Slowly, my heart rate returned to normal, my breathing evened, and my body stopped shaking. I pushed gently on Theo’s chest, and he loosened his grip, leaving just enough room for me to sit up on my own.
I couldn’t look him in the eyes. Instead, I stared at a freckle on his arm that danced when he clenched his muscle. His face scrunched up and relaxed and moved as he had an internal battle with himself.
He stood up, grabbed my arms, and forced me to stand with him. I didn’t know where we were going until I saw a warm bath.
Theo sat next to me on the stool, running his right hand over my curls; his left hand gripped his chin. The water continued to fill as I sat in the tub. When it was filled, Theo turned the water off and watched me sit for some five or six minutes.
He left me in the bathtub, most likely going to meet with the guards outside to look at the body. I didn’t move until Theo came back in and unplugged the drain. I stood up, with assistance from Theo, and he wrapped a towel around me. He led me to the bed, slipped his shirt over my head, and sat next to me.
“Talk to me,” he said roughly. I blinked twice and scratched my hand.
“About what?”
“You know what, Margo.” He wasn’t joking around.
“What do you want me to say?” My head remained bowed, unable to look at him still.
“I want you to say what’s going on in your head. You haven’t looked at me in two hours.”
“Why did she look like me?”
“It was a threat from Porter’s group, there was something carved into her back that made it clear,” he said. I was glad he didn’t try to sugar coat it for me.
“What was it?”
“It said ‘lunam actio postulate.’ It means ‘the moon demands action.’” I shivered as his tongue grazed the Latin words.
“Action? Action as in killing humans,” I said, understanding the meaning. Theo breathed out heavily and put his hand on my knee. I pulled my knees together, but he didn’t remove his hand.
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Margo. We have more packs with us than he does; we have more Alphas, more wolves.”
“That’s not the problem. The problem is that the longer I stay here, the more people get hurt.”
“That’s not true, you can’t think like that.” Theo stood up and walked to the edge of the room before turning around.
“Theo, how many other people are going to be strung up in our trees? How many others are going to be left on our doorstep? How many will die in that battle?” My voice rose higher and louder as I spoke. My hands frantically clutched the shirt around my thighs and pulled at the hem.
“Margo, that girl was a wolf, she wasn’t human. This is not your fault. Reed Porter has been looking for a reason to attack for years, and he used his hatred of humans to rally his troops.”
“Wolves, humans, it’s all the same, Theo. It’s all lives being taken away!”
He stormed over to me and grabbed my chin in his hand, forcing me to submit to him.
“You need to stop talking like this. This is my problem, Margo. This is my battle to be fought, not yours. I need you healthy and happy and not worrying about bodies in our trees.” His eyes were hard, it reminded me of the first time I met him, looking up into those cerulean gems. “Now, you’re going to stay up here and get some rest. I’m going to go and make some phone calls. We need to be prepared, if these threats are coming, this battle is probably going to happen sooner rather than later.”
I nodded and jerked my chin out of his grip, rubbing it slightly to make him feel guilty. He sighed and kneeled in front of me, turning my head towards him with his hand.
“What would I do without you?” he asked wistfully. I snorted at his cliché. “What?”
“You’re corny,” I told him, finally smiling a little at him.
“And you’re smiling.” I wiped it off my face, but he stood up happily anyways. “I’ll be back in a little while, my love."
I nodded as he left and curled up on top of the sheets. I couldn’t close my eyes, so I laid there for a while and listened to the gentle hum of Theo’s voice through our vents.
We took it slow for the next few days. Theo doubled the number of guards outside our house and the ones around the border. The guards caught one wolf trying to sneak through the territory lines, but they ran off before the guards could question them.
A few of the other Alphas received threatening, ominous notes as well. Caddy called Theo and told him of the deer antlers he found on the pack’s front entrance. It was derogatory to refer to humans as deer as if we were their prey.
Theo told me of each of these. I didn’t have much to do, so I made a poster with all the items and packs, color-coordinated it, and hung it on the wall. Theo laughed at me when he saw it, but after the phone calls kept pouring in, day after day, he started using the chart as well.
Over the next two weeks, the progression of events accelerated; Reed Porter was ready for this battle, whether we were or not. Small skirmishes broke out on rogue land and the edges of pack borders, testing the waters to see how their aggressions would be matched.
Several human pack members had become the victims
