by JK Cooper
Jonas, fists clenched and face screwed up in disgust, turned away sharply. Elias, sensing the capitulation, took a step forward with a low growl. Jonas lowered his head.
“Is there anything else, Jonas?” Elias asked.
“I just . . . I’m not sure that standing against this Alpha Prime guy is the right thing. That’s all. Maybe he’s right to want to force change. We hide. We live like we’re oppressed.”
Shelby felt the agreement from many in the pack. Rachel Bingham, Emily and Will Kaplan, and to some degree, Sadie and her parents.
“I will not fight against our kind,” Rachel said. “We could have used the Advent pack’s help when the Hunters came for us.” She glanced at Elias, and her tone was respectful but adamant. “Do you remember when they captured me? What they were going to do to me? What they did do to me?”
Shelby remembered some of this from the night she joined the pack and glimpsed into Rachel. She had run away and was living on trains when she manifested. What would that have been like? Not knowing what was happening, not having the support of family or a pack to guide you through it? She must have been horrified. Then, Hunters tracked and caught her, intending to experiment on her. Her father and Dakota found Rachel and killed the Hunters.
From Rachel’s tone and words, Shelby sensed there was a lot more to the story than she had initially glimpsed. She locked her eyes on Rachel, and drawing upon Eira, peered inside Rachel’s wolf side.
A picture opened up before Shelby and she fell into memories not her own, unable to distinguish herself from Rachel. She was drowning in the mind of another, unable to resurface. What did I do?
Rachel was in a train car. Crates of something, glass bottles of some sort, rattled as the train sped along the tracks. There was a smell, a faint odor of wet wood, mildew. Against one end of the train car, Rachel sat with her head down on her forearms, which were resting on her knees.
I am Rachel Bingham, Shelby thought, but I am also Shelby Brooks. She understood that she was living this memory as if she were Rachel but had to keep her own identity or risk madness.
Her body swayed slightly as the track curved to the left. The soft clinking of the glass bottles in their crates – probably wine — and the rickety motion of the train car had become soothing to her. Five weeks, Rachel thought. She dug out the grime from under her thumbnail with the nail of her index finger. At least I got to take a shower a few days ago. The last train car had been full of home supplies, probably headed to a Bed Bath & Beyond or some other home goods retail store. Washing the conditioner out had taken four bottles of Evian bottled water, dipping deep into her backpack of meager supplies, but it worked.
She didn't know where this train was headed, or how much longer it had to its destination. What she did know was that her stomach was going to turn itself inside out if she didn't eat soon.
As she focused on the growling in her stomach, something wracked her body. A jolt or spasm that caused all her muscles to go tense. It subsided, leaving her shaking a bit. Okay, that was the strangest hunger pang I've ever had.
She had grown accustomed to hunger and the discomfort that came with it. She had never had alcohol, but the wine — if that's what it was — might have to be her next meal. The jolt of pain came back, racing up her chest into her neck. No, this was not hunger. This was something new.
Her eyes started spasming, burning, and her hands went rigid, clawing at the floor of the train car. She reached forward, falling into a prone position but trying to get to her knees. It was no use. She writhed on the train car’s floor on her stomach, her jaw tight. The pain in her stomach, her chest, her neck, and even now in her skull, was too great to allow her to even scream. A faint whistle escaped her throat as it constricted with each exhale.
Shelby felt Rachel's pain as she shifted. She knew the first incident could be traumatic. Claws grew out the ends of her fingers. Knee joints inverted. Her face elongated into a snout, and fangs cut through her gums. In a rampage of fear and pain, Rachel jumped around the train car, smashing crates and bottles. Wine coated and dripped from her fur. She howled. She howled long and mournfully, a note rife with terror and confusion.
It’s a dream, Rachel kept telling herself. It’s a dream. A bad dream.
The momentum of the train shifted. It was stopping. Where am I? Is it day or night? She heard voices, the sounds of other car doors sliding open. Rachel skulked back into a corner. She heard voices outside her car now, two men. Then, she smelled them. Their sweat, the detergent lingering on their clothing, the remnants of the last meal one of them had eaten. Chicken. She smelled it on his breath.
Her stomach grumbled again, and saliva dropped from her mouth. The car door slid open and sunlight streamed in. The men had been laughing but went silent when they saw the chaos within. Wine, red and white, ran over the edge of the car in streams of crimson. Rachel heard the soft patter of it hitting the ground.
“What the?” one of the men—chicken breath—said.
Rachel growled. It came instinctively. She felt trapped. Cornered.
“You hear that?” the other one said.
Rachel heard them take a step back. She sprinted from the shadowy corner and leaped between them. The men screamed and fell back as she hit the ground, already running. She ran for hours into the night. On the evening skyline, she saw the outline of a city coming to life with lights. Dallas? No, the salt water in the air—Houston. It has to be. Yes, that slightly oily scent also permeated the humid air.
And then, Rachel caught another scent. Something pumping with hot blood. She could smell the coppery fluid of life inside something close by. And it was so sweet to her. A deer. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. She tracked the animal and killed it with a ferocity that should have surprised her, but it didn’t. She ate, greedily.
Her hunger sated, Rachel curled beneath a tree to lick the blood from her paws. She slept, not remembering when the exhaustion overtook her. When she awoke, she was human again, naked, with trees all around her.
That’s when they found you, Shelby realized.
Rachel stumbled through the forest, found a sign that read, “Sam Houston National Forest,” and eventually made it to a road. It was almost an hour before she saw anyone. A jeep with two men in it, the top down. Figuring being lost in the woods after losing one’s mind was no time for being shy about nudity, she stepped into the road, covering her small breasts. The jeep stopped and the driver stepped out.
“Darling?” he said. “You okay?” He looked around. “What happened?” Then he obviously saw the blood on her. Her hands. Her chest. Her face. She realized she could still smell it, and she salivated. Then shame . . . shame for what she had done to the deer. It wasn’t me, Rachel thought, and Shelby understood the terror Rachel was going through.
“Geez, darling, you’re hurt,” the driver said, walking toward her as he took off his plaid jacket. “Here.”
Rachel stepped back, holding up a hand. “Don’t. I’m dangerous.”
The man stopped, jacket held out to her. “You’re hurt is what it looks like. Just take it, it’s okay. Here.”
She let him wrap the jacket around her.
“There,” he said. “There.” He rubbed her back. “Come on. Someone’s probably looking for you.”
Rachel started to cry.
“No, it’s okay. Listen, I’m Rand and my friend there in the jeep is Horace.”
She leaned into him as she gingerly let him lead her to the jeep.
“Hey, Horace, those clothes look like they fit her?”
Clothes? Rachel thought. They have clothes that might fit me? That’s weird.
Horace stood in the passenger seat and held something up. Clothes. Torn clothes. The same clothes she had been wearing on the train when she shifted. A dark stain on the shirt. Wine.
“Yeah, I’d say they look like a perfect fit,” Horace said.
A warning flared inside Rachel. “How . . . how do you have my clothes?” They
had been looking for her. Specifically. How? Why?
“When you’re on the Lord’s errand,” Rand said, “you get used to being led.”
“What? You’re . . . a preacher, or something?”
“Of a sort,” Rand said. “We are often sent to find those who have strayed from the flock. But see, we don't just drive out the wolf, we kill it.”
Wolf. Rand had said wolf. “What?” She went stiff, but Rand’s arm pushed her along toward the jeep.
“Probably your first shifting, am I right?” he asked. “Kinda looked like it from the evidence. And your reaction now.”
First shifting?
“Let me go!” Rachel yelled. She squirmed to tear free, but Rand’s grip was firm. Then, she felt a sting in her back like she had been stabbed. A syringe.
Rachel was losing consciousness. Shelby was sinking, losing herself. I’m Rachel . . . no, you are Shelby. I need to wake up. But she was lost again, drowning in a sea of pain as the men woke her and drugged her over and over again, each new awakening worse than the last. A blur of anguish.
Shelby jumped as she came back to her own body, eyes wide. I’m me. She rubbed her goose bumped arms for confirmation. That was scary and cool.
“They drugged me and kept me for weeks,” Rachel said to the pack. “The things they did—” Rachel shuddered.
Shelby shuddered with her. She’d felt some of that.
But I saw something different when I joined the pack. They intended to experiment on her, Shelby thought, confused. Rachel had somehow portrayed a false truth, probably because she had partly convinced herself. They had experimented on her. No, not experimented. Not exactly.
Rachel would never have children. They took that from her. Shelby felt it, Rachel’s anguish and sense of violation. And a depth of sadness that was hard to understand without having lived it.
“So, no,” she said. “I do not want to help humans. I haven’t really been one since I shifted and they took my ability to have children. But I can create other Lycans, can’t I? That’s the only procreation ability I have left.”
“Daaaamn,” Bubba said, “that’s dark.”
Kale slugged Bubba’s arm.
The only procreation power I have left. The words echoed in Shelby’s mind, and she could sense the urge Rachel felt to use that power, to turn someone. Shelby could even taste the flavor of that urge. Interesting. Emotions have a flavor.
Ben Bingham again comforted his daughter, and she didn’t shrug off his touch this time, but stood stiff with indignation.
“I . . . understand my daughter’s feelings,” he said. “And find it hard to disagree with her sentiments. The pain of losing Anna and John has been difficult to bear and reopened old wounds.”
“Humans are not our enemy,” Dakota said.
“Humans put me in danger. Humans hurt me. Humans didn’t save me,” Rachel said. “You did. Dad did. Our own kind saved me.”
Shelby thought about all the danger she’d been put in. And who saved me? My own kind? Yes, but also my dad, a former Hunter. A human.
“Lycans can be just as wicked to each other,” Chenoa said. “You are young. You have only known this pack. This is a kinder pack than many.”
Elias spoke in his commanding tone. “Chenoa is right. Many of you are young and inexperienced in the Lycan world. It was Lycans who killed my friends, my brother. It was Lycans who put me in danger a hundred times over. Stories of my first pack would haunt you, stories I do not relish and rarely think of. This pack is different. I am . . . different than I once was. I found a better way. Perhaps humanity can as well.”
That caught Shelby’s attention, and she tried to peer into him, but found her intrusion blocked. Elias glanced at her from the corner of his eye and Shelby felt slightly rebuked. Oops. Apparently, he can block me and know when I’m prying. Is that an Alpha thing?
Is using all your abilities without permission moral? Elias’s voice came to her through the pack link. Should you use it without boundary, Shelby?
Well, crap, ethics class wasn’t supposed to start until next semester. But she supposed her Alpha’s rebuke was appropriate. She hadn’t considered that, her abilities being so new to her. What is the proper use of them? Does having power to do something make it right to always do so?
Sorry, she replied through the pack link. But I hope you’ll share the story someday.
Someday . . .
Except someday could mean fifty years to a Lycan. Or longer.
“What is the Alpha Prime’s goal?” Ackerman asked. “It is important to understand his motives.”
“I agree,” Grant said. “The more we know of an enemy the better.”
“We haven’t decided he’s the enemy here.” Sadie surprised Shelby a little with her own hints of anger.
Gennesaret spoke. “It is my belief after consulting with Agent Desmond and others that the Advent is a movement that will end in bloodshed all over the world. On a surface level, it might appear to be the Lycan race extricating itself from oppression. The call for freedom and the ability to walk openly appeal to many, which is a recruiting tool. However, I believe those platitudes to be misdirection. I believe the Advent has a deeper significance for the future of the Earth itself.”
Grant glanced around the room with a look of disbelief on his face. “Respectfully, I don’t think that several thousand werewolves stand a chance against hundreds of thousands of armed humans. The advanced weaponry the U.S. military has will be difficult to overcome.”
“Lycans are incredibly strong,” Kale said. “And we heal almost any wound.”
“They have tanks,” Grant said. “Fighter jets. Drones. Missiles. Nuclear weapons.”
“He’s right,” Ackerman agreed. “It is no small thing to take on all of humanity. Maybe a couple hundred years ago.”
“Who says we’d meet them strength for strength?” Jonas asked. “It would be tactical.”
“Like a terrorist,” Grant said coldly. “You’re also forgetting that Hunters would join the fight against the Advent. For over eighteen hundred years they have fought werewolves. They are extremely talented at killing them.”
“You mean us, not them,” Jonas said. “Don’t forget where you are.”
“Don’t forget my daughter is one of you,” Grant said. “I do not mean any disrespect or desire such an outcome. It is simply the truth. If Hunters share their knowledge with the government, any clash would be even more perilous for Lycans, tactical strikes or not.”
Gennesaret held up a hand. “The Advent is doing more than recruiting. Bryanne believes they are turning each town they come to.”
Shelby felt Rachel’s urge spike at that, but she also felt horror from many of the others, especially those who had been turned themselves. It is painful, often deadly, and leaving the turned without a choice. Barbaric. Shelby wasn’t sure if that came from Eira or herself.
Gennesaret continued, her hands moving in soft circles through the air as she spoke. “Like I said, they entered along the Canadian border, but that doesn’t mean they might not also look at our southern borders as well. We need to be prepared. Elias.”
Their Alpha took a deep breath. “I thought about pulling everyone out of school and moving us all here until we’re sure we’re safe, but I was convinced,” he smiled at his wife, “that the social interaction and normalcy of daily life at school and work was still important. But we will train. Mornings and afternoons are yours. Friday evenings and Sundays are yours. Every other second, when you aren’t sleeping, belongs to the pack. Do you understand?”
They nodded, including Grant and Bubba.
Elias looked directly at Shelby. “We have a new member who has never been on a hunt. We’ll go tomorrow evening to welcome her properly and hone all our skills.” He frowned for a second. “Sorry, DeShawn and Grant, you’ll have to sit that out.”
“Ain’t no thing. Momma’s making stir fry and dumplings.”
Grant eyed Bubba and then looked at Ackerman. “A
nd someone has to keep an eye on security while the wolves are away.”
Elias smiled. “Good. After that, every single one of you will meet here each night, other than the exceptions I mentioned, from five to eleven to train. Got it?”
Shelby grunted her agreement with the rest, but thought she’d heard a hint of his Scottish accent on the last two words. Complex man.
“We train,” Elias said, “for all scenarios. Human versus human, wolf versus wolf, human versus wolf, and wolf versus human. It is my command that we all become as proficient as we can in any and all forms of combat against an enemy in any form. We do not know when this fight will come to us. We do not know if it will be humans who want to stop the Advent and mistake us for a part of it. We do not know if it will be Lycans wanting to pressure us into servitude of this Alpha Prime. We will be ready for anything.”
“I can take anyone in human form without my wolf,” Jonas said.
“Wanna bet?” Grant countered.
Jonas shrugged. “Not like I’ll be fighting in my human form much.”
“We may not be fighting at all,” Elias said. “This is precautionary. And wise. Shelby, you’ll need the most training, so rest up when you can. This is going to be a lot of work.”
I kill Lycans, she thought, remembering the night she killed two werewolves with her mind. Or Eira had through her.
“I’ve killed humans,” she said. “I’ve also killed Lycans, with just a thought.”
That sent a ripple of surprise and concern through the pack.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
“I know, but you can’t yet control it like you need to. Besides, I want you to be able to fight with all your faculties. Human, Lycan, and with whatever else you may possess that we don’t fully understand.”
“Like half-shifted?” Shelby asked.
That made Elias pause. “What?”
