Blue Moon (Colors of the Moon #1)

Chapter 21

Not even twenty-four hours had passed, and I was already breaking the promise I had made to my sister. It didn't matter that she wasn't even aware of it.

Right now Aiko was still peacefully asleep in my bed, while I was walking farther and farther away from the pack house. This time, however, the reason behind my departure wasn't my inability to stay still.

This time Jared was to blame.

The said werewolf was walking right beside me, while trying to match his steps to mine. I, however, couldn't find it in me to play along. I had gotten less than three hours of sleep, all because a single question had been playing over and over inside my mind.

How long was I going to keep doing this?

Yet, nine hours later and I still wasn't anywhere near finding an answer. I didn't want Jared to find out the truth about my father and my cousin, but at the same time I didn't want to keep lying to him.

The anguish inside my soul hadn't magically disappeared either. I still couldn't breathe properly whenever I thought of my parents, but at least I was now able to lock the pain in a deep part of my soul, where it would dull down with time.

To divert my attention, I focused my eyes onto the back of the guy walking a couple of steps in front of us. If Jared dragging me out of the house hadn't been strange enough, the fact that Dyson joined us was causing several alarm bells to go off inside my mind. Especially since both of them refused to tell me what exactly we were up to this early in the morning.

To be honest it was already past ten, but to me it still felt like early morning. This was party because of the thick clouds covering the sky, but mostly because Aiko was still peacefully asleep in my room.

Speaking of my sister, Jared was lucky his mother volunteered to keep an eye on her. The moment she would wake up, Mrs. Braxton would inform her where I was and then offer her breakfast. Or lunch, if she slept past noon.

Back to the forest, on top of everything the three of us weren't even alone. Molly was trolling two steps behind Jared and me, with a wide grin coloring her face.

From what I had gathered, Jared hadn't intended for his sister to tag along. He had put up a small fight when Molly first announced she would be joining us. The moment she threatened to tell me what we were up to, however, he stopped his protests.

This is how the four of us ended up hiking through the damp forest. The deeper into the northeast side of the forest we headed, the surer I was of our destination. As far as I knew there was only one noteworthy change from the otherwise randomly planted trees in this particular direction.

As predicted we reached the wide clearing and stopped at its edge. The before colorful flowers were now either trampled or torn out of their safe haven, but I didn't have it in me to react to the horrendous sight.

"You need to know at least one way to defend yourself," Jared said, drawing my eyes back to him. "Since you could never beat anyone in a physical fight, I decided that me and Dyson are going to teach you how to shoot."

Molly cleared her throat from next to me where she stopped. Jared snapped his eyes to her, but the younger girl met his glare without flinching. I doubted she could even be intimidated by him. Maybe by his wolf, since he was an Alpha, but not by Jared alone.

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Jared averted his eyes with a loud sigh.

"Fine. Dyson is going to teach you how to shoot."

"And why is that?" Molly winked at me and then shot her brother an angelic smile.

"If you don't stop, I'll send you back to the pack house." This time Jared's glare was much more irritated than the one from before.