Hunters' Shadow (Book one of the Hunter Chronicles)

Chapter Forty Three (Edited)

Your name. Your real name, is Eleanor.

The panelling along the study walls lent the room a very masculine air. Dark green wallpaper that stretched from the border to the ceiling wrapped itself around the top of the room and absorbed every scrap of light that dared to seep through the tall, rain-spattered windows.

A fireplace dominated one wall - the dancing, flickering flames in the hearth creating long shadows; velvet silhouettes that chuckled to themselves as they danced across the bookcases and created abstract patterns on the floor.

A plethora of books piled themselves untidily on each shelf, the result of the owner removing them frequently and failing to return them to their correct spaces. The titles flickered in and out of the fire light, teasing the occupants of the room with brief glimpses of the owners proclivities.

Hannah or Eleanor. Eleanor or Hannah.

The girl - whatever her name might be that morning - traced the giggling shadows around the room, her piercing, emerald eyes barely registering the tiny details that marked the study as the Alpha's inner sanctum.

Two beaten leather armchairs graced the spaces on either side of the hearth, flanked by an equally worn sofa devoid of any fancy cushions or throws.

On one side of the room, furthest from the door, a desk. Built from a fallen oak, decorated with elaborate carvings and impossible large, it dominated the corner of the study. There was no doubt that it must have been built custom built right where it stood, as neither windows nor door were wide enough to accommodate its removal.

It was like no other room in the house. This where Blake held meetings with visitors and delegates. Where he would have held his council of war if Marcus hadn't been injured. She sat, for the first time, at the very heart of the pack... and it drove home to her how little she belonged there.

She wasn't one of them. She wasn't anyone really. She lacked even the comfort of a name she could call her own.

Eleanor or Hannah...

Try as she might, they remained two distinctly separate people in her head. The revelation of her real name had given her no flash of insight. No wave of returning memories.

From the very beginning she had held on to the firm belief that, once she knew her real name, it would all come flooding back to her. Her memories would return and she would be immediately comfortable slipping back into her previous life.

But here she was. Stuck with the uncomfortable knowledge that her fake name currently held more significance to her than the one she'd been born with. Hannah had become a stable foundation upon which she'd built a new awareness of her world and, like a comfort blanket, she clung to the name fiercely. At least she would until she had a clearer picture of her life as Eleanor, she told herself.

She could count on one hand the number of hours she was certain she'd slept the previous night, her tangled sheets evidence of hours spent in restless contemplation. The clock on the landing had insisted on chiming the hour with a depressing regularity throughout the night and she had glared at it balefully as she made her way down the stairs the following morning.

Her headache hadn't let up since Blake had first fled the hospital ward, developing steadily from the steady thrum she'd become accustomed to into a full blown and resounding hammering all down the left side of her skull. Doc's hefty pain medication kept the worst of it at bay but she found it impossible to relax for any length of time – her mind running over and over her new reality.

Your uncle's name is Angus Maclerie.

She had an uncle. Finally, one of the shadowed faces that hid just out of sight in her memories had a name. Laird Maclerie had demanded to see his niece no less than nine times since dawn had broken across the horizon that morning.