Chapter 6 6

Eve does not react to this scene. My friends are too busy staring at their feet in silent, statue-like fear. Knowing they are next to get yelled at by someone, if not my dad. Like me, they are wishing the ground would swallow them up. For them, being dragged in before the Alpha and Luna is literally the worst thing they could ever experience in their life.

“Let me talk to them. I’ll make them understand. It won’t happen again.” My mom soothes his ruffled feathers and walks him to the door of the room. Almost pushes him out and nods for Meadow, who is standing simmering and waiting to chew Toya out with him.

She’s as fierce as my dad, and her presence alone was making the air crackle. Toya, standing here with her head hung low, didn’t actually seem bothered that her mom was spitting fury our way. Little affects Toya on any deep level. She is more afraid of my dad and mom, and being in this room with Rema standing close by, with her disapproving look, is worse than being yelled at.

Meadow is biding her time, and even though I know my dad will give us a good reminder never to do this again when he comes back, Meadow will still say something to us when everything calms down. She’s our aunt, after all.

“I’ll go too…I need to calm Radar down and tell the pack they are safe and well. Many were asking about them.” Rema nods our way with a sigh, showing love but also disappointment, and follows our dad out of the room, leaving us alone with Mom. The air is tense and crackling in their absence.

“Girls…..Why? You know the mountain was out of bounds, and for good reason. The war may be over, but stray vampire ferals survived the battles and sought refuge in such places. We can’t guarantee that we have cleared the entire mountain and forest of them. That’s why we have perimeter markings with sigils and runes to stop them from crossing. We have guards. They are not governed by your grandfather's coven any more than other packs out there are run by your Father. We are still the enemy to those who survived.”

My mom's words hit home as I think about the possibility that some of those creatures might lurk out there, and I shudder at the thought. In our naivety, we never thought of that. They have never touched our lives in our safe bubble, so we forgot they existed.

I know they were mindless, feral vampires, more like wild animals who sought only blood and death, and not like the vampires we know or my grandfather. I just assumed they were all dead.

“We’re sorry. We just wanted to see it for ourselves. The place where it happened. There’s so much mystery about the past. We didn’t think about the consequences, and we didn’t know we would have to be rescued.” I step in front of my mom to draw her attention and anger, since Eve is glaring at the floor where she’s standing, apart from us. Caked from head to toe in ash and filth from getting herself stuck in the belly of that hollowed-out mountain, much like I am when I was stupid enough to go looking for her.

A blanket covers most of Eve, given that she turned wolf and never got her clothes back, so she looks like a homeless child with hair so dirty that it's brown instead of the warm blonde we normally sport.

We held off as long as we could until Simon ran back for help as the sun went down, knowing something was wrong. It was too deep, and once inside, she couldn’t find a way back up to get out. Something I found out when I climbed that damn mountain and fell in after her.

“You know, if you have questions, you can come to me. I won’t hide anything from you….. If you wanted to see it, I would have taken you with your Father so we could protect you. We just want to shelter you from the horrors of the past and the dangers that we once lived with. You girls should be looking forward to a happy life where none of those concerns will ever affect you. We live in peaceful times now. That mountain holds nothing but sad memories of a time that we’ll never see again. Of the many we lost that still linger in our hearts. We closed it off to make it a sacred resting place for the ones who fell.”

“What future?” Eve spits, finding her own anger in that ever-present attitude she has. She’s a spoiled diva who, from a very young age, seemed to be angry at the world, and I have never understood it. I don’t know where it came from, and sometimes I resent her for it, although I would never say that to her. I'm the polar opposite, and I find joy in everything. I like our life, our parents, and our safe world where nothing bad ever happens.