Chapter 38: Apple Bottom Tail
The morning’s been almost suspiciously normal.
After rogue wolves and fights and running and discovering my life belongs in the fantasy section of a bookshop, I find myself standing in our driveway surrounded by grocery bags. We cleaned out half the supermarket because all of us are still eating like we’ve been stranded at sea for six months, and judging by the amount of food currently filling the boot, we’re planning to survive an apocalypse.
The air smells like cut grass and sunshine. Birds are chirping. It feels so ordinary that part of me keeps waiting for something terrible to happen.
Maybe that’s why I’m laughing so hard when Leo completely loses his dignity. All I did was tell him about how I got to watch Corrian and Jax and how it helped me sleep for 13 hours. It’s not my fault Leo made a strangled noise and a fluffy tail appeared behind him, knocking the grocery bags out the car as he tried to get out and lost basic motor control.
"Oh my God." I’m doubled over laughing. "Oh my God, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen."
"Frankie." Leo growls.
"Your tail came out." I can’t breathe.
"I’m aware."
"It wagged." I wheeze.
"It did not." He sounds so offended I laugh harder.
Jax collapses against the side of the car, cackling. "It wagged."
River actually looks away to hide a smile, Corrian doesn’t even try.
Leo points at all of us accusingly while apples roll across the driveway in every direction. "I hate every single one of you."
"You got horny and turned into a Disney sidekick." Jax forces out.
"I did not get horny." Leo shouts, trying to catch the apples as they fall.
That only makes me laugh harder. One of the apples bounces off a tyre and starts rolling down the slight incline toward the road. Leo lunges after it, a man trying to preserve the last scraps of his dignity. The sight is so ridiculous I have to brace myself against the car to stay upright. My stomach hurts. My face hurts. Tears sting the corners of my eyes. It feels easy. Normal. It feels like maybe we’re finally going to figure this whole mess out together.
The change happens so quickly my brain struggles to follow it. Everybody is moving, laughing, talking over each other. In a breath the entire world seems to lock into place. Every single one of them goes still. The laughter dies in my throat as growls rumble through the driveway simultaneously. Leo abandons the apple without hesitation and vanishes sideways into the hedge line, River moves at the exact same moment, disappearing behind a cluster of bushes bordering the property on the opposite side. Neither looks frightened. Just focused and dangerous.
Jax and Ezra are in front of me, shielding me from whatever’s happening. I didn’t even see either of them move, were beside the car when I looked a second ago.
Corrian steps forward alone, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the gates.
Nobody explains.
The silence presses against my ears. For one beat, two.
I hear it.
An engine, getting closer.
The low growl of it rolls down the road toward us, growing louder with every second. My pulse begins kicking harder despite myself. Around me, the atmosphere has transformed completely.
The warmth of the morning is still there. The birds are still singing. Somewhere, absurdly, an apple continues rolling down the driveway. Yet none of it matters. The wolves surrounding me have become statues carved from tension and instinct.
Jax’s hand brushes mine briefly before curling into a fist at his side. Ezra’s attention never leaves the approaching sound.
Ahead of us, Corrian stands alone in the centre of the driveway waiting as the vehicle draws nearer, and as it finally rounds the bend toward the property, every nerve in my body starts humming, I’m certain that whoever’s arrived, they’ve all been expecting them.
The most ordinary red hatchback pulls across the threshold of the driveway, but travels no further. The engine continues idling, whoever’s inside knows exactly how unwelcome they are and will not test boundaries.
It’s just a car. A slightly battered one at that.
Every muscle in the men around me remains tight with tension. Leo and River are still hidden somewhere in the hedges. Only Corrian moves. He strides forward with measured confidence and stops beside the driver’s window, bending slightly.
I’m on my tiptoes trying to see more. They’re talking, I know that much, in low voices I can’t make out. My already thin patience evaporates. I shift sideways, trying to hear.
Nothing. The breeze catches fragments and tears them away before they reach me.
"Oh, come on," I mutter.
Ezra’s arm extends across my path without him even looking at me, a silent command to stay put.
The audacity of it makes me huff.
"Don’t." His voice remains calm.
"I’m literally standing here."
"Frankie." He grumbles.
"I’m not doing anything."
"You are thinking about doing something." His expression doesn’t change.
I glare at the side of his face as the conversation at the car continues.
And continues.
And continues.
At this point I am seconds away from marching over there myself when the wind shifts and finally carries a voice back toward us. Deep. Rough. Male.
"...rather ask her to her face, dog."
That decides it. I duck around Ezra before he can stop me. He makes an annoyed sound behind me as I step forward and finally get a look at the person in the car.
The moment our eyes meet, I stop walking.
The man inside the car is a complete stranger, I’ve never seen him before in my life, I know that with absolute certainty. And yet every instinct in my body violently disagrees. Recognition slams into me, the sensation horrifyingly similar to catching my own reflection unexpectedly.
Not because he resembles me. He doesn’t.
It’s that every cell in my body seems to know him.
