When my thirty minutes were up, I climbed out of the tub to stand beneath the shower. Cleaned, dried, and dressed in a fresh pair of drawstring pants and T-shirt, I left the bath chamber and headed to my suite on the third floor of the north wing. Westhorne was a Mohiri military stronghold, but there were no barracks here. My suite was almost as big as my loft back home, with a much larger bathroom and a small combined living room and kitchenette. The furnishings were richer than I was used to, but I did love the antique four-poster bed. And the fireplace would come in handy if the winters in Idaho were anything like I’d been told.
I opened the window and took a deep breath of fresh air. The view outside my window was so different from the one I’d grown up with. I missed the ocean, but there was something about snowcapped mountains that made my breath catch every time I saw them.
If only I had the freedom to explore them, I might have felt better about my change in scenery. So far, I had been pretty much restricted to the grounds. Not that I hadn’t tried to go beyond the border of the property, only to be caught and returned twice. They told me it was standard procedure for new orphans and it was for my own good, but I suspected my past escapades might have had a little more to do with it. I longed to walk in the woods and hike on the mountain trails without someone treating me like a five-year-old who had wandered away. It wasn’t like I was going to run off. We were in the middle of nowhere and the closest town was five miles away. Even if I did head for town, Butler Falls had a population of a whopping four thousand and more farm supply stores than restaurants. Not exactly a magnet for vampires, especially with a Mohiri compound next door.
I turned away from the window with a sigh and hunted for a pair of jeans and a shirt in my ridiculously huge closet. Who needs a closet the size of a small bedroom anyway? My clothes took up half a rack and two shelves. A few days ago, the rest of my boxes from home had arrived, and most of them still sat unopened on the floor of the closet. That still left almost three-quarters of the closet bare. Claire, the woman who had shown me around the day I arrived, told me they had set up a line of credit for me to buy anything I needed, but so far I hadn’t bothered. It wasn’t as if I had anywhere to go, and my old clothes served me well enough. Besides, I felt weird about spending Mohiri money when I barely knew them.
I grabbed a warm coat and a paperback from my nightstand. The book was one of Nate’s and I’d read it before, but reading it again made me feel a little less homesick. I tucked the book in my pocket as I left my room.
As I descended the stairs, the murmur of voices grew louder. It was lunchtime, but the last place I wanted to be was in the crowded dining hall. Instead, I left by the door in the training wing that opened to a courtyard at the rear of the building. To my right was the wide, deep river that bordered one side of the property. I started that way, but the call of the woods was stronger. Besides, I always had the feeling someone was watching me when I went near the river. No doubt they were making sure I did not fall in and drown myself.
I passed a group of warriors carrying bows and swords, and they nodded politely but didn’t speak to me. As beautiful as Westhorne was, I was constantly reminded that it was a military holding. The Mohiri had dozens of compounds across the US alone, and at least ten of them were like this one. The rest were community compounds that were even more fortified than Westhorne, but were less involved in military operations. I did not have to ask why I hadn’t been sent to one of the Mohiri communities. No one wanted to take a chance of the Master attacking a compound full of kids if he ever figured out I was alive. So I came here instead.
Home sweet home.
The scent of pine surrounded me when I entered the woods. Overhead, I could see only patches of blue sky through the canopy of branches, but the sun still managed to seep through, its rays casting a dappled pattern of light across the ground. It was so quiet here, and the only sounds came from the birds in the branches above my head. I took a deep breath, imagining I was in the woods back home in New Hastings, and I could almost pretend Remy or one of his little cousins was about to sneak up on me like they used to.
I shook off my melancholy because the woods were too beautiful to allow sadness to mar them. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I wandered aimlessly, content just to be outdoors and alone for a while. It will get easier, I told myself like I did every day. They had a lot more rules here than I was used to, but the people were not unkind, even if they were different. Just because I didn’t feel at home here, it wasn’t fair of me to judge the whole Mohiri race after less than two weeks.