Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 4) by Ariana Hawkes Page A

won’t regret it.”
    “I’ll let you know how it goes,” Isabel replied, smiling at her.
    “Please do, and good luck!”

Chapter Four
    Isabel drove home, showered and had some food. The hangover had worn off now, and Marianna’s words had done a lot to mend the turmoil in her mind. She glanced in the mirror. Her eyes were clear and her skin was unblemished. No-one would guess that the last 24 hours had been so tense. She was blessed – or cursed – that emotional stress rarely showed on her face.
    As she drove along the Black Peak road, she felt calm. She had no idea what the hours ahead would bring, but she was prepared. The secrets that had been taunting her, plucking at her mind and driving her crazy for the past few weeks had been revealed. And everything – in a strange kind of way – seemed to make sense. It was just after 4pm and the sun had lost its fierce heat, instead bathing the road in a dusty haze. She had the curious sense that she was going home. Afternoons often had that feeling of lazy familiarity, golden-hued and drowsy with the assurance that nothing new was going to happen.
    Isabel turned off the main road into Black Peak City, and her heartbeat speeded up. What the hell was she going to say to The Wolf? She hadn’t even worked out in her own head what she wanted from him. How would he receive her? Perhaps he hated her for screaming at him, and that was why he hadn’t been in touch. As she got out of her car, she saw that his front door was slightly open. She walked quickly up the front steps, belying the tremors running through her body. Peter was standing in the doorway. He opened the door wider to greet her, and, now that he was in the light, she could see that he looked terrible. His face was thin and gaunt, and his skin had lost its burnished tone. His eyes were a dull shade of mustard, and his body seemed stooped, with none of the proud stance of before. It seemed like he was fading away. “Peter, what’s happened? Are you sick?”
    “I’ve been suffering, Bella,” he said, in a rough, cracked voice. “Come in.” She walked past him and went through to the living room. It was in disarray, animal skins and clothes strewn everywhere.
    “I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said, from behind her, and she turned to face him.
    “What happened at my house absolutely freaked me out. And it took a while for me to process it. But I know everything now, Peter.” The eyes that met hers were full of distrust.
    “What do you mean by everything?”
    “Can we sit down?” she said, wanting to even out their height difference. They sat at either end of one of his leather sofas, he tensely, his hands on his knees, while she tucked her feet up underneath her. “I know that you, and Jed and Josie are werewolves.” At the sound of Josie’s name, his jaw tightened. “Yes, it was Josie who told me, after I went to her house and forced it out of her. But someone else – a Silver City local – told me all about how this is were-territory, and how werewolves come here from other countries around the world.” He nodded, and the tension in his face eased.
    “It’s all true. I’m very sorry that you saw what you saw last time we met. I would have done anything to keep my true nature from you. The fact is, before I left Romania, I’d never lived among humans, and I hadn’t imagined that it would be so difficult to hide my wolf side. But it is. It’s become easier since I’ve got to know you, Isabel, and to understand you a little, but it’s still a struggle for me.”
    “What are you doing here, Peter, so far from home?”
    “It’s my family’s sickness,” he said, and his voice broke. “I come from an old and noble Transylvanian clan, that traces its ancestry back hundreds of years.”
    “But Transylvania’s not a real place,” Isabel butted in. Peter laughed.
    “It’s real, Bella. Just because it features in Dracula doesn’t mean it’s made up! Look.” He got to his