Wolves Of Spirit and Blood

Chapter 2

I slammed it shut. “No,” I muttered, tossing the diary back into the chest as if it had burned me. My heart was pounding, my hands trembling from the weight of what I’d just uncovered. I wasn’t ready for this. Not now.

Reading her words, hearing her voice in my head, it would shatter the fragile wall I had built around my grief. I couldn’t afford that, not when just being here felt like a battle. The packhouse, my father, Letti, the memories I’d buried it was all too much. The chest was just one more thing threatening to unravel me. I shoved it back under the bed with a forceful push and stood up, pacing the room. My breaths came shallow and fast as I tried to get a grip on myself. The weight of her absence was already unbearable, like a hollow ache in my chest that refused to fade. How could I handle knowing what she wanted to say to me? What she had left for me?

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The chest under the bed felt like it was calling to me, its presence an itch I couldn’t scratch. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling as the hours ticked by. I turned onto my side, pulled the blanket over my head, and squeezed my eyes shut, but it was no use. My grandmother’s diary, the map, the strange symbols they wouldn’t leave me alone. Eventually, I gave in. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with the chest open in front of me, I reached for the diary again. My fingers hovered over the worn leather cover for a moment before I picked it up, holding it tightly as if it might slip away. My hands trembled as I opened it, bracing myself for the secrets my grandmother had left behind. The pages were filled with her handwriting neat, deliberate, and unmistakably hers. Notes, sketches, and passages about the Messero women filled the diary, each one more overwhelming than the last. My throat tightened as I read about a lineage I had never known existed. My family wasn’t just part of the pack. The women in our line were something more connected to the spiritual world in ways that defied explanation. My grandmother had written about visions that came unbidden, rituals that harnessed the energy of the land, and powers that ran through our blood. It was a legacy that had been passed down through generations, one I had been completely oblivious to. And then, the final entry stopped me cold: “Maria is the last. The connection lives in her now. She must protect it.” I stared at the words, my heart pounding. I had spent years running from this pack, this family, this legacy. I’d built an entire life around escaping the weight of it all. And now, it seemed, I had no choice but to face it. Whatever my grandmother had seen in me, whatever she believed I was capable of, I wasn’t sure I could live up to it. But the time was right.And I couldn’t run anymore.

I woke the next morning feeling more lost and distraught than the day before. The more I read my grandmother’s diary, the more questions I had. It didn’t help that there was no one to turn to for answers. Frustration bubbled in my chest, and the walls of my old room felt suffocating.

Deciding I needed air, I left the room for the first time since my arrival. The packhouse was strangely quiet, the halls empty save for the muffled sounds of conversation coming from distant rooms. I hadn’t been wandering for long when I ran into my stepbrothers. Andre found me first or rather, he cornered me. He was standing in the hallway outside the dining room, his arms crossed and his sharp gaze fixed on me like I was an unwelcome guest. “You’re back,” he said flatly “Clearly,” I replied, matching his cold tone.. Andre had always been like this rigid, distant, and impossible to read. But there was something new in his expression, something harder, more resentful. “You planning to stay?” he asked, his gray eyes narrowing slightly. The question caught me off guard. “I don’t know yet.” He nodded slowly, though his jaw tightened. “Don’t expect things to be like they were before.” “I don’t,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant.

He stared at me for another moment, then turned and walked away without another word, leaving me standing in the hall feeling like an outsider in my own home. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Luigi found me next, and his entrance was far less subtle. “Maria!” he called out, grinning as he strolled down the hall. “You’re still alive!” “Thanks for noticing,” I said dryly, though I couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at my lips.

Luigi was Andre’s polar opposite in every way lighthearted, irreverent, and utterly shameless. Where Andre’s presence was sharp and cold, Luigi’s was like a burst of sunlight, warm and disarming. He pulled me into a hug that was just a little too tight, then stepped back, appraising me with a grin. “You look good,” he said with a wink. “Even after all these years. How do you do it?”“Clean living and avoiding people like you,” I shot back, earning a laugh. “That’s the spirit,” he said, draping an arm around my shoulders as if no time had passed between us. “It’s good to have you back, you know. This place needs a little chaos.” I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t shrug him off. Luigi had always been exhausting, but at least he didn’t make me feel like I didn’t belong. The tension I’d felt all morning eased slightly in his presence, but it didn’t disappear entirely. My grandmother’s words still lingered in the back of my mind, the weight of the chest and its secrets pressing down on me. Being back in the packhouse felt like walking through a minefield. Every step I took brought new challenges, new emotions, and new questions. And no matter how much I wanted to keep running, I knew I couldn’t. Not anymore.