by Laura Ryles
To help him feel more comfortable, Tala said, “I’ve lost someone too. My father. He passed away last year. It was the worst thing I’ve ever lived through. He and I were very close. We wrestled and played all the time. We had a lot of fun. My mom and I were never really as close. My dad let me be me.” Tala smiled. “He didn’t care if my hair was fixed or if my clothes matched. He was funny, too. He made me laugh all the time. And he was kind. I remember when I was a little girl, if we were holding hands and he noticed that my hands were cold, he would take my hand and put it inside his coat pocket and hold it there “till it warmed up.” Tears started to form in her eyes. Ander listened intently to every word she spoke, he seemed to be watching her facial expressions very closely.
“How did he die?”
“A car accident. He ran off the road and hit a tree head on. We’re not sure why. There were no skid marks. The cops thought that maybe an animal or something ran out in front of the car, and he swerved to miss it. He was already gone by the time someone found him.” Tala could feel her mood starting to darken, so she changed the subject. “Mom and I still aren’t very close. But I have Drew. He’s the best. He never left me to deal with my grief alone. He’s actually a lot like my dad.” Tala smiled at that thought. Anders' eyes lit up when she smiled, as if his mood was mirroring hers. If she was happy, so was he. What is he staring at, she wondered? She could understand why someone might be caught staring at him, with his chiselled body and beautiful face, but what was his infatuation with her about? She hadn’t dressed up, she hadn’t done her makeup. Why was he looking at her like he just couldn’t help himself? When she reached up to brush the hair out of her eyes, he watched her fingers move the hair delicately back over her ear, and she could have sworn she heard him sigh.
“Tell me about what you do for fun. Do you have any special hobbies?”
“Not really. I hang out with Drew more than anything else. I like to read. I like listening to music, to relax.”
“What’s your favourite book?” Ander asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s actually a set of three books,” Tala answered. “It’s a trilogy about King Arthur, by a woman named Helen Hollick. She’s amazing.”
“I’ve read them. You’re right. They are. Good, I mean.”
“You have not,” Tala said in disbelief.
“I have. The first one is called ‘The Kingmaking’ and it’s about when he and Guinevere were kids.”
“Wow, that’s so weird. I’ve never met anyone else who’s read them, except Drew, because I made him,” Tala laughed.
“What about music? Who do you like listening to?” Ander asked.
“Everyone from the Beatles, to Otis Redding, to Tanya Tucker, and a lot of different bands. Mostly alternative rock, some punk rock or soft rock. My favourite band is Blue October. Drew and I love them. Incubus from the nineties and Muse. I could just go on and on.” Tala’s face lit up. “My dad loved music. He had this old record player in his shop and he was always playing great old music.”
“I thought you might say Blue October. That’s who’s on your shirt. My favourite album is Foiled. I like all of those. I have most of those cd’s in my car right now. Except Tanya Tucker, who’s that?”
Tala laughed. “She’s a country singer from the 70’s and 80’s.”
“Ah, that explains why I’ve never heard of her.” Ander smiled. “I really do have a lot of the others, though.”
“Really? Isn’t that weird? It’s like we’re on the same wavelength or something.”
“Hey, it happens. Why not to us, right?” Ander chuckled nervously. Tala thought that her comment must have unnerved him for some reason. It wasn’t like she was planning the wedding or anything; they just seemed to have a lot in common.
When they had both eaten all they wanted, she excused herself to go to the restroom. On her way back, she stood in front of the mirror for a moment and looked at herself. She was still blushing! She lifted the cool side of her hand to her face to take some of the redness out. Maybe she could like a boy? Maybe he could really like her. Get a grip. He’s just a boy. When she came back to the table, she gulped down the rest of her sweet tea.
“Wow, that was really good. Thank you so much for dinner,” Tala said. “Believe it or not, this was my first real date.”
“No way,” Ander replied. “You didn’t seem nervous at all,” he said. Tala shook her head.
“Are you kidding? I was nervous about this all week, and I’ve been blushing since we got here,” she laughed. Ander laughed with her. He stood up and offered her his arm, and then they headed for the car. When the car was back on the road, she felt full and very sleepy, so she leaned her head back on the headrest to listen to the radio with her eyes closed.
Chapter 8
Once again, Tala stood frozen on the patio as the wolves advanced toward her. There were more this time—maybe ten. She turned to find somewhere to run. She walked to the door and tried the knob. Locked. She reached for her keys in her bag, but she had no bag and no keys, either. Shoot, I must have left it somewhere. The wolves were surrounding her again. She jumped onto the picnic table and watched as the wolves closed in and started circling her. She wasn’t afraid. As the wolves circled, she felt incredibly calm. They didn’t want to hurt her, and she knew that. As she watched, some of the wolves changed color---, some turned brown, some turned gray, and some remained white. Their eyes changed color, too. The brown wolves had green or honey-colored eyes. The gray wolves had brown or black eyes, and the white wolves had the same penetrating blue eyes as before. When they passed in front of her, each wolf howled. Raised together, their voices were hypnotizing. She felt a force take over her body, and she too looked up at the sky and howled with all her might. The largest of the white wolves jumped onto the table with her. They stared at one another. Then the wolf came so close that the tip of its nose was almost touching Tala’s. She could hear its heartbeat, beating in rhythm with her own. She reached out to touch it and...
She jerked awake. Wow, that one was different. She tried to raise her head and realized something wasn’t right. She couldn’t move her arms or her legs. She tried to call out, but there was something over her mouth. Panicking, she started to take in her surroundings. She was in the backseat of a car. Whose car? Was that the back of Ander’s head in the driver's seat? She started making as much noise as she could.
“Oh, you’re awake. Good.” Ander pulled the car over, got out, opened the back door, and sat her up. Her head was pounding. He put the seat belt around her and took the tape off her mouth. Tala screamed as loudly as she could. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nobody can hear you. Quit screaming. I’m not going to hurt you,” Ander said.
“Yeah, right!” She yelled into his face. He slammed her door and hopped back into the driver's seat and pulled back onto the road. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Take me home right now,” Tala whimpered.
“I am taking you home. Or at least your new home.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she yelled, tears starting to stream from her eyes.
“Well, it’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. This is going to be quite a shock for you, so get ready. Long story short. You’re a shapeshifter. Namely, you can turn into a wolf. I’m a shifter too. My father, Dag, is the Alpha of my pack, and you’ve been betrothed to him since before you were born. So, now you’re of age, and he sent me to get you. I’m taking you to him in Canada. It’s a lot, I know.”
Great, Tala thought. The one guy I choose to go on a date with would be certifiably insane!
“You’re freakin’ crazy!” she yelled, kicking the back of his seat. “You better pull this car over right now and let me out.”
“I can't do that.”
“Right, because I’m some kind of wolf girl,” Tala spat with sarcasm.
“Exactly,” Ander said.
“There’s no such thing as shapeshifters, and even if there were, I’m not one. I’m telling you; I would remember
that! I’m not a wolf. You have got the wrong person, nutjob.”
“You don’t transform until you’re eighteen. Even then, you usually have to feel threatened for it to happen. You won't be able to transform at will for another year or two.” She decided there was no point in arguing with crazy, so she closed her mouth and started trying to figure out a way to get untied. She tried to maneuver herself to see how she was tied up and saw that both her hands and feet were strapped together with zip ties. There was no getting out of those. She’d have to wait until he pulled over again and hope that he would take them off. The clock on the dashboard said 5:19. Was that 5:19 a.m.? Had she already been gone all night? Her mother was probably worried out of her mind. She had to get out of here. Maybe he would stop to get some headache medicine if she said she needed it.
“Hey, I have a major headache. Can we get something?”
“Yeah, sorry about that, it’s probably the drugs wearing off.”
“Drugs! What drugs?”
“I had to dose you to get you to sleep to tie you up. I put it in your tea when you went to the bathroom.”
“Oh. Well. Thanks for that!”
“Yeah, it was weird. After you passed out, you seemed to be having a dream. You seemed scared at first, but then you looked really calm. What were you dreaming about?”
“None of your business. Can we get something for my head?” she said.
“We have to pull over before we get to the border. I’ll get you something then.”
Tala turned her face to look out of the window. She let a few silent tears run down her face. How could she have been so stupid? Of course, he hadn’t really liked her. That’s what she got for letting someone in. She sniffled and tried to wipe the tears away.
“No, don’t cry, come on. I swear no one wants to hurt you.” Ander said when he saw her in the rear-view mirror.
“I thought you liked me,” she said numbly.
“I do. I do like you. But my father ordered me to bring you to him because you are, or at least you will be when you turn eighteen, his. He’s the Alpha; I can’t disobey him.”
“But that’s gross! He’s like...old. I’m only eighteen. That’s like illegal!”
“No. Once you turn eighteen, he can legally marry you. Actually, in Canada, depending on the province, he could have married you two years ago because technically he has parental consent to marry you.”
“What do you mean? There’s no way. My mom would never have consented to anything like this. She’s probably already called the police.”
“No, not your mom, your dad.” Ander looked a little surprised. “You really don’t know any of this, do you?”
“You’re telling me my dad was involved in this. My dad gave his consent for me to be married to some old dude? Yeah, right! He’s dead.”
“Well, he didn’t give consent over you personally; he made the deal before you were even born. He was next in line to be Alpha of the Timber pack. As Alpha, it would have been his job to strengthen pack bonds between the Timbers and other packs like mine, the Tundras. Since he was going to be Alpha, in order to keep the peace between the two packs he promised the Alpha of the Tundras his firstborn female to strengthen the lines and the peace. That was before he ran away, though.”
“Ran away?” Tala asked.
“Oh yeah, it was a huge scandal. He fell in love with a human; I guess your mom. He took off. It took us this long to find you. My theory is that he had been doing damage control for you guys on the internet, you know hiding pictures, taking down posts that included you guys. Making sure that any records or trails you did leave remained private. Then, last year, when he died, things started popping up. It didn’t take my dad long to find you after that. He’s used to getting his way.” Ander looked back at Tala. Her eyes were full of tears, but they weren’t falling.
Don’t let him see you cry.
“I’m really sorry I had to trick you, though.”
“Yeah, right! If you were sorry, you’d take me home. I can’t believe I agreed to go on a date with you. I never date. It would figure that the first guy I let take me out really wants to drug me and kidnap me and tote me off to marry his control-freak dad. Jeez, I’m such an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. I do like you. I wish that really could have been our first date. I hate that I am who I am and that my dad is who he is and that this is what’s happening. I’m sorry.” Ander reached over to the glove box and pulled out a stack of CDs. He opened one of the cases and put it in the CD player. A familiar tune came out of the speaker near her head. It was a Blue October song. Tala scoffed.
“I hope you don’t think that this is going to help anything,” Tala raged.
“I thought it was worth a shot. You said you listened to this kind of music to relax. So, relax. It’s going to be okay.”
“You’re a lunatic. Let me out of this car.”
She struggled against her binding for a minute but, realizing again that it was futile, she sat back against the seat.
Chapter 9
They drove for another hour or so before Ander pulled the car into a small clearing on the side of the road. On the other side of the clearing, he pulled in between two trees and onto a lane just barely wide enough for a car to squeeze through. Tala felt uneasy about leaving the main road. The longer they stayed on the path, the darker it got, until the trees blocked out almost all of the light from the moon. She wondered how Ander knew where to turn and which trees to go in between because to her, it just looked like he was driving through the woods. Finally, the path grew so small that the car could go no further. “Okay, we have to walk from here. I can’t go through border patrol with you tied up, so we’ll have to cut across the land.”
“Are you insane? It’s freezing. There’s no way.”
“Don’t worry. I brought you a jacket.” Ander put the car in park, got out, and opened her door. He cut the ties holding her legs and helped her stand up. As soon as he let go of her arm, she took off running as fast as she could back down the wooded lane and toward the paved road. When she made it around a bend where he could no longer see her, she ducked behind a huge tree and waited. She could hear his footsteps getting closer.
“It doesn’t matter if you hide, Little Wolf, I can sniff you out. It’s not safe out here alone.”
She took off, running toward the road again. Please let there be a car. Please let there be a car. When she finally felt her feet hit pavement though, there was nothing in sight in either direction. Then the concrete came up to meet her. A huge white wolf was on top of her. She screamed as the wolf shifted back to Ander in front of her eyes.
“It’s okay; it’s okay. It’s me. You’re pretty fast even in human form,” he said as he tried to catch his breath. He stood up and held out his hand to her. “There’s nothing around here for miles. You really would freeze if you took off and didn’t know where you were headed.” She took his hand, then realized that he was stark naked. Blushing, she stood up and looked the other way. “What’s the matter? Never seen anyone naked before?” Ander chuckled at her. She stepped around him angrily and headed back toward the car. Ander laughed that much harder as she stomped away.
When they got back to the car, Ander put on a whole new set of clothes, then opened the trunk and took out a long fur coat. He handed it to Tala, and she cleared her throat and looked down at her hands, which were still bound together. “Oh, yeah,” Ander said as he walked over to her. He looked down at her face. “If I untie your hands, do you promise not to try to get away again?” He reached up and brushed the hair out of her face. “It really is dangerous to be out here alone with no idea where you’re going. There are moose and elk, not to mention bears and wild wolves.”
“Like you?” she commented sarcastically. The image of him as a wolf popped into her head, and she couldn’t help but think that while he did look like a huge, beautifully wild, and untamed arctic wolf, she knew he wouldn’t have hurt her.
“Fine. I won’t run,�
� she said. She could still feel the warmth of his hand burning on her cheek. He was so close to her that she could feel his breath on her face. He smelled nice. Crisp and clean, like the forest after a fresh snow. Ugh, get a grip! He’s kidnapping you, you idiot! You cannot like him! It’s a matter of principle. Ander cut the zip ties off her wrists, and she pulled the ankle-length fur coat on over her clothes. She ran her hands down the faux fur of the outside of the jacket. The image of Ander in his wolf form popped into her mind again. He looked just like the wolves from her dreams. “So, you’re an arctic wolf, right?” She asked Ander as he handed her a pair of gloves from the trunk as well.
“Yes, that’s right,” he answered.
“So are all shape-shifters arctic wolves then?”
“No. Not all. My pack is mainly arctic, but that’s because most of us have common ancestors,” he said. “Come on. We need to get going.”
Ander beckoned Tala to follow him. They headed into the woods on the other side of the car, moving further away from the only road that Tala could see anywhere.
“Am I going to be an arctic wolf?” Tala asked as they journeyed up a snow-covered hill.
“You’ll most likely be a timber wolf. That’s what your pack is. Timbers. But who knows, with a human mom. Sometimes their genetics can have strange effects when mixed with wolf genes.”
“What does that mean? Am I going to be some kind of freak or something? I’m not going to have like a wolf head and a human body, am I?” she asked frantically, as her foot missed the rock she was about to step on. Ander reached out and caught her before she hit the ground.
“No.” Ander laughed at her panicked face. “It happens differently, and I’ve never seen anyone with mixed blood myself, but I’ve heard of things like strength, size, and endurance being affected by lineage, so it wouldn’t surprise me if maybe you were a bit smaller than the average wolf. That’s why it’s discouraged to be with a human. A pack is only as strong as its weakest link, right?” When Ander finished speaking, Tala was once again held captive by the blue in his eyes. The softness in his eyes made her think of floating away on a cloud.
