Chapter 509

Olivia

I awoke with a start to find the soft blue moonlight streaming through the bedroom window. A soft sigh of relief slipped out as I fell back down onto the pillows.

“Still at home,” I whispered, wiping the beads of sweat off of my forehead with the back of my hand. “It was just a dream.”

Remembering the dream now as I lay there, I couldn’t help myself from shuddering. It had been a horrific nightmare; one involving flames, collapsing houses, and my children being nowhere to be found.

Out of instinct, I rolled over onto my side and began to reach for Nathan—only to discover that he wasn’t there.

“Right.” I rolled back onto my back and stared up at the ceiling again. He wasn’t here anymore, and hadn’t been for a while now.

It had been three days since I had kicked Nathan out, and even longer than that since we had slept in the same bed. How long had it even been since we had really, truly slept next to each other—and not just pretended until one of us eventually got up and moved to the couch?

Three weeks? Four?

Either way, it didn’t matter anymore. Nathan had cheated on me with a prostitute, and I had the proof. We were done. I couldn’t bring myself to stay with a man who slept with someone else, especially not while we were still grieving our son.

Realizing that I wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight, I yawned, slipped out of bed, and pulled on my robe. I quietly padded down the hall, where I stopped and peeked into the nursery to find Elliot and Aurora sleeping soundly.

No flames. No collapsing houses. Just the sound of their soft breathing in the quiet room.

I made my way downstairs after that and brewed some coffee in the kitchen. Once I poured myself a mug, I headed over to the living room and sat cross-legged on the large plush armchair by the window, just looking out over the moonlit back yard.

That was when I heard the rustling in the bushes.

At first, I thought it was an animal; a squirrel or a raccoon, maybe. But when I listened more closely, I could make out the more distinct sound of rather heavy, bipedal footsteps.

Like… a person.

Clamping my hand over my mouth, I jumped up out of the chair and scurried out of the way of the window, carefully peering through the curtains to get a better look. I saw no one, but I could still hear the rustling.

It was as if someone was circling around my house.

All at once, my motherly instincts kicked in. Whoever this was, I couldn’t let them near my children. And so, without a second thought, I ran over to the back door and burst out into the back yard, panning a flashlight over the landscape.

“Hello?” I called out. “Who’s out there? Show yourself?”

Nothing except the wind blowing softly across the grass answered my call. With my breath hitched in my throat, I panned the flashlight around again and again, but I saw nothing. No intruders, no peeping toms, not even a squirrel or raccoon.

“Must have been imagining it,” I whispered to myself before hesitantly turning and heading back inside.

Once the door was safely deadbolted behind me, I went around the house and closed and locked the windows, just to be safe. The whole time, though, I kicked myself for being so on edge.

“You’re panicking again, Olivia,” my wolf’s voice echoed through my mind.

I slammed the last window shut and frowned. When I went to retort, though, I realized that Jade was right; I was panicking again. This wasn’t the first time that I had frantically checked the house at night since Nathan was gone, thinking that there was some intruder or another.

Finally, I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “I just feel exposed.”

“I know you do. But it’’s safe here.”

I walked back over to the chair by the window where I had left my coffee cup and sat down, sipping the coffee. I made a face when I realized that it was barely even lukewarm by now and I quickly set it back on the windowsill.

“Maybe it’s about time you start lending me some of your Ancient Wolf powers,” I mused, thinking back on my nightmare. “So that I could actually defend my children in case of an emergency.”

My wolf growled softly in annoyance. “How many times do I have to tell you that you need training? We can’t control the powers, not really, without the proper practice.”

I let out an annoyed sigh of my own. “And how do you propose that, hm?” I asked. “We have no one to train us. My mother and father are both dead.”

There was a long silence after that as my wolf pondered my words. Then, finally, an idea seemed to come to her mind—and at the same time, it came to my mind as well.

My eyes shifted over to the basement door, the door that I hadn’t walked through in a long time by now. It had been months since I had set foot in my aunt’s hidden library, but now, looking at the door cast in blue in the moonlight, I couldn’t help but wonder…

“You think she had any text down there on Ancient Wolf powers?” I asked.

“We won’t know until we check.”

A couple of minutes later, I was pushing open the door to my aunt’s hidden library. The air smelled musty from being untouched for ages, and I had to swat my hand at a cobweb that had formed right in the doorway.

Shivering at the sudden cold of the basement, I pulled my robe around myself and quickly ran over to the lantern sitting on the desk. Once I had it lit, the place was slightly more welcoming; a soft amber glow filled the room, illuminating the various shelves lined with old books and scrolls.

Surely there was something in here that could be of use. After all, my aunt was clearly privy to a lot of the secrets that my family—and this pack—held. She must have known about the Ancient Wolf, in some capacity, which meant that she must have had some sort of literature or notes on the subject.

And so, rolling up my sleeves, I began to search.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long I pored over my aunt’s library, but I knew it had to be hours judging by the soft sunlight that began to peek through the small window. The work was slow and dusty, and before I knew it, I was completely congested from searching and was getting close to giving up.

But then, on the back of a shelf, I found something: a tattered book, its spine creased and disintegrating.

“The Ancient Wolf and its Bloodline,” I read softly out loud, wiping the dusty cover off with my already-blackened hand. “Aha! Lucky day.”

My wolf stirred excitedly inside of me. “This must have some answers,” she purred. “Let’s get to—”

Suddenly, the sound of the phone ringing from upstairs echoed through the floorboards overhead. I sighed, tucking the book under my arm as I turned to head back up and out of the basement.

“Just like clockwork,” I said, leaving the door cracked open behind me.