by Maria Vale
“Pups these days.” I lean back against the birch trees. “Did we ever not know how to hunt bunnies?”
In the distance, a door slams. Something large and fast begins moving this way. The pups go silent, hiding until Gran Jean signals the all clear.
There’s nothing to worry about except the clumsiness of their bunny hunting.
The Shifter stands at the tree line to the south. He turns his head like he’s searching for a noise. I wait, silent, my hand protecting the smooth bone beside me.
“Alpha?” he says, jogging barefoot over the long grass. He gestures toward Clear Pond and the windblown roots and lumpy hillocks that are home to a thriving rabbit colony. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“Didn’t I hear what?”
“It sounded like a pup screaming.”
“It wasn’t a pup. The pup was hunting. A rabbit was screaming.”
“A rabbit? Rabbits don’t… Rabbits scream?”
“Hmm. Watch where you’re stepping.”
He freezes, looking down to where my hand lies protectively over the skull that has been stripped of fur and skin by the passage of time and beetles. Bleached bright and white as a mushroom, John’s razored teeth and hollow eyes stand out in sharp relief against the dark ground and the shadow of my fingers. Grass has grown up between his jaws.
The Shifter steps back.
“Is that…”
“John. My mate.”
Constantine hadn’t been here. I know because every Shifter who came that night is dead, killed by wolves or by Tiberius. A single human escaped, though he left half his face in Silver’s mouth.
“Your mate,” he repeats distractedly.
“Yes. He was killed here. Then the coyotes ate him.”
The Shifter begins to slide down against the smooth, speckled bark of an alder, then stops at an awkward halfway point.
“Do you mind?”
I shake my head and he slides the rest of the way down.
“I am,” he says and hesitates, pulling his knees up and away from the damp ground, “sorry.”
I pluck a blade of sweetgrass from between John’s jaws, hoping that I do not disturb his running through the Endemearc, the wolves’ last hunting ground.
“I’ve never understood the word ‘sorry.’ It seems to mean both regret for something you have done and sympathy for something over which you have no control. Regret and pity. To us, it seems either you have power over your actions, in which case ‘sorry’ is a poor excuse, or you have no power, in which case ‘sorry’ is unnecessary.”
“What is this?” he says, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers.
“That is cottongrass. It’s nothing. This”—I hand him the fragrant stems—“is sweetgrass. Wolves like it. Settles the stomach.”
He takes it from me and bites down tentatively.
“Do you have a mate?” I ask, and he barks out a sharp laugh.
“No.”
Another piece of sweetgrass between my teeth, I try to remember my human behaviors classes. I was still a juvenile when it became clear that John and I would be an Alpha pair—and eventually the Alpha pair—and would never need more than the most rudimentary understanding of human courtship rituals.
“Is it because you are not decorative enough?”
When he coughs, his breath is the heady green of summer.
“I’m plenty decorative,” he says as soon as the coughing stops. “It’s handsome, by the way. Pillows are decorative, men are—I am—handsome.” He straightens his spine, rolls his shoulders back, then stretches out one leg, bending his foot so his thigh tenses. His eyes shoot to mine to see if I notice.
Of course I’ve noticed that his shoulders are broader, his thighs stronger, his ass tauter. The hollows under his eyes and between his hip bones have filled out. His skin is gold, his hair is longer, tousled after his run through the woods and peppered with leaves and twigs, making him look like the Grenemann, the Green Man, the dangerous protector of forests.
I rub my hand against the smooth bone. John never felt dangerous. My earliest memories of my time with the Great North are intertwined with memories of him. We were inevitable: the two strongest wolves doing what was expected of the strongest wolves since Pack first left the Ironwood.
The thing I miss most of all is the utter lack of doubt that was his inheritance. John was descended from wolves who’d spent 350 years coddled by Homelands’ sanctuary. I am not. I have known doubt and I have known fear. The fear of making a decision, the fear of being wrong, the fear of others paying the price, the fear of being the last Alpha of the last pack of the last wolves.
Wait… Is that it? Sitting upright, I focus my attention on the gap between the High Pines and Westdæl and the sound coming up a distant road, like the whine of giant mosquitoes.
“What is it?”
I’ve forgotten the name of the machine.
“It’s, umm…” I rotate both fists forward in the air.
“ATVs?”
“Yes, ATVs. They like to drive them in the mud of the land up north. They come now and ride around at night, but they are very loud and they worry V…the Gray. The forever wolves.” My voice hitches. “I want them gone.”
He looks toward Westdæl, running his fingers through his hair. Strand by strand, he plucks away a stick, a seed, a leaf, a needle, a burr, until all the traces of the Grenemann are gone.
Don’t.
But I don’t stop him, because I know he was the one who tore the north lands apart, and all the sticks and stems and seeds and samaras in the world will not turn him into a fierce protector of the forest.
“Alpha,” he starts, pauses, then starts again. “That land was muddy before we cleared the trees, but afterward, it became almost impassable. We had to put in culverts and drains or we wouldn’t have been able to get in. I know where they are—the culverts—and if we took them out, used them to block the access roads, I would bet it’d become impassable again.”
Somewhere high in the icy ether, an invisible airplane leaves contrails across the starlit sky.
“You’re not going to escape.”
He shrugs. “What’s the point of escaping if I don’t have some place to escape to? I’ve crossed hundreds of borders working for August so I know it takes more than crossing borders to make a man free.”
It’s hard for me to even imagine what it’s like crossing hundreds of borders. This is my place. Wolves don’t travel more than a day’s drive from pack territory, but it makes the Pack nervous if the Alpha is away too long, which means I’ve rarely been farther than Plattsburgh.
“Do you miss her?” he suddenly asks.
“Who?”
“Varya.”
“Of course not. She is still here.” I brush my hands against my jeans; Francesca and Lorin are probably waiting for me already. “And still as much a member of the Great North as she was when I could talk to her.”
Constantine pushes himself off the ground, his back scraping up against the tree. He holds out his hand to me, but I don’t need his help. Coiling the muscles in my thighs, I raise myself with no help from ground or tree or Shifter.
He stays with his hand extended when a light breeze rolls down from Westdæl, blowing his hair across his cheekbone. A scent that I would have caught easily if I’d been wild is hard to make out with this nose. It is faint and muddied by the fading carrion and steel and burned-over ash. Without thinking, I move closer and breathe in deeply and remember the winter we ate too many deer and the spring when the undergrowth grew unchecked and the dry summer when the hiker made a fire with cottonwood that sparked and snapped.
We didn’t tell him “Stop” because we couldn’t. We just ran for our lives, followed by everything that was fast enough and the cries of everything that wasn’t.
Eventually, the fire ended and the
rains started, and not long after, tiny mounds of bright green sprouted tender and tentative on the puddled gray earth, the smell of water and green life and resilience and hope.
He doesn’t move as I breathe it in again and again until that sound like a giant mosquito whines louder and reverberates through the gap between the High Pines and Westdæl. Even Constantine hears it. I know because I feel his stubbled jaw brush against my cheek as he turns to listen.
“Let me help,” he whispers next to my ear. “If not for you, for Varya.”
In the night, the bright-green streaks of his eyes fade into the pine dark. He moves closer. I look down at his mouth, feeling his breath against my cheek.
“Alpha?” calls a voice from across the Clearing.
I jerk back and only just manage to sidestep John’s skull before I break into a run toward Francesca. Tiberius was right. Constantine is dangerous, and if I’m not careful, I will forget who I am.
* * *
Using calculations based on blackfly and moon phases and bank holidays, we finally settle on a date for Francesca and Lorin’s braiding. After they go, I take advantage of the night quiet to make myself a cup of tea and finish up a few things tucked in a battered manila folder on my desk before heading outside.
Why is the 14th so close to the Great Hall? Prey is sparse here. Eudemos sits alert and watching on the bench carved from a fallen tree trunk decades ago. His Epsilon, Geir, drops down with his legs splayed out in front, hindquarters shivering in anticipation. As soon as Eawynn races up to him, he leaps into the air and comes down on top of her, playfully nipping her muzzle.
Then he flops onto his back, shimmying back and forth. Eventually, he stills, his head angled back, looking up to the star-strewn sky; his bedfellow takes his throat between her sharp teeth and strong jaws for a wolf’s kiss that means I know how vulnerable you are and I would never hurt you.
As soon as the door closes behind me, wolves who are drinking from Home Pond look up, silvery drops clinging to their muzzles. Eudemos doesn’t look, but his ear pivots, following me as I head to the bench. When I fold my legs under me, the 14th’s Alpha lowers his head and scuttles forward just enough to squeeze his nose under my crossed thigh.
We sit watching our wolves, including the dark-gray one with the pale-blue eyes sitting next to the man with the broad back at the end of the dock. Even from here, I can see that Magnus is doing better. His body has filled out, his fur gleams, and he moves without faltering. For the first time, I can see presenting him to my wolves and asking them to decide whether he brings strength to the Pack.
Constantine stirs the water with his feet, rippling the moonlit surface of Home Pond and making the tall grasses at the shoreline whisper—shwuh, shwuh, shwuh—while he scratches at Magnus’s withers. I sip at my cold tea until Eudemos stretches out his forelegs and jumps down, announcing that it is time to go.
Slowly, he lopes toward the forest, drawing the 14th away from tree line, water, and dock to join him.
I am content to sit in silence, embraced by the sound of summer water and summer leaves and the scent and feel of damp wood until it is time to exchange my skin for fur and run to Westdæl for my nightly check on the Gray. I stand up, shaking my jeans loose from where they are caught on my calf.
Then I hear something. Two syllables I haven’t heard for a long time, at least not said with such tenderness.
“I remembered,” he says. “I finally remembered your name.”
As I stumble up, my legs heavy and bloodless, he says it again in a whisper across the water.
“Evie.”
Chapter 16
Constantine
Do you have a mate?
Why did I laugh when she asked me that? It’s a perfectly rational question. Is there someone who is going to come looking for you? Is there someone you dream of escaping to?
There were some who tried to convince me: The one who glanced coyly at advertisements for engagement rings. And the one who cooed endlessly at babies. Then there was that blond with the grating habit of sharing real estate listings for little houses on little squares of grass on little cul-de-sacs inhabited by little women growing littler each day, staring blankly through the delft-pattern curtains.
Gnawing on raw tongue as they dreamed of a forest stark and grim.
Each time, my throat grew tight at the sight of them. I couldn’t bear to hear their voices; even their texts made my skin crawl. Sometimes they would come to the compound inquiring after my health, and August told them women were not allowed here, slammed the door, and looked at me with a sly smile. One player to another.
August thought he understood everything, but one thing I knew that he never did, was be afraid of women made small.
* * *
I no longer walk to Carpentry. Instead, I run, chased by a ravenous black cloud that cuts away skin and teethes on blood. Every morning, Inga waits by the door, ready for the last of the echelon to run in. By the time Sten shouts “Door!” Inga has already slammed the bolt into place against wolves from other echelons who pound on the stout door. Through the window, I see blood streaming down their pleading faces.
“Sten!” they scream, leaving scarlet handprints on the glass.
Sten walks slowly toward the door, picking at his teeth with a splinter, and pulls down the sun-bleached green shade.
Blackfly season is here.
No amount of blood or screaming convinces Sten, but a few days later, Sten himself runs to the front, flicking the thick plank to the floor like a twig. He stands looking eagerly through the trees, one foot tapping excitedly on the floor. I crane my neck, seeing her moving fast and unhurried like a hand through water.
“Shifter?” Järv says, waiting for me to pull at the bucksaw that had defeated me when I first came to Homelands. Now, I work at holding my back so my spine doesn’t seize up. I know how to pull and stretch out, taking from Järv on the other side and relaxing when he takes from me.
The Alpha steps in, peels off the deep hoodie, and shakes out her hair. She motions Ziggy and Sten to the side, whispering something to them. Ziggy answers, looking at me. Then Sten tilts his head to the side, a wide-eyed, expectant look on his face. The Alpha lightly taps the mallet he holds in front of him. Sten puts it down quickly and bends low toward his Alpha. He shivers, but when the Alpha leans in, her hand to his skull, and rubs her cheek gently against one side then the other, Sten—gruff, monosyllabic, hammer-smiting Sten—sighs contentedly. The Alpha lets him stay, snuggling and snuffling into her touch, until he is done and heads back to his table. He does it with a smile, his mallet swinging jauntily at his side.
Taking the stretch of elastic wrapped twice around her wrist, the Alpha smooths back her hair, first one side, then the other, securing it with the band so that it spreads out like a halo around her face.
The fucking blackfly got her. They’re not bloodsuckers like mosquitos; they are flesh tearers, opening up the skin to get at the blood underneath. Blood runs down from the side of her forehead to her jaw.
She stands behind Järv, who relinquishes his spot, his eyes lowered. Taking a deep breath, the Alpha rolls out her shoulders, stretches her neck, curls her hands securely around the wooden grip, and lifts her eyebrows toward me.
Are you ready?
My fingers loosen and curl tighter around the smooth wooden handle. I pull.
She pulls back hard. I don’t know why she is here and no one else is asking. Maybe she does this sometimes, takes a little break to be just one of the Pack. After a few more furious drags, I wonder if it’s something else. Some visceral need to do something physical. To pull and tear and smell the scent of sawdust warmed by the friction.
Wordlessly, Järv slides wood into place for us. Equally wordlessly, Ziggy picks up the pieces as they fall.
As we pull at each other, it’s like a conversation without words. Are you stro
ng enough? Yes. Yes I am. I don’t know for what. But yes.
She pulls and I give. She gives and I pull. A slight cramping builds along the inside of my shoulder blade. I drag her arms toward me, she drags my arms back. I watch her body move, coiling and uncoiling, muscle and sinew tracing graceful arabesques along her arm and her shoulder.
Wood drops to the floor with a hollow thunk until the slight cramping is a solid agony, but I refuse to stop. If what she needs is to take her anger and turn it into work, I will keep going until something burns.
Yes, I am strong enough for anything.
A gilding of sawdust picks out the damp between her breasts and mingles with the blood that drains along her jawbone and down the side of her neck to her collarbone. Black scars peek out from the narrow strap at her shoulder.
I’ve seen other bite marks on other wolves in the Bathhouse. I’ve seen males bend over females in the woods. Her scars are old, given to her by John when he was a man. Each tug on the bucksaw makes my body respond to hers. What kind of shit am I to look at the faded marks left by her dead mate and think about the feel of her skin against mine, licking the marks at her neck like I could erase them with my tongue.
Suddenly, she stops. Taking a thin, clean rag from one of the small piles of them used to wipe sweat or stain or excess wood glue, she wipes off the sawdust, still looking at me quizzically. She drags the sweatshirt back on, pulling the hood up high, the sleeves down low. Then she thrusts her hands deep into the front pockets. Järv opens the door and she exits quickly, heading in the direction of the Great Hall and her office and whatever thing waiting for her there that is more maddening than the swarms of blackfly.
Unwrapping my blistered hands from the grip, I head to the window. She’s already gone, leaving nothing behind but a rippling of leaves and branches in her path.
That and half a dozen idiot wolves banging one another’s backs while they bend over, howling with laughter.
