Chapter 24

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"I'll call you a cab. With a human driver, to take you home. We won't stop you. And you never have to see me again."

He was leaving me... He was letting me go... He was leaving me...

Those two notions were running on repeat in my mind, making me dizzy and nauseous.

"Wait."

It was just a whisper, but Rhys heard it. His body tensed, arm falling stiffly to his side as he slowly turned around. He finally dared to look at me, his head tilting down a little as if he wanted to make himself smaller. He took a hesitant step and I reached in front of me, my palm facing him.

"Wait," I repeated. "Don't go, but stay over there."

Rhys nodded and pulled his lips between his teeth. My arm dropped and I hugged my knees again.

What was I doing?

Apart from shaking. I was consciously shaking back to front, but my body was also unwillingly shaking, trembling... Trembling so much that I wasn't sure it would ever cease.

I closed my eyes and let go of my knees to rub my forehead. A skull-splitting headache had erupted there to add to the pleasant effect of shallow breathing and the desire to vomit.

What was I going to do?

Rhys wasn't human... But he was still Rhys.

But all that fur, the claws... That was unnatural... It was wrong... But it was Rhys.

I loved him. I wasn't sure about that before, but I knew it now; why else would I consider staying with him?

Why else would the fear of him harming me make way to the panic that this could be the last time I saw him?

But could I be with him?

It would be so abnormal; he wasn't even human for crying out loud!

I sniffed and rubbed my nose. My eyes opened and landed on him.

"What now?" My tone was still low. "What are my options?"

"You can leave," his voice was louder and raspy, "or you could accept me and things would go to the way they were. There would be some little changes..."

"Little?" My laugh came out as a cry. "Little. You are a... something."

"Shifter." He spoke quieter now. "A werewolf some call it. But we are compatible with humans. A lot of shifters mate humans."

"Mate." I sighed and leaned my head on the wall.

Mate.

So that was why they spoke in such a strange manner, with so many riddles. That was why they would begin a sentence or a word and then change it. They had a whole terminology of their own; of course they wouldn't share it with a human like me.

Things were starting to make sense now. Things like why they distrusted outsiders, why the outsiders feared them... Things like why they always had that animal presence about them, even when at ease.

"Are there any humans in the Silver Bullets then?"

"No. We are a relatively new pack. You will be the first, if you agree to stay with me."

I looked at him again.

"Am I expected to move in with you?"

"You are not expected to do anything, Riley. I only want for you to be happy..." His voice cracked and he covered his mouth with his hand. He removed it and wiped his cheeks - wet with tears - before he went on:

"I was hoping that you'd want to move here with me. That this would be our home." He waved, as if presenting the room to me. "We have the ability to recognize a mate, you see. When we see him or her, we just... It's hard to explain the feeling, but we just know we are meant to be with that person. I recognized you as my mate, Riley, that very night I saw you on the parking lot in front of our pub. I planned to court you longer and give you a chance to get used to us, but the killings pressed me on time."

"The killings? What does that have to do with us?"

"It's another wolf, Riley; that is why we are helping the police."

I sucked a breath through my teeth and my heart - which had almost gone back to its regular rhythm - jumped into my throat. Rhys raised his arms before him.

"We don't do that," he blurted. "Shifters don't kill people. I mean..."

He took a deep breath and ran a hand over his hair. It stuck up like bristled fur.

"We are sentient creatures, Riley, and just like humans we can be good or bad. This person - we think they are a rogue, a runaway from their pack - they are obviously bad news. But we don't do that, Riley." His eyes were large with need for me to believe him. "No one from the Bullets would do such a thing and that is why we offered to help Callum. When the first murder took place, we didn't know they were targeting us; we just wanted to help."

"And now you think they are here because of you?" I asked slowly.

"Too many victims have piled in our town. You see, packs respect each other's territory. When we came to Woodbury, we claimed it as ours. A sole murder by a lone wolf is hardly a proclamation of war, especially when the victim isn't one of us; it could be a one-time thing. But they kept coming back. Last time they even left us a message on the wall at the victim's house."

"What kind of message?" I whispered. The dizziness was back.

"'Are we having fun yet?'" He replied with a clenched jaw and his hands turned into fists.

"How do you know it is a message to you?"

"The way those people died - as if attacked by an animal - was a message in itself, a reference to us. This must be too."

"But you don't know that for sure. It could be to the police," I blurted out. "They are the ones handling the case..."

"Riley," he took a few steps towards me and this time I didn't stop him. Rhys crouched not far from where I was sitting. "It is to us. I don't want it to be, but it is. We don't know why they are doing this to us, we don't know who it is that is doing this to us... Maybe they are trying to expose us - it would explain their M.O. - or maybe they are trying to get to us, but they can't because we have patrols aroundthe neighbourhood and they are taking their frustration out on the humans in Woodbury. The bottom line is that it has to do with the Bullets. That was why I had to hurry and tell you. It is getting harder to send people after you when we have to protect the pack..."

"You've send people after me?"

"To protect you." He explained without guilt or regret. "I asked them to follow you on your way back from work or when you are hanging out with Winnie. I sometimes do it myself, but I have to take care of my people so I couldn't always do it."

"You sent people after me," I repeated.

"Yes, I think we've already cleared that point." His eyebrows furrowed. "I think you noticed dad once. You were at a diner with Winnie, Tim, another couple and their child."

"That was your father?" My voice rose. "I thought there was a knife-wielding psychopath on my trail!"

"I'm sorry about that, Riley; the last thing we want is to scare you. I needed to know you were safe and dad volunteered to keep an eye on you even though that put him at risk."

"It did?" My voice was back to normal.

Rhys nodded.

"With that werewolf on the loose, it is dangerous for a Bullet to be out on their own during the night. That is why I usually followed you myself; I didn't want anyone else to take the risk. But as I said, I couldn't always be there so some friends volunteered to help out."

My lips parted and I stared at him with wide eyes as the gravity of his words hit me.

Rhys had risked his life for me. Not only that, but people I probably didn't even know had risked their lives for me.

Tears rolled down my cheeks again, but this time not from fear. I felt special, I felt loved and I couldn't help the sniffs as I reached out to touch his hand. The gesture surprised him and he wasn't sure how to respond, other than to stare at me. Finally, he intertwined his fingers with mine and smiled for the first time today.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Does this mean," he gulped, "that you will stay with me?"

I didn't trust my voice so I nodded. His body slumped in relief and he let out a loud sigh.

"I thought I'd lost you." His eyes moistened again. "I thought I'd only look at you from afar until this matter with the rogue is resolved and that then I'd have to stay away from you for good."

"I'll need some time to get used to all this," I noted. "I have so many questions."

"Ask! Ask me anything," he urged, squeezing my hand. "As long as it is not an Alpha-Beta-only issue, I'll reply."

"Alpha and Beta... How about we start with that?"

"Well," he moved forward, but paused halfway. "Is it okay if I come closer?"

"Yes."

He sat right in front of me, his legs crossed Turkish style.

"You already know about this; we've just used other terms around you. Keri is our Alpha - our leader, and I'm her Beta - her second in command. When an Alpha dies or steps down, a new one is chosen by participating in the Evaluations. These are tests of strength, agility, speed, perceptivity... The ones that present themselves the best are then evaluated by the Council for virtues that don't show up in the tests - things like devotion to the pack, kindness and so on. That is how they picked Keri - her willingness to put the wellbeing of the pack before her own is her greatest strength..."

"... Along with compassion. That is why the Council chose her over her cousin Jasper who did better at the physical tests."

Rhys' forehead wrinkled.

"Kennedy already told me about this." I waited for the outcome of my words. Would Rhys be angry with his younger brother for telling me this?

His expression didn't change and I relaxed; Kennedy was not going to get in trouble.

"Then what else do you want to know?" Rhys asked.

"Why the Silver Bullets?" I inquired after what I'd been wondering about for a long time. "Aren't they deadly to werewolves?"

"Silver being deadly to werewolves is just a legend," he waved as if to swat a fly. "We shift, we are stronger than humans and we heal faster, but the truth is that you can kill us with any kind of bullet if it is aimed properly. A long time ago, when there were conflicts between humans and shifters, a new order arose - the one of the Hunters... Actually, you've met a Hunter - the man in white who came to the Milk & Cream..."

I shivered at the memory of that guy and his twisted, false smile.

"They spread the word that all shifters were dangerous and they could only be killed by specially trained people with specially designed weapons. It was a lie, of course, but that way people would pay the Hunters to kill shifters instead of going after them themselves. That's where the legend of the silver bullet came from. My ancestors chose the name as a protest against those superstitions. It also served to prove to the Hunters that we weren't scared of them."

"So any hunter can come and take your life at any time?" My fingers wrapped tighter around his.

"No. We have rules and laws now. And the Sentinels; they are the enforcers of those rules."

"The Sentinels?" Was that yet another order? "Tell me more about them."

"Are you sure you want to know now? You learned a lot tonight, Riley. Maybe we should take a break?" He suggested. "I could take you back to your apartment or we can go to my parents' house..."

"I want to know more," I cut him off. "Come on, Rhys, tell me!"

"Alright. The Sentinels."

*****

A/N: Not really sure where I'm taking YATA from here; I've only planned the chapters until now and the last chapter. What else do you want to read about?

More of the werewolves and their world?

More couple-y things?

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