The Power Within

Chapter Nineteen

Walking into the room and seeing a woman in her thirties, possibly, lying in bed with bandages around her wrists and malnourish showing through her skin. No werewolf should be this tiny but she is, and so are all the others. The skin is showing all the bones in her shoulders and neck and hands. It makes me wonder how long it has been since they have all had something to eat, or a real meal. The monitors are beeping letting us know that her heart is working and the IV's in her arms are for fluids and nutrient, per the doctor. She is watching me look at her. She doesn't recognize me but her wolf does. She is weak, that Cassandra and I can tell, but Iris is alive inside her.

"Athena," she says, "it has been a very long time my sister. Come sit so we can talk." She pats the mattress with her hand to get us to sit next her, but Cassandra does not want to be that close to her, and I understand why. Looking into her eyes I can see betrayal, hurt, anger, and something else I cannot figure out at this moment, but I am sure we will after talking with her.

"Be careful Cassandra, something about her eyes tells me she wants to hurt us," I say to her.

"I will Hailey," is all she says back to me.

"I am fine standing at the moment, Iris. What is it you want?" Cassandra says, caution breathing through ever word she says. Iris notices this and a small smirk appears on her face for just a moment before she sighs.

"I see you are still as stubborn as you were centuries ago. But as you wish, sister," Iris says. "I wanted to discuss this witch problem that we handled back then, but it seems to have come back, why is that Athena?" She looks at us thinking we are the reason for releasing these witches.

"I do not know, Iris," she says. "I was brought back after you were all captured. Why don't you tell me what you know and we can all start to fix this- problem- for once and all." The anger that Cassandra is feeling is growing every second that she is in this room with her. I am not sure what happened in the past between them but something tells me that they do not like to be around each other at all.

"Well, why don't we save story time for later, if that is OK with the powerful one, as they say," she says with venom.

A growl vibrates through my chest and throat before I realize the entire house can hear it. "Fine. I will talk to everyone, together," is all Cassandra says before turning around to walk out the door. Before we can shut the door we hear one sentence from Iris that we did not want to hear.

"They will find you Athena, and they WILL end you."

We slam the door shut so hard the house shakes and I turn to look down the hallway to see everyone including Derrick staring at me. They all gasp, not knowing what they see but I know they are scared, fearing me at this moment. Anger is a strong emotion, strong enough to make any werewolf turn into a rage. I am not in a rage, yet, but everyone moves to the side as I start walking that way. Not a word from anyone. They all heard what was said, so I do not need to repeat myself. Making my way to the front door, probably so Cassandra can transform to run off some of this rage, I stop when I have the door open. Knowing everyone is watching me still, I say only four words to them, "I will be back."

Slamming the door behind me, I leap off the front porch and transform in midair as Derrick opens the front door. I know it's him from his scent and Cassandra knows it too. I want to go to him and be with him but not in hearing range of everyone in the house. Cassandra turns towards him and gives him a look of plea and he nods, knowing what we want and he steps down the stairs while taking off his shirt. We turn around not wanting to see him naked, as much as we want too, that thought alone makes me blush which I am grateful to be in wolf form so he doesn't see it. I feel a nudge on my side. It is Derrick, his wolf is beautiful. He is complete opposite of me. While I am pure white, he is pure black, like the midnight sky. His eyes are the same hazel color, the color I could spend hours getting lost in. His wolf is a little bigger than mine. He stands tall, like an alpha, and he is protective and gentle with me. Our wolves know each other and have been trying to connect to one another since we met.