Winter Wolf(17)

Katalina flicked through the whole album looking at picture after picture of her first six months of life; in every one they were happy, and it wasn’t just pictures of Jackson, Winter and her. There was one with Karen and another man with his arm around her. There was a group shot with a couple who looked as if they were Cage and Toby’s parents, and the last was one of around thirty people, Jackson and Winter at the center of them, and all around stood happy, smiling people.

Katalina closed the album as a tear rolled down her cheek. Her hands trembled as she hugged the album to her chest. With each breath she took, the pain inside of her threatened to burst. She stared out, the darkness a welcome companion. The feelings inside of her were as bleak and empty as the desolate landscape around her. The grief and loss she felt grew by the day, the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach a constant thing. She wondered if she’d ever be whole again.

“Kat?” Karen walked out onto the porch. “Kat, what are you doing out here. You’ll freeze to death!”

Katalina swiped at her tears. “I won’t be long. I…I just needed some air.”

Karen’s hand rested on Katalina’s shoulder. “What’s on your mind, Kat?”

“Why did this happen? Why do the packs hate each other so much?”

Sighing, Karen took a seat beside her. “I’m afraid this story isn’t a nice one. I would love to say we are good and they are bad, but both packs have done some unspeakable things. What you must understand is this hatred between the packs has been there for many, many generations, but we had an understanding: you leave us alone, we leave you alone. However, soon after you reached six months- old, Black Shadow’s alpha’s nephew was found hanging from a tree, just over our territory line. Now, many of the pack said we should have hidden the body because it would start a war, but Jackson said the boy deserved to be buried on his homeland.”

“But they believed you’d killed him?”

“Yes, the boy’s father wanted blood for the death of his son. Black Shadow’s alpha says his brother acted against his will and I believe him. The boy’s father brought two of his best fighters and came onto our lands. They set a fire, cutting the rest of the pack off from your parents. By the time Jackson killed the other two men, Winter was already dying. She’d killed the boy’s father, protecting you. She died in Jackson’s arms that night. Jackson and many others, wanted blood; they attacked Black Shadow and Jackson killed the alpha’s mate. Slowly over the years, both packs have picked each other off until the pure lines are now nearly extinct and no wolf is safe outside of pack land alone.”

“When will it stop? How much blood is enough?”

Karen stood up. “I don’t know, Kat. I’ve asked myself that question many times.” She left Kat alone with her thoughts and a dead weight in her stomach. Does Karen really think I can stop years’ worth of hatred?

She bent her head, gripping the album in her hands as a broken sob left her. Sucking in a breath, she tried to gain control of her emotions.

Someone spoke her name, making her heart leap in her chest.

“Katalina?”

“Bass?” Katalina whispered, looking up. “Where’d you come from? I didn’t hear you approach.”

“Of course you didn’t. I wouldn’t be a very good predator if my prey heard me approach.”

“Prey?” she whispered, glancing behind her to check the house was quiet.

“I’ll hear if someone comes to the door. If we’re quiet, they shouldn’t hear us.” He smiled but then it left his face. “You’re crying.”

She didn’t bother trying to wipe her tears away, more just fell in their place anyway.

He sat down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

She wasn’t sure why she wanted to tell Bass. He’d called himself a predator and that word described him perfectly. She’d not missed the fact that he’d been on pack land for days now, yet had not been found. She also knew there were pack members out there at all times keeping watch. But it didn’t seem to matter. She might be a fool for trusting him but she did. Maybe he’d captured his prey after all, on the first night they’d met.

“I feel like I’m mourning two sets of parents, two lives. I’m so full of conflicting feelings I feel like I might break. My parents are dead and the life I had is never going to be the same again, and then I look at this album full from my first six months of life, and I’ve lost the parents I had then, too. Jackson might still be alive, but the man he is in here…I think he died that night along with Winter. All that’s left is a ghost clinging onto a hatred that has poisoned this pack.”