CHAPTER THIRTY THREE: NIGHT WANDERINGS

The pack territory looked completely different in the moonlight.

What had seemed welcoming and safe during the day now felt mysterious and slightly dangerous.

I stood at the base of the oak tree for several minutes, trying to decide where to go.

I couldn't stay near the pack house - someone might see me and report back to Kieran.

But I also couldn't leave the territory entirely. I had nowhere else to go.

I decided to head toward the eastern edge of Shadow Ridge lands, where I remembered seeing some older cabins during one of my walks with Marcus.

If there were pack members living there, maybe they would be willing to talk to me without immediately running to tell their Alpha.

The forest was alive with night sounds - owls hooting, small animals rustling through the underbrush, the distant howl of wolves on patrol.

Every sound made me jump, but I forced myself to keep walking.

I had been walking for about twenty minutes when I smelled smoke.

Following the scent, I found a small cabin with warm light glowing in the windows.

An elderly man sat on the front porch, smoking a pipe and looking out into the darkness.

He noticed me approaching and stood up slowly, his weathered face showing curiosity rather than alarm.

"Well, well," he said, his voice gravelly with age.

"If it isn't the young lady who's got everyone talking. Laila, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir." I stopped at the bottom of his porch steps, suddenly feeling foolish.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late."

"No bother at all. I don't sleep much these days anyway."

He studied my face in the moonlight.

"You look like you've been crying, child. And unless I'm mistaken, you're supposed to be locked in your room right about now."

My cheeks burned with embarrassment.

"You heard about that?"

"Honey, in a pack this size, news travels faster than wildfire. Especially when it involves our Alpha having a shouting match with his houseguest."

He gestured to a second chair on the porch.

"Why don't you sit a spell? My name's Walter, by the way. Walter Morrison. I've been with this pack for sixty-three years."

I climbed the steps and sat down gratefully.

"Sixty-three years?"

"Joined when I was fifteen. Been through four different Alphas, though Kieran's been the longest so far."

Walter relit his pipe, the sweet smoke curling around us.

"I remember when his grandfather ran things. Now there was a man who knew how to listen before he acted."

The implied criticism of Kieran wasn't lost on me.

"You don't approve of what he did tonight?"

Walter was quiet for a long moment, puffing on his pipe.

"I've seen a lot of things in my time, child. Seen Alphas make good decisions and bad ones."

"And I've learned that sometimes the difference between the two comes down to whether a man's acting out of wisdom or out of fear."

"You think Kieran is afraid?"

"I think Kieran is a man carrying a lot of pain who sometimes lets that pain make his choices for him."

Walter looked at me directly.

"But that doesn't make his choices right."

His words were surprisingly comforting.

After Elena's coldness and the pack's apparent support of Kieran, it was a relief to find someone who didn't think I was completely in the wrong.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Fire away."

"Did you know Seraphina?"

Walter's expression grew sad but also fond.

"I did. Lovely girl. Smart as a whip and twice as fierce when she needed to be. She reminded me a lot of my own daughter."

"What was she like? I mean, really like?"

"Curious. Always asking questions, always trying to understand how things worked and why things happened the way they did." He smiled slightly.

"Drove some people crazy, but I admired it. Too many folks are content to just accept things without thinking."

That sounded exactly like the woman I had read about in the diary.

"Did you believe her theories about the conspiracy?"

Walter was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer.

Finally, he sighed deeply.

"I believed that Seraphina saw patterns where others saw coincidences."

"Whether those patterns meant what she thought they meant..." He shrugged.

"I guess we'll never know for sure."

"But you had doubts about how she died."

It wasn't a question, and Walter didn't treat it like one.

"I had questions. Still do, if I'm being honest."

He looked out into the darkness.

"Seraphina was too smart and too careful to go out on a dangerous patrol with inadequate backup."

"She'd been concerned about security for months. It didn't make sense that she would take such a risk."

"Did you ever tell Kieran about your doubts?"

"Once. Right after the funeral." Walter's voice grew heavy.

"He didn't want to hear it. Said I was disrespecting her memory by suggesting she hadn't died a hero's death fighting rogues."

"But you still think something else happened."

"I think Seraphina died trying to protect people, just like Kieran believes."

"I just think maybe the people she was trying to protect weren't who everyone assumes they were."

His words sent a chill down my spine.

"What do you mean?"

Walter studied my face carefully.

"Child, do you know what you are? What your heritage is?"

I nodded.

"I found out recently. My mother was Elena Shadowmend, and she had special abilities. I'm apparently something called a Lunar Witch."

"Elena Shadowmend." Walter repeated the name with reverence.

"Now there was a powerful woman. I met her once, many years ago, when she came to negotiate a treaty between packs."

"She had a presence about her, a kind of energy that made you feel like everything would be all right as long as she was around."

"You knew my mother?"

"Only briefly. But I remember thinking at the time that if she ever had children, they would be extraordinary."

He looked at me meaningfully.

"Seraphina thought so too."

"She knew about me?"

"She knew about you before you were born. Had visions about you, dreams about your future."

Walter's expression grew troubled.

"She was convinced that certain people would try to hurt you because of what you represented."

"And you think she died trying to protect me?"

"I think she died trying to protect the future you represent. A future where people with special abilities don't have to hide or fear for their lives."

We sat in comfortable silence for a while, the weight of his words settling over me.

Finally, I asked the question that had been nagging at me.

"Mr. Morrison, if you've had doubts about Seraphina's death all this time, why haven't you investigated? Why haven't you tried to find out what really happened?"

Walter laughed, but it was a bitter sound.

"Who's going to listen to an old man with crazy theories? Especially when those theories contradict what the Alpha wants to believe?"

"I would listen."

"Yes, I believe you would. But you're just one person, and not even a pack member. What could we do against people powerful enough to kill Elena Shadowmend and get away with it?"

"Maybe more than you think."

I stood up, suddenly feeling energized despite my exhaustion.

"Mr. Morrison, would you be willing to help me find out the truth about what happened to Seraphina and my parents?"

He studied my face for a long moment.

"That would be dangerous, child. For both of us."

"Everything worthwhile is dangerous. And if we don't try to find the truth, then Seraphina died for nothing."

Walter was quiet for several minutes, smoking his pipe and thinking.

Finally, he knocked the ashes out of the bowl and stood up.

"There are others," he said quietly.

"Other pack members who have questions about things that have happened over the years. People who've lost family members under suspicious circumstances."

"How many others?"

"Maybe half a dozen. All older pack members like me, people who remember how things used to be before..."

He paused.

"Before certain changes started happening in the werewolf communities."

"What kind of changes?"

"Families with special abilities disappearing. Old bloodlines dying out under mysterious circumstances."

"Traditional practices being abandoned in favor of new ways that seem designed to keep us separated and suspicious of each other."

The picture he was painting matched what Seraphina had written in her diary.

A systematic effort to eliminate people like me and divide the packs against each other.

"Mr. Morrison, I want to meet these other people. I want to hear what they know."

"It's Walter, child. And I think that can be arranged."

He smiled for the first time since I'd arrived.

"But not tonight. Tonight, you need to get some sleep, and you need to figure out what you're going to do about that locked room situation."

The reminder of my current predicament brought me back to reality.

"I can't go back there. Not tonight."

"Then you'll stay here. I've got a spare room, and nobody comes around asking me questions about who I'm entertaining."

"Are you sure? I don't want to get you in trouble with Kieran."

Walter chuckled.

"Child, I've been in this pack longer than Kieran's been alive. If he wants to start a fight with me over offering hospitality to someone in need, let him try."

As I followed Walter into his cabin, I felt something I hadn't experienced in a long time: hope.

Maybe I wasn't as alone as I had thought.

Maybe there were people willing to help me find the truth, even if it meant going against their Alpha.

And maybe, just maybe, I could finish what Seraphina had started.

Tomorrow, I would begin learning about the real history of Shadow Ridge and the conspiracy that had destroyed my family.

Tonight, I would sleep knowing that someone believed me.