Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,23

but two members of their clan, and they’ll be on the hunt for them. They don’t let their dead lay fallow.”

I blinked at that. “Huh? What does that mean?”

“It means,” Ethan imparted, “that they have a burial ceremony for each lost member of their collective. They’ll be on the hunt for the bodies to bring them to the soil, and if they think you were involved in two members’ deaths, they won’t be happy with you.”

“They’ll hurt her?” Sabina shrieked, before she blurted out, “Lara, you get your butt moving. I won’t be losing you just when I’ve found you, missy!”

Though I wanted to grit my teeth at her bossiness, I was used to it, too used to it to get mad, and in all honesty, it felt good.

I was used to her telling me what to do. It wasn’t that I always obeyed, more often than not, I actually didn’t, but damn, it felt good to have someone care for me again.

It felt more than good. It felt wonderful.

Mother had long since left the building, because she spent all her time with our father, trying to fix him, make him better so he’d remember her. She’d never seemed to understand that it was a losing battle, and once the war had been lost, she didn’t have much of a will to live anymore.

The few times I talked to her a year, I was always glad to get off the phone and relieved that I wouldn’t have to talk to her for another few months.

And Cyrilo? Well, his absence in my life came as no loss. I’d left not long after I was eighteen and hadn’t looked back. A pocket of freedom that had only been opened up to me with my father’s illness letting me loose.

I bit my lip as I whispered, “I might not be able to help the boy. Are you sure you want me there?”

“Of course I do!” she groused. “Kali Sara, why wouldn’t I? Now that I’m safe, I have no reason to stay away from you. I thought you’d be—”

“Married? To a Lindowicz?” I huffed. “Yeah, guess again.”

She gulped. “I’m sorry, Lara.”

I could hold it against her for life, keep a grudge between us to shove distance in our way so that we’d never have a close-knit relationship ever again… Or, I could forget about things we’d done when we were both young and stupid, and we could have another chance at being sisters…

She’d called me at the exact moment when I was pretty sure I was going to die. She’d called me and stayed on the line, and apparently, her men—did she really have three of them?—were trying to help me, had sent people after me to protect me.

Sure, they were late, but they’d tried.

That was more than anyone else had done.

I’d been alone for so long that the prospect of having someone again was a little overwhelming, but this was Sabina. She wasn’t just someone.

She was my sister.

And if anyone could understand the powers we had, if anyone could share the burden, it was her.

So even though I was probably crazy, because I was leaping from the frying pan into the fire by leaving my home, all I’d known for years, and a hyena corpse that revealed an entirely new world to me, I whispered, “Okay. I’ll come.”

And when Sabina burst into tears, her relief poured down the line in a way that made my own eyes prickle.

She loved me.

That much was clear.

All those years ago, I’d loved her enough to help her escape. I could well remember the night when everything had gone wrong. It had just been a regular family meal in our trailer, until it hadn’t been. When father had told her he’d picked her a husband, and she’d told him she was pregnant with another man’s child… I’d seen him in a killing rage before, but something had stopped him. Something had merely made him lock her in her room.

Later on, I’d helped her escape. I’d called her boyfriend, told him she was in danger, then I’d broken into her bedroom while father was fucking mother loud enough for us all to hear.

That had been the last time I’d heard from her.

The last time I’d heard a lot of things in my left ear—father had hit me so hard, he’d perforated my ear drum.

I’d been glad she’d been free, yet after she’d gone missing, after father had told the family she was dead, and I knew it was