Aubrey slammed open the screen door and barreled into the crisp autumn air. Cool enough for her breath to frost, to sting her eyes and make them water. Yeah right—that was what she was telling herself anyway. She wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of a gloved hand.
You’re crying because it’s cold outside, not because your sister has just left you forever.
With a deep shuddering breath, Aubrey sucked back her emotions as best she could. The pain—no—the agony of her loss so profound she almost didn’t want to live. Because what was the point of living if you didn’t have a purpose? And as of this moment, Aubrey was purposeless.
She scanned the tree line surrounding her family’s quaint cottage home and felt hedged in, claustrophobic. Trapped.
“Ugh. Stop being such a baby.” She wiped her cheeks again, steeling herself as she checked her equipment. Blade sheathed against her thigh, bow slung on her shoulder, quiver at her hip chock-full of arrows. A few hours of training. Perfect. She’d lose herself in target practice.
Target practice for what?
With an angry grunt, she pushed that thought away, locking it up with any wayward memories of her sister. The one the Hunters had chosen. The one who would soon claim her destined role as a wolf slayer. Always Corra.
Okay. Enough. It wasn’t her sister’s fault. It was destiny, fate, DNA, whatever. Everyone assumed that just because they were twins, they’d both be called forth.
“But everyone was wrong,” she mumbled.
So very wrong, and the looks of pity were almost too much for Aubrey to bear.
She turned her back on her home and moved stealthily through the forest, eager to get to the clearing where she spent most of her afternoons. Her parents had left with her sister the night before, not long after the small team of Hunters had descended on their cottage in search of their newest Huntress.
Pain ripped through Aubrey’s chest once again, her efforts to thwart those devastating thoughts ineffective. The Hunters had come for Corra but not for her. And although they’d welcomed Aubrey to join them at the Order compound for a mating ceremony, she just couldn’t bear to go, not when it wasn’t her own fate to become a Huntress. That was asking too much.
As she burst into the clearing, her troubled thoughts vanished. Deep breaths. She closed her eyes, and with expertise that came with a lifetime of training, nocked an arrow and drew the bow back. The brief contact with the string came as a familiar caress before she let the arrow fly.
The thunk of a successful hit was peace for her. She opened her eyes and saw her arrow embedded in the bulls-eye of a target. Perfect shot. Those Hunters didn’t know what they’d given up. She was every bit the Amazon woman, even if she wasn’t chosen as a Huntress. She was still a descendant of the ancient breed of Amazon warriors. Some part of her DNA had the marking, even if it forever remained dormant.
It took her mere minutes to dispatch the crudely-made beastly targets—animal skin monstrosities wrapped around a wooden skeleton and stuffed with hay. Not as effective as the real thing but without a Hunter, she would never know the feeling of hitting a true target and killing an actual living, breathing werewolf. It wasn’t her destiny. So now what?
She tapped an arrow against her thigh. “Suck it up.” She could still do some good, right? There had to be a place for her somewhere. Maybe in law enforcement? She was proficient in martial arts and had extensive weapons training—she was a powerhouse of deadly expertise… For a human…who was trained to battle werewolves. Fuck.
She slung her bow over her shoulder and started the trek to retrieve her arrows. Another few hours of practice and she’d go for a run or something, blow off as much steam as possible so that maybe she’d be able to get some sleep. Her fits of anger, frustration and self-pity had kept her up most of the night and she was drained, but damn if her whirling mind wouldn’t let her shut down and escape into oblivion.
One by one, she yanked the arrows out and slid them into her quiver, the sun warming the top of her head and back, the crispness of the morning air finally melting away as noon approached. She took in a deep breath, inhaling the perfume of evergreens and autumn grass, and tilted her face up to catch some rays. The birds were silent—the only sound the rustle of leaves as the occasional breeze blew them from their lofty homes. She loved this place; she loved this time of year. She didn’t really want to leave her home anyway. She could make a life without the Hunters. All was not lost.
The sun soaked into her skin and suddenly she felt like her world was not coming to an abrupt and devastating stop. Her purpose for living did not walk out the door with her sister. It just changed.