Lily of the Valley by Megan Derr

Author:Megan Derr [Derr, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Megan Derr

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When she woke, it was in a familiar bed in a familiar cabin, tucked beneath the quilt she'd grown inordinately fond of.

Across the room, by the fire, Scout was bent over something, sewing with a large needle. Leather, then, probably. Nearby was her sword, bow and arrows, and several daggers. Like she was preparing for war. Lily's breath hitched.

Scout's head snapped up, face intense but inscrutable as she stared at Lily. "Feeling better?"

Lily flushed hot. "Yes. I'm sorry for acting like such a silly—"

"You acted like someone who had been betrayed and traumatized, like someone who was about to be raped and murdered," Scout said sharply, all but throwing aside whatever she was working on before striding across the room in that brisk, confident way of hers that Lily always caught herself staring after. "I'm sorry I added to that. Truly."

"You didn't," Lily said, looking at her before it was too much, dropping her gaze to where her hands clutched tightly at the quilt. "You have a right to privacy. Your reasoning was more than sound. I did take the news badly, after all. So you really are a wolf?" She shook her head, still hardly able to believe it.

"One hundred percent wolf, not a drop of human in my blood," Scout said with a sigh, sitting next to her on the bed as Lily swung her legs over the side. "My pack is not a nice one. Years ago, my father was meant to be married to a wild mage, but… well the short version is things went wrong, and the poor mage was wrongly thrown out. When that mage returned years later, bound to a different pack, drama ensued. My father rightfully lost the fight, and in the aftermath was even more rightfully left disgraced and humiliated.

"I was born some years after all of that, and by then the pack was even worse, instead of learning a single damned thing. One night he got so drunk and violent that my mother…" Scout's mouth flattened. "She didn't survive. She might have, if anybody at all had stood up to him, helped us. I was recovering for weeks after that, and I spent still more weeks off in the woods, hiding and training. When I returned I challenged him, ripped out his fucking throat, and then told all of them to go fuck themselves before taking my meager belongings and leaving. I was seventeen."

"Still so young…" Lily said, looping her arms around Scout's arm and leaning into her, offering what pathetically little comfort she could. Still a child. No adult should have to endure so much pain and anguish, let alone a child. "What did you do after that?"

"I wandered, down into the lowlands and across the continent. Honed my skills hunting and tracking, eventually found myself a royal knight in the kingdom of Barden, the land of the Black Mountains. Was there for nearly eight years, after five of travel. Retired after a rather nasty encounter with an ogre that took me six months to recover from, traveled again until I settled here about two years ago.

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