Chapter 31: A Council Warned

Lyall watched Loriann pull away from the house in her old truck. He could hear the suspension squeaking from here as it bounced down the dirt road towards town. Willow had been gone all weekend. He hadn’t visited the café since she kicked him out of her house. His anger tinged his eyesight red before he shook it away.
He would get her back. She was his. She had been promised to him. He waited a moment before he approached the house, sniffing the air. His hair flowed around his shoulders, wild and unkempt. His hand wrapped around the doorknob and tried it. Locked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a copy of the key he had made a year ago.
The house was silent. He closed the door quietly behind him and looked around. It was exactly the same as the last time he was here. Except, there was an emptiness to it. The house felt hollow. It felt as if Willow didn’t live here anymore. Even her scent was lighter as if she were more a visitor as opposed to a resident.
Her room looked different. The bed was neatly made as if it hadn’t been slept in for days. The room was clean, tidy. Not that it was ever messy before but now it just didn’t appear to be lived in. He pulled open her dresser drawers and rifled through them. There was a significant dent where clothes were missing. He pushed open her closet. Same here. Clothes were missing and more than enough for a weekend away. He grabbed one of her shirts and breathed in deeply, sucking in her scent.
Where could she be? He ran his hands through his greasy hair, biting back the frustration that ate at him. He felt as if he were on the verge of shifting again. His grip on his humanity was slipping. He hadn’t been home in weeks. He couldn’t face his father after Willow broke off their engagement. He would be shamed and laughed out of his own home.
A low growl slipped through his lips. He would not be rejected. He was promised the alpha. He would get the alpha. He sat down on the edge of her bed and ran his fingers across her pillow. A strand of her red hair caught on his hand. Winding it around her finger, he stared at the silken strand. He brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply. He caught a faint whiff of her.
He was about to leave when he saw something poking out from underneath her pillow. He pulled it out. It was an envelope. It smelled familiar although he didn’t recognize the handwriting written across the front. Opening the flap, a handful of pictures fell out.
His eyes roved over the pictures, not absorbing what he was seeing at first. And then his vision went black with rage.
####
Loriann groaned as she hopped out of her truck. Even though she only appeared to be in her late sixties, she was closer to one hundred and today she felt every year of that age, old. It was the cold blowing down from the mountains and settling into her joints. The art class she taught every weekend had been successful. She had started doing a Paint and Sip and now the class had a waiting list.
As she was about to unlock the front door to her home, she froze. A sickly-sweet smell emanated from the door. She tried the knob and it opened. She had locked it before she left. She quickly set down her canvas and paints by the door and closed it quietly behind her.
Listening, she didn’t hear anything. Nothing sounded from upstairs. Silently, she crept through her house. There was no one downstairs. She glanced at the steps leading to the second floor. The smell was stronger here. It smelled familiar but rotten, like a piece of fruit that was left out in the sun too long, forgotten.
Her room was empty, and the smell wasn’t in here. She followed the scent down the hall towards Willow’s room. She nearly gagged from the smell. It was everywhere in the room. The cloying scent clung to the back of her throat. She pushed open the windows, letting in the frigid air. She took a few deep lung fulls of the air, clearing out the putrid scent.
Willow’s room was empty as well. Loriann turned to leave when she saw that Willow’s bedding was mussed. She knew that Willow had put fresh sheets on before she left for the weekend. She walked around the edge of the bed to straighten the quilt and something crackled under her foot. Bending down to see what it was, she saw that it was a crumpled picture.
She smoothed it against her leg and sat heavily onto the bed. It was one of the pictures of Willow and Garin kissing that she had been sent. Willow must have kept them. She brought it to her face and inhaled. Underneath the sweaty, fetid stench there was a familiar loamy smell.
“Lyall,” she said with a growl and gently placed the picture beneath the pillow.
####
Willow curled up closer to Garin and he settled a blanket over the both of them. He handed her the large bowl of popcorn and she grabbed the remote. She arched her eyebrow at him.
“Are you sure this won’t be too scary for you?” she teased. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and plucked the remote from her hand.
“I’m never confiding in you again. In a moment of absolute vulnerability, I confessed that one scene, ONE SCENE, from The Conjuring freaked me out and now you act like I am a delicate flower,” he huffed and pushed play.
“But you’re my delicate flower,” she replied sweetly. He pulled the blanket over her head and she laughed as she struggled out of her fleece tent. She playfully smacked his shoulder and he grabbed her wrist before pulling her in for a kiss.
She couldn’t have imagined a more perfect evening, unaware that everything was about to unravel around them.
####
Lyall ran hard through the forests, his coat covered in a foamy layer of sweat. He had been running hard for two hours. He should’ve driven but he shifted as soon as he left Willow’s house, he couldn’t hang onto his human form.
His large paws crunched through the snow as he slowed his pace, approaching the large lodge. Smoke puffed cheerily from the chimney and the path had been recently shoveled. He walked to a small outbuilding that housed the guest room as well as showers and extra clothing.
After a quick shower and change, he walked to the main house and knocked on the door. A tall, dark-skinned man answered and looked down at him, no smile on his face.
“Yes?” the timbre of his voice reverberated through Lyall and he had a hard time meeting the man’s deep brown eyes.
“I seek an audience with the council. A Bittermane has broken the law.”
The man chuckled. “I doubt that. Go home Lyall,” he began to shut the door. Lyall slammed his hand against the door. The man’s eyes turned to him and glowered.
“It is Willow. I have proof,” he said quickly and thrust a photo towards him.
“She has broken our most sacred law. She has been with a hunter, a Red Hood.”