Requited Hood

by Kendrai Meeks

  All I had to do was find her and have done with it. In the training complex, I found one of the few cousins I considered a friend practicing his battle skills.

  “Markus!”

  The youngest of six siblings, Markus was the baby of his family, but “baby” was the last word anyone would ever use to describe him. Standing six foot three, he towered over me. When he wrapped me in his arms and spun me off the ground in his overly dramatic way, at least eight inches between my feet and the floor remained. He was a strong hood, one who took on his mantle at fourteen, the youngest of my generation. Once, my mother hoped I’d see him as a candidate for husband. Little did she know that Markus had been hoping to make a husband of our cousin Robert.

  “There you are, Gerwalta. Why weren’t you at the fire last night?”

  He set me down like a feather on water, leaving me to straighten out my clothes. “Please don’t call me that—it’s Geri. And you know why. I was being punished.”

  “Your mother is mad at you again? Must be a day of the week that ends in y, then.”

  His light-hearted jab brought a much-needed smile to my face. “Speaking of the wicked witch, do you know where she is?”

  “She was through here a little while ago, helping Robert adjust to all his new awesomeness and stuff. You should see his biceps ripple. I could watch that hood for hours.” For a moment, Markus’s face clouded over in a dreamy mask, and I tried not to picture what he must be thinking. Finally, he snapped back to attention. “Nope, she’s not here. I thought I heard her say she had to go out for a summons.”

  My nose wrinkled. “A summons? I didn’t know the wolves were having some sort of dispute that needed settled.”

  Markus grinned. “Just because you’re tossing off the alpha’s son doesn’t mean you’re the werewolf whisperer or anything. They’re a large pack, Geri. Crowds create conflict. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I hope you’re right. And just because I told you my secret doesn’t me you can say anything about Cody and me around here. All the older hoods with their turbo hearing and stuff... Could get ugly if anyone finds out.”

  My cousin’s eyes rolled. “You honestly think there’s a single hood, wolf, or human in a ten-mile radius who doesn’t know you two sneak off to the woods to polish bark all the time?”

  I didn’t want to ask what that term meant. “My mom doesn’t.”

  “Right. You keep telling yourself that, and maybe sooner or later, it will be true.”

  VIII

  I hovered in the kitchen until moonrise, only to be told by my father to go to my room and wait for my mother’s return there. Early the next morning, after a sleepless twenty-four hours spent compiling mental lists, replaying the conversation by the falls, and listening to the sounds of my aunts, uncles, and cousins playing wargames inside the compound, I found myself and Old Bessie outside Cody’s house. I didn’t remember the drive, or even deciding to go. Something just... drew me there.

  Cody’s parents both worked in town during the day. I knew he would be home alone, if not only for the reason than we had taken advantage of that fact on several occasions. The spare key met my eyes when I opened the utility box panel on the side of the alpha’s three-bedroom ranch house, its metal chilled from overnight temperatures that danced circles around the freezing point. I made my way for the back door, frosted leaves crunching beneath my feet.

  “Screen door” was a symbolic name; I couldn’t remember the last time it actually had a screen in it. Just beyond, I maneuvered the key to the keyhole and began to push it in the slot when I heard the sound of weather-stripping scraping wood. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light inside when I found the door unlocked and open.

  “Cody?”

  My voice deadened in a house strewn about with homemade afghans and carved wood knickknacks from local artisans. Carpet the colors of rocky road ice cream dampened the sound of my footfalls as I glided around furnishings and a stack of magazines piled up in the hall. Even though I was a nascent, a hood still not in command of all her strengths, I still had the innate abilities with which all my kind were born: stealth, agility, speed, superhuman senses. A little superhuman, anyway. Any righteous hood who’d gone through their rites would shoot past me on that one.

  I moved through the interior of the house like mist over water. My hand on the open door, I paused, coaching myself for what I would do the moment I opened it and Cody set eyes on me.

  I thought it over and you’re right. We can make this work. Let’s get married.

  But I’m still going to college in two days, so we can get married in Chicago. For the moment, what do you say we just fuck and bond as a mated pair?

  Okay, I might not use the term fuck, but damn it, there was no way either one of us was leaving this house a virgin.

  I opened the door...

  ...and discovered one of us already wasn’t.

  The man who a moment before I had been ready to spend my life with, lay sleeping.

  In the arms of another woman.

  A naked woman.

  I gave myself until the count of three, and proceeded to lose my shit.

  “WHAT THE FUCK, CODY!”

  Werewolves were gifted with speed that could make Olympic sprinters look like a child running through molasses in winter. One never could have guessed it from the way Cody’s eyes languidly flickered open. Slower still was his ability to understand what was going on, or that he was currently using a brunette with half-inch blond roots as a blanket.

  “Geri?” His hand slicked over his oily face. “What are you doing here?”

  Just then, the shewolf began to show signs of life. Good, she was awake. That made it so much easier to kill her without guilt. Run, bitch, run. Give me an excuse to chase you.

  “What am I doing here?” I vaguely motioned to the refuse on his bed. “What is she doing here?”

  “Cody, sweetie, who is that?”

  She had a voice, and judging by the amount of gravel in it, she’d been a smoker since she was in utero.

  “Who am I? Who am I?”

  Despite years of training to keep my emotions in check, my innate abilities were roaring to life through a vision of red. The shewolf’s unkempt roots became my handle as I hoofed upon the mattress and dug my hand into her scalp, pulling her up to face me.

  “I’m his girlfriend. Who in the hell are you? You’re not one of the Paradise Pack, that’s for hell sure. I know all of them.”

  Cody finally managed to sit up, pulling a fistful of twisted sheets and blankets over his lupine assets. He went from groggy to panicked in two seconds flat. “What the...? No, Geri, stop. Stop before you do something you’re going to regret. Lisa is my...”

  “Your what?” I demanded, waiting for the standard litany of male excuses to come pouring from his mouth. “Your sister? Your cousin? Your just-a-friend-and-it’s-not-what-it-looks-like?”

  “No, this is exactly what it looks like.” My boyfriend’s voice grew stern. The wolf shown through his eyes, sending a chill down my spine and loosening my grip. “Lisa is my...”

  “I’m his mate!” The shewolf twisted away, crouching down in a position that would let her pounce and rip out my throat if she shifted forms. “I’m his wife, you crazy bitch.”

  My world.

  Stopped.

  “She’s your...”

  Tears, hot and as burning as the silent screams at the back of my throat, manifested at the corner of my eyes. A bare-backed Lisa began to rummage around the floor, picking up bits of clothing. Suddenly, the scene of what must have happened played itself out. Their touching. Their kissing.

  Their mating.

  Cody – my Cody – was gone.

  “You’re mated.”

  Whatever pity he could package together, Cody set it out in his features. “Yesterday we were joined, and this morning, we consummated. I’ve... We... Lisa, baby, can you give Geri and I just a few minutes?”

  “Of course, sweetie.�
�� She had six pounds of sugar in a five-pound bag’s worth of saccharine goodness in her grin as she leaned over the mattress to press a kiss against Cody’s mouth, her ass pointed my direction. “I’ll just go jump in the shower.”

  Lisa didn’t worry that I’d negotiate my heart. She didn’t worry that I’d try to make Cody see why this was all wrong. She didn’t have to worry that my tears and my suffering would tug his heartstrings and bring him back to me.

  She didn’t have to worry about anything. They were mated, sealed in an eternal mystical bond, one that would last until death.

  One that was supposed to have been ours.

  “You’re mated.” I repeated the words as though comfort could be found in the stark truth, but it wasn’t. I’d decided to turn my back on my family, my traditions, my birthright if needed, all to be Cody’s wife. For nothing. “How? Why? When?”

  “My father...” Cody shrugged. “Alpha’s prerogative.”

  “Oh.”

  I didn’t need any more explanation than that. Cody was a werewolf, and his father, not only the man he held above all others as a role model, but his pack’s alpha. If his father were to decree that Cody would take a particular mate, he wouldn’t have a choice. When the alpha gave a firm command, the packling had only two choices: obey or leave the pack. One kept you alive, the other could trigger a chain of events that ended in insanity and execution by hood.

  “But why would he... Your dad has been... He liked us.”

  He liked me.

  It didn’t make sense. Cody’s father hated the concept of alpha’s prerogative. He boasted about how rarely he exercised the option. Their pack was made of wolves descended from Swedes and Finns. Like their human countrymen, they’d come to the new world with beliefs in hard work and community rule. When Michael Ryland put his paw down, it was only because he had no other choice.

  Scooting to the end of the bed, Cody secured the sheets around his waist. Never mind that I didn’t need a live model to recreate every inch of his body in my mind’s eye.

  “I know this is tough for you, Geri. Hell, it’s tough for me. I fought my dad on it when he tried to get me to accept it of my own free will. When he ordered me, I did what he wanted, but inside, I was screaming for you. But the moment Lisa and I...” He had the nerve to blush, tucking his chin into his shoulder. “Then I knew she’s the one I’m supposed to be with. She’s the only one I could ever be with. I love her. I love her more than...”

  A sickly suspicion began to leak in to the cracks of my horror. My hand shot up, killing his momentum. “Did he say why?”

  Confusion marred his tragically beautiful brow. “What?”

  “When you told your dad that you didn’t want to mate Lisa. Did you tell him it was because you’d just proposed to me earlier in the day?”

  His hand scratched the scruff at the back of his neck. “I told him I loved you. I told him that I only wanted to be with you.”

  “But another shewolf from another pack just happened to roll into town.” The same time my extended family had come in from all corners to witness Robert’s fire, leaving behind their own packs. Thunder rumbled in my chest as I leapt off the cliffs of my conclusion. “Did you mention you were planning on running away to Chicago with me and you’d only be home for full moons?”

  Slack-jawed, Cody shook his head. “I didn’t get that far. He told me in terms that left no room for discussion that you and me were through. He forbade me to talk about you until Lisa and I were joined.”

  The last twig of my patience snapped. “I have to go.”

  The shower in the bathroom came on just as I turned on my heel and started to march out of the room. I’d put down four steps when Cody’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. I couldn’t turn around, even though I knew inherently he wanted me to. No matter how this happened, and despite the fact that he was a werewolf, Cody Ryland was a good man. He wouldn’t let me walk away thinking I’d done something wrong.

  “You’re a beautiful, intelligent, kickass woman, Gerwalta Kline, and any man—wolf, hood, or huey—would be lucky to have you. If there’s ever anything I can do, anything at all...”

  His voice trailed off, dragging the shreds of my hopes and dreams of our life together with it.

  “Cody, I...” I couldn’t get it out. No matter how much I longed for reciprocity, I wasn’t there yet. I may never be there. To tell him that I wished he and his new mate well would be a lie. Deep down, I wanted to see them suffer. I wanted my heart to be avenged. I wanted to feed Lisa’s blood to my silver blade and hear Cody’s keening howl, knowing I took his mate from him.

  I wanted to take my rites, let the fires consume the old me, and come out a righteous hood on the other side so I could have justice.

  I wanted to become everything my mother wanted me to become.

  I wanted to become my mother.

  My chest fell as I exhaled my frustration, knowing there was only one place to turn, one person responsible for what had happened.

  “No, Cody. There’s nothing you can do. Good bye. Good bye forever.”

  IX

  I flew into the house. A gaggle of cousins and two of my aunts in the living room barely registered as they called out, trying to get my attention. I had no interest in playing junior hostess. I needed to see my mother and I needed to see her now.

  Brünhild looked like she’d been expecting me when I entered her formal office at the back of the house. Her hand wrapped around the handle of her favorite stein, one that depicted a pack slaughter in the Black Forest. One knee-high boot crossed over the other as she sat in her carved wooden chair, her gaze fixed on me at a distance. I stood at the door, my chest heaving, my thoughts racing, blood boiling.

  “Out with it now, Gerwalta. We both know why you think you’re here.”

  “Why I think I’m here?” Pain barely registered as my nails pressed so hard into the heels of my hands, I swore that blood must be running. “How could you, Mother? How could you?”

  “How could I?” She repeated my question in a repulsed tone dripping with scorn. “What did you expect me to do? Allow you to go off and become some wolf’s bitch? I didn’t name you Gerwalta so you could repeat the same mistakes.”

  She rose slowly, like a queen staring down one of her unruly subjects, before stalking toward me. “Someday, you will command of our bloodline, and if you prove worthy, Grand Matron. A righteous hood of the House of Red cannot rule while opening her legs every night to the enemy.”

  I took two steps forward, meeting her glare with every ounce of fury I could muster. The thwack my flying hand made when it met her stoic face echoed off crimson papered walls, off the wood and stone hearth where a fire danced with an intensity that matched my own. My mother was my superior in every way; she could have stopped my assault midair had she wanted. Though I was curious why she didn’t, I pressed forward, not knowing how much longer my luck would hold.

  “This goes far beyond what you’ve done to me. What gives you the right to interfere in pack dynamics that way? What in the hell did you threaten Michael Ryland with to get him to command Cody to mate someone he didn’t have any feelings for?”

  “I didn’t command any one. I only advised Michael that if his son ever attempted to bed a member of my bloodline, I’d have his pelt for my bedclothes. I suggested that Cody might consider taking a mate with a great deal of urgency. Luckily, my sister had already brought Lisa Kepler from the Ely Pack, who was hoping to find a match here in Paradise. How the alpha interpreted and acted on those suggestions was his own concern.”

  “That’s what flies for diplomacy in your eyes? Threatening wolves you’re charged with overseeing with death if they don’t obey, and calling it their free choice when they kowtow?”

  Her hands folded before her, she nodded. “If I cannot control an alpha wolf, I cannot control any wolf. And if we cannot control the wolves, they will grow wild and feral. Remember that we don’t exist simply to make their lives difficult. Once upon a time, w
erewolves and vampires openly hunted defenseless humans, killing and consuming without limit. Slayers and hoods came into the world to make certain every species which shares it had protection from the others. When you’re matron, you’ll be wise to remember this.”

  “When I’m...” The words died in my throat. “I will never be matron, I’ll never be a hood of your clan.”

  “We are what we are. Becoming a hood isn’t a choice. It’s an imperative. Becoming the matron isn’t a birthright, it’s the very reason you breathe and live. Enough!”

  In a swish of arms, my mother beckoned her full power. The air sizzled with old magic, filling the room with the scent of pine needles and damp oak. Dressed in her common black hunting boots, black jeans, and ruby red button-down, her amber eyes flooded silver. Tendrils of power slicked back over her hair, down her shoulders, and blanketed her back, solidifying into a red cloak, the cloth that had given our kind our names.

  “I grow tired of your insolence. It is time for you to pass through the fire and become one of the righteous.”

  Panic punched me in the gut. “That’s why the family is all here, isn’t it? It wasn’t just for feuernacht. It wasn’t just for Robert’s hooding; they could have done that at any of the family compounds. It wasn’t even as a cover to bring in a shewolf that you could force on Cody. You want them here as a sort of coronation.”

  “It’s far more than that, child. I wanted them here in case there was need to hold an inquest,” my mother said, standing tall. “If Cody could not bed the shewolf, I would have known that you’d blackened your name and lain with him. With the witness of the family, I would have ordered you to carry out the sentence and cut his throat.”

  The image of that fate made me see red. “I would never... Never hurt Cody.”

  “Oh, really?” My mother’s eyebrow arched. “Don’t tell me that when you found him in the arms of another, you did not want to see his blood flow from his veins.”