Golden Rule

Chapter 15

Chapter 15 – Fernanda 

             I walked into the cottage and leaned on the door after I closed it. I could tell my wolf didn’t feel Alpha Brandon Duran could be capable of ordering the deaths of my family or having a schoolteacher beat to death. But I couldn’t let my guard down.

             I had a thousand questions running through my head. I had to get to the girls and ask about that priest, Father Fred. My wolf was so excited to meet him she actually made my head pound. I took out my phone and called Rachel. She answered immediately.

             “Fernanda, I’ll be right there for you.” She was beside me the next second, she still had her phone in her hand. “Let’s go,” she seemed like she was in a rush and next thing I know we are in the room with Miriam and to my surprise Father Fred is standing there with his arms crossed on his chest. He has an angry look on his face. I look around and Frida is standing over Violet who is sitting in a chair and looks like she’s about to cry. I glance at Rachel who shrugs her shoulders at me. “We’ll explain everything Princess-” Rachel begins, but I walk away from her to check on Miriam.

             She looks about the same. The hits she received are really healing like a normal human and her color doesn’t look any better. Violet walks up and hands me scans.

             “There were taken just a few hours ago.” Violet says and I look over and everything looks the same. She has hairline fractures still but could be much worse if her wolf hadn’t help her. I really want this girl to get better, I have so many questions for her. Violet speaks again, “I wanted to ask you about applying a salve to help her heal on the outside. Its all natural but if you don’t think it’ll help, I can save it for when she wakes up.”

             “If it’ll help her wake up to less cuts, bruises and swelling, by all means apply it. We need to help her in any way we can. I think we should also give her less morphine…” I continued with the plans for Miriam while Violet and Frida listened intently. After a bit a noticed in the back Rachel and the priest talking, or more like arguing.

             “How did you find us Father?” I asked him.

             “Actually, you found me. We met outside the church this afternoon, remember?” he answered with an unhappy sarcastic tone. “I recognized you right away. Even though my wolf was going crazy, I knew exactly who you were when I saw you.” His voice was breaking now. “Christ you look so much like your mother, but I also see you father. You got the best of both.”

             “How did you know my parents?”

             “I knew them very well, I introduced them.” I felt my eyes watering, when he noticed he continued. “I was sent here from Ireland with our wolves to help during the war. We were volunteers and I was sort of a field Chaplin. I stayed after, I saw your grandmother pregnant with your father, I held him as baby and anointed him into the pack and church. Your mother’s great grandfather was my brother and her parents sent her here for an experience and to see the world and that’s when she met your father and they discovered they were mates.”

             “Oh my goddess, you’re my uncle?!”

             “Yes and your wolf called to mine. That is why your head hurt when we met. She was trying so hard to tell you.” At this point, everyone was in tears. He walked to me and wrapping his arms around me again. And just like before, he felt like safety to me. And his smell was like a fresh afternoon rain, calming and homey. I couldn’t help but hug him back, just like before.

             I could not believe this. I thought I had no family left and turns out there could be so many more relatives. When he pulled away, he turned to look at Violet, Frida and Rachel. “Now these ladies have some serious explaining to do. How could you not trust ME enough to at least let me know my niece was alive? Violet, did you really not trust me in the least?” He looked hurt, devastatingly hurt. He looked at her with glint in his eyes, a longing or a regret. He looked at her with, love? I couldn’t tell, but he looked at her with so much hurt it made me tear up again. Frida stepped in front of a crying Violet while Rachel held her in a side hug.

             “Violet didn’t decide anything by herself. We all decided to keep the Princess away and hidden to protect her. We-“ Frida was cut off by Father Fred.

             “It wasn’t right! I am her only family here on her mother’s side. When Orla’s parents came for the funeral they mourned a granddaughter that was NOT DEAD!” he whispered yelled with a red face.

             “We should take this to another room.” Said Rachel looking towards Miriam.

             “Someone has to explain everything that’s going on. What on God’s green earth happened to this girl? Do you know what will happen when her pack finds out? I know you all didn’t do this to her, so what happened?” he continued.

             “First tell me how you got here. How did you know where to find me?” I asked him.

             “The call I received when we met, that was Rachel sending your family’s SOS. When She brought me here just a few minutes before you arrived.” He responded. He glanced over at Violet; there was something there, something between them. I was sure of it.

             “I was also the one who called Jackie to give you time to talk to Alpha Brandon. I saw when he walked up to you and thought it was the perfect opportunity for you to talk to him.” Said Rachel. I only nodded in agreement, it was pretty smart.

             “Princess, we have the breakfast area ready and the kitchen to use if you want to go there. Its just down the hall.” Said Frida.

             “Someone needs to stay with Miriam, since we lowered her morphine, she will wake up in pain.” I said.

             “I will stay, you all go talk.” Answered Violet looking down at her hands. Father Fred just looked at her with that same glint in his eyes while Frida and Rachel gave them both a quick over and looked at me.

             “Let’s go then. Father Fred?” Frida began to walk out, followed by Rachel then me and Father Fred. We walked down the wide hallway and came up to a large old-fashioned kitchen that was at the back of the house. It wasn’t like a kitchen I’d ever seen. It had a large wood burning stove that was more like a grill. It was a long rectangle and was open on three sides. Four people could fit on the two long sides easily. The kitchen didn’t have a refrigerator but there was room for what looked like two large ones. And the whole back wall was a long sink with windows from one end of the wall to the other. There was several eight-person dining tables on the far side of the kitchen. It looked clean and inviting. How I would have loved to see this kitchen in all its glory.

             “This kitchen is amazing.” I said. “How is everything so clean?”

             “We have all pitched in Princess.” Said Frida.

             “I thought we talked about you calling me princess?” I asked and she only nodded her head.

             We sat at one of the tables. There was so much tension between the women and Father Fred. They didn’t seem like they wanted to start the conversation, so I turned to Father Fred and began.

             “We found Miriam Levy yesterday on our way here. She was beat near death, but we managed to stabilize her. The only thing she managed to say was that an alpha did it. It might be the same alpha we came to look for. Whoever attacked her left her cell phone on her and we’ve been texting her family. I think we’ve been doing ok at keeping them away for now. But if she doesn’t speak to them soon, we might have a problem.” Father Fred motioned me to stop.

             “Why didn’t you all go to Alphas Brandon and Nathan. All this happened on their territory, they will be mad as hornets when they find out all this happened, and they had no idea. And what alpha are you looking for?” He turned to look at Frida and Rachel. “Why did you bring her back now?”

             Frida answered, “we would never have brought her back if it wasn’t for Regina and,” she gave me a sad look. “Fernanda had taken a chosen human mate and there was a teenage human girl she was close with…” she continued to tell Father Fred everything that had happened in the last month. She and Rachel also told him of our suspicions and my mistrusting of the alpha twins, or any alpha at that. Father Fred looked shocked.

             “Regina was killed, that’s, that’s” he turned to looked at me. “Fernanda, I’m so sorry. You have lost so much child. I will pray for your Nana’s, Noah and Madison’s souls.”

             “Praying won’t bring them back Father.” I said with spite in my voice.

             “Your anger is justified, but don’t let it consume you. I won’t tell you that you need to stop with this plan. But you must be careful, all of you. That part of them taking Madison’s hair because they thought it was you,” he turned to Rachel, “what do you make of that?”

             “They could use it in many different spells or enchantments. It could only be dark magic; no light witch would agree to use hair they didn’t know who it came from. But I don’t know what they could use it for.”

             “There is the prophecy of the Tenok family females.” Said Frida. “I’ve been around long enough to remember a certain Tenok daughter who possessed the gift. She was the last known female that lived long enough to have it. And Fernanda is a direct descendent.”

             “You mean to tell me that it’s real?” Father Fred started when he suddenly tensed. It looked like he was staring at the wall. At the same time, Violet ran in.

             “She woke up!”

             “The village is on lockdown, there is a safety breach.” Father Fred said immediately after. He turned to Violet and they locked eyes. Almost instantly they looked elsewhere. I decided to keep ignoring them and jumped up and started my way to Miriam.

             When I reached the room, Frida and Violet were behind me, but Rachel and Father Fred were gone. I needed to focus on Miriam, I didn’t want her to panic and thrash as she could hurt herself. She looked around scared and was crying, my heart broke for her. I began to talk to her and explain that she was safe. I told her of her injuries and that we knew her name, where she was from and that her family was ok. She began to calm down. She looked bad. She had lost a lot of body mass. As a werewolf, she needed a lot of food to keep up with her metabolism. She had a long road to recovery, and she needed to get strong again so her wolf could come back. She was calmed down, but she could not stop crying.

             “Miriam, I believe we may have a common enemy. I came here looking for the alpha that killed my family. When we found you, you were conscious enough to tell us that an alpha did this to you. I need your help and I, we, want to help you. Even if there is no connection, we want to help you.” She was listening as tears continued flowing down the sides of her face. I reached for some gauze to dry her face and Violet came in with a broth looking cup of soup. I sat the bed up just enough for her to be able to drink the soup, while trying to keep her comfortable.

             Violet began to spoon feed her. She hadn’t drunk much of it before she motioned, she couldn’t take anymore. It was a start, at least she had an appetite and was able to keep it down. Her tears just flowed freely, and she kept hiccupping from emotion. I wanted to cry with her, this all was so f***ing unfair.

             “Are you Princess?” she finally spoke. Her voice was hoarse, but she had that sweet, caring schoolteacher tone. I looked at her surprised, she continued. “I don’t know if I was dreaming, but I heard someone being called princess. I just assumed it was you.”

             “That’s a story for another time, Miriam, you can call her Fernanda. Is there anything you need from us right now?” Frida asked and I gave her a thankful look.

             “Everything hurts,” She began sobbing. “I don’t feel my wolf, did she die? Did the wolfsbane kill her?” she was distraught.

             Violet spoke, “we won’t know until the wolfsbane is completely out of your system and you’re strong enough for your wolf to come back. I think if she had died, you’d be in worse condition. She healed you a lot. And subconsciously you told me that you made your wolf leave.”

             “You said my family is ok. How do you know? Do they know what happened?”

             The three of us looked at each other. I said, “there is so much we need to talk about. But we have been in contact with your family through texts, pretending to be you.” I cringed as I said the last part, waiting for her reaction.

             “Everything hurts and I still feel the wolfsbane, I just want to sleep.” Miriam said with tears flowing non-stop.

             “We’ll up the pain medicine so you can rest better. We’ll wake in the morning to try and eat something again.” I said to her. I decided to keep the morphine at a much lower dose, enough to make her comfortable but not knock her out. She had no reaction when I told her we had been pretending to be her with her family. But then again she was still in shock. Moring couldn’t get here soon enough. Once she was asleep we walked out of the room, back into the kitchen.

             “How are you guys keeping food here? Frida, what do you do about blood intake?”

             “Witch tricks and Rachel brings us most of what we need.” Said Violet.

“I eat human food, but Violet and now Rachel help with the blood intake. Since I mated with your ancestor, he passed his essence to me and I don’t need as much, maybe every two weeks. It is also what allows me walk during the daytime.” Added Frida.

“Can all vampires walk in the daytime?” I asked.

“Most can walk around a dark, cloudy, rainy day. But even then, not for too long.”

“What happened to Father Fred and Rachel? Did they go back because of the security breach?”

“They use the church as the meeting place for when after the threat is neutralized. That side of the village has the most expansive wooded area behind them. So, it’s guarded during a breach more. They are mostly weres on that side too. Only wolves live on the outskirts. The humans are all clustered together inside the village and Rachel helps to keep them safe.  The humans go on oblivious to the threats. The pack takes care of them.” Said Frida.

“What could have happened? What kind of breach could it be? Rouges?” I asked.

“Rouges don’t usually come up against Golden Cross. But you never know. There are a few packs that have wanted the gold here. Some even have laid claim to it even if they believe the gold is cursed and the Golden Cross alphas have always said its not theirs to do away with.” Said Frida.

“You mean there are other alphas that want the gold? They could be suspects.” I said.

“They could be, but that doesn’t explain the Miriam situation. Then again, hers could be completely irrelevant to your situation.” Said Violet. I nodded my head in agreement.

“I would like to know who those alphas are. Do you think Father Fred could help with that?” I asked and at the mention of Father Fred, Violet tensed. I looked her wanting her say something about it. She only blushed and looked down at her lap. I didn’t want to ask her, if she didn’t trust me enough to speak about it, I was not going to push her. But at this point, I was dying to know.

“I think he would be the one to ask.” Said Frida.

“I’m worried about what Miriam’s reaction is going to be when I tell her I took her place.” I got up and started pacing. Damn, now I was super nervous. I heard a noise and Rachel walked in with bags of food from her restaurant. I was too nervous to eat so I just grabbed a cup of soup when she took it out of the bag.

“You have to eat more than that. You need to keep your energy up.” Said Frida. Rachel and Violet nodded in agreement. She passed me a steak sub. “When was the last time you trained?” she asked.

“Since before the accident.”

“We should get you on a training schedule.” Frida continued.

“I would like to join this training. It’s been a while since I had a good training.” said Rachel.

“Me too.” Said Violet.

“Me too, I was thinking of running in the morning. That seems like a normal thing to do so I won’t draw too much attention to myself. I feel like I’ll have to fight my wolf for control if I don’t let her out soon.” I said.

“Yes, no one will think anything of it.” Said Frida. At that moment my phone rang, and I saw it was Ms. Jackie calling. I answered the call and we agreed to meet tomorrow morning at eight at the schoolhouse. It was across the way from my cottage so I could just walk over to it. It would also give me plenty of time to come check on Miriam. After we finished our dinner, I went to check on Miriam for the last time tonight and made plans with the three women to meet in the morning.