Chapter 39: Answering the Call

Lyall ran as fast as his body will take him, fighting the alpha’s call. He feels the pressure of her, pushing down on him. A whimper escaped his mouth, but he pressed on. He knew that in a few more miles, he would be out of her territory and away from her authority.
He had thought that his plan would work. Show the family that Garin was still sneaking around with Willow. They would pack their things and drag him away. Instead, Red Hoods began flooding into town, and then he got the call from the alpha. It only meant one thing. The wolves would fight.
He knew that it would turn back on him. He had to obey his alpha, especially in her presence. He couldn’t challenge her. He would be killed in an instant. Lyall just hoped that his father wouldn’t be held for what he did. There were only two people to blame, Willow and that hunter.
As he pushed across the territory line into Canada, it felt as if he were trying to squeeze through a rabbit hole. His whole body constricted, and his lungs screamed for air. With one final push, his body tumbled across the line and the pressure disappeared. He lay, panting in exile.
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Garin was still warily watching Willow as they drove back to his house. She had really freaked him out at the café. Even though he had seen her shift, it was so easy to forget that there was this other side to her or rather in her. Beneath her beautiful, pale visage lay another self, a darker, more powerful self. What he had seen had frightened him to his core and for a moment, he understood the purpose of the hunters.
For a moment, Willow hadn’t been there anymore, at least not the human one. Her eyes had grown feral and for a second, he thought she had considered attacking him. He had seen the muscles working in her neck, tight and corded as she fought the wolf.
She had been quiet since then, after offering an apology. Her head lolled against the window. He figured that she was waiting to speak until they were alone. He had never really been scared of her before but now, well, he finally understood what it meant to love a shifter.
Willow seemed to be in a daze as she walked up the paved path to the front door. Rashida’s scent filled her senses until she was drunk on it. She couldn’t fight the call, try as she might. It had hit her so strongly that she almost shifted in the café. She should’ve had her guard up, but she was too freaked out from reading about Garin’s mom.
The younger shifters had told scary stories around the campfires about a blue-eyed demon who killed unwary wolves in a very particular way. They named her The Huntress. To this day, that name sent spikes of ice down Willow’s spine. The Huntress was said to kill her victims slowly, using blades instead of bullets or arrows.
She would cut pieces of the wolf off while they were still alive, turning them into grotesque trophies of scarves, rugs, and whatever else her disturbed mind fancied. She had ways of keeping a shifter from reverting back to their human form. Some said she embedded silver into distinct parts of the body so that the shifter burned slowly from the inside.
Willow was drawing some similarities between these tales and Garin’s mother. She fit the profile. Willow shuddered to think that The Huntress, the boogeyman of the shifters, had been haunting her town for the past few years.
She didn’t realize that Garin was eyeing her suspiciously. She flopped onto the couch, her head in her hands, and moaned.
“I’m sorry, again. I guess I should explain judging by how freaked out you look,” she muttered from behind her hands.
“Yeah, that would be good,” he replied, sitting on the other side of the living room. She mussed her auburn locks and stood, biting her lip.
“I’ve never had another alpha call to me before,” she began.
“What do you mean another alpha? Are you…” he interjected, looking entirely bemused.
“Oh, yeah. So, there is the alpha of our pack and then each family in that pack has their own alpha. My grandmother was mine, obviously and I think, that I am now my family’s alpha.”
“You think?” he questioned, his arms crossed tightly in front of him, his brow creased. She flapped her arms exasperatedly, causing her curtain of hair to rise and fall around her, a crimson wave.
“Yes. I didn’t get a confirmation letter but yes. It was the night that Lyall…that I ended things with Lyall. I felt…the moon. As weird as that sounds, it felt like the moon was in me, a part of me.” She shrugged, her sweater slipping and revealing a pale shoulder. It drew Garin’s attention for a moment.
“Okay….so back to the alpha’s call or whatever you said made you freak out back there?” he replied impatiently.
“Her call…I can’t fight it. To do so is excruciatingly painful. I think she called me personally because it was so strong. Anytime before, it was just a faint flicker in the back of my mind but this…I saw her. I saw her calling me and my wolf, well, she wanted to answer the call. She had to answer. I don’t know how else to explain it,” she stated, arms wrapped around herself.
Garin studied her, she looked so small. She was a siren, everything about her drew him in, and yet, she could kill him on a whim. He had to remember that yes, she was beautiful but inside her, lived a very real and very deadly presence.
“So, what did she want?” he asked. Willow rubbed her eyes hard, her cheeks flushing.
“Willow, what did she want?” he asked, coming closer, wanting to erase the tension in her face. He still held back. There was frantic energy about her still and her scent was as heady as ever, causing his head to swim a bit.
“I saw her thoughts. She thinks the Red Hoods are here and they want a fight.”