Primal Promise

Twenty-Five

The cabin was quiet. It had been two hours since the group had left to raid the Nesri camp, and dawn was at least a half-hour away. Maggie and Max were sleeping peacefully in the back bedroom. Herb was alternately pacing before the large picture windows and checking his phone while Isabella was setting up the teapot while she waited for the kettle to boil. Jaris was on her fifth spread of Solitare, the cards whispering softly as they were moved from pile to pile on the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen. The worry was etched on her features.

"I don't like it." She muttered. "None of it." The sudden return of the Nesri, the fact her husband and her family were out facing the issue and she was stuck playing cards instead of being able to do anything useful? The growing sense of something on the horizon coming and being stuck here like a child? She couldn't stand it.

"None of us do." Isabella soothed as she swished hot water around the pot and then filled it, the mesh ball of herbal tea set into the steaming belly of the pot to steep. "But we must trust in Jameson. We must have faith in him." She reached out and gave Jaris' hand a squeeze.

"I do. I have faith." She smiled and tried to push down the nervousness and fear.

"But you wish you could be with him. I understand. When my mate was murdered all those years ago..." Her face a mask of sadness and regret. "I have always thought, 'what if I had not obeyed him? What if I did not run?' but that is folly. One cannot change the past. If I had stayed, the Nesri would have killed me as well. We must always obey our mates. They only wish to keep us safe." she stepped around the table and laid a hand on Jaris' stomach. "Let him protect you in the present while you protect the future."

Jaris covered the old woman's hand with her own. Isabella was always very tight-lipped about her mate's loss, and she was still very rooted in the past. Still, even if it wasn't very modern-minded to think all women should bow to the will of their mate just because he was the male, Isabella did have a point about Blaine's protection being no less valid than Jaris' protecting the children.

After all, Blaine was a good man. He was surrounded by others who would watch his back. They'd all be fine. Everything would work out. She had to focus on the positive. "You're right. It'll all be fine. By tomorrow we'll all be having brunch at the ranch, everyone safe and s..."

"SHHH!" Herb called, walking toward them quickly. "I thought I saw something out there." He switched off the lights at the wall, plunging the main rooms into darkness. With the lights out, the windows now stopped reflecting the insides of the room and instead showed the wind-rippled lake, the looming mountain and the deep starry sky above.

Isabella stepped away as Jaris rose, the three of them standing back to back, scanning the view beyond the glass wall of windows, listening keenly for any sound that wasn't the hum of the fridge or the wind.

For several seconds they stood, the whisper of their half-held breath filling their ears. The hairs on the back of Jaris' neck were prickling with worry. "I'm going to go check on the kids." she whispered. She hadn't left the window in their room open, but neither had she double checked that it was locked. The kind of panicked scenarios that a mother's mind seemed to leap to were racing through her brain.

"No. Stay with Herb. I will go." Isabella gave her hand a squeeze, then moved silently as she could down the hall. A nod given, she opened the door to the bedroom, slipping inside and closing it quietly behind her.

The seconds ticked by, a minute...two...and both began to relax slightly. "It is a resort, Herb," Jaris whispered. "Maybe you just saw someone going for a moonlight swim or someth..."

The front window shattered inward, a heavy cinderblock cartwheeling across the living room to bounce into the front of the sofa and fall back onto the rug. Through the now shattered glass, a dark shape separated from the darkness, black with swaths of gray, rushing through with teeth bared.