Page 93 of Red's Beast

"Ma, he isn't even his normal wolf size. He's huge. Do you really want him to try to sit on the chair? I'm sure it would be awkward for him. Way more awkward than to eat off a plate on the floor."

I nod to agree with Logan, but Ma looks sad.

"You can't blame me for that, honey. Don't look at me with those puppy eyes. I understand, but I still feel bad." She gets her bowl, filling it full with the soup and then comes to sit on the floor beside me. "I'm not eating at the table when you're eating down here."

Emmeline says, "Why don't we all just eat on the floor with him? Maybe you can tell him about everything you've done since you've been apart?"

Pa, Logan, and Emmeline move down to the floor with me, with their bowls of soup in hand. We all begin eating as Ma talks until my ears almost fall off. She goes on about their life here and how she has a garden for all her vegetable needs.

They're smiling and laughing as I silently listen and observe. I don't miss how happy they look and I try to smile, but of course it doesn't look like it. Ma finally stops laughing about the time she fell over in the garden and says, "We've missed you, Lucian. We tried to make do in this crazy place, but our hearts were never full without you."

For a brief moment, I wonder what it would be like if I was never found and lived out my cursed life here with them. All the things we could do to make up for the lost time between us. Things might be great. It sounds like this place has everything we need and I guess we could literally live forever.

One thought plagues me, though. What happened to Lillian? Emmeline mentioned her sister was gone, but did Lillian make it out unscathed? What about Grandmother? Did she mate Corbin after? Will she be okay without me?

My stomach turns and I can't eat another bite of the muffin. Emmeline notices and smiles. "Don't worry, beasty. Lillian is alive, but she's going through some changes right now."

Changes? What kind of changes?

Lillian

Everything is dark at first and I can’t seem to see anything. My eyes feel heavy, but I manage to slowly open them and see that I’m back at Grandmother’s cottage. I rise from the bed in her bedroom and then collapse into the softness of the bed, the dizziness threatening to consume me.

What just happened to me?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Grandmother sticking her head through the open door to check on me. She smiles softly when she sees I’m awake. “I’m so glad you came back to us. It was scary for a while and I thought you might fight your wolf too much.”

"Can you explain what happened after I blacked out? Is that what happened?”

She comes into the room, hobbling around with her cane in her hand, and plops down at the foot of the bed, her skirt swirling around her feet. There’s something in her hand, which she quickly hands to me. “Here, you are going to need this.”

It looks like some kind of medicine we usually use for headaches. I quickly take it without drinking anything. “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

“So, the short answer is that you shifted into your wolf and made it to the other side, then you slept for a week.”

"What's the long answer?"

Grandmother chuckles low and looks at the door.. "Well, you shifted in a solid white wolf, which hasn’t been seen in two hundred years and then galloped like a horse around the entire village. Everyone in the pack was in awe of you because they’ve never seen one like you. Then you came back here and fell over as soon as you crossed through the threshold. Your body wasn’t exactly ready for all that.”

"So, I’m the first solid white wolf in two hundred years?”

She shifts slightly, looking rather uncomfortable. “Yes. Our family has had white wolves in it for a very long time, but none have been solid white since Emily. “

“Emily? I don’t know that name.”

Grandmother covers her mouth in a snicker. "Emily is your twice great grandmother. She died when I was young. I know for a time she used her middle name, Lira, because of something that happened back then. A lot of our history starts with her, though there are parts that go back eight hundred years to when Dark Moon began.”

"You still can't tell me anything, can you?”

She sighs as she looks out through the door. “My dear girl, the decision had to be yours and yours alone. I’ll never be able to tell you that enough, but I can show you the books containing the pack’s history. I thought once Natalia was dead that our problems might lessen, but sadly, that isn’t the case and another issue has been raised.”

Then it all comes flooding into my mind. I nearly choke on my own saliva as I realize the beast is missing, and I haven’t seen him. “What about the monster in the woods? I need to check on him right away. Natalia did something to him and then he was just gone.”

I slowly shuffle out of the bed as I throw back the covers and my feet land on the wooden plank flooring. But then I fall onto the bed as weakness takes over. Of course, I’m not one to quit, so I try again.

“Oh, child. You won’t find him in the woods.”

"What do you mean? He has to be in the woods, and I have to go to him to finish everything, so he can be free. The full moon was his last night before becoming trapped in them forever.”

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