I was caught kissing my prom date in my dad's office or destroying my mom's stinky flowers on the first hour of driving our family car. They are memories of moments lost among the dozens of hours in the backseat of the car crisscrossing the country, after a full morning erasing any trace of our presence in the city. Officially, I was the daughter of a writer of historical novels and a veterinarian who devoted most of her time to house calls. Unofficially, though, I was always the young girl who only saw her parents at breakfast whenever they had to break the news that we were moving again.

I was never the problem child of the family, but when my brother got his first silver knife on his 10th birthday, I knew that problems were defined differently in our little home overlooking the woods. I learned of the family history too late, at 16, when I was already the only one left alive to carry on my parents' name. I don't know what made me prematurely cut short my walk on the banks of the Ness on the evening I was to see my parents for the last time. What is certain is that I arrived home long before dark, only to witness carnage on the front porch of the house. 

It's been hard for years to remember what happened that night. But every night I relived my brother's screams, my grandfather's lost gaze slumped on the kitchen floor, or my parents' bloodied bodies lying in the doorway, pushed together in a desire to die next to each other. I could always remember my grandmother's desperate gesture of pushing me to the edge of the forest as she fought the last battle of her life with those who had killed her family. But above all, I could always see the look in his eyes, the silver wolf who had witnessed the gruesome scene, and who would become the love of my life years later.

I woke up that morning with the same memory of the black eyes, hidden behind the blood-stained fur of my family. I would have gotten up instantly, perhaps because of the noise from downstairs or the familiar room that had gradually triggered my instinct to run. But the headache, now unbearable, did not allow me to do anything more. On the contrary, it made me quickly regret having opened my eyes. I sighed, gradually realising that I was living the same nightmare that had dominated my nights, only now it had come true.

Marry me!

Those were the last words I heard in that room. And the bedroom was somehow unchanged, except for the window through which I had escaped years before, now replaced, or my things, once strewn everywhere. Everything was gone or deliberately hidden in the drawers of the furniture, the door was back in its place, and the blood that had once covered the floor had gradually become a memory of a distant past. The books left on the floor, the photographs on the bedside table or the half-destroyed alarm clock gave me the impression that I had never left.

"Finally, Katie. You're in a house full of werewolves. If you don't hurry, they'll have you for breakfast!"

I knew from the first sight of the room that I would soon hear a familiar voice, ready to confirm that I was in the manor house in the middle of the forest, dozens of miles from Stirling. But I could never have imagined that I would hear her voice. The figure much taller than me now standing impatiently in the doorway was a reminder of a family I knew long lost. Like Mason, her entire appearance had changed, and only her red hair, now caught in a braided ponytail atop her head, or her dyed clothes gave away the restless 17-year-old girl she had once been.

"You are alive."

I opened my eyes wide, staring at her and trying to regain the state of lucidity I'd perhaps had before I'd gotten hit in the middle of the night on the bridge in town. The last time I had seen Ailean, I was running barefoot in the courtyard behind the mansion. I met her gaze for the last time, as the same frail arms that had now surely finished a new canvas in the upstairs room, held the blood-spattered body of the man who had been her soulmate since birth. I would never have believed he had survived that loss or the struggle that followed.

"It takes more than an angry werewolf's pack to take me out of the picture. Now, upstairs! Everyone's waiting for you."

But the shock of seeing her again wore off in mere seconds, as the prospect of breakfast at the massive table downstairs inevitably turned my stomach. The headache persisted, but the thought that I was in the same building as those who had murdered my family and hunted me for two years had convinced me that I had failed. I wasn't naive enough to believe that I could escape again through the window that lit the entire room and looked out into the woods beyond. But I would have given anything to be as far away from the pack downstairs as possible. I got up out of the same need to survive, then instinctively brought my hand to the unbearable pain in the back of my neck.

"Mason's gone hunting, so you can get back at him later. Come on!"

Without anticipating, the young woman had the last word. A few minutes later, I was already stepping into the hallway that separated the bedroom door from the wing leading to the kitchen by only a few meters. My body ached in every joint, my blurry eyes still trying to realize where I was, and my mind already replaying every scenario. I could have easily made it to the front door, but it was miles between Kirigan Manor and the first village, miles between any chance of reaching the town. I was dressed in the same black trousers and T-shirt I'd left my old flat in Stirling in, but my phone was gone, as was the silver knife my mind had fled to at the mere sight of the young woman. Perhaps it had been hours since the meeting on the bridge and that sudden awakening to reality. And yet, I was still alive, stepping now on the floor of the mansion from which I had fled for the past two years.

The building stood out at the end of the stone road that separated the property from the only access to civilization. It had been built centuries ago and still had that ominous air, designed to keep strangers at a distance. But inside, the white-painted brick walls, the photographs on the walls, the carefully chosen wood and the tall glass windows gave the feeling of a home you would never leave. I fell in love from the first step inside and nothing seemed to have changed now, three years later.

"Jake!"

Ailean's voice suddenly pulled me out of a dream deliberately triggered by the knock behind my head, too late to realize that we were already at the threshold of the kitchen door. The room was vaguely reminiscent of the kitchen where I had cooked and eaten lunch for a year, a sign that it had fallen victim to the fighting that was barely visible in the hallways downstairs. The five strangers now sharing a solid wooden table in its midst were the same result of the event that had kept me away from the first-story mansion in the woods of Scotland. I recognised only one of them, now left with a slice of toast in his mouth at the edge of the table, visibly disturbed by our arrival or at least by Ailean's glares.

"I've always hated toast, I think he remembered."

I couldn't help but respond with a warm smile, just to lessen the impact of my arrival. Jake had been the only person with whom I had one thing in common, and that was the human nature that made us question our safety every full moon night. But he'd grown up in a nearby village and had gradually become the man Mason would never part with for a second. The fact that he was alive triggered an unbearable desire to hold him in my arms. Perhaps I would have done it if there weren't four other young men around him now glaring at me, a sign that I was unwelcome and had unduly delayed their breakfast. I avoided looking at them even as Ailean pushed me impatiently into the chair next to Jake and pressed my shoulders, forcing me to sit down.

"Just as much as we all have always hated traitors."

I didn't have to look away as the heels that almost pierced the floor and the reaction of all the others who now turned their attention to the door suggestively announced her entrance. I saw instead my silver knife thrown suddenly in the middle of the table, now with a bloody blade that had knocked down two glass tumblers in its path. I had met her only once before, leaning against my father's car, watching in front of the house as its pack wiped out an entire family. I watched her admiring the whole scene as a personal achievement she would boast of for years to come, while I ran for my life on the opposite side. I heard her voice again urging her pack to kill on the last day I spent in this house, which she now owned and ran. She was the nightmare of my nights and the one who, two years before, had killed the only person I had ever loved.