Shameful by May Dawson
12
Legacy
I wokeup with a splitting headache and blinked at the sunshine flooding my room, trying to make sense of why I felt so awful. My hand was on my pillow in front of my face, and there was dried blood caked into the wrinkles of my knuckles and along the base of my fingernails. I frowned at the site of the dark red crust. Something unsettled wormed through mygut.
In the distance, I could hear raised voices. I rarely heard my father yell—even in an emergency, the man was ice—but his voice was taut and loud now. “You haven’t even heard herside!”
“She ran through Crosby as a wolf.” The voice was a deep rumble. Cyrus.
My stomach tightened as I realized the alpha was here, and he was pissed. At me. Even though I’d been fighting for my survival last night. The memories of the night before came back, and with it, the cold prickle offear.
I could smell the fear still clinging to my skin, the scent of sour sweat and the iron tang of blood, and it made me disgusted. I couldn’t go down there like this, but I couldn’t exactly get into the shower right now either. Instead, I froze there by the door, feeling ashamed of how afraid I’dbeen.
“There’s no excuse. None.” Cyrus wenton.
“I got all the CCTV footage,” my father said. I closed my eyes, thinking of the trouble he must have gone through. We had shifters who had infiltrated the state and local police to handle missteps likethis.
“And the cell phone footage?” That was Lucas’s deep voice, and it sent a new thrill of shock through me. “You can’t tell me no one captured that on video. Humans capture everything on video.”
“We’re working onit.”
Cyrus let out a bitter laugh. “Who would believe it? Our head of security’s own daughter is the one to expose us to the world.”
“She must have had a good reason,” Courage said, and my chest tightened with pride and worry for my brother.
“Be quiet, Courage,” Dad ordered. “Go check on your sister.”
Dad never talked to us that dismissively. He must have a reason, in front of the alpha.
I had to go down there myself. I headed into the jack-and-jill bathroom between my room and Courage’s, and turned on the water in the shower. Extrahot.
Courage knocked on the door. I could feel him rest his head on the door when he said, “You should have just kept on pretending to be asleep.”
“I want to explain what happened.”
“Good luck,” he said, his voice heavy. It made my own heartdrop.
“You need to stop saying that to me,” I said lightly. “It never brings me luck for some reason.”
“I thought it did,” he said, and I realized I’d just called the mating ceremony unlucky, even though I’d been happy with the outcome.
“Yeah,” I said. “Everything’s going to befine.”
My little brother didn’t answer me. A hollow opened up in my chest. I wanted someone to comfort me, but I didn’t try again. His silence felt like a warning.
My mother must have tried to wipe my skin off after I made it home, because most of the blood was gone. I scrubbed myself clean, and then scrubbed clean again, the water almost hot enough to melt my skin. I almost wished it would. When my legs started to tremble in the shower, I tried to ignore them. I had to move quickly.
I couldn’t think of what I was going to tell them. The night before seemed like it was all a jumble of events. But I got out of the shower, toweled off mechanically, braided my wethair.
“You still there?” I asked Courage.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice muffled through thedoor.
He was body guarding me. Why? I almost asked, then swallowed the words. I couldn’t handle one more piece of information at the moment.
I dressed quickly in jeans and a favorite soft hoodie. Courage met me in the hallway when I opened the door and handed me a bottle of blue Gatorade, my favorite.
I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until I drank it. Courage eyed me worriedly as I drained half the bottle, then put the top backon.
“When did you get so thoughtful?” I teased.
He didn’t answer me, just rubbed one hand over his face. “I guess it’s time to talk to Alpha.”
My little brother’s tone was gruff. He was scared.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” I said, and this time, it was me reassuring him, not looking for reassurance myself. I’d do anything to protect my little brother, no matter how big and dangerous he looked to everyoneelse.
I set the Gatorade bottle down on the table by the stairs, on top of Mom’s lacy doily—a strange thing to find in a shifter’s house, in my opinion—and next to the framed photos of their wedding and our baby photos.
Then I trudged down the stairs, barefoot. My mother met me at the bottom of the stairs, her worried gaze taking in my face in an instant. I gave her a brief nod. I’d be okay; I was ready to talk about what happened. I had tobe.
When I walked into our living room, Dad, Cyrus, Lucas and Tyrone—Dad’s second-in-command for pack security—all looked up from where they sat on the couches. Mom stood beside me, solid as an oak tree, as the two of us confrontedthem.
“What happened last night, Legacy?” Cyrus asked, his voice cold. There was no trace of the kind man who had welcomed me to his family last night.
A twinge of warning ran through my gut. But all I had to do was say the right things so they would understand, and the nightmare would be over. I’d be safe with my pack. The vamp would never reach me again.
“Last night, I was alone in the café and a vampire came in,” I said. “He knew my name. He called me Legacy Quinn.”
All four men reacted to the word vampire.
Cyrus leaned forward. “You’re sure he was a vampire? You’ve met one before?”
“He ripped my arm open,” I said, raising my arm, but I was wearing a hoodie, and the skin was healed now anyway. “He ripped my shoulder open. He had fangs. I’m pretty sure he was a vampire.”
My dad shook his head subtly. Right. This was no time for sarcasm, and I had to watch my tone. It was hard, though, when reliving that night made my heartrace.
“He could’ve been a shifter from another pack,” Cyrus said, his voice disaffected. “Vamps wouldn’t dare come into our territory.”
“Crosby isn’t exactly our territory,” Tyrone said. It was complicated. Other shifters wouldn’t come into Crosby without seeking permission from our alpha, if they were wise. It wasn’t shared ground like the big cities. But it wasn’t marked as strong as our own pack lands, either.
I continued to try to fill in the story. Everything seemed jumbled now, and everyone frowned as they listened. The way they looked at me made me feel like a liar, even though I was telling the truth.
“This never would’ve happened if she’d been safe on our pack lands,” Lucas muttered.
“Yes, that’s definitely over,” Cyrus said. “For all the females in our pack. No more work, no more college.”
My heart jolted in my chest as I imagined Tania and the other working females in our pack trapped on pack lands. “That’s not fair,” I said sharply.
“Fair?” Cyrus said, and let out a snort of derision.
He rose from the couch, towering over me, and my inner submissive wolf wanted to cower. But instead, I glared back at him, crossing my arms. My wolf was part of me—but not allofme.
“What’s not fair,” he said, his eyes narrowing angrily as if he would’ve been happier if I cowered, “is that you almost exposed us to humans. What do you think would happen? To our pack, to all the packs?”
“It wasn’t my fault!” I insisted. “The vamp almost killedme!”
“The vamp.” He shook his head. “Maybe it was some shifter. Who knows? You don’t even seem to know your own story.”
“I might have missed some details when I was fighting for my life,” Isaid.
Cyrus’s eyes blazed a warning.
“Stop arguing,” Lucas mouthed at me from behind the alpha. I knew he was trying to help, but his words sent rage shooting through me. I was surrounded by my own family, but they were cowed by the alpha. I was telling the truth, but it didn’t matter. No one believedme.
“Our pack’s under attack by a vampire,” I said, raising my gaze to meet Cyrus’s glare even though that submissive tug urged my head down. They needed to hear me or the pack would be in danger. “Somehow, Lucas pissed off the vamps. So we’d better be ready when he comesback.”
Cyrus’s hands clenched into fists as if he wanted to hurt me, and I took a step back despite myself.
“Get out of here,” Cyrus snapped at me. “I’ve heard enough.”
I stared at him defiantly, wanting him to know that I wasn’t running, then turned and headed for the door. My heart pounded in fury and he was right about one thing. I needed to get away before I pissed off the alpha anymore, because I could barely hold my tongue.
“Let her go,” the alpha growled, and no one moved to follow me. “We’ll have a pack meeting tonight. We all need to understand the dangers.”
Good. At least he was going to make sure everyone knew there could be vamps on the loose.
Still, it hurt to walk alone out the front door and down the front steps, into the cool morning air. I left them all behind me, just for a while.
I expected Lucas to come after me, to check on me, but he nevercame.