Midnight Wolves

Chapter Forty: Danger

Calie groaned and rolled to her knees. Her head was screaming with pain. Her ribs ached too.

Henderson might be old but was surprisingly spry.

He chuckled at her agonised moan, the sound echoed down her spine, merging with memories of the day her mother was murdered. He'd laughed then too.

"Why?" Callie bit out hoarsely, as she slowly looked up to find Henderson pacing backward and forwards.

He'd moved her, she realised. She must have blacked out. Annoyance rolled through her, her wolf was quiet, curled into a ball somewhere inside – her wolf was scared.

Henderson limped around her in a circle while Callie tried to pull in enough air to feel like she could breathe again. "Why did you kill her?"

She tried to piece together what she could remember. They'd been in his house, she'd lunged for him. She thought she'd transformed into her wolf, but maybe that had been him? She remembered something metal hitting her. Darkness claiming her.

Callie gritted her teeth, her hands digging into the soft ground beneath her. Outside. They weren't in the packlands anymore.

Had she been in a tunnel? Or was that a memory from childhood? Her knees were damp but the floor was dry, what did that mean?

Scowling, she pushed herself up to her shaky feet and eyed Henderson who prowled in a circle around her. Waiting, she realised, for something.

"Why?" Callie shouted, sending a bird flying from the tree. And maybe it was that bird's frightened arc through the air, maybe it was the way her words echoed through the trees around her with no one to hear them, but familiarity hit her like a train.

"No," she whispered, more in surprise than anything else. Henderson laughed again making Callie's fists tighten at her sides.

"See something familiar?" he asked, his voice no longer warm and his eyes sparkling with rage.

"This is where you left me," she accused, spinning in circles, her head snapping from left to right. Shadows seemed to crawl towards her, darkness settling in as the sun set in the distance.

"I really should have killed you. But-" Henderson sighed sadly, "I couldn't bring myself to do so." Regret laced his tone, not for what he'd done but because he'd wanted to kill her but hadn't.

Callie shivered. "Why?" she repeated again. "Why?" her voice was a strangled cry as her misery and pain wrapped around her like a familiar comfort blanket.

"She did not deserve him. She was not his. He was not hers," he yelled, spittle flying from his lips as his eyes filled with an unhinged anger and fear.

Callie watched, helplessly shaking her head as his wolf fought in his eyes.

"He was so convinced that she was his moonmate, but she wasn't. I had to show him, to prove it..."

"You loved her?" Callie asked incredulously, shaking her head in disgust. "You wanted her for yourself so you killed her?" it didn't make sense. He was crazy.

Henderson laughed humourlessly, the sound cruel and intrusive. "Of course not. I hated that mutt. He should have left her to be traded to that alpha."

Callie shook her head again, balancing on the balls of her feet and looking for a chance to strike against him as still he circled her slowly. But she was dizzy and she felt something trickling down the back of her neck.

"I knew that if I could just get her out of the way then he would see she was nothing. I could heal him, I-"

Callie's eyes widened as she drew in a sharp, cold breath. "Him. You loved my father?"  Tingles drifted over Callie's body as realisation set in.