by Cheree Alsop
Being caught like that was embarrassing. I shoved my shirt back down without saying anything. I turned away from her searching gaze to add detail to the strands of hair on the sketch. My cheeks burned and it was all I could do to keep from snarling. I felt idiotic.
“Fine,” she said after a moment. “If you don’t like to be touched and those burn marks are related, I want to know why.”
I shook my head.
She stomped a foot. Even though it didn’t make a sound, the action was endearing. It was as though the sad little ghost had let down her walls enough for her true self to show. I didn’t want to let that go, especially when she looked a little less sad at the moment.
“It’s not a pleasant story,” I said.
“I’m a ghost talking to a werewolf while trying to believe that I am actually a ghost talking to a werewolf,” Ceren replied in a bemused tone. “I could use any kind of story right now.”
I sighed and sat back. I didn’t know where to begin. The Master and rules and guard rounds were so far away from where I was that it felt like a different life.
A bug fluttered against my cheek. I ran my hand over the spot to chase it away.
“Tell me about that one,” Ceren said.
I followed her gaze. My shirt had lifted enough to show a burn just above the hem of my pants on my left side. A slight, wry laugh escaped me at the fact that she had chosen that one.
“I didn’t think the story would be funny,” she said.
I shook my head. “It’s not. It’s just, well, ironic.” I took a steeling breath and let the memory settle over me. “That one wasn’t my first, but it might as well have been.”
“Why is that?” the ghost asked.
I gave her a half smile. “Because that is the day they started noticing me.”
Chapter Five
The smell hit me first. It was filled with the odors and aromas of my youth. Fear, pain, fresh meat, blood, bats, wet wolf fur, unwashed bodies, the questionable food from the kitchen, anger, mossy stones, damp corners, and the underlying determination that came from surviving tremendous odds enveloped me in the memory.
I opened my eyes to the sight of werewolves brawling outside of the Lair. It was an unsanctioned fight, the kind that would get you thrown into solitary for a week; but sometimes the rivalries couldn’t wait for the practice ring. The older werewolves would oversee the fights and commanded us younger ones to watch for the experience.
I couldn’t have been more than eight years old. Only a few brands had been burned into my body as a result of a food stealing incident and one involving arguing with an elder. I was told both were against my instincts and could lead to death if I chose to pursue such unwolflike endeavors.
I sat at the edge of the fighting circle that had been marked before my time by massive stones. Werewolves fought first in human form and then phased at the command of whoever was in charge of the fight. It was daytime, the only time such fights were held because the Masters were sleeping in their cave and wouldn’t overhear.
It was harder to phase during the day. It took more strength and it was difficult to keep the wolf form. Practice was required to reach such mastery. Many of us younger werewolves had never tried. Such attempts were forbidden until our twelfth year because of the drain on the body and the risk of not having enough strength to phase back. I didn’t know what happened after that, but hushed stories hinted at a very painful death.
Four werewolves brawled in their human forms. The simple shorts they wore did little to ease the pounding of fists on flesh. One werewolf was flipped onto his back. Two others took advantage of the fallen one and proceeded to beat him senseless until the last one pulled them free. The two turned on the one until he was also unconscious, then they fought each other.
I didn’t turn away from the brutality of their battle. The wounds of the survivors would heal. Very seldom was a lesser werewolf left dead in the ring. The Masters frowned upon the needless wasting of a life if it wasn’t lost protecting the Lair. Fortunately, I was never involved in explaining the loss.
I studied the battle, watching the way each werewolf moved, blocking and attacking, stepping back to draw the other in, then pressing their advantage against an unwary opponent.
Even at eight, I vowed to do it better. I would watch for the draw, fake my opponent into thinking I took the bait, then dodge the expected attack and land my own. It was easy to see how the slight angle of a foot, the rotation of a hip, and a practiced drive of the shoulders could enhance a punch into something far more lethal, especially with the strength of a werewolf behind it.
The fight master barked an order and the four were escorted or dragged from the ring, to be replaced with four others. This time, blades were handed out. I perked up. Weapon fights were always my favorite. The rule was no mortal wounds, but fighters weren’t shy about leaving their opponents bloodied enough to remember them.
It started out as an ordinary fight. A few swipes were taken, the first blood drawn. A werewolf on the sidelines shouted creative curses about the moon and someone’s questionable mother. Others chuckled because none of us really knew who our mothers were, and so the insults could apply to all of us or none.
A werewolf held a bleeding gash across his thigh as a result of a particularly swift attack. At the fight master’s command, he was taken from the ring. With three left, the slash of the blades became more intense. Blood showed bright red in the sunlight and dripped freely from several wounds. The weakest werewolf was ganged up upon by the other two, as often happened in the ring. The strongest quickly took him down until he, too, was dragged out.
With two left, I sat forward in anticipation. I already knew the one with the dark hair to be a savage fighter. I had seen him bite an opponent’s calf clear to the bone, and that was in his human form. The other was taller, skinnier, and had the advantage of a longer reach. The battle was as well-matched as one could hope.
In the fury of a heated attack, both knives were swung at the same time. They connected with a shrill crack. The dark haired werewolf’s knife handle met the other werewolf’s first and he lost his grip. The knife spun end over end straight at me.
I grabbed it out of the air. The motion happened so fast I didn’t even think about it. One moment, it was whirling on a straight course to embed into my eye, and the next it was in my hand feeling as natural as if I had been born with it.
“Nice catch,” the hulking werewolf who sat next to me said with a glimmer of respect.
“Lucky you’ll survive today with both eyes,” the fight master said. Answering nods and a few chuckles rounded the ring. “Toss the knife back.”
The fight master’s command was supposed to be gold no matter what arena we used. Instincts told me to obey him. I was eight; I had never trained with weapons and hanging onto it would reap severe consequences.
Showing the same stubbornness that would eventually send me fleeing the Lair for my life, I did the one thing none of them expected. I rose with the knife clutched in my hand.
“Come on, little lobo,” the fight master said. “You can’t be that stupid or brave. Both will get you killed just as quickly.”
Without anything close to a real plan, I climbed onto the dividing stone.
“Seriously, mutt, get back here,” the werewolf I had been sitting by growled. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
Eight years old was too young for a death wish, so I don’t know what made me do what I did next. With every werewolf’s gaze locked on me, I jumped down into the ring.
“Try me,” I said.
The two werewolves exchanged surprised glances.
“You’re kidding, right?” the dark haired one asked. He glanced up at the fight master. “This is too dangerous.”
With all the bravado my small self could muster, I said, “I’ll take it easy on you.”
The werewolf’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “No whelp is going to make a fool out of me,” he growled.
They both
advanced. I could tell by the taller one’s stance and reluctant steps that he wasn’t keen on the fight. Disregarding him as the lesser threat of the two, I kept my focus on his companion.
The werewolf switched his knife from hand to hand. I held mine tightly in my right where I had caught it. Later, I learned to loosen my hold to give greater speed and flexibility by not limiting the muscles to the singular task of gripping the blade; but at that time, all I knew was that it impeded my movements more than I thought it would. I tried to wield it like my opponent who passed it back and forth with the grace of a deadly viper ready to strike, but my motions were jerky and lacked any sort of the finesse he had trained to perfect.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he said when he was near enough to speak quietly for only the two of us to hear. “The sand can keep your lifeblood. Nobody will miss another zev, least of all one as stupid as you.”
I growled at that.
My outburst angered him. He lunged forward so quickly I barely saw it coming. When he danced away before the tip of my blade could so much as stir a breeze past his chest, he left a line of fire along my cheek.
The werewolf lifted his blade so the others could see the red coloring its tip.
“First blood!” he hooted. His tone turned taunting when he turned his gaze back to me. “And the only werewolf’s blood who will be spilled in this fight.”
I was fed up, tired of the bullying, worn out from the endless fight for survival, hungry, thirsty, sore from the intensity of our training, and just plain done with being at the bottom of the pecking order with the other young werewolves. It all added up to one very important thing in my mind. If I didn’t prove myself in that ring at that moment, it would never stop.
I let out a roar of such rage the werewolf took a surprised step back. I threw my knife to the sand, leaped at him, and willed my body to phase.
The sun flashed in my eyes for a blinding second and then I was at his throat fighting with the fangs of a wolf to tear into the delicate tissue that protected his jugular.
The werewolf had done one thing right and had shoved his arm between my jaws and his neck when I tackled him. We rolled on the ground, my paws scrambling for purchase as he yelled for the others to drag the beast from him.
It took six of them to pull me panting and growling away from him, and two more to hold me there as others took him from the ring for stitches to repair the severed muscles in his arm until the moon could do the rest. Three others, including the fight master, ended up needing medical care as well by the time I had calmed down enough to phase back.
The wide-eyed look the others gave me when I was escorted down to the Room of Retribution was enough to tell me how far I had crossed the line. I didn’t fight when they chained my hands and pulled them over my head, and I didn’t shy away from the brand the tall, skinny werewolf carried over.
He paused with the red glow of the silver brand inches from my skin.
“Truth be told, if it was up to me, you wouldn’t be receiving this brand,” he said in a whisper the watching werewolves couldn’t hear. With his back to them and his head bowed, he continued, “That was the bravest, craziest thing I’ve ever seen. You might not have planned to make a ruckus, but you definitely left a mark the others aren’t soon to forget.” He held up the brand of the two half-circles for the other werewolves to see. “A penance for acting against your instincts and attacking someone beyond your skill level.” He lowered his voice and said, “Carry this one with pride, you savageq little beast.”
I might not have been able to stifle a yell of pain at the angry burn of the silver that would mark my skin forever, but later on in my small cave, I couldn’t help the rise of satisfaction when I looked at the scar. It hurt with an ache even the moonlight didn’t ease, but the werewolf was right. The others had given me space the rest of that day. I truly had acted against my instincts, but the hazing let up and the older werewolves started to pick on the younger ones less.
It felt surreal to break from the memory and find myself back in the forest with the ghost at my side. The satisfying crunch of leaves beneath my bare feet was the only sound that met my ears for a few minutes.
When Ceren finally broke the silence, she spoke with a tone I couldn’t read.
“I don’t know where to begin. Should I be horrified that you grew up in some lair raised by a master who made you fight each other? Should I cheer for the boy who stood up to his bullies and won in a sort of losing way? Or do I question my sanity in believing any of the story at all?” She shot me a searching look. “Take your pick.”
She walked through a tree, or rather, the tree passed through her. I had noticed that she usually avoided such things as if she was still human. She walked around bushes or used stones to cross the small streams as I did even though her feet didn’t touch the ground. I figured such habits died hard. It told of her shock even more than her tone when she didn’t even try to walk around the oak or the following clump of aspens.
I chose to answer the last question one first. “Why would I make something like that up?”
She studied the ground at her feet for a few steps before looking up to say, “I would guess to cover up something more horrific, but I can’t imagine anything more terrible than what you told me, so I have to believe you, I guess.”
I fought back a smile at her bothered tone. “One thing you’ll learn about werewolves is that we don’t lie.”
She tipped her head to one side and asked, “Why not?”
“Because lies have a smell,” I replied.
Her forehead furrowed. “They do?”
I nodded. “They smell like a wet cat.”
That brought a small laugh from her. “They do?”
“Yes, which is why werewolves don’t lie. We would smell it and know, so there’s no reason to lie,” I told her.
A small smile crossed her lips. “Is that why dogs don’t like cats?”
I nodded again. “Because cats are liars.”
Her mouth fell open. “They are not!”
“Are too,” I replied. “They’re all like, love me, pet me, feed me, then scratch you and ignore you and only give you attention when they want something.”
“That’s honesty, if anything,” Ceren shot back. “They just don’t hide their feelings behind slobbery kisses and wagging tails even if they were scolded a second before.”
I had to laugh at her analogy. “For the record, werewolves don’t give slobbery kisses, and nobody scolds a wolf if they’re smart.”
“Noted,” she replied with a grin. “I’ll remember to wait until you’re human to scold you.”
“Good idea,” I agreed.
We walked along in amiable silence until she said, “Listen to me. I’m talking to a werewolf about when he’s a human instead of a wolf. Is this life even real?”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. By her tone, I guessed the question was rhetorical. The loss in her voice and the confusion on her face gripped my heart in a tight, painful fist.
Against my better judgement, I said, “Ceren, I’ll figure out what’s keeping you here. I find a way to get you out of this…,” I made an uncertain gesture before I settled on, “This limbo you’re in.”
The smile she gave me was tentative but sincere when she replied, “Thank you, Zev. I really appreciate it.”
The rays of the sun had reached the Willards’ house by the time I opened the front door. Virgo was sprawled on the couch with his eyes closed. His face was nearly as white as the bandages that had been wrapped around his upper arm where the jakhin had torn it open.
James looked up from the nearby chair he had fallen asleep on. He pushed unsteadily to his feet.
“Thank goodness. I was about to go find you myself,” the human said with a relieved smile.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because, well,” he looked at Virgo who hadn’t stirred at my entrance and then back at me. “I guess because I forget you’re a werewolf who can t
ake care of yourself.” He shrugged. “I’m used to worrying when my friends are in trouble.”
“It’s pointless to worry when worry doesn’t help anything,” I pointed out.
He grinned. “That’s a very werewolf thing to say. If you want to be more human, you’re going to have to worry more. It’s just the way humans work regardless of if it helps or not.”
I shook my head and turned my attention to Virgo. “How’s he doing?”
“Not good,” James replied. Solemnity chased away his smile. “Mom and Alia patched him up, but he keeps having nightmares. From what I’ve been able to research, that’s a common side effect of being wounded by a jakhin.”
“There’s a common side effect?” I said. “How often does this happen?”
Virgo’s lips moved soundlessly and he shifted his head from side to side as if he was trying to avoid something. James adjusted the rag that had been placed on the warlock’s forehead. By the smell, it had been dipped in a potent poultice.
“Not often enough for anyone to say how to get rid of them,” the human answered. “We’ve rubbed his feet with lavender and treated the lacerations with it was well, but it doesn’t have the same power as it does in killing them. Mom says he just needs time, but I hate to see him like this.”
I looked at James more closely. Dark circles showed under the human’s eyes and his cheeks were hollowed. “You’ve been up with him all this time?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I told you I worry. But….” His words died away.
“But it doesn’t help,” I finished.
He nodded with a helpless shrug.
My heart went out to him. “Get some sleep. I’ll stay up.”
He held up a hand. “You just got back. I can’t ask you to stay up with him. You’re the one who needs sleep after the night you’ve had.”
I shook my head. “I won’t be able to sleep because of the night I’ve had. Besides, I’ve got class soon. When Mrs. Willard gets up, I’ll leave Virgo in your mother’s capable hands. Until then, there’s no use for both of us to be awake.”
He eyed me uncertainly, but it was clear the thought of sleep was a welcome one. “Are you sure?”
