DARK ORIGINS (Scarlett of the wolves, Book 4)

2.

It was not yet six-thirty and the pub was already swarming with people. Grigore, Rufus and Simon were seated in almost religious silence. Without being consumed, the glasses of soda in front of them were well on their way to becoming as flat as spring water. None would bother to touch them.

“Any news from Rucker?” I asked, sitting down next to Grigore. 

Deep in his thoughts, he didn’t answer.

“Grigore?”

He lifted his head from the glass he was spinning in his hands and caught my worried gaze.

“No.”

“We know who he was meeting with,” Rufus informed me.

He was announcing this to me as if he was giving me an obvious clue. I suspected who it might be.

“The one we found dead?”

Grigore nodded without a single muscle in his face moving.

“But… what does that mean?”

“That’s what we’ll try to figure out, Scarlett.”

I didn’t remember ever seeing Grigore so tense, which only added to my anguish.

“You don’t think Rucker is responsible? No one can decently believe such a thing!”  

“We don’t make any such claims, kid.”

Considering the glimmer of concern shining in his pupils, I would have bet he was condescending just because he was under pressure. Except that given the degree of stress that was pouring through me, I had to force myself not to give him a good kick under the table. We had known each other for just over a year, but he had become a friend. A true friend. I’d often learned, the hard way, that his favourite sport was verbal jousting, he excelled at it and never had enough. However, I knew that behind his flippant words lay pure and genuine loyalty. He observed, analysed, and made decisions to what he thought was right. Grigore had my full confidence, Rucker’s too. This is why I very often sided with him.

“Do you want something to drink?” Rufus asked politely. 

I shook my head from side to side.

“Nothing thanks. Who was this guy? Did you manage to find out?”  

“One of the Red Lion servers.”

Why, when it came to dark stories, were the members of the Red Lion systematically involved, near or far? What was the landlord plotting again? Because, for sure, it was about him. Always him, working in the shadows and never learning the lessons of his mistakes.   

“The landlord confirmed to me that he had to find Rucker to give him a message,” Rufus clarified.

“At college?” 

“Obviously...”

“Weird… What message?” 

“He doesn’t know.”

I raised my eyebrows in scepticism without even realizing it.

“He doesn’t know?” 

Simon threw himself against the back of his chair, laughing cynically.

“He lies. This scoundrel always knows everything.”

“You tried to question him?” I asked Grigore. 

He crossed his arms over his chest, positively annoyed.

“Rucker is involved. The Council asked us to keep our distance. They’re taking care of it.”

“They think that he has something to do with it?” 

“They’ll not rule out any leads,” he replied as if he was announcing an inevitability.

“It doesn’t make sense!” I was offended. “He’s the first defender of the rules that govern the community of dark angels, the rules of St Andrews! Would he have gone mad enough to take the risk of breaking them, of being banished?”     

Grigore was so on edge that he drained his glass in one go.

“You don’t need to try to convince us, Scarlett,” Grigore hissed. “But it turns out that the server had been in St Andrews for barely a week. I doubt he had made any enemies in such a short time.”

“So what?” 

Grigore rubbed his chin casually.

“A werewolf could very well have taken care of him. Your friends seemed to be rather concerned.”

Rufus intervened before Grigore and I got too loud.

“Let’s question McCarthy. He must know something.”

I didn’t remember ever having heard the name of this scoundrel.   

“What’s the plan, Grigore? Are you going to override the Council?”  

I hoped he would say yes. If he didn’t, I would ask Elgin to come back earlier than planned so that he took care of it himself. After all, wolves had nothing to do with the Council. If the idea that a Were might be involved had crossed Grigore’s mind, the Council might think the same. It was better to know what was going on. And above all, Rucker had become a friend of Elgin, he wouldn’t leave him in trouble. As for me, I strongly doubted that I had the stature enough to influence McCarthy and get anything out of him.

“Grigore, seriously, do you think Rucker is involved?” 

“Involved, yes, but not responsible. Let me chat for five minutes with that scum, I’ll try to clear this up.”

I couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction.

“Don’t rejoice too quickly, it won’t be easy.”

“You underestimate yourself,” I joked.

His persuasiveness had to be at least as impressive as Rucker.

“We’ll see. As for you, make sure your friends stay away.”

My wolf friends, of course...

“I’m not sure I can convince them not to interfere. They’ll want to understand why the line has been crossed.”

Grigore observed me below his lashes.

“What’s going on with this young one? When is Sutherland coming back?”  

John’s excess of zeal had escaped no one.

“Next week. Tuesday. It doesn’t matter to John,” I pleaded for him. “The pack is a little unsettled, Elgin is gone too long. Everything will be in order.”

“Hmm… This has happened before,” he pointed out to me doubtfully.

It was true. When he went to Sutherland to train in the charm of the Aegis, Elgin had been there for over two and a half months and no one had tried to replace him. John’s involvement was nothing strange. 

“You’re trying to convince yourself,” Grigore guessed.

“Not at all,” I denied.

However, Tony hadn’t acted like this…

Grigore looked at me a moment in silence, then returned to the main topic.

“Can you go find Rucker?” he asked Simon and Rufus. “He may have come home. Let him know.” 

“I’ll do it,” I suggested. “I haven’t seen the boys for a good two weeks.”

“If you want. Simon, Rufus, you’ll go after.”

They nodded without saying a word.

“What about Gwen?” I asked. 

“No,” Grigore replied firmly, knowing exactly what I was implying. “Don’t worry her for nothing. He’ll surely be home by tonight. Change is near, Scarlett. Believe me, when Rucker leaves, the whole of St Andrews will be turned upside down.”

“Aren’t you exaggerating a little here?” 

“He won’t stay on the Council.”

For the first time, I stared at Grigore not as a friend, but as one on whom rests great responsibility. One day, Rucker had told me that he would have to take his place. Was he ready? Did he want it?  

“Would you chair, Grigore?” 

“No.”

“No, you don’t want to, or no, they won’t choose you?” 

“Their choice is already made.”

“And?” 

“And nothing at all! Let’s go! Contact me as soon as you hear from Rucker.”  

He stood up and put a twenty-pound note on the table.

Grigore’s attitude awakened my mocking spirit.

“Yes, chief!” 

Grigore leaned over me to fix me deep in my eyes.

“Not yet, little one,” he said with a half-smile. But when I am chief, I promise you that you’ll comply with the least of my wishes.”  

Not afraid for a second, I picked up my bag and propped it over my shoulder.

“You can always dream, I changed sides, remember?!” 

He laughed as I left the pub, rolling my eyes.

I was amused by his macho behaviour. However, I returned to the parking lot where my car was parked with a growing sense of unease. I had the horrible feeling that the sky was going to fall on my head any minute.

I hurriedly climbed into the Mini to start the engine. I rummaged through my bag before leaving and glanced at my cell phone. Not a single call from Elgin. I had promised myself not to sink into paranoia, even if he didn’t show any sign of life after forty-eight hours. I’d received a short text from him on Monday morning, so I had no reason to make a big deal out of it. Not to mention that he had planned to make a whirlwind visit to his uncle and aunt in the Orkney Islands before returning to St Andrews. As the network was very unstable there, he just might not have listened to my message yet.

I pressed the clutch, put it in reverse, and hit the road to Rucker’s place. I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.

So much had changed since I became a Were. Starting with my perception of others, of humans. Empathy. This is a quality that can quickly turn into a drag. It was impossible to remain insensitive to the more or less negative feelings which overwhelmed them permanently. The Were grew up with this ability to sense emotions, I didn’t. Jeremiah had explained to me that this predisposition was rooted in the oldest instincts of the wolf in the wild. This is how the prey was chosen. The more detectable their weaknesses, the easier the hunt. I found myself unable to create a virtual shield for myself, I didn’t yet have enough experience for that. Not to mention that I was around hundreds of students every day, so it was difficult for me to avoid it. I took their joys, their sorrows, their fears in the face. No one was able to lie to me, which distorted relationships a bit. People don’t necessarily want to know that you have peeled back their layers to the core, so you have to act like you have no idea how they are feeling. Working on a simple project with someone was difficult, I had a hard time pretending not to notice anything. I hadn’t made any friends since I first came back to St Andrews, apart from the members of the Pack, those of the Circle, and in my class, there was a rumour that I was one of those students you couldn’t approach, too wild, too secretive. For this reason, few ventured to speak to me. For the former human that I was, the blow was proving difficult. I might never have been the most social girl in the world, but I liked people. Let’s be honest, even if surrounded by the Pack and the Circle, by Elgin, by Gwen, there were times when I felt lonely. I missed Kaley.

It was with a deep sigh that I entered the private courtyard of Rucker’s house. It was pouring with rain. Only the upstairs lights were on, that was a bad sign. Rucker wasn’t home yet. Usually, after a long day at college, he liked to laze around in front of the fireplace with a good book. I parked my car near the century-old oak tree and ran for shelter under the porch. The door swung open.  

“Scarlett!” 

Corwin didn’t give me time to be surprised, he jumped into my arms.

“Hello, little man!” 

“I was wondering when you were going to come back!” 

I rubbed the top of his head with my hand.

He made a face that made me want to bite into his cheeks.

“Where’s Morel?” 

“He’s sulking.”

“Sulking?” 

I gently put him back on the ground and lifted my head towards the stairs.

“Perceval had promised him that they would both go hunting this evening.”

“And he called him to cancel?” 

Corwin shook his head.

“No, he said he’d be home at seven o’clock.”

I glanced in the hall; it was just seven forty-five. 

“I’ll wait for him with you,” I tried to reassure him.

Corwin shrugged.

“Gwen sent us chocolate cookies that she made herself! Do you want some?”   

“Get them ready, I’m going to see Morel and I’m on my way,” I whispered to him, smiling.

He scampered away as fast as a shadow; I did the same to knock on Morel’s door.

“Can I come in?” 

“Wait!” cried the small voice. 

“I’m not moving.”

I would have bet that he was crying and Morel hated that. He didn’t like it to be known. He would take the time to dry his tears, and then let me in.

I turned my back to the door to inspect the premises.

I had spent long, tormented months here, mingled with pain, joy, challenges and struggles against the one I was then. Living under the same roof as Rucker and his brothers was one of the best times of my life, but also one of the most difficult. I’ll never forget what they did for me. Being a dark angel had marked me forever, in my memory, in my body… I would forever bear the stigmata of this experience, like this scar, here, just under my heart. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“You can come, Scarlett,” Morel’s small voice said.

I opened the door and saw him by the window, in the dark, looking at the ocean.

“Hey… Hi, you.”

“Hi.”

I slowly took a few steps forward, waiting for him to invite me in further.

“Corwin explained to me that you were disappointed that Perceval was late. He must have had something to do, you know. He’ll come home and tell you why.”

“No!” He laughs at me, “I’m a burden to him!”  

I approached a little more.

“Don’t say that, Morel. You mean so much to him.”

“That’s wrong! Otherwise, he would be with me!”  

“But he’s here for you,” I pleaded.

“No! He’s never here!”  

I frowned.

“What do you mean?” 

“He always has better things to do, he only comes home for a few hours and only when we’re sleeping. He no longer comes to fly with us, he’s had enough of taking care of us! Of me, because I’m the weakest.” 

“Oh, Morel...”

He turned, threw himself into my arms and burst into tears that broke my heart.

“Shhh, Morel darling... It’s going to be fine.”

“I hate him!” 

“No, my dear, you don’t mean that.”

“He had promised!” 

“I know, I know… It’s not that bad. Do you need to feed on blood tonight?” 

“Yes.”

My heart started pounding when I realized what I was about to suggest to him.

“Look, I know it’s not the same, but we can go into the woods together if you want. Well, all three of us. Corwin would accompany us. What do you think?” 

I held my breath. I wasn’t sure that being in the skin of a wolf would make me a better predator. With any luck, he would say no...

Timidly, he nodded.

“Very good. Get ready, I’ll tell Corwin. We’ll leave a note to Perceval, so, if he comes back before us, he won’t worry.”

“Don’t bother, he doesn’t worry about us,” he grumbled. “And anyway, he won’t be home.”

No need to talk more about it, I’d still put a message on the table, for Rucker.

When we got back two hours later, I had to agree with Morel. Rucker still hadn’t bothered to walk through the door of his house. I took care not to notice anything and suggested that the boys watch a movie in the living room, on the flat screen.

I suspected Corwin to have done it on purpose, he chose Dances with the Wolves, just to gauge my reaction. An hour and twenty later, they were both sleeping on the sofa. I took the opportunity to walk away into the kitchen and discreetly telephone Rucker.

Nothing, so I wrote him a message.

| I’m at your place. It’s 11:30 p.m., your brothers are worried. Me too.

| What are you doing? 

| Call us, please.

I returned to the living room and, as gently as I could, I carried the boys one by one to their beds. I had woken them up, but they acted like nothing had happened, extremely happy that someone was taking care of them. I kissed them each on the forehead and crept out of their room.

“Scarlett?” whispered Morel. 

I smile.

“Yes, my angel?” 

This little word secretly made him laugh.

“I love you very much… even if you smell bad.”

My turn to hold back a chuckle.

“Me too, Morel. I love you both.”

Then I closed the door behind me.

In the living room, I settled on the sofa. I grabbed the plaid on the armrest and covered my legs with it.

Rucker had the right to feel bad, to be taciturn, to be silly, to have done something stupid if it suited him and to have put himself in a mess of the century, but in no case did he have the right to let down his brothers, to neglect them. No right. He was going to hear from me! 

Except that when I woke up in the early morning, around six o’clock, completely groggy and with a thundering neckache, Rucker Legrand had still not returned.