Unhappily Ever After

Chapter 13 - A Queen's Ransom

At last ... things are kicking off. Say hello to Jace's mother, everybody ;)

There were only three patrol wolves. They smelled our scents and they saw us, massed together in the trees, and they knew they were hopelessly outnumbered. So they ran. The alarm had been raised, but there was no one to oppose us when we stepped across the bone fence and into Lowland territory.

And there we stopped. It would be beyond stupid taking thirty people to the pack house; we would be discovered in a heartbeat. No, I'd be going alone. Deep in that conviction, I turned to face the rogues. And, surprisingly, they gave me their full attention.

"You lot can wait here. Use the tins, make some noise, get their attention, but don't fight if you can help it. I'll be back in half an hour," I said.

That set everyone to muttering. My sister frowned at me, her eyes asking if she could come. I tapped my nose to answer her. Eira couldn't turn off her scent, much to her frustration. She would lead the flockies straight to us.

Tom leaned closer to speak in a terse undertone. "Look here. There's lots of us. Everybody'll be wanting their share of the plunder. Tell me — how could you possibly carry enough shit to pay us all?"

"I won't be carrying anything," I told him simply. There'd be no need. I wasn't looking to steal valuables of the material sort. "But you'll get paid, one way or another."

"At least tell us what the tins are for," Eira snapped.

"Oh, right — sorry. Throw the explosive ones if the flockies get too close. Use the slow burners to heat the popcorn tins. You can scatter them all over the place: they'll stink and they'll make a lot of noise."

"So many diversions," she mused. "Makes me wonder what exactly you're diverting attention from."

I threw her a wink, returned Lee's smile and thumped Mort before beginning my long trek to the pack house. Thanks to my time with Tom the night before, I knew where it was and I knew who lived there. The Alpha would come running out to find the trespassers, leaving his home completely vulnerable to a lone, scentless assailant.

I didn't bother shifting. It wasn't more than two miles and, besides, I'd need my opposable thumbs to get into the building. Every so often, I'd hear the distant sounds of wolves crashing through undergrowth and find a place to wait until they passed. They didn't suspect anything — and why should they? Rogues always left such nice scent trails for them to follow.

The forest here was ancient. The trees were like sentinels, standing tall and far apart and proud. Most were oaks, and some so wide that their trunks had split open. The canopy could have been mistaken for the sky if it weren't for the colour. As I walked through Lowland's forest, I had to wonder what those trees had seen. Kings live and die. Wars fought and won. Civilisations crumble into dust. We must have seemed as insignificant to them as ants: crawling around, fussing, too tiny to bother with. Their only concerns were measured in seasons and climate.

I felt my thoughts spilling out again and slammed my walls back into place. This was happening all too often, and I had no idea why or how to stop it. Something about the mainland — and nature, apparently — was luring my mind from my body.

There was something in front of me. I'd been too wrapped in my own head to notice the pack house, looming ahead, a mass of white stone. It was four storeys high and still dwarfed by the surrounding trees. Pausing for a moment, I watched.

There were wolves milling outside, clearly ready to run to the border. They didn't matter. I looked past them, towards the gardens, to see a flood of females and children and elderly heading for the pack house. It was a nice day — sunny and mild. They must have been enjoying the weather before my rogues had so rudely interrupted.