Marcus turned back around and swept his hand over his laboratory, "my life's work is here. My history is here. This house has been occupied by my family for generations. Under no circumstances will I let anyone take that away from me."
"But..." I wanted to call him crazy again, I just couldn't understand it. But I knew I would never convince him either. What I realized in that moment though was that I didn't want to be there, not when life held so little promise for any sort of joy or happiness. That house was haunted by the past, and Marcus was too. And that would never change.
"Well if you think we're going to mate and I'm going to raise a baby here, in this place, you're crazy."
He bristled, "this house has never been attacked by vampires. Not once. It is a safe place."
"I don't just want somewhere that's safe Marcus. I want a home. I want laughter and joy, I want somewhere that's never even heard of vampires. That's what I want, and that's where you raise a child. And that's what your sister has. But this house," I sighed, "it's haunted by the memory of your family."
He didn't say anything, seeming to consider my words. Maybe I had gotten through to him after all. Maybe he would be willing to hear me.
"No," he said, shaking his head, "we will mate and we will raise our child here. We will find more werewolves, we will build something here, in this place." He rounded on me, "and I will find a way to end the vampires once and for all. They will not take my home from me."
I had really thought, for a second, that he had actually heard me, but he was blind to see what was plain to me, having only just gotten there. The life that he had created for himself was gone, and it was never coming back. It wasn't fair, but I had learned early in life the lesson that nothing is fair.
"Put this back where you found it," Marcus said, handing the letter back to me, "and leave the past where it is."
I didn't put the letter back though. The seeds of a plan was forming in my mind. Instead I slipped it back in to the envelope and went back to the room that I shared with Connor, now just my room, and slipped the letter between the mattress and the bed spring. Maybe it could be of use.
~~~
Ever since I had confronted Marcus about the letter from his sister, and he had said that in no uncertain terms would he ever leave his mansion and his pain, I had been spending every waking moment trying to master shifting on command.
It was difficult without Connor there to help me, and I didn't really feel comfortable asking Marcus to help me after the way things had been left between us, but I knew that I couldn't always rely on Marcus or Connor being there to tickle awake that part of my mind that was pure wolf with a hit of the hormones from their male scents. Eventually I would need to locate that part of my mind without that crutch, and so that's what I spent every waking minute trying to do.
At first, I used all the many things that were in Connor's room that had his scent. His pillow, his favorite shirt, and the towel that he used to wipe his sweat off while he worked out. It all reminded me of him, and helped me to find that part of my mind where the werewolf within me hid.
And then, slowly, I removed those things that contained Connor's scent, and after a lot of frustrated attempts, I finally found my inner wolf without any aids.
Then it was just a matter of bringing the wolf out, and letting the human part of my mind fade in to the background. Which took a whole nother day to master, but finally I did it, and I made the shift from human to wolf, and there I was, standing in the middle of Connor's room on four paws instead of two feet, admiring myself in the mirror.
But then, before I could get too excited, I had a sudden moment of panic. I had no idea how to get back to my human self. I hoped maybe the panic, the loss of mental control would kick me back to my human body, but I remained a wolf. I thought about going to Marcus but the door was closed. I could howl, or claw my way through, but I calmed myself down. I could figure it out. Marcus obviously had. So I could too.
And then all of a sudden it was obvious. I closed me eyes and searched my mind, and there was a little part of me that was still human, and I embraced that human part, just like I embraced the wolf part to shift, and I was back in my human body.
I sat there on the floor, naked, and laughed. Partly from relief at having made it back to my human self, partly just from the sheer elation of having finally done it. Because now my life would change forever. Now I would never have to run away from a vampire ever again. I didn't ever have to be afraid.
And I knew exactly what I wanted to do next.
I threw on a bath robe and went out to the back yard. It had finally stopped raining, and the sun was just starting to peek out through the clouds, though the ground was still damp. I took a good look around, just making sure that I was indeed alone, and then I let the bathrobe drop to the stone veranda. Then I quickly embraced the wolf within, and almost immediately I was on all fours, covered in fur.
I was getting good at it.
I walked towards the woods, and then loped a little, and by the time I was in the forest I was running at full speed through the sun filled trees, a hundred different scents hitting me all at once, the sounds and sights of the forest alive to my keen wolf senses.
I ran until I was exhausted, and thoroughly lost, and then I stopped and let loose a howl of pure joy. That moment was an expression of pure freedom, and now that I had it I was never letting it go.
If Connor had been there to share it with me it would have been a perfect moment. He had wanted so badly to be able to share with me that feeling of joy and freedom that running wild gave, but he was gone. And I got the feeling that he wasn't coming back either. If he had been planning to come back he would have already. But it had been too long. Maybe he was hurt and couldn't make it back, or maybe vampires had waylaid him. Whatever it was, he wasn't there, with me.
I could look for him now though. His scent trail was gone but I had a general direction from Marcus. Somewhere north. Canada. And if I didn't find him I could keep on going up and up, and try to find Amelia. I had a feeling she would take me in, if I explained who I was, if I brought that letter that I had saved.
But one way or another I
was
leaving. I wasn't interested in wallowing in pain and in the past with Marcus. The girl that he had first found, she hadn't had much of a choice. What Marcus had offered then was safety, safety that I wasn't able to find on my own. But learning how to shift at will had given me choices, and I was choosing to look for something better.
I followed my own scent trail back the way I had come, to the mansion, and in my mind I plotted my escape.
~~~
The first thing I did was go back up to the room where Marcus kept his history in boxes. I wanted to go through every letter from Amelia that I could find, in the hope that somewhere she gave a more exact location. I had avoided going back to that room out of respect for Marcus and his wish that I leave his past alone, but I had looked on a map and there were a lot of islands in the vicinity of the PO box address that Amelia used for her return address. I could spend months looking and not find her.
Part of me had expected the door to be locked after I confronted Marcus with Amelia's letter, or the boxes to have been moved to somewhere else, but Marcus had left everything as it was. Maybe he didn't want anything to do with what was in that room.
I opened the box containing the letters and started reading letters, scanning them each quickly, searching for any detail that might help me find her.
It was strange to read back through Amelia's past like that. She seemed to get more and more angry as the letters went back. I got the impression that she hadn't gone willingly to her island in Alaska. But amidst all that she never once mentioned a name for the island where she was, or any detail that would help me find it more easily. Maybe that was on purpose. Maybe safety meant disappearing.
So I would have to find it the hard way. But that was fine. I
would
find it.
On an afterthought, I went in to the box filled with pictures and took a picture of Amelia, so that I would have a rough idea of what she looked like, or had looked like ten years younger. It would help prove who I was too, and where I had come from.
Then, I replaced everything how it had been, and I closed the door on Marcus' past for the last time.
I laid out two pieces of paper on the desk in Connor's room. One would be for Marcus, to explain where I had gone, and that I was grateful for everything he had done for me. I apologized for coming between him and Connor. I was painfully aware that with me leaving, he was back to being all alone. And I knew that I shared some of the blame for that, even though it was never what I had intended.
And I urged him to follow me North. I told him there was nothing left for him in that mansion. I hoped that maybe, being all alone again, he would reevaluate what his priorities were, but somehow I didn't really think that would happen. His past was too much a part of him. There was no way he would ever let it go willingly.
And I wrote a letter to Connor too, just in case he did find his way back to that mansion. I poured my heart out on to that page, telling him that I missed him, that I had never intended to drive him away. I told him I would go looking for him, but that I would almost certainly end up with Amelia. I left him the PO Box address, and trusted that he would find his way from there.
If
he ever came back. I could hope, but I wasn't holding my breath.
I put both letters in envelopes on the desk, and then I went to say a goodbye to Marcus. I wasn't going to tell him I was leaving, I knew he would only try to convince me to stay. Maybe even force me to stay, though I doubted that. But I didn't want our last conversation to be the bitter, angry one we had had about me finding the letters from his sister. For there to be any hope of Marcus following me North I needed to leave things between us on good terms.
I made the trip over to Marcus' side of the mansion and went straight to his laboratory, as usual, assuming he would be there, but he was nowhere to be found. I had no idea where else he might be. I almost called out his name, but the silence was so pervasive in that space, it felt wrong to shatter it like that.
I started walking again. The only other room of his that I knew was the bedroom, which was at the very end of the long hall. Before I even got there though, Marcus came out to greet me. He must have heard my socked feet on the hardwood floors. Soon my senses would be that good too, once I had spent more time as a wolf.
"Are you looking for me?" he said.
"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, for digging through all your stuff like that. It was wrong." I didn't try to apologize or say I was wrong for suggesting that he go and join Amelia, because I still thought that was the right thing to do. But I also didn't want to start things by getting in to another argument, so I just avoided the whole subject.
He nodded and closed the distance between us. "In truth I have been thinking about what you said."
My heart jumped at that.
He must have seen the hopeful look on my face, "not about going to join Amelia, but about making this place more welcoming."
I smiled and tried to hide my disappointment. It was too little too late at this point, though it broke my heart to see him making that effort, knowing that I was leaving anyway.
"All the furniture was blanketed and the house was closed up when I moved to Seattle, to try and find the vampire that killed my family. When I came back I only reopened the rooms that I needed, I left the rest. But there's no reason we couldn't open up more of the house. You could even have your own rooms, and of course you could decorate them however you please." He smiled, "I do want you to feel at home here Sara."
"I know," I said, nodding, "it's a wonderful idea." I went to him and hugged him then, partly to hide my tears, partly just to be close to him one last time, if this really was the last time that we would see each other. "And thank you, for everything that you've done for me." I almost said I would miss him too, but cut myself off. I needed to leave, before I said too much, or talked myself out of it.
"Anyway," I said, backing away and wiping the tears from my cheeks, "I think I'm going to turn in for the night."
"If you don't want to be alone you can always join me in my bed," Marcus said, running a hand through my hair. It wasn't so much a come-on as a genuine attempt to give me the closeness and companionship that I needed, and it just made what I had to that much harder. Damn him.
"I'll keep that in mind," I said, barely holding it together, and then I turned around and started to leave.
Which is when I heard the front door slam shut.
~~~
Marcus and I both went jogging down the long corridor at the sound of the front door. It couldn't be him, not when I was just about to leave. It was like he had read my mind or something, and come back right when I needed him to.
And then I saw Connor turn the corner, and I broke out in to a run, past Marcus, and launched myself in to Connor's waiting arms. I wanted to yell and scream at him for leaving at all, but I wanted to bury my face in his chest and have him wrap his big arms around me more.
He had the same smell, the same intensity about him, the same everything. He had come back to me.
It seemed like forever when he finally let me go, and my feet came back down to solid ground. I was experiencing so many different emotions at once that I didn't know where to start. While I was trying to figure it out Marcus moved in and the two of them eyed each other, neither saying a word, and then Marcus stuck out his hand and Connor shook it and Marcus said "glad you're back," and that was the end of their reunion. I had to roll my eyes at that. I would never understand men.
Then I wrapped my arms around him again, I couldn't get enough, and he picked me up off my feet and we embraced again for a long time. And then when he finally put me down, for the first time I noticed that there was someone else with Connor, standing behind him, in the shadow against the wall, looking awkward. I peeked more, around Connor, and saw that it was a girl, younger than me, who looked lost and dishevelled and probably, I realized, about what I had looked like when Connor and Marcus had found me and taken me in. She had long brown hair, a pale complexion and delicate features. She was beautiful, in a haunted and intensely vulnerable sort of way.