Chapter Four
Heather drank a cup of decaf as she sat at her tiny kitchen table across from Margaret. Caffeine right now would just mean she didn’t sleep well; it was hard enough sleeping during the daytime, although she was finally starting to get used to it.
She watched Margaret devouring raspberry Pop Tarts along with a pile of crispy bacon she’d just cooked for her.
So. Werewolves liked Pop Tarts. Or at least this one did.
If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she’d have been a lot more freaked out. That would come later, she imagined, once she’d had a chance to sleep for a few hours.
Still. She wasn’t quite ready to crawl off to bed yet. She was sitting across from a girl who was magic.
Margaret had borrowed a pink tracksuit from Heather’s closet, and it hung off her small frame and made her look even more tiny and vulnerable. Her injuries had healed remarkably fast, though. Her bruises were no longer black; they were in the yellow-and-green stage of healing, and the cuts on her lips had closed.
Despite the bruises, she was very beautiful, in a fresh-faced, dewy, teenager kind of way. It was just the look in her eyes that made her look older; they were eyes that had seen too much and could never forget it.
“How many different species of shifter are there?” Heather asked the girl, fascinated.
“Lots,” Margaret said wearily. “Mostly bears and wolves and hyenas in this area. But there are lots of other kinds. Lions. Moles.”
“Weremoles?” Heather’s eyes widened with surprise. “Really?”
“Sure. I was friends with a weremole. Her name was Tatiana.” She smiled faintly in reminiscence. Then her smile vanished. “Couldn’t tell my dad about it – he’d have smacked me upside the head. They’re a weak species, so I shouldn’t be friends with them.”
“Wow. He sounds like a total jerk,” Heather said indignantly.
“He’s more than that. He drove my older sister to suicide,” Margaret said quietly, setting her pop tart down on her plate and staring at the table in front of her.
“Oh my God. I am so sorry.”
Margaret gave a tiny shrug. “It was a couple of years ago,” she said dully, but the sorrow in her voice said that the pain was still fresh.
“What happened?”
Margaret grimaced. “He arranged for her to marry this rich old guy. My sister was eighteen and this guy was sixty. The guy paid my dad a ton of money for the marriage, but she refused to go through with it. So my dad kept my sister locked up without food and water to force her to give in, and she hung herself.” Margaret blinked back tears.
“He will never get his filthy paws on you again,” Heather said, her voice shaking. “Are all wolf packs like that?”
Margaret shook her head. “I don’t think so. We live in a pretty isolated little tiny town, and my dad keeps a tight rein on the pack so we can’t talk to other packs and tell them what’s happening there. We don’t have phones on the property, and nobody leaves pack lands without his permission.”
“But he tried to have you marry this guy from another pack?”
“Yeah, this guy Kevin put out the word that he was looking for a mate, and my dad sent the guy a picture of me. And then they made some kind of business deal and I pretended to go along with it so my dad wouldn’t lock me up like he did my sister.”
She winced. “But he still wasn’t taking any chances. I was guarded up until it was time to send me off to be with the other pack. When I got to Kevin’s house, I managed to climb out a window on the second floor, climb down a tree, and escape.”
“Why did you come here?”
“I was trying to get as far away from home as I could. I know this hyena, Roy, who used to live in our area, who moved down here with his family, so I came here and asked him for help. He was hiding me in his room, but I guess Kevin put a reward out, and his parents found out and called up Kevin behind my back. Kevin came down here, and when he got to their house, he went crazy.” She shuddered. “He dragged me into this room and he just started hitting me and hitting me. My friend Roy heard me screaming, and he ran into the room and maced Kevin, and I guess he drove me to the hospital and left me there.”
She sighed. “He probably had to leave the state after that.” Then she looked up at Heather. “I’m putting you in a lot of danger. Humans can’t know about our existence. I mean, occasionally humans marry shifters, so they know, of course, but otherwise it’s strictly forbidden.”
Humans can marry shifters? Heather thought, feeling a sharp sting of rejection. So there was no reason that Knox couldn’t ask her out, then, was there?