Echoed Steps - ON HOLD

Chapter Three

“Who do you think placed it there?” Halle asked, sensing that Deryn knew what was afoot.

“Oh, I don’t think, I know,” Deryn said matter-of-factly.

“You do?!” Halle and Elowen’s voices came out as one.

Deryn’s gaze drifted to the window, where the moonlight filtered through the half-drawn curtains. The silver light caught the soft angles of Halle’s face, her wide eyes glistening as she anxiously waited for him to continue. His fingers absently traced her jaw as he gathered his thoughts, memories flooding back like a tide he couldn’t control.

“I do…”

•º•º•º•

“Gwynfor…”

“Yep, we’re gone.”

Gwynfor turned and fled the scene, leaving the rotting corpse where it was. The stench of the dead rogue lingered in Gwynfor’s nose as they ran back to the houses, though not quite at the speed they had been operating at previously. Deryn was shocked at how far they had travelled – he had been too concerned with finding the source of the blood to notice before, but they had to have gone over three miles.

The forest flew past them in a dark blur, ancient oaks and towering pines standing sentinel as they raced through. The undergrowth crunched beneath Gwynfor’s massive paws, ferns and brambles parting before his powerful form. The moon hung low in the sky now, a waning silver disk casting long shadows across their path.

Gwynfor’s thoughts rumbled through their shared consciousness. “That rogue didn’t die by accident. The wounds were deliberate. Calculated.”

“You think someone in the pack killed him?” Deryn asked, the thought sending a chill through their shared body.

“I think someone wanted us to find him,” Gwynfor replied. “A message, perhaps. Or a warning.”

The implications of that hung between them, unspoken but understood. If pack members were killing rogues and displaying their bodies, something was very wrong within the hierarchy. Alpha Aled had always been strict about following the old ways – no killing without just cause, and certainly no desecration of bodies, rogue or otherwise.

As the houses came back into view, Deryn heard someone call out to him and Gwynfor slowed to a trot as they sought out the owner of the voice. Wandering into view came Thomas Jeffries, a lad a year younger than Deryn but no less of a friend to him when they had been growing up. Thomas was the son of the Beta, Gethin, but thankfully seemed to take after his mother more. Thomas was kind and friendly to all members of the pack.

“Jawl! He is a big wolf, Deryn, he’s bigger than my dad! And a beauty at that, you lucky bastard,” Thomas laughed. “Can you shift back so we can talk?”

Thomas had shifted successfully almost a year ago, an early bloomer like his father. Unlike Deryn, who had waited anxiously for his wolf to emerge, wondering if he’d be one of the rare few who never shifted at all.

“Give me a minute,” Deryn projected through the mind link. He concentrated, focusing on his human form, trying to coax Gwynfor to relinquish control. The shift back could sometimes be harder than the initial transformation – especially with a wolf as dominant as Gwynfor seemed to be.

Gwynfor resisted slightly, muscles tensing as he scented the air. “Something’s not right,” he murmured.

“It’s just Thomas,” Deryn reassured. “We’ve known him forever.”

•º•º•º•

Deryn paused his story and heaved a great sigh. “He seemed on edge, I wasn’t sure why, but something seemed unsettled with him. If I had known at that moment what would happen next, then I wouldn’t have given him the time of day…”

“What happened next?” Halle said breathlessly.

“The beginning of a nightmare.”

Elowen, who had been silent until now, came forward. “Did Thomas know about your parents already?”

Deryn’s head snapped up, his eyes widening slightly. “How did you...?”

“The way Gwynnie spoke of him,” Elowen explained, her voice gentle but knowing. “He sensed something was wrong before you did.”

Halle took control again, confusion evident in her furrowed brow. “What am I missing?”

Deryn took her hand again, his thumb tracing small circles on her skin. “Wolves know things humans can’t always perceive. Gwynfor recognised the deception in Thomas before I could see it with human eyes.”

“Deception?” Halle whispered.

•º•º•º•

Gwynfor stood silently regarding Thomas, refusing to shift back.

“I have a bad feeling D,” he warned. Deryn remained quiet, paying attention to everything around them; the breeze sounded louder, the moonlight seemed brighter, the smells... he could still smell blood. Only now it smelled fresh and ‘clean’.

The coppery scent lingered in the air, familiar yet different from the rotting rogue they’d discovered earlier. This blood was fresh, hours old at most, and carried with it the unmistakable scent-markers of...

“No,” Deryn thought, panic rising in his chest. “It can’t be.”

“Thomas, I need to, uh, I need to go check on my parents,” Deryn stuttered out through the mind link.

“Oh, um, yeah. Do you want me to come with you?”

There was something in Thomas’s tone – a slight hesitation, a forced casualness – that made Gwynfor’s hackles rise. Through their bond, Deryn felt the wolf’s suspicion coalesce into certainty.

“He knows something,” Gwynfor growled internally.

Deryn did not give a response, he just allowed Gwynfor to take off instinctively, his eyes never leaving the direction of his parents’ house. Gwynfor followed the scent trail, circling back toward the house. The blood smell grew stronger with each step, no longer a hint but an unmistakable presence.

The last of the stars hung cold and distant above them as they raced through the darkness, a silent witness to the horror that awaited. In the distance, an owl called mournfully, the sound echoing through the trees like a warning.

“It’s coming from inside,” Gwynfor whispered.

The back door stood slightly ajar, a thin sliver of darkness beckoning them inward. Something was wrong. The house was never left unlocked, not even in the safety of pack territory.

His parents had always been cautious, especially his father. Osian Jones had served as lead warrior for twenty years and his mother, Cerys, had learned so much from her years studying pack history that now her knowledge of herbs and remedies was sought after by wolves from neighbouring territories. They were respected, beloved – and now, the scent of their blood filled the night air.

“I need to shift back,” Deryn thought. “I need to be... me for this.”

The transformation was quicker than transforming to Gwynfor had been but was still painful, bones realigning, fur receding. Within moments, Deryn stood in human form at the threshold of his childhood home, trembling not from the chill of the night air nipping at his nakedness, but from something deeper, more primal.

Fear.

Knowledge without knowing.

Certainty without seeing.

His tremoring hand reached out and pushed the door open.

The kitchen was as it always was – his mother’s herbs hanging from the ceiling beams, his father’s boots by the door, the familiar worn tablecloth. Everything in its place. Except for the silence. Even in the dead of night the house had never felt this silent.

Memories flooded through him as he stood in the doorway. His mother teaching him to identify healing plants at the kitchen table. His father’s booming laugh as they shared stories after dinner. The warmth of belonging, of being loved unconditionally, even when he’d feared he might never shift.

“Mam?” he called, his voice barely above a whisper. “Pa?”

No answer came.

He grabbed a pair of trousers from the rack by the aga and pulled them on before moving through the kitchen towards the living room, each step heavier than the last. The smell grew stronger. Thick. Metallic. Final.

The living room door was closed. Deryn stood before it, his still shaking hand hovering over the handle, suddenly aware that whatever lay behind the door was about to change everything.

Deryn took a deep breath to steel his nerves, then pushed it open.

They were there, together, as they had always been. His father in his favourite armchair, head slumped forward as if nodding off during an evening read. His mother on the settee, a half-finished piece of needlework still in her lap. They might have been sleeping if not for the blood – dark and extensive, soaking into the upholstery, pooling on the wooden floor beneath them.

His father’s reading glasses were still perched on his nose, his weathered hands resting on the arms of the chair as if he’d simply dozed off. His mother’s needle was still threaded, the colourful pattern of a Welsh dragon half-completed on her embroidery hoop.

There was no way this happened where they sat, no way that his father wouldn’t have fought with all he had to protect his mother. They could not have died this way, just sat in their armchairs.

No.

The scene was arranged with care. Too much care. Their positions were deliberate, almost peaceful, despite the violence evident in the deep gouges across their throats. This wasn’t a random attack. This was targeted.

Deryn felt his knees give way. He collapsed to the floor, a wounded sound escaping his throat – too raw to be a scream, too agonised to be a whimper. Through their bond, Gwynfor’s presence wrapped around him, sharing his grief, bearing witness to the unbearable.

“We need to go,” Gwynfor urged gently. “Whoever did this wants us to be found here. With them.”

But Deryn couldn’t move. His parents’ home – once a sanctuary of warmth and safety – had become a tomb. Their love for him had become their death sentence.

“They never even knew I got my wolf,” Deryn croaked through tears.

The realisation struck him like a physical blow. Just hours ago, he had been exhilarated, thrilled at the prospect of sharing the news. His mother would have cried happy tears, his father would have clapped him on the shoulder with pride. Now they would never know. The milestone that should have brought them together had instead been twisted into something grotesque, a memory forever tainted by blood and betrayal.

“Arianrhod will keep them safe,” Gwynfor soothed.

The mention of the Moon Goddess, keeper of souls and guardian of the pack’s ancestors, brought a small measure of comfort. The old beliefs ran deep in Deryn’s family – his mother had taught him the ancient prayers and rituals from childhood.

“Cwsg ni ddaw i’m hamrant heno, dagrau ddaw ynghynt. Wrth fy ffenestr yn gwynfannus yr ochneidia’r gwynt. Codi’i lais yn awr, ac wylo, beichio wylo mae; Ar y grwydr yr hyrddia’i ddagrau yn ei wylltaf wae.”

(Sooner tears than sleep this midnight come into my eyes. On my window the complaining tempest groans and sighs. Grows the noise now of its weeping, sobbing to and fro – On the glass the tears come hurtling of some wildest woe.)

“John Morris-Jones?”

“Aye.” Deryn replied aloud.

“A beautiful tribute Deryn. Truly. But we really need to move now.”

Deryn sat for a moment longer, quietly holding his mother’s hand. It was still warm, and he wished with everything in him to feel her squeeze his hand just once more. He squeezed hers gently, three times, I. Love. You. Just as she had always done when he was a child.

Nothing.

The hand that had wiped away his tears, tended his scrapes, and guided him through life was still. The fingers that had once braided wildflowers into coronets for him to wear as a child were limp and unresponsive. The wedding band his father had placed there over twenty years ago caught the dim light, a circle of gold now stained with crimson.

Deryn sat and silently sobbed as he felt Gwynfor pacing in his head, torn between knowing they needed to move and wanting to allow Deryn his moment to grieve.

•º•º•º•

“Deryn, I’m so sorry. You never told me they had gone home to the goddess,” Halle said quietly, silent tears rolling down her cheeks as she felt her mate’s pain at the memories.

Her heart ached for the younger Deryn, experiencing the euphoria of his first shift only to have it shattered by unimaginable loss. She understood now the shadows that sometimes crossed his face, the nightmares that occasionally woke him in the depths of night.

“I choose not to talk about it much,” he mumbled. “Too much pain, the memories of all that has happened in the wake of their deaths. I do not like to remember.” Deryn lifted Halle’s hand and kissed her knuckles as she wiped her tears with her other hand.

“You can always share your pain with me, I would be honoured to help you carry their memory.”

The firelight flickered, casting long shadows across the room. Outside, the wind had picked up, branches scraping against the windows like skeletal fingers seeking entrance into their sanctuary. The storm that had been threatening all day was finally breaking, fat raindrops beginning to patter against the roof.

Deryn sighed as he felt Gwynfor and Elowen speaking privately. He loved Halle more than anything in this world and the next, but he knew she wasn’t safe. Unsafe because of him.

“Halle, you need to hear the rest of the story, you need to understand what being mated to me means for you before you make promises…”

Halle nodded slightly, encouraging him to continue. The truth, no matter how painful, was necessary now.

•º•º•º•

“Deryn?”

Deryn’s head whipped round, and Gwynfor stood on alert, ready to take control at any moment.

“Deryn? Everything alright? The door is open, I’m coming in…”

The voice cut through Deryn’s grief like a blade, snapping him back to the present danger. His muscles tensed, torn between flight and fight, Gwynfor’s instincts surging through him.

Deryn recognised the voice as that of Thomas. In his fear and sorrow, he had forgotten he had been talking to Thomas when he left the forest. When Thomas reached the living room door he gasped as he took in the scene before him. Both the Jones’ dead and Deryn sat at his mother’s feet in a pool of blood.

“What the hell did you do?!” Thomas exclaimed.

His face contorted in an expression of horror that didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was something calculated in his stance, in the way his gaze darted around the room, assessing.

“What?! I, what? Nothing!” Deryn defended as he jumped to his feet.

Thomas did not wait to hear him out and immediately took off, out the door in the direction of the pack house. Deryn saw the sun was rising now, the sky ignited with streaks of crimson and amber as the sun clawed its way over the horizon like a golden inferno. An inferno Deryn couldn’t help but think was coming for him.

Through the bond, Gwynfor’s voice was urgent, fearful. “He’s setting us up. We need to run.”

“Run? From the pack? They’d hunt us down before we crossed the territory line,” Deryn argued out loud, though he was already moving, grabbing essentials – clothes, his father’s hunting knife, his mother’s small book of healing herbs.

“They’ll hunt us anyway,” Gwynfor replied grimly. “Thomas is going to tell them we killed your parents.”

The realisation crashed over Deryn like ice water. Of course. It made terrible sense now – the arranged bodies, the precise wounds, the timing of Thomas finding him there. He was being framed, and brilliantly so.

“But why?” Deryn whispered aloud.

“Because of me…” Gwynfor said sadly.

“You?!”

“White wolves are powerful, I’ve seen this happen before. Isolate the human and manipulate the wolf to your bidding. This is the first step.”

Deryn was silent, horrified. Had his parents really been killed so soon after him receiving his wolf, just so someone could use his new powers?

“Alright, we run,” he finally agreed. “But not forever. Someday, we will come back. We find who is responsible. We get justice.”

“For your parents,” Gwynfor affirmed.

“For my parents,” Deryn echoed, taking one last look at the people who had given him life, love, and now, unwittingly, a purpose that would drive him for years to come.

He shifted again, the pain barely registering through his grief and fear. Gwynfor’s powerful form burst through the back door just as shouts could be heard approaching from the direction of the pack house. Without looking back, they disappeared into the forest, the rising sun at their backs, casting long shadows before them.