The Wild Moon by Riley Storm

Chapter Twenty

Thomas Wetter.

That was the name embossed on the spine of the book. It was the only lettering on the exterior at all, which was standard for his journals. I’d only ever seen their spines before, facing out from their place on the shelf he kept them on. I suppose it could be something else, but I trusted my gut on this one.

Closing my eyes, I reached down and placed my palm on the brown leather cover, imagining my father writing in it, hunched over in a tent somewhere out in the wild. He loved that. Exploring the unknown. It was what drove him and made him happy. I sighed.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m trying,” I whispered to nobody in particular. “I don’t even know where to start. It’s just so hard.”

My voice broke on the last word, and I slumped back against the futon that doubled as both my couch and bed. I rented a room in an apartment building in a less than reputable part of Kellar. All my money had gone to the search for my parents. A futon had seemed like the most sensible of purchases, somewhere I could sit or lie down as needed. No point in buying two pieces of furniture with my meager income.

I preferred to eat.

The half-eaten bucket of ramen sat on the cheap plastic stool that served as my coffee table, dinner table, and nightstand all in one. I eyed it, but I wasn’t hungry. Not anymore. The thought of opening the journal and reading my father’s notes filled my stomach with a lump all its own.

My father.

Adopted, perhaps, but still the man who had raised me. I ran my fingertips across the journal's cover. I’d spent many a day trying to figure out how I felt and what the truth of it must be.

Doubts larger than the Atlantic still existed inside me, and unless I could find my parents, they would always be there. Without the truth, a part of me would always wonder. But with the complete and utter lack of clue as to where my parents had gone, I had to decide for my sanity.

Did I believe the people who raised me had truly loved me?

That was the question I needed to answer for myself. I could not go through the days constantly flopping back and forth. Had they loved me and raised me as their own, simply not feeling the need to tell me because they saw themselves as my parents?

Or was there another reason, a more sinister reason, behind the lies and deception? Had they not wanted to tell me because of some other reason? It wasn’t just them keeping the truth from me either. Clearly, Johnathan had gotten the information from someone, which meant others knew I was adopted.

They’d known all along, and not one of them said a damn thing. I’ve got a lot of questions. Questions that need answering.

There was only one person who would give me those answers, and he was currently in locations unknown. I refused to believe they were dead. Not until somebody could show me their bodies. No, my parents were out there somewhere, hiding, for reasons I had yet to decipher.

When I caught up with them, though, they would explain everything, from my adoption to their disappearance.

Gonna need more money to do that. Tracking them isn’t cheap.

“Stop avoiding this,” I said, forcing myself to acknowledge out loud that my focus was wandering away from the task at hand.

My father loved me. I chose to believe that. I chose to believe they hadn’t faked it all. I had too many happy memories, too many things that felt too natural to be anything but real.

It was easier to believe that than to continue thinking I was all part of one big sham, a charade. There was nothing about me that would warrant such action. I was just a regular old she-wolf.

Okay, maybe not quite normal. Not many of the pack reject their Soulbond after searching for it for most of a year. But, otherwise, totally normal.

Nothing worth such a cover-up. Which was why I was confident my parents had cared.

“Damn,” I said, tracing circles on the cover of the journal. “Why is this so hard?”

I swallowed heavily, putting a finger under the cover, ready to flick it open.

“I miss you guys,” I whispered to the empty room. “I should have stayed and listened. Should have let you explain.”

Blinking back tears, I took another long breath. The night of my Soulshift, the same night I’d found out I was adopted, I had confronted them about it. I’d laughed and asked them if I was their real daughter. It was funny to me at the time. Because why wouldn’t I be?

To my horror, they had hesitated. That’s when it all came crashing down, and I couldn’t handle it. Between my wolf doing her best to drive me insane and the pressure of my Soulshift, finding out my life wasn’t what I thought it had been was too much.

So I’d run out of the house.

That was the last time I’d seen my parents. The last time we’d spoken. It gnawed at me that I’d left it like that. Without any closure.

This is how you start, I told myself, focusing on the journal. Fine.

My index finger nosed open the cover. The first page was blank, devoid of any writing, but that didn’t mean there was nothing there. A single white business card lay pressed firmly against the spine, trapped there until the cover was opened.

Aaron Greiss.

That was all, that and a phone number. I flicked it over, but the back was empty as well.

“Weird,” I muttered, setting the card back down.

I’d never heard that name before, but that didn’t mean much. My father must have had all sorts of contacts outside of the pack to help him with his journeys. This must be one of them.

Turning the pages, I got to the first entry. It was dated about six months before his disappearance. This was his most recent journal. I thumbed through the entries, not reading any of them yet. I had another thought on my mind.

“Interesting.”

The writing stopped a little past the halfway point of the journal. It wasn’t finished.

“Now, why on earth would you gift me a journal that you hadn’t filled?” I mused, tapping my chin in thought. “What were you trying to tell me?”

The more I considered it, the more I was certain something had happened on his last trip. Something he couldn’t tell me about. Or didn’t want to. No, that couldn’t be it. If he were trying to protect me, he wouldn’t have gifted me the journal. After all, he’d never let me read one before. Now he was giving me an unfinished one?

That has to mean something, I thought. I just didn’t know what.

My eyes lingered on the last page, his final entry.

Today was productive. I’m certain that this valley is where I will find it. At this point, it’s only a matter of time before I find Shuldar. I must be thorough, however. The ancients were keen to hide from the outside world, that much I have gleaned from the bits and pieces I have found. Why, I do not know, but they did not seem to want to be found.

Still, I am confident that at some point, I will find it. All the clues point to here. To this valley. Even the most recent artifact we have recovered confirms this. I must take it back to Lars for verification, but I am positive he will agree. I’m so close! This is it. The big discovery.

The journal entry ended. I frowned at the dried ink on the cream-colored page. What artifact had he recovered? I remembered when he came home unexpectedly for my Soulshift. He’d said he had to update our Alpha on what he’d found. What had he told Lars? Why hadn’t he put more information in the journal?!

Sighing, I flipped through the pages, back toward the beginning. Eventually, I would go through it, entry by entry, but for now, I was looking for anything that stood out, anything that caught my attention. Anything that—

“What the fuck?” I gasped, sitting upright, staring at the page in shock.

There was no journal entry this time. No words on the page. Instead, there was a sketched image.

It was the being from my dreams. Sure, he had a pair of horns jutting from his head and was holding a long spear of some sort, but there was no mistaking the angular jaw, the long black hair, and the eyes. They were filled with black ink in the journal, but in my mind's eye, I saw the blue fires burning in them.

“That’s impossible,” I whispered, stunned. “What the hell does this mean? Where did you get this image?”

There was no name attached to it. I flicked back a page, but the only information I could find was that my father had copied the image from a drawing he’d found on a cave wall.

I stared at the image for a long time, willing it to come alive. This was important. It had to be. That man had appeared in my dreams. Except he’d claimed they weren’t dreams. Visions, then? Who knows. It proved I wasn’t insane, for starters, but also, I knew now I had to find out more about who it was in the picture.

Answers. I needed answers.

Slowly, I thumbed through the rest of the entries, but there was nothing else. No more drawings. The last page flicked free of my thumb and rested flat. The business card slid free, and I pushed it back against the spine with my index finger.

I frowned at the card, deep in thought.