“Can you give me any idea where we’re going?” Gary asked. “It wouldn’t make sense to charter a Japanese ship to take us to Spain.”
“I suppose not,” Fenris agreed. “I won’t tell you exactly, but I will tell you we will disembark on the west coast somewhere between here and the tip of Argentina.”
“Are we going to kill the crew when we’re finished?”
“You do think of everything.” Fenris grinned. “I am undecided on that, but we should probably count on it. If they can convince me otherwise, I might let them go. It depends on the journey. Find a crew that won’t be missed.”
He poured more vodka, raised his glass and said, “To a successful voyage,” then drank. “I must return to calling our people. Ulrik is always saying the Pack is gathering. Indeed it is. Let’s just hope I can gather enough against him.”
Chris
Chris burst through the door of the small cabin, then froze. “What the hell are you doing?” he screamed. There on the bare wood floor, his son lay on his back, Kiona straddling him, both of them sweaty with passion. Joey’s face shifted from a look of ecstasy to shock and embarrassment, but Kiona turned to Chris and smiled.
Behind him, Chris heard Cerdwyn call his name, but he didn’t even look back. Three long strides took him across the cabin. He grabbed at Kiona’s shoulders, but she dodged. He caught a handful of her long black hair and a bicep. Chris jerked, then twisted and threw the Indian woman across the cabin. She rolled and slammed into the wall, but was up in an instant, her face lengthening, with lips curling back from her long wolf fangs.
The attack came from behind, though. Joey had pounced on Chris’s back and had his arms wrapped around Chris’s throat. He screamed. “Don’t you hurt her! She’s mine now!” Chris struggled to get up, but only managed to lose his balance. He and Joey fell backward, onto one of the cots. The ropes holding the thin mattress snapped and they fell through the frame. Joey’s back slammed against the wood floor, Chris’s weight on top of him. There was a whoosh of air and Joey’s arms loosened. Chris flopped around until he was off his son, turned to face him, and lost his anger. Joey couldn’t breath.
“Joey!” The boy’s face was pale and he was gasping for breath, pulling his legs up and rolling onto his side in a fetal position. “Joey?” Chris begged.
“What have you done?” Kiona shoved Chris. When he didn’t move, she roared and threw herself against his side, sending him sprawling across the floor.
“You bitch!” Chris yelled as he jumped to his feet. He jumped at her, but Kiona was on her feet and ready for him. Their hands locked on each other’s arms and they struggled against one another. Kiona changed her head to that of the wolf and snapped at Chris, but he held her away, changing his own upper body so that he’d have even more muscle mass. He snapped back at her, but she jerked away, got out of his grip and backed away far enough that she had a moment. She changed shape completely and sprang at him as a wolf.
It was Cerdwyn who stopped her. The woman had stepped up to look at Joey. Then, seeing that Chris remained in the vulnerable half-stage, she jumped up and slammed herself into Kiona mid-leap, sending the wolf crashing against the wall again.
“Stop it!” Cerdwyn shouted. “Kiona Brokentooth, change your shape and be rational.” She pointed a finger at the snarling wolf, then turned to Chris. “And you,” she said. “You should have known this would happen.”
“She treated him like a son. She wanted to be the Mother of the Pack. His mother,” Chris accused. “Not … not this!”
“Who is this?” Kiona asked, standing up and brushing the black wolf hairs off her arms. “What about Joey?”
“He had the wind knocked out of him,” Cerdwyn said. “He’ll be fine. My name is Cerdwyn.”
Joey moaned. Chris stepped over the bed frame and knelt beside his son. His breathing was a little better now. Chris pulled a blanket over him to cover his nudity. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You didn’t break any ribs, did you?”
Joey shook his head, but didn’t speak. His face was still contorted, but Chris didn’t know if it was from pain, shame, anger, or a little of each. He put a hand on Joey’s shoulder and promised, “We’ll talk later.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Kiona said. “We’re lovers now. You and I are finished.”
“Are you out of your – ”
“Chris!” Cerdwyn snapped. “We have bigger issues to deal with.”
Chris puckered his lips, but was quiet.
“Cerdwyn?” Kiona asked. “I don’t know you. Who are you?”
“A servant of Mother Gaia.”
“Ooooh,” Kiona said, nodding and smirking. “I know your kind. You want to hold hands and everybody be friends. Dance in circles and pretend there’s a goddess looking out for everyone.”
“I see you’ve completely lost touch with your Indian heritage,” Cerdwyn said calmly.
Still naked, Kiona advanced toward her, came within inches of the white woman’s face and said through clenched teeth, “Don’t talk to me about my heritage, bitch. I’ve seen enough to know there’s nobody looking out for me except me.”
Cerdwyn smiled. “That sounds very sad. I can’t imagine how sad it must feel to think you’re so alone in the cosmos.”
“New Age freak,” Kiona spat, then turned and found her clothes. She snatched them off the floor and got dressed.
Cerdwyn turned back to Joey and knelt beside him. “I want to help you, Joey. Let me check your ribs, just in case.”
Chris watched as Cerdwyn pushed her long blonde hair behind her ears, then pulled the quilt down to Joey’s waist. Joey lay passive beneath her, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Cerdwyn’s fingertips probed his chest gently, applying pressure here and there as she asked, “Does this hurt? This? How about here?” Finally she pulled the blanket back up to the boy’s shoulders and stood up. Joey was breathing normally now. “He’s fine,” Cerdwyn said. “Physically, anyway.”
Chris extended a hand. “Want to get up?”
“I don’t need your help,” Joey said. He sat up, holding the blanket tight against himself as he stood, looked around for his clothes, then gathered them up.
“Let’s give him a minute, Chris,” Cerdwyn said. She moved toward the door, beckoning him to come with her. Reluctantly, Chris followed her down the steps onto the hardpacked dooryard. “This may really complicate things,” she said when they were away from the cabin.
“It’s messed up is what it is,” Chris said.
“He’s less likely to be interested in seeing Jenny if he’s getting sex from Kiona.” She paused and lifted a hand to grip Chris’s forearm. “Chris, we have to go to Kelley and Jenny. Do you understand that?”
Chris stared at her for a minute. “I’m not leaving Joey,” he said.
“And if he chooses Kiona over you?”
“He won’t. He … wouldn’t.”
“If you were a 15-year-old boy raised in the swamp and was given a choice of going with your dad and some new woman he brought home, or staying with the first woman to give you sex, what would you choose?” Cerdwyn asked.
“I …” Chris hung his head. “I’d be thinking with my dick,” he admitted.
“Exactly.”
“What can we do?” he asked.
“We need to separate him from Kiona, then lay it out for him and let him decide.”
“Let him decide? He’s only fifteen. He can’t make that decision for himself.”
“If he runs away with Kiona, are you going to go to the police? Report him as a runaway?”
Frustration welled up inside him and Chris wanted to raise his head and scream, but instead he dropped his face to the ground and sighed deeply. “We can’t do that.”
“Exactly. He has to choose to do this.”
“I can’t stand the thought of Fenris being after him without me being there to protect him.”
“I know.”
“How do you suggest we separate them right now?” C
hris asked, nodding toward the cabin.
“I think we should just ask Joey to talk to us privately. Let’s see if we can get him to ask Kiona to leave us alone in the house,” Cerdwyn suggested.
Chris snorted and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked back at the cabin. “And if she won’t?”
“Let’s just try this first, Chris.”
He dropped his arms to his sides, looked at the ground between them and shook his head. “Okay. Let’s try it.”
They went back up the steps. Chris let Cerdwyn enter first, then followed her in. Joey sat in a chair, sullen, while Kiona stroked his hair. The Indian woman had a smug look of satisfaction on her face. Cerdwyn walked up to Joey and held out her hand.
“Joey, we got off to a bad start. My name is Cerdwyn. I’m a new friend of your father.”
Hesitantly, glancing up at Kiona, Joey reached for and shook Cerdwyn’s hand. “A new friend?”
“Yes,” the willowy blonde answered. “I was able to learn where you were hiding and followed your father into the swamp for his cycle. I introduced myself there.”
Joey looked to him for confirmation and Chris nodded. “She wants to help us,” he said.
“Help us how?” Joey asked.
“Joey, sometimes when a young man is in love, especially for the first time, he doesn’t think as clearly as he could when his lover is in the room with him,” Cerdwyn said. “Would you be willing to talk to me and your father privately?”
“You mean without Kiona,” he said.
“Yes,” Cerdwyn said. Chris noted that she kept her eyes on Joey and didn’t look at the other woman. Chris did, though, and he saw the look of triumph in Kiona’s black eyes.
“She told me you’d try to take me away from her,” Joey said.
“Joey …” Chris began, then fell silent.
Cerdwyn pretended Chris hadn’t spoken. “Joey, what we do next – what you do next – is up to you. I have something I have to do, an obligation to keep. Your father has agreed to help me. We would like for you to go with us, but ultimately, that’s for you to decide. We just want to present the situation and let you make up your own mind without any outside influence.”
“I’m staying with Kiona,” he said without so much as a pause for thought. “She can protect me.” He looked to Chris. “You never could have protected me from Fenris. Even now that you’re like us, you don’t know how to use the Gift like Kiona does.”
Something inside Chris’s chest seemed to sag, pull loose, and fall into his belly. The room was very quiet as he struggled to find some way to answer, some way to fight off the sting of Joey’s words and make the boy – his own son – understand how much he loved him. “I’d die for you, Joey,” he said.
“That’s just it, Dad. You would die. And then they’d have me.”
Chris had no answer. Joey was probably right.
“Will you talk to us, Joey?” Cerdwyn interrupted. “Will you ask Kiona to step outside for a few minutes and just listen to what we have to say?”
“Why can’t she stay and hear it?” he demanded.
“Joey, there are things I can’t tell you unless you choose to be with us,” Cerdwyn said. “I have secrets I can’t trust to just anyone.”
“You trusted Dad.”
“Yes, Joey. I trust your father.”
“But not Kiona?”
Cerdwyn shook her head. “No. I know too much of her history to trust her with this information.”
Chris watched Kiona’s face darken and her eyes narrow with rage. “You’d turn him against me, you whore,” she spat. “Why? You’ve taken his father. I can smell the stink of his rutting on you now. Why do you want Joey?”
“I am thinking of the good of the Pack,” Cerdwyn said, her eyes still on Joey. “My motives are not selfish.”
“You and Dad … had sex?” he asked.
Cerdwyn nodded. “Yes.”
Joey turned to Chris. “You cheated on Kiona, then got mad at me for having sex with her when you didn’t want her anymore?”
“It isn’t like that, Joey,” Chris argued. He was afraid his voice lacked conviction. Maybe it had been sort of like that.
“It’s exactly like that, Joey,” Kiona hissed.
“I’m staying with Kiona,” Joey declared.
“Joey, please,” Chris pleaded. Oh my God! I’m going to lose him. Right here and now, I’m going to lose my own son.
“Go away!” Joey yelled. “You want to be with her, then go! Just go! You’re no better than Mom and that Thomas guy. Kiona’s the only one who’s always been there for me. She’s the only one that loves me.”
“Joey – ” Chris began, but Kiona interrupted him.
“You heard the Alpha,” she said. “Get out. Take your whore and go.”
Chris looked from Kiona to Joey, then to Cerdwyn. Cerdwyn shook her head sadly. “He’s made his decision.”
“No.” Chris shook his head and it felt for a moment like he would not be able to stop the side to side motion, that it would just keep going and going until his spine broke apart and his neck became rubbery, with the ball of his skull wagging back and forth on the end of it.
“Chris,” Cerdwyn called. Then she was in front of him, her hands on his shoulders for a moment before they found his head and stopped him. That’s when he realized there were tears in his eyes. He stared at the woman, took in the concern in her eyes. “This will work itself out.”
Chris blinked away the tears and focused on her for a moment as he collected himself. Would it work itself out? Would he be reunited with Joey at some point? Maybe. It was possible. Cerdwyn released his face.
“I’m taking my clothes and stuff,” Chris said. He went to a cedar chest, pulled out a duffle bag and began shoving his clothes into it. In the bottom of the chest was the nickel-plated revolver he’d used to shoot Ulrik. He picked it up, hefted it inside the trunk, then stood, spun and pointed it at Kiona.
“No!” Cerdwyn jumped at him, knocking his arm aside, sending the silver bullet into and through the ceiling of the cabin.
“Get back!” Chris screamed. He leveled the gun, but Kiona was now crouched behind Joey, who remained in his chair, his young face filled with fear and shock.
“Look at her hiding behind you, Joey. You think she’d protect you? Look at her. She’s using you as a shield.”
“You can’t do this, Christopher,” Cerdwyn whispered. “He’ll hate you forever if you kill her.”
Chris’s hand wavered, then dropped to his side, and now he did cry. He dropped to his knees, then crumpled into a sitting position against the trunk and sobbed. His hand released the gun and he covered his face, but he couldn’t stop crying. “Dammit,” he sobbed. “He’s my son. He’s all I have. I don’t want to lose him again.”
“He’s crying because he’s weak,” Kiona said quietly to Joey.
“Your father is weeping because he loves you, Joey,” Cerdwyn corrected.
“Dad …” Joey said, his own voice quavering.
“Look at him,” Kiona taunted. “If it was Fenris trying to take you, he’d be sitting there crying like a little girl. Giving him our Gift didn’t help him at all. He’s always been a weakling. A cull.”
“Don’t say that about my dad,” Joey said uncertainly.
“The wolf is your father,” Kiona said. “The great beast that is inside all of us. He is your true father. Not that blubbering idiot on the floor.” She waved a hand dismissively at Chris.
“Shut up!” Joey left the chair and went to Chris, put his arms around his father’s shoulders and hugged him in an awkward teenage boy fashion. “I’ll go with you. You never stopped trying to find me last time. You risked your life to get me out of Ulrik’s house.”
Chris was about to answer, but Kiona flew into a rage. She threw the chair aside and charged them, screaming her fury, her hands outstretched and her long black hair flying behind her. Cerdwyn met her halfway across the cabin. The thin-limbed blonde stepped in front of the fur
ious Indian and shoved her away. Kiona flew across the small room and slammed into the far wall hard enough to rattle dishes off the shelf. Tin plates and cups clattered on the floor. In a flash, Kiona was up again, her shape shifting. Chris lifted the gun again, still clutching Joey against him.
“Stop!” Chris yelled, pointing the gun at Kiona. “Joey’s made his decision. I’ll let you walk out of here. I’ll let you stay. Whatever. You helped us and I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you make me. We’re leaving.”
“Joey, think about what you’re doing!” Kiona screamed.
“I’ll wait in the truck,” Joey said. He left the cabin without looking at Kiona.
“I’ll hunt you down and kill you,” Kiona promised.
“Then maybe I should just shoot you right now,” Chris answered.
A flicker of fear crossed over Kiona’s face. She shifted her gaze to Cerdwyn, as if hoping the other woman would convince Chris to spare her again.
“No, Christopher,” Cerdwyn said. “Her love is twisted and angry and selfish, but she does love Joey. It isn’t for us to determine her fate. Not today, anyway.” She picked up the bag of clothes Chris had packed, then went to another trunk and put Joey’s clothes in the bag. “We should leave now.”
Chris nodded, keeping the gun leveled at Kiona as he followed Cerdwyn out of the hut. Expecting an attack at any moment, the fanned out and backed across the yard toward the parked truck, wondering if the Indian woman would charge out of the cabin as an angry wolf, or start firing at them with one of the guns left inside.
Nothing happened. Kiona did not so much as look out a window at them.
The fact they were able to drive away without further incident worried Chris more than if there’d been a shootout.
Shara
“Sometimes … sometimes I dream that I had a brother,” Morrigan said. She sat at the head of the dinner table, a place that had been vacant since Ulrik’s death. Holle had put her there about a week ago, violating an unspoken rule that had been observed since Ulrik’s passing, Shara knew, in deference to her own feelings. At first she had been upset that anyone should sit there, then decided if anyone, it should be Morrigan.
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