Sapphire Bones

Loyalty

Updated: May 5, 2019

Corvo

Maybe it was the change in weather, or a shiver that travelled from the tips of my fingers to the small of my back, but something happened far from Emerald. The smell of the air shifted, damaging the insides of my nose with stormy flavors: humidity and brisk winds pulling the northern air south. The hair on the back of my neck frizzed up. I stood at the large bay window in my office and looked out at the surrounding mountains surrounding Emerald. Around me were mixed colognes in tastes of smoky oak and sandalwood. Dark clouds hovered miles off the horizon, their water filled tufts threatening to spill over onto the earth below. Mountains peeked through the clouds, their peaks painted white with snowcaps.

Jax and Dean lounged in nearby chairs. My Beta had his legs strung up on the sides of the couch, and Dean sat, his posture impeccable, while he looked over a couple medical charts. Since L's disappearance from Emerald, and her jumping to her death off the cliff at the Council, he buried himself in his work and cut off people around him. If not for Erin's cooking and the endless library on the second floor of the pack house, he would huddle down in the pack hospital and burrow underneath piles of medical supplies and gurneys. Jax had his face buried in his phone, fingers furiously tapping on the screen.

"If you keep that scowl on your face for much longer you'll be stuck with it forever," Dean said from behind a vanilla folder with a patient name on the front of it. "Your reflection hurts to look at," he added.

"Your tales don't scare me, Dean." I huffed and turned sharply to return to my desk but just as I about sat down the main door in front of me peeled open. Damien stepped through. His hair bore streaks of metallic black that glittered with each of his movements. His shoulders were coated in water droplets, hands reddened from vicious hot water he had come from.

"Not my face," Dean remarked and set his folder down as Damien came into the room, making a B-line toward the desk in the center of the room. As he passed Dean and Jax straightened up in their chairs. My brother didn't hold a position of power within the pack but he still had Edwards at the end of his name, and that alone meant more than any position.

"Tyler wants to talk to you," Damien said without any pleasantries. "He's downstairs, calmer than the other day but his hair is still on end."

I stood from my chair faster than my Beta or pack surgeon could react. The large wheeled chair swung out from behind me and it narrowly missed the wall once the wheels caught the carpet. Tyler took up residence after his surprise visit, but he had yet to be seen out of the guest room since his arrival two days previous. His anger died down after hearing my defense but I still saw the white-hot fury behind his dark eyes after our discussion about his sister. Mia's inhumanity wasn't the news Tyler wished to hear but I had nothing else to give him. Unless he wanted to hear about Jeffries' untimely demise via guillotine. That blood bath would go down in Lycan History books along with L's name strewn across the page in bold letters and harsh stories told by witnesses.

"Alright," I said and came out from behind the desk. Damien moved out of the way just in time to let me pass but took up pace right behind me. Jax and Dean followed at the rear as we descended the master staircase in the center of the house facing the front door. Wide, curved steps, carried us to the first floor. A banister made from trees in Emerald's backyard, with emerald stones on each spindle, one stone per column. Gaudy but appropriate for a pack house of its caliber.

"Did he say what he wanted to talk to me about?" I asked after we reached the first floor. Damien swung around and took the lead. The living room, positioned directly to the right of the front door, splashed in shades of green and beige with touches of bronze on door fittings and chair legs. A large chandelier glittered above the velvet, tufted couches. Bright sunlight sizzled through the room from the floor to ceiling windows, their curtains drawn open and tied off to the sides so the tops curved downwards, green velvet drapes that hung like phantoms trapped in time.