Chapter 516

Olivia

I stood over my dining room table, taking mental notes of everything that I had laying in front of me: water, a flashlight, a swiss army knife, flares, and most importantly, the map that Mingan drew for me.

Everything was set to go and find Freya. With the twins with Clint in his cottage for the day, I was confident that today, I would finally find Freya and talk some sense into her. We were family, after all; surely she would listen to me.

And maybe, if what Mingan said was true about Freya getting stuck in her wolf form, I could even convince her to shift back.

Hopefully.

I was just packing my things into my backpack, however, when I heard a knock on the front door. Figuring that it was Clint coming back for something from the house, I walked over to the door and opened it. As far as he knew, I was going out for a hike in nature. Not going on a hunt for a potentially feral wolf.

But when I opened the door, I was met with a different face.

“Angela,” I said, blinking in surprise as I saw her standing on the porch in her plainclothes rather than her scrubs. “I thought you were working today.”

“I decided to take the day off.” Angela stepped into the foyer, holding a covered tray of what I could only assume was some sort of baked good. “Thought I’d come and surprise my favorite girl. Where are the twins?”

As Angela looked around, I rubbed the back of my neck and swallowed.

“They’re, uh… with Clint for the day,” I said. “At his cottage.”

Angela furrowed her brow and set down the tray of food on the dining room table. I watched nervously as her eyes scanned my hiking backpack. When she turned back around, she put her hands on her hips.

“You going hiking or something?”

“Yeah,” I replied coolly. “Just wanted to get some fresh air.”

Angela’s eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands together. “Perfect!” she exclaimed. “I’ll come with. I just need to run home and grab my hiking boots. I’ll be right back—”

As she turned to head toward the door, however, panic took over me. “No!” I blurted out, my eyes widening.

Angela stopped in her tracks and shot me a confused look. “Geez,” she said with a slight chuckle. “Why, you have a hot date or something? Or…” Her eyes widened a bit, and she took a step closer, lowering her voice even though no one was around to hear us. “...You didn’t make up with Nathan, did you?”

“No, nothing like that,” I said, my shoulders slumping slightly at the mention of Nathan’s name. “I just… I…”

My friend and I looked at each other for a few tense moments. I knew that I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her; and even if I did, she would be able to tell anyway.

“I’m going out to find Freya,” I said. “The Silent Elder.”

Angela’s eyes widened as realization dawned on her. “Why?” she asked. “Is this part of your grand plan to figure out your Ancient Wolf powers?”

I blushed slightly. “It’s part of it,” I said. “I don’t know. It’s a little complicated. But apparently she’s stuck in her wolf form and may have even gone feral at some point, so I have to trek out into the woods to find her.”

“Without me?” Angela placed her hands on her hips. “You know this is dangerous, don’t you?”

“I do.”

Angela sighed. “And you know I have to come with you, right?”

…

The forest air was misty and cool as we walked along the trail. Even though we had only just stepped out of pack territory and into unclaimed forest, Angela and I kept our heads on a swivel, our eyes and ears constantly on high alert for any sound or movement.

“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Angela asked softly as we moved.

I shrugged, looking down at the map that I was holding in my hands. The air was so foggy that the paper was already becoming damp, but Mingan’s instructions were clear: we were looking for a small hillside about three miles outside of pack territory, where a cave was nestled into the hill.

“I never said that I thought it was a good idea,” I said. “But I do think that someone needs to find her.”

Angela sighed softly, but didn’t protest. “You’re right,” she said. “No one deserves to be abandoned in their wolf form like that. She needs help.”

Initially, I did have to admit that I was only searching for Freya for my own gain—to learn more about my Ancient Wolf powers. But now, between Clarissa’s search for her past and the fact that Freya had gone feral, there was so much more to it now.

And if no one else was going to do it, then we certainly had to try.

“You never told me about the conversation with Clarissa,” Angela said as we walked, glancing over at me. “What happened? You mentioned it had something to do with what we’re doing today on the car ride here.”

As we walked around a bend in the trail, I knew that I had to tell Angela. After all, if it was true that Clarissa was somehow related to me, then that just made this whole situation all the more complicated.

“Clarissa thinks she may be related to me,” I began. “She has amnesia…”

Over the next few minutes, I explained everything to Angela: the amnesia, the strange feelings between Clarissa and myself, her missing past. When I was finished, Angela’s eyes were wide.

“Maybe she’s a long lost aunt,” she said. “Twins tend to run in families, you know. Maybe your mom had a twin that was separated at birth.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek as I pondered Angela’s point. “That’s very possible,” I said. After all, twins didn’t run in Ryan’s family, but Elliot and Aurora were twins. Maybe the gene came from my side.

We continued walking in silence for a few minutes—or maybe even longer. Between the thick mist and the soft sound of our footfalls on the pine-covered forest floor, it almost felt as if time was twisting and contracting.

Finally, however, I stopped in my tracks and gasped. “Here!” I said, pointing up ahead at a massive tree trunk in the mist. “We’re close.”

Angela followed my gaze to the enormous tree trunk, which Mingan had made sure to outline in her map. The huge redwood tree stood out like a giant amongst the mist, meaning only one thing.

Freya’s lair was nearby.

Taking more care to be quiet now, Angela and I slowly and cautiously made our way toward the tree. Just beyond that, a little further into the woods and around a bend, we spotted the hillside.

And, just as Mingan had said, there it was: peeking out through the fog was the dark mouth of a cave.

Before we walked up to it, Angela grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“Liv,” she whispered, “if she’s in there, and if things go south…”

I nodded, pulling a flare out of my backpack. “We’ll make it out. Don’t worry.”

With a sharp inhale, Angela released my arm and followed me toward the mouth of the cave. Slowly, we both peeked in, shining the flashlight into the darkness. The cave didn’t run particularly deep, and we could see the back of it from where we stood. And it was empty.

Well, almost empty; scattered throughout the cave were countless bones.

Angela and I exchanged wary looks, but stepped into the cave nonetheless. I got a closer look at the bones, and let out a small sigh of relief when I was able to identify them as animal bones; nothing human, not as far as I could tell.

Still, there was no sign of Freya. I sighed softly and turned around to tell Angela that maybe we had missed her, maybe she had moved on to a new location.

But it was as I swung my flashlight around that I saw it.

The dark, hulking shadow of a wolf in the entrance.