“Sloane.” He tried to catch my eyes again. “I don’t want to kill anyone, but I will to keep you safe-to keep our pack safe.”
I nodded but kept my eyes low.
“Let’s go in and eat before the night activities.”
“I’ll meet you inside in a moment,” I promised. He hesitated but nodded, squeezed my hand, and left the porch.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and dialed Hazel’s number. She picked up on the fourth ring and greeted me cheerfully.
“Hazel? I was hoping we could meet, maybe grab that coffee you mentioned?”
Mirror Image
“Sloane, do you know where my brown shoes are?”
“Check near the door!” I shouted back to Rush. He ran out of the closet and threw a pair of black shoes onto the ground as he went. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Rush slid his shoes on, a hand on the wall to steady himself. “Our neighboring Beta is here, he’s here a liaison for his Alpha. They weren’t able to make it to the gathering last week, but they want to be involved.” He ran over to where I was on the bed and grabbed the back of my head, kissed me quickly, and then ran out of the door.
I settled back into the covers, my hands mindlessly knitting something, I think it was supposed to be a scarf, but it turned into a blanket. My mind wandered off to my meeting with Hazel two days previous.
She was a cheerful girl with a dreamy look permanently plastered on her face. She was happy to have someone to get coffee with since her friends hadn’t acquired the taste.
In the middle of a sentence, I decided that wasn’t the right time to tell her what I was. I told her I was nervous about the attacks and the threat of the upcoming war, which wasn’t a lie. Hazel admitted she felt the same way, but that her cousins, uncles, and father had already joined the human army.
“It’s kind of hard to hold an olive branch when your family is taking up arms,” she joked, but her eyes were stronger than her humor; they were dark and bothered.
“I know,” I agreed, smiling half-heartedly. “I just think there needs to be a way to get both sides to talk.”
“Well, I’m sure we can think of something.” She chatted on about her friends and family in town and the places she liked to visit. I listened and paid close attention to the places she said her dad was going a lot. I figured one of the places in town or someone’s house was being used as a meeting place.
“This was really great,” I told her as we exited the small café. “We should do this again soon.”
“Absolutely,” she beamed and then looked around. “My dad can never be on time; I swear I should start telling him to pick me up fifteen minutes before I actually need to be picked up.”
“I can give you a ride home,” I offered. “I don’t mind, really.”
She smiled and nodded, followed me to the truck I borrowed from Kenna, and hopped in the passenger seat. “I live off Middlevale, I know you probably don’t know where that is, but I’ll just tell you where to turn.” She fiddled with the radio and found a station she liked. Hazel told me where to turn and directed me to a two-story, white house. “This is me.”
Hazel thanked me and climbed out of the truck. I put the car in reverse, but my hand froze when her father and two other men came out of the garage. I ducked slightly and untucked my hair from my ear, hoping to cover myself.
Her father squinted his eyes at me, and the two other men turned to scrutinize me as well. I put the car in reverse and pulled out of the driveway quickly, my hands becoming slick with sweat.
Hazel waved to me, and I smiled briefly before driving down the road. I parked the car where Kenna told me to and hurried off inside before Rush finished his Alpha duties.
Our meeting had been two days ago, and I had tried my best to be inconspicuous and relaxed so that Rush wouldn’t suspect anything. He had no idea and was rather clueless about what I had been doing all day.
The scarf in my hand had lengthened and covered the top part of my thighs. I set the needles down and grabbed a hair elastic from my wrist. As I was tying my hair up, the bedroom door burst open, and Rush came in panting, his forehead covered in blood.
“Sloane!” he yelled frantically. I flung myself off the bed and met him in the middle of the room, his right leg limped slightly after him. “Oh, thank god,” he wheezed, pulling me into him. “You’re okay.”
“Of course, I’m okay,” I grabbed at his arms, trying to look him over. “What the hell happened to you? Are you alright?”
Rush settled on the corner of the bed. “Someone knew about our meeting. I was going to the border to escort Beta Quint, and we were attacked by two humans. They were older, maybe in their fifties or sixties, came at us out of nowhere. They had their scents covered, they’re getting smarter, Sloane.”
“Just sit there and let me take care of you,” I ordered, running to the bathroom to get hydrogen peroxide and cotton balls. When I came back, Rush had laid down across the bed, pinching his thumb and forefinger against the bride of his nose. I moved his arm away and began prodding his face with the cotton balls and solution.
“How could we have not known they were there?” he wondered. “They were ten feet away from us the whole time. What if that had been you, or Kenna, or Jahida?”
“We’d be just as likely as you to either die or kill the hunters,”
