Darkest Wolf

XVI

Jade stared at me with absolute confusion and horror but didn't say anything because besides the three girls at the sinks fixing their very fucked make up, there was definitely a girl in the fourth stall down losing whatever food she had eaten today to alcohol poisoning.

"Oh my gosh," one of the girls slurred, looking me up and down," I just love your hair. Where did you get that dye job?"

"In the womb," I replied, looking out the door again to see if the bounty hunters were on our asses again. 

When I turned back the drunk girls were trying to take Jade and make her into one of them which she happily went along with. She even traded shirts with one so instead of smelling like sweat she would smell like cheap booze and their friends vomit.

"I love it so much. I can't believe that we're the same size!"

I tried not to snort at that statement. Jade's shirt was like four sizes to big for her very small frame. They are not the same size whatsoever.

I don't see them. We should make a run for it.

You never know with wolves like this. I don't want to risk Jade.

Jade is already at risk. Just go. 

What about that fight going on out there? It's almost taken up the entire club. It's spreading like wildfire.

It won't touch you. 

How do you know that?

Because you are made of the same thing it is.

I hate it when you talk like that.

"Jade, we have to go now. They're distracted."

She nodded at me but stayed to grab the girl by the shoulders and tell her to go home and to make it safely. Her friends all smiled at her and told her how much they love her and how pretty she is but Jade was already walking away with me.

We wiggled through the sidelines to get to the street outside. There was a cab waiting outside. Jade went up to the cab and started talking to the driver.

I don't know what she said but when I got in the cab with her, he didn't say anything to us and made no effort to acknowledge our existence other than a few nervous glances in the mirror. I looked back at him and was startled to see what those girls had meant by their comment.

"Jade," I whispered with a quiet tremor.

She looked at me and followed where my eyes were looking. The roots of my hair had started to go a deeper shade of blond that was really closer to brown than anything else. It was like someone had taken all of that deep fury and painted it over my hair like Munch painting his self deemed necessary pain in "The Scream."

"Oh, my Goddess."

"What are we going to do?"

"Right now we're going to get you a hat," she reached up to touch it but faltered and grabbed her hand. Her wolf must have said something. "Then we're going to the Cliffs."

I nodded at my older cousin, my eyes threatening to well with tears. I feel awful for bringing her along on this. It's only caused her grief and trouble. She shouldn't have to see me like this. Before I could actually turn and pretend I was fine she grabbed me and held me tight.

"Everything is going to be okay, E. I promise."

_

"Mairi," I whispered, climbing up the hill again," Mairi, where are you?"

The hills whispered for me to keep looking. Surely she couldn't keep hiding. Her mate was at home and so was mine. We were happy in our little village. She must be just around the corner.

"Come now, sister. It's time to come home. Abel and Nathaniel are waiting patiently for their dinner."

I looked down the edge of the hill to see her sitting on the edge of the cliff watching the water rage at the edge of the hills as if they were angry at the stoney walls for existing. I ran up to her and sat down to watch my legs dangle high over the cliff ledge.

"Are you okay, Mairi? You don't seem very happy today."

"I am simply thinking, little sister. Do not worry for me."

"But I always worry for you, dearest. I know how you can think."

"And so I will continue to think until the day I die. I just hope my babe doesn't feel this way as I do."

"Babe?"

"Abel has impregnated me yet again," she looked at me with her sad brown eyes, warm sandy hair shielding their true inner feelings from me," he believes this one will last."

"Mairi, I know you are hurting over the death of Alastair, but-"

"Don't be foolish! It is not just Alastair that hurts my heart, but the other three babes that I have failed to bring into this world that make my entire existence ache. Again and again and again I have failed my mate and I have failed our children. I am simply unsuitable to bring children into this world."

"Don't speak this way," I stood up and put my hand out to help my older sister up from the ground. She stood and I placed my hand on her belly and listened to the heart beat of my little niece or nephew with the hearing granted to me by the huntress," This one is strong. Your child will grow and it will live."

"How can you say these things?"

"I have hope, darling. Let us go home. I miss my mate and yours misses you."

She smiled at me and we linked arms, whispering about how our husbands should build us homes next to the cliff so our children could run around freely with the waves and we could watch the sunset every night together.

Just how we always dreamed we would.