"I'm not hallucinating. That much I'm sure of. My new superior abilities prevent me from doing that so I know you are here and you are floating so cut the crap whoever you are, and get to the point."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Is that how you speak? Did you just say 'cut the crap?' Charming."
Faith sighed. She was not going to get out of whatever this was easily. Playing along might be best. "Alright, whoever you are, I'll apologize for my language but do you think you could get to the point? I'm cold. I need to warm myself for a while."
"What you need to be doing, young lady is getting back on track. Stop indulging in this nonsense. You are not a demon; you're a wolf shifter of the highest degree. Your family was always amongst the strongest and right at this moment you're disgracing it."
So not only did this presumptuous woman refuse to tell her who she was but now she lectured her on responsibilities and her family? Who was she to say anything regarding things she couldn't possibly know about?
A sharp pain struck her left temple and Faith closed her eyes. An image appeared and for a moment she was pulled from her body and entered the scene in front of her. She sat on the floor of a cabin--she knew the cabin, or at least one like it, they were still on the island. Cullen and Summer, along with some of the other more reclusive wolves, still lived in them.
What was she doing here? Looking down at her hands, she jerked upwards. She had small hands, tiny actually, like she was a child. Her head shot downwards as she quickly tried to assess the rest of herself. Her dark hair hung low, almost to the floor. Patting her face, she felt small features and her ears were unpierced.
How had this happened? She swung around wildly, nearly falling flat on her face even from her position on the floor. In the distance, she heard voices, she could make out they were two people but other than that she was still clueless as to what was going on.
Rising to her feet, an event that took a lot less time than it would have if she were at her regular height, she crossed the room silently. A small, antique wooden mirror hung over what looked like a vanity. On tiptoes, she pulled herself up until she could see her face reflected back at her. Gasping, she covered her mouth with her hand.
Her own reflection stared back. Just not the one she was used to seeing, although she'd once seen it all the time. Almost three decades ago, she'd sat by a stream in the backyard of her foster parent's home and stared at the little girl, whose face floated above the stream, looking back at her. Over and over she'd repeated the phrase 'there are not people who turn into wolves' until she'd believed it and something precious had died inside of her. Most of that had come back to life when Tristan had changed her into her shifter-self in the jungles of Mexico.
The rest had reanimated the first time she'd smelled Theo in the woods and known she'd finally returned home.
So what the hell was she doing back in her nearly ten-year-old body in a cabin on Westervelt?
"Quiet, Maryanne, she's going to hear you." A male voice spoke harshly, his tone critical of whoever this Maryanne was.
"Let her hear me, Abe. If danger is coming it affects her just as deeply as it does us."
They discussed her. The people in the other room must be her parents. A lump formed in Faith's throat. Even returning to Westervelt, she had never allowed herself to think about the family she'd lost when Kendrick had cast his spell on the pack. It was a pain she'd overcome through sheer force of will as a child and she didn't need to reopen those wounds just because she was now back and living in what essentially amounted to her 'home town.'
But now she wasn't being given a choice.
Compelled by a will she couldn't deny, Faith snuck down the small hallway and turned the corner to the bedroom. In front of her stood two people, one of which she had just seen floating in the sky, and the other a tall, blond haired man she could only assume was her father. Well, she could do more than assume it. Truth was she had his cheekbones and bone structure. Despite their differences in coloring, there was no question she was related to him.
Though she supposed most people would say she looked like her mother. The dark hair they shared was misleading. It would be all some people would see when they looked at them. To Faith, even looking at her with adult eyes, her mother was the most stunning woman she'd ever seen. It wasn't so much that she was glamorous or sophisticated, no it had something to do with her mother's inner confidence and a sense of self that just radiated through her pores.
Faith sighed. What would it have been like to grow up with these people? Well, she guessed technically she had grown up with them--the first ten years of them, if you could call that grown up.
"Abe, look at the child, she's as pale as a ghost." Her mother looked at her; even through the glasses the other woman wore, Faith could see her matriarch seemed sad. It was something in the way her eyes tipped down to the left and sparkled like they held back tears. She had never had children but she imagined it wasn't unusual for a child to be so in tune with their parents' moods that they knew them just from small visual cues. Whatever else she'd lost of her parents over the years, this she still retained.
"I told you she could hear us."
Her mother moved forward and stroked the side of Faith's face with her palm. "Is that it, baby girl, did you hear us and get frightened?"
Nodding, because she didn't trust her voice and the truth was so darn weird they wouldn't believe it anyway. Her father hissed a breath and pulled the two of them into his arms.
"It's very unusual for your mother to not be able to see the future clearly. She's had the gift since she was quite young, like you do."
Internally, Faith blanched. She didn't have the 'sight,' she was the only woman on Westervelt who didn't. Her talents only related to Theo, didn't they?
"But as I've been reassuring your mother tonight, nothing nefarious has to be going on. Perhaps we, as a pack, are at a hiatus and the future will become more clear when our Alpha makes a decision or moves the pack in a direction it's yet to go."
Maryanne pulled out of the group embrace. "Oh our Alpha...yes Kendrick and his wise choices."
Snickering at her mother's tone and recognizing that she often sounded that way, Faith was glad to see her mother had held trepidations regarding Kendrick. Her father growled, his eyes turning wolf.
"That's blasphemy and you're teaching the child nothing but disrespect."
Deciding enough was enough, Faith opened her mouth to speak but found she could not form words, or at least the ones she wanted to say. It was like her mouth wouldn't cooperate with her brain. Damn. Evidently, part of this experience was not warning the people around her of what was to come.
Was it her destiny to constantly feel ineffectual? She wanted to stomp her feet.
Her mother put her hands on her hips. "Someone is about to knock on the door."
Sniffing the air, her father whirled around as a knock sounded. "Who is it? Why is it disguised from me?"
"I don't know. They must be eating those herbs that are not supposed to exist."
Storming toward the door, Abe threw one last glance at his family. "If they're trying to hide their scent, what are they doing here?"
"You're acting like I have the answers to these questions, hon. Open the door, let's find out."
Her father did as his wife asked and Faith waited with baited breath. The herbs they discussed were commonplace now; it was why it had been so difficult to identify the traitor. Why had they been secret and who had controlled them? Faith's mind whirled a mile a minute while she contemplated these questions and what the answers would mean.