Luna of Rogues - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

Maggie was brandishing a wooden spoon with terrifying ferocity. "Skye! I swear to the Goddess, if you don't get out of my kitchen, I'm going to be experimenting with a new type of meat in the Sunday roast."
"Right, cannibalism. Got it. I'll be gone in a few seconds," I assured her casually, while reaching over with one hand to steal a hot biscuit.
But nothing got past Rhys's grandmother. The wooden spoon descended and dealt my hand a stinging blow.
"Leave it!" she bellowed. Half of the kitchen workers stopped what they were doing to watch the scene, which didn't sit too well with Maggie either. "Back to work, you nosy sods. There's nothing to see here."
Yeah, nothing except the fearsome Luna of Rogues being told off for stealing cookies.
"Remind me why you're here?" Maggie asked.
"Fion wants food again," I explained with a sigh.
"What is it this time?" She was as used to the weird carvings as I was at this point.
"Uh..." I was forced to realise that somewhere between the castle and the plate of cookies, I had completely forgotten the order for today. Either I could run all the way back to ask her, or I could assume it was the same as yesterday, but that ... that was a dangerous game to play.
"Sprouts and ice-cream with gravy," a voice piped up from behind me.
I didn't have to turn to know it was Rhys. He had been the perfect model of how to look after a pregnant werewolf ever since he had first felt the baby kick. Me, on the other hand ... let's just say he was putting me to shame.
"Again?" Maggie said with a grimace. "I'll call you in ten minutes or so. Until then, clear off!"
We were forced to obey the order when she seized the wooden spoon again. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the first hit had broken a bone, so I didn't feel like trying her patience for a second time. As soon as we were safely out of spoon range, I seized Rhys's arm.
"It's my turn to get the food," I grumbled.
"Uh huh." He reached into a pocket and, to my horror, produced one of Maggie's hot cookies. How on earth did he manage it?
"So? Don't you trust me?" I demanded. Yes, it was true that I had screwed up, but that didn't mean Rhys needed to know.
"I was actually just coming to tell you that Fion changed her mind about the side order of pomegranate seeds." Rhys eyed me strangely as he snapped the cookie in half and offered some to me. I accepted it with a grin.
"Kids, come and hear this," Rhodric called from the other side of the courtyard.
I reluctantly stuffed the remaining cookie into my mouth and trailed after Rhys. It was supposed to be my day off. Rhodric and I were sharing the workload so I could spend some quality time with Fion. Her heavy stomach was confining her to a tower room of the castle, and she was getting lonely up there.
"Carry on," Rhodric told Emmett when we arrived.
The new leader of our patrols was slouching up against the wall with his hands in his pockets. As usual, Ryker wasn't all that far away — on this occasion, he was mingling with some of the builders.
"Boss," Emmett acknowledged me with a nod. "We've sent scouts out to find locations for the summer camps. There's a place just north of Riverside Pack with a lot of promise. I spoke to Ollie, and he reckoned we could start the moving process as early as tomorrow, with everyone being out of the castle in about three weeks."
"He just needs the all-clear to send a team ahead," Rhodric explained.
"Of course."
We had been debating the location of the first summer camp for quite some time. Lle o Dristwch couldn't support a population of this size year-round, and even if it could, we couldn't stay anywhere long without getting itchy. Roaming was part of the lifestyle.
"How many are going?" Rhys interjected. I wondered if he wanted to join them — he hadn't even been raiding in months, and I could tell he was starting to get restless. We all were.
"I think a dozen would do. Hand-picked, of course. We can't have them raiding and alerting the locals," I said. "If that's all?"
And of course, they were. How he got his information, I'd never know. Between us, we carried the three separate dishes up the winding stairs to the small chamber that had been refurbished for Fion's use. There was a warmer room in the cellar for pregnant females, but between visits from Rhodric, Rhys, Ollie, Leo and me, we had disturbed them far too much.
When Rhys knocked on the door, it creaked open. We were met with the sight of Fion lying flat on her back on a huge mattress. She had rested a phone against the bump of her belly, and she was watching a very blurry movie.
"Delivery," Rhys announced. He rushed to help Fion sit up so she could eat. I stood awkwardly in the doorway while the hot dishes burned my fingers. I had never been brilliant at the whole looking-after-people thing.
"Well, it's about time," she joked. "Skye, stop skulking in the doorway."
"I wasn't skulking," I protested, handing her the sprouts. Maggie had blatantly refused to mix the three dishes herself, calling it a crime against food. So that was usually left up to Fion herself.
"Where's Leo today?" Fion inquired as she blended three perfectly good foods into something that closely resembled vomit.
"Visiting his parents. I think he's staying overnight in New Dawn Pack," I said.
"And Jace is okay with that?" Rhys frowned.
Relations with the packs had gone steadily downhill ever since the ferals. With the absence of a common enemy, we were reverting back to our usual ways. It didn't help that my fighters had started raiding again, now that they didn't have anyone to fight. I couldn't encourage it for diplomatic reasons, but I made a point to look the other way. We were rogues after all, and rogues had a tendency to get bored.
I snorted. "Jace doesn't know."
"So he's trespassing?" A smile crept onto Fion's face.
"Like a good little rogue," Rhys grinned.
"We've been training him up," I explained. "New Dawn's patrol schedule has a few handy loopholes."
"And what if he gets caught?" she asked.
"Jace knows he can't kill Leo. Not without going to war with me," I laughed.
There was a silence as Fion dug into her cringe-worthy meal. Rhys perched himself on the windowsill and drummed his fingers on the glass pane. I fiddled with the zip of my jacket, knowing we couldn't stay long.
In the end, my brother was the one to tell Fion. "It's nearly dark, so we should be going..."
"Still not telling Rhodric, huh?" Fion sighed.
"He'd only try to stop us," I pointed out.
"And for good reason," she shot back. "It's dangerous."
Rhys jumped down off the windowsill and sat down next to her on the mattress. "We can take care of ourselves, you know."
"I bet your aunt thought the same thing," Fion muttered.
Rhys's jaw tightened. That was a slightly low blow, given he had been less than a week old when his aunt died. But he still spoke to Fion with the same gentleness, having far more patience with her recent moods than I ever had. "Would it make you feel better if we took Ollie and the twins with us?"
"It would make me feel better if you took Rhodric," she scowled.
Rhys slid an arm over her shoulder and squeezed gently. "If everything goes to plan, he'll know by the end of the week."
"You can come along if you want," I said, suddenly realising what would make her let us go.
"Very funny, Skye," she scowled at her protruding belly.
"I'm serious. Get in my head, and you can see everything from my point of view."
"Is that even possible?" Rhys asked.
Fion bit her lip. "Well ... yes. I could, but I've never done that to either of you before."
"It's with my permission," I pointed out.
"I don't know. It's kinda creepy when you know what your friends are thinking."
"Fion," I growled though my amusement. "Get in my head."
Rhys rather unhelpfully burst out laughing, ruining my command vibes. A second later though, I heard Fion's voice echo through my mind. "Yeah, I'm in. Please try not to think about your mate while I'm here, I don't need to know that crap."
"You're right. This is a little creepy," I muttered.
It was a little difficult to keep my thoughts off Leo now she had mentioned it. Sort of like when someone tells you not to look and you do anyway. I mean, it's not like there was much to hide. We had definitely escalated our make-out sessions, but somehow never quite gone all the way in six months. There was no rush. He slept in my bed every night, and Rhys had almost given up trying to kick him out.
"Skye, I'm serious. Think of anything else. Please." Fion gave a laughing-growl, again from inside my own head. Apparently, she had been hearing all those thoughts.
"Fine, fine. Let's just go," I replied.
I shifted in the privacy of the tower and skidded down the flight of stairs on four paws. In the courtyard, I paused to seize a small bag prepacked with clothes and supplies. To avoid Rhodric seeing us leave, Ollie left the western gate open every Sunday night.
Rhys easily kept pace at my side. Fion seemed to be enjoying the change of scenery, even if it was virtual. I felt her joy as I sped into a gentle run, stretching my sore muscles. It had been too long since I had last run in wolf-form. My new duties meant there was a lot less time for that, and for training, and for anything remotely fun.
Maybe I was getting rusty.
I decided to test the theory by bowling into Rhys and seizing his scruff in my teeth. It was a clear invitation for a play fight. He let us hit the dirt before shaking me off like a dog ridding himself of a fly. Even as Fion began to sound a warning, my brother was standing over me with his teeth hovering by my unprotected throat.
Definitely rusty then. But maybe that wasn't all, because there was no way on earth he should have been able to throw a full-grown wolf that easily. The older Rhys got, the stronger he was getting. He could now compete with his father in a way no other wolf had ever been able to. It was starting to unsettle me.
What was so special about the Llewellyn family? Sure, they had some Alpha blood a few generations back, but it didn't quite explain why they were this powerful.
I snapped at him and climbed back onto my feet, picking up the discarded bag. Rhys gave me a mischievous grin, lowering his ears and backing off. He was submitting because I was in charge, not because I had ever beaten him in a real fight.
We continued on our run. It wasn't far, so after only half an hour and one very thorny encounter with a bush, I skidded to a stop outside the rundown shepherd's hut. Its current resident was about as far from a shepherd as you can get.
Both of us shifted back outside and got dressed again. I swung the depleted bag over one shoulder and gave the door a light shove. Old Jeff was sprawled on his small bench, surrounded by empty bottles and filth. Of course he hadn't cleaned since our last visit. Why bother when he knew we would do it for him?
"Is that Rhysie? I likes Rhysie, yesh I does," Jeff cackled.
"Yes, Grandpa, it's me," my brother replied. It was Rhys who had insisted we make an effort to look after Jeff the second he learned the old man was family.
"And me too," I added. I bent down and gathered up a few shards of glass.
"Old Jeff has food for the children. My children always ate so much food." He pushed a dead rabbit towards me. "See? Nice food. Jeff caught it himself."
I took it with a half-smile. We were making progress, it seemed. Jeff loved Rhys and kept asking after Brandon, but he had taken longer to warm up to me. An awful lot longer, given that only last month he had chased me outside with a loaded crossbow. He was the most antisocial werewolf I had ever met.
"We brought you food as well," Rhys said as he opened the bag and removed several jars and tins that had been filched from the kitchen.
Jeff wrinkled up his nose and examined one of them. "Meat ish the best food."
"Tell him there's fresh game as well," Fion's voice echoed through my mind again. I would never get used to someone else being in my head.
"Who's there?" Jeff said sharply. "I can hear the whispering again."
It was the same as when we last visited him. He seemed to be able to tap into mind-links, and I didn't have any idea how. "It's just Fion," Rhys reassured him.
"Old Jeff don't likes it. Why are wolfies always whispering to each other?" The old man wrinkled up his nose. "That girl wouldn't stop whispering, not even when I cut off her ear."
Weird, that's what it was. There was something different about Jeff, something beyond the madness. I spoke without thinking, "That was your daughter, Jeff. You killed your daughter because she was mind-linking?"
"NO!" Jeff let a roar, rushing to his feet. One hand snatched up the closest sharp implement — a knife I was starting to regret letting him have. He swung it faster than I thought possible. I darted backwards, narrowly avoiding a red smile. The blade flashed inches from my throat.
Jeff shouted incoherently, stumbling after me. Rhys yanked me out of the way as the knife swung down again. A wrinkled hand seized my throat with surprising strength. His eyes changed colour as he brought his face within spitting distance of mine. But they didn't go darker, as a werewolf's should. Jeff's eyes shone bright gold.
"All wrong!" he bellowed. "I never did that. It wasn't me."
"Okay, you didn't," I spoke with a calmness I didn't feel. We couldn't run, we certainly couldn't fight. All there was left to do was talk it out, which was slightly hard to do when he increased the pressure on my windpipe to the extent where I couldn't breathe.
"He's in a psychotic break," Fion warned me mentally. "I'm sending help."
"Stop whispering! Shut up!" Jeff roared.
Rhys charged headlong at him, but the old man released me to face him. Jeff slammed him into a wall, turning his full fury on his grandson. This time when the knife swung, Rhys couldn't move fast enough. The cold metal bit into his upper arm.
My brother let out a low growl of pain. I was slumped against the floor, gasping for enough breath to say something, anything that might save Rhys's life. Some part of me was aware of Fion's hysteria overpowering my mind.
Jeff raised the knife again, this time aiming for the kill shot.
"STOP!" I didn't realise I was the one who shouted until Jeff's golden eyes fixed on me.
"It's Rhys," I told him shakily. "You don't want to hurt him."
"Rhysie," Jeff repeated quietly. He glanced between me and his blood-covered grandson.
"We know you didn't hurt Eira," I lied. "It's okay, we know."
"I never hurt her," he insisted, calmer now. His eyes returned to their usual colour.
Rhys gently took the knife from Jeff with his uninjured arm, and the old man didn't resist. Instead, he started muttering under his breath and tapping out a beat with his foot. When my head stopped spinning, I stood up and shoved Rhys into the nearest chair. A closer examination showed that while the wound was deep, it certainly wasn't fatal.
"I'm fine," he told me. He tried to stand up again, never taking his eyes off Jeff.
"No, you're not," I snorted. "Just for once, sacrifice your pride and let me look after you."
Rhys couldn't help grinning at that. "Just the once."
I ripped a strip of fabric from my t-shirt and tied it around the wound, trying to hide my shaking hands. We had been warned again and again how dangerous Jeff was, but somehow it had never quite sunk in. The old man had far more strength than someone his age had any right to have.
Even as I started to relax and appreciate the fact I was still alive, the door crashed open. Rhodric stood in the doorway, presumably the 'help' Fion had sent. There was a fury in his eyes that told me we were in for the telling off of our lives.