Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy 1)

“You make friends easily, don’t you?” Bran said as he piled the last of the mountain of eggs on the platter.

“I guess.”

“She’s hasn’t, until you.”

“Hell.”

“Take that out; I’ll bring the rest. You can explain things while we eat.”

Since she wasn’t at all sure how to explain, Riley filled her plate, shoveled in food until the last of the hunger pangs eased. “Maybe you should just ask questions, give me a kind of running start into it.”

“Were you bitten?” Sawyer asked her.

“No. It’s hereditary.”

“You come from a family of were— Of lycans?”

“That’s right. Let me say right off, we don’t eat people. We don’t bite them, we don’t eat them. Not that there aren’t some rogues out there, but my pack—my family—doesn’t hunt, doesn’t kill. And we’re not interested in making more lycans through infection. We make them the old-fashioned way. We mate.”

“Do you mate with humans?” Annika wondered.

“You fall for who you fall for, right? So yeah, it happens.”

“Can there be children?”

“Sure. Fifty-fifty on lycan traits, so all kids are trained for the change. Initial transformation hits in puberty—as if puberty didn’t whack you out enough. Big ceremony, gifts, celebration. Every kid takes an oath, not to hunt, not to kill, not to infect.”

“Any ever break the oath?”

She looked over at Doyle. “Sure. And those who do are punished or banished, depending on the crime and circumstances. We’re pack animals.” She looked down to where Apollo dozed peacefully beside her chair. “Banishment is the worst—worse than execution. We’re civilized, okay? We have rules, a code. Three nights a month—”

“Night before the full moon,” Sawyer filled in. “Night of, night after.”

“Yeah, three nights—except in the event of a blue moon, then we get six—we transform, sundown to sunup. During that time, we fast.”

“And you transforming like you did. Jesus Christ, Riley, I could’ve shot you.” Sawyer jabbed a finger at her. “I nearly did.”

“Unless you loaded with silver bullets, it wouldn’t have done much harm.”

His expression changed—reluctant delight. “That’s real? Silver bullets?”

“Silver bullets, silver blade. It’s going to hurt to get shot or cut otherwise, but it’s not going to be fatal.”

“You left us.” Sasha spoke quietly. “Rather than trust us, you lied, and you left.”

“I didn’t go far, and I came as soon as I realized what was happening. I couldn’t risk staying here. Apollo would have sensed the change coming, for one thing. He’d have smelled the wolf on me. And even if I’d locked myself in my room, what if one of you had gotten in?”

“What if you’d just told us the truth?” Sasha countered. “The way I told you the truth? Bran held back at first, and you know how upsetting that was. We’ve been together day and night for a week now, we fought together. Twice now. If you could’ve gotten clear before sunrise this morning, you would have.”

“I’d have tried,” Riley agreed. “I don’t think it would’ve done much good. You knew. You knew before I changed back. That weighs on my side of it. It’s part of the oath, Sash. A sacred oath I took at twelve. We don’t reveal ourselves, not without permission from the Council of Laws.”

“If you do?” Bran asked.

“The punishment, first offense? You’re locked up for three cycles, no contact. It may not sound like much, but to be chained in wolf form? It’s pretty awful. Added to it is the loss of honor and trust.”

“An oath is a holy thing,” Annika stated.

“Yeah, it is. It’s a little late for it, but I applied for permission three days ago. It’s politics, so there has to be a lot of discussion and debate. I figured I’d get it, considering what we’re doing, but it was going to take a couple weeks to wind its way through the system.”