by Zoe Parker
Chapter Seven
Gray
"Wake up, sweetheart," someone says, and I feel a hand gently run over my cheek. I try to swipe them away with one hand, but when I do, the other hand comes with it.
My eyes pop open. I'm lying on a couch with my hands tied together and James is crouched in front of me, brushing the hair out off of my forehead with a look of total adoration on his face.
"Wha…?" I say and I try to sit up, but as soon as I move, I get dizzy and I my head begins to pound.
I hiss and reach up, feeling a large lump on the right side of my head. The memories come back to me, and I hit James' hand away. Ignoring the pain, I try to get away, but James is on me faster than I can move.
"Easy there, Gray," he coos. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"You already did, you asshole!" I hiss and try to wriggle away, but his arms are around me tight.
"No need for name calling, Gray," he says, almost sounding hurt. "Stop fighting and I'll let you go, I promise."
I stop thrashing around. "You mean, you'll let me go home?" I ask.
James laughs. "No, silly woman. I mean, I'll let go of you so I can go and get medicine for your headache. You can't go home. Not yet."
I stay still, even though this is not what I want, but I replay the last two words in my head. "Not yet." That means, he'll eventually let me go as long as I play along with whatever idiotic scheme he has going on. I relax in his arms.
"Okay, James. I'll play it your way," I say. I leave off the, "for now" part, and see if he'll buy my change of heart.
It takes several seconds, but my captor slowly lets go of me and helps me sit up on the couch. I hiss again from the movement and close my eyes. My hands go to the lump on my head to try and alleviate the pain.
"Easy, Gray. Stay here. Don't move. I'm going to get some headache medicine and I'll be right back." I feel his hands release from my arms and I open my eyes. He's now standing in front of me. "Don't move," he repeats and walks out of the room.
My eyes slowly open and close as I try to look around the room, but my head is swimming. The adrenaline from earlier is definitely wearing off, and it feels as though I have a concussion. I can't focus on any one thing, but from what I can tell, I'm in a living room that I don't recognize. That doesn't mean much to me since I haven't been in many houses besides my own since moving to Alaska.
I don't know how much time passes, but James comes back into the room with a glass of water in one hand and a couple of pills in the other. He hands it all to me, the pills first. I put them in my mouth, then take a sip of the water and swallow them down.
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" he asks and I cringe at the term of endearment. ‘I am not now, nor will I ever be his ‘sweetheart.'
"It feels as if someone hit me over the head, James," I retort and kick myself for the bite in my tone. I'm supposed to be playing it friendly.
"I'm really sorry about that, Gray," he says and sits down next to me on the couch. It takes a second, but my eyes slowly track his movement and I turn to face him. "I told the boys not to hurt you, and Adam paid dearly for hitting you on the head. Believe me." He chuckles. "He won't be defying me any time soon, that's for sure."
"James, I need to go to the hospital," I groan. My head is still spinning and it seems to be getting worse.
"Nonsense!" He exclaims, making me wince at the sound. James jumps up and grabs a hold of my forearms, pulling me up to stand. The movement makes the dizziness return, and I fall back onto the couch. James is beginning to pull me up again when the front door behind the couch bursts open, shards of wood flying everywhere.
An intense growling comes from the site of the door and I scramble to look and see what's making the noise. The largest black wolf I've ever seen is standing there, its hackles raised and teeth showing as it barks and growls. Its eyes are fixed on James, not on me. I should be scared out of my mind, but for some reason, I don't feel afraid of the beast.
James dives for an end table just as the wolf lunges and comes up with a gun that I didn't see there before. He shoots the gun several times, a bullet piercing the side of the black wolf, but it doesn't slow down.
The wolf bites down onto the arm holding the gun and shakes its head, severing it from his body. I scurry away as my captor falls to the floor and howls in pain. I trip over my feet onto the floor and try to back away, but my hands are still tied at the wrist making my escape difficult.
The wolf turns toward me, but it's not growling anymore. I stop trying to move away, and before my eyes, the wolf transforms into a naked man. My eyes have a hard time adjusting, but I soon realize the man is someone I'm familiar with.
"Oki?" I ask as I draw my eyebrows in confusion. "How?" I try to sit up, but between my pounding head and bound hands, I have a hard time moving any further.
Oki leans down in front of me. "It'll be okay, Gray. Stay still," he tells me. He points one finger and a claw forms from the tip of it. He slices the rope binding my hands and helps me sit up.
James is still screaming in pain on the other side of the room, and I notice that Oki arranges us so he can still keep an eye on my captor while he tends to me.
"How is this possible?" I ask again.
"I don't have time to explain everything right now, but I promise that I will," he replies. "For now, I need you to trust me." I begin to speak, but he cuts me off. "I know that's a big thing for me to ask of you, especially since I've been keeping things about myself from you. Big things. But I promise I will tell you everything. Gray, please trust me. Can you do that, for just a little while?"
I blink my eyes as I think. Can I trust him? I don't really know him, but I've never felt as safe with anyone in my life. It doesn't matter that I just saw him change from a wolf to a man, I still feel so incredibly safe and cherished. "Yes, I can trust you," I say.
Oki lets out a deep breath as if he's been holding it in anticipation. "Gray, I know this will be hard, but I need you to close your eyes and not open them again until I tell you that it's okay. Can you do that? No matter what you hear?"
"Yes," I reply, "but why? I don't understand."
"Just promise me, Gray. I'll explain everything, I swear."
"Okay, Oki. I promise."
He nods his head and watches as I close my eyes tightly and turn away so that I'm not tempted to open them to see whatever is going to happen next. James is still screaming off in the distance, and after a few moments, his screams get louder, more frantic.
"No! No! Stay away!" he screams and mixed in with his howls I hear a low growl. It sounds different from Oki's black wolf, lower pitched and more menacing. I cover my eyes even tighter and curl myself into a ball on the floor as I hear the sound of James yells get further away as if he left the room. Then suddenly his screams change to something more distressed, and I hear the sound of flesh and bones being ripped apart.
After several moments of this, there's nothing but silence. The sound of nothing is deafening after listening to James die slowly, painfully. I didn't particularly like James, especially since he kidnapped me, but hearing a person get murdered is something you'll never forget. Even if they deserve it.
I don't realize that I'm crying or how tense my body is until I feel a pair of large hands touch my back. I spring open from my curled position and begin swinging my arms and legs, but my eyes remain closed out of fear of what I might see.
"Stop, Gray!" Oki tells me. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise." I turn over and back all the way up to the wall to create some distance from us. I slowly open my eyes to see him back in his human form, this time wearing a pair of pants and nothing else.
"Oki, what did you do?" I ask and tears roll down my cheeks.
"I only did what I was made to do, Gray. But, you are in no danger from me. I promise on my life, I will never hurt you."
I relax a little and take in the expression on his face. He looks scared and worried. It's a look I'm not familiar with when it comes to him, and I do
n't like it.
"What did you mean? What were you made for? I know you're not a man. What are you, Oki?" I ask and lean my head against the wall, waiting for an answer.
He sighs and relaxes on the floor in front of me. "Believe me, this is not how I hoped I'd tell you about this." He pauses as if he's trying to find the right words to say. "I'm not human, as I'm sure you know by now."
"Yes. I guessed that."
"I'm the Keelut. Do you know that is?" I shake my head lightly, then wince from the movement. Oki begins to move toward me to help, but I hold out my hands to stop him. I may trust that he won't hurt me, but that doesn't mean I want him to touch me at that moment.
"What is a Keelut?" I ask, trying to keep the conversation going.
"The Keelut is a creature created by the gods, and it is one of the forms I take. It's my main form. The Keelut is the ultimate hunter. It hunts, stalks, kills, and consumes bad souls. It's also a harbinger of doom to any who see it, so that's why I wanted you to close your eyes and not look at me."
"If I had seen the Keelut, I would die?" I ask, piecing together what he was saying.
He nods. "Not right away, but it would have put your death into motion, and I don't want that for you."
My eyebrows scrunch as I take in what he's telling me. "So, you're a Keelut, a black wolf, and a man?" He nods his head. "And you hunt and kill people with bad souls." He nods again. "You killed James."
"Gray, there's something else you have to understand about me," he says, looking a little panicked. "I fell in love with you the very first moment I saw you. You changed me so completely, that I don't thrive on the hunt anymore. But, James got everything he deserved. He had the darkest, most putrid soul I have seen in a very long time. Not to mention that he kidnapped the woman that I love."
I wipe the tears from my face and look down at the blood-stained floor. "That may be so, but I just listened to the sound of a man being ripped apart, piece by piece. It's not something I can easily forget, Oki."
"I know, and I'm so sorry, Gray."
We're silent for several minutes as I stare out the open front door. There's a dark bloodstain leading from in front of the couch out into the snow to where I'm sure whatever is left of James's body is. It's all too much. He was doing it because of what James did to me, along with it being his duty, but it was still too much for me to grasp.
"I need you to leave, Oki," I tell him as I look back in his direction. "I need time to wrap my head around what you are and what you did. For me. I need time."
His face falls and he nods, solemnly. Without a word, he rises and walks into the kitchen. He returns within seconds with a small, rectangular device in his hands. It takes me a second, but I recognize it as a cell phone.
"Call the sheriff when I leave," he says. "Tell them whatever you want." He holds it out to me and I take it, holding it to my chest.
He leans down and puts one hand on my cheek as he kisses me softly, gently. It's everything I hoped for when I lay in bed and dreamed of what it would be like when he finally kisses me, and at the same time, nothing like what I expected. I don't want it to end, but then he slowly pulls away. Without a word, he exits out the front door and doesn't look back.
I did exactly as Oki told me to do, and I called the sheriff. I didn't do it right away since I didn't know exactly what I was going tell them. Saying a mythical animal came and ripped apart my kidnapper while leaving me unharmed sounded far-fetched, and really crazy. I eventually decided to tell them a half-truth and hope that they'd buy it.
It didn't take long for the sheriff to arrive since they were already out in force looking for me, thanks to Jissika going down to the station and getting them moving. The used the GPS on James' cell phone to track me down since I couldn't tell them exactly where I was. Thank goodness for modern technology.
When they got there, I was immediately taken to the nearest hospital and treated for a concussion, the rope burns on my wrists, and a slight crack on my skull where I was hit. Jissika, Yuka, and the boys were at the hospital when I arrived, making me cry once more, but this time out of relief. I wasn't sure I'd ever see them again.
Both boys cried with me as we held onto each other. Even my stoic Jackson cried. It broke my heart even more than it already was, but I knew it was something that my son needed.
Officers from the sheriff's station came to question me the next day, and I told them the half-truth that I'd decided on. I said that James and his friends had kidnapped me, hit me and knocked me out, and when I came to, a large wolf had broken into the house and attacked James. While it was distracted with him, I hid in the closest room with the door locked. I told them that I had waited until I didn't hear any more noises before coming out to investigate, and found James dead and his cell phone in the kitchen.
The officers gave me their thanks and took their leave after that, deciding not to question me further. I later learned that they picked up Von and Adam. The two men sang like canaries, especially when they were told of James' demise. They even corroborated my story about the wolf, saying that James had told them about a wolf stalking him at home several nights before they kidnapped me.
I was released from the hospital almost two days later and sent home with strict instructions to not do anything strenuous or stressful for a couple of weeks. The boys were extra accommodating, and even Yuka didn't mind helping me out from time to time.
On several occasions, I caught her looking at me intently and I wondered why she kept doing that. It's a curious look, one that I wasn't used to from her. One day, about a week after coming home, when Jissika and the boys were at school, I asked her why she kept looking at me that way.
Finally, she spoke to me, answering my questions. "The Keelut saved you," she said. "A beast of death and destruction saved the life of a mere human. Everything I've been taught has made me believe that the Keelut didn't discriminate between who it killed, how it killed."
I gently smile at her answer. "When I first saw Oki at the cabin, he was a black wolf," I told her. She nods as if she already knows that. "Then he turned into the Oki I know and told me to close my eyes. To trust him. Yuka, he didn't want to hurt me or cause my death prematurely, not only because of his love for me but because my soul is good." Yuka sits down next to me and looks away as if she were absorbing the things I was telling her. "He told me that his duty is to hunt and kill those people who deserve it. He doesn't hunt the good. Only those with rot and darkness in their souls."
Yuka pats my hands with one of her own as she rises from her chair and walks back into her room. After this short little chat, I don't see her for the rest of the day, until Jissika and the boys come home from school.
Chapter Eight
Oki
I wait for more than a week before breaking down and visiting Gray. I couldn't stand it. I need to know what she's thinking. What she's feeling. I love her more than my existence, but I would walk away if I feel it's what's best for her.
I transform from my wolf at the treeline behind her house as I see Yuka sitting in a chair outside. She isn't doing anything in particular, and I get the impression she's there for me. There is an empty seat next to her, which only confirms my suspicions.
"Keelut," she says to me as I sit.
"Anaanatsiaq," I reply. "How is Gray doing?"
"She is alive, thanks to you." I study her face for any hidden meaning, but she's sincere in her statement.
"How is she emotionally?" I then ask for clarification.
"She loves you," she sighs. "I know she loves my grandson, and she always will, but Anik is long passed into Adiuvn. Time for mourning is over and she deserves happiness. My great-grandsons deserve happiness."
My heart skips a beat at what she's just said. I'm filled with hope, but as I'm about to tell her that, she continues.
"Even though Gray should open herself to having love in her life, Keelut, it should not be you. You will only bring death and destruction to her and those two children. It is in
your nature. Not something you can help. I am sorry."
I take a gulp and swallow the tears that threaten to fall as I nod my head. This Inuit elder just spoke the words that said everything that had been running through my mind. She's right about it all. The Keelut is made by the gods to frighten, kill, and destroy. Not to bring life, love, and happiness.
I stand up and walk around to the front of the house, leaving Yuka seated on the back porch, and I knock on the front door. Knowing that Jissika, Jackson, and Maverick are gone at school, Gray should be inside alone.
The door opens slowly, revealing the most beautiful person in the world to me. She swallows and opens the door wider, inviting me inside.
"Can I get you something to drink?" she asks. She seems nervous.
"No, thank you," I reply. "Can we sit? I'd like to talk to you."
"Oh, okay. Sure." She motions for me to sit in a chair while she sits stiffly on the couch next to me.
There an uncomfortable silence between us, and I hate it. I know what I need to do, but it's so hard. I need to say goodbye, for her sake, even though every cell of my body longs for her.
"Gray, I have to leave," I blurt out.
"What? Why?" she seems upset, panicked even.
"I've realized that it's time to move on," I lie. "I've done my duty here and there are other bad souls out there that call to me. I need to go."
"You've done your duty," she repeats my words and looks down at her hands in her lap. "Was I part of your duty?" She's angry, and she has every reason to be.
"No. You weren't part of my duty," I tell her. "You were something different. Something I wasn't designed for. I am so sorry that I can't be more for you, but I am just the Keelut. I will always just be the Keelut."
Gray abruptly stands and walks toward the front door, opening it wide. "Then you should leave. I don't want to keep you from your duty, Oki." She doesn't look at me as she speaks.
I stop right in front of her, but she still doesn't look at me. I long to see her eyes one last time, but it doesn't look like it'll happen. "I am so sorry, Gray. Please know that I do love you and that I wish things could be different." Without another word, I walk out the door and transform into my wolf before I even make it off the front porch, running out into the snowy landscape.
