As I crested a small hill, I paused to take in the view and saw something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end – another tiny light moving up the trail at the base of the mountain. Someone was tracking me.
I turned to get moving again and I heard Austin’s voice. “Shelby! Come back!”
It sounded like a shout, but I wasn’t sure if it was in my head or something he’d yelled aloud.
His voice came again. “It’s a myth! Come back!” Even if it was him, he didn’t know I had the map. He hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, otherwise he’d know it was for real.
If I’d learned anything from the last few years with Honeybun and my dad it was that I couldn’t rely on anyone other than myself. I closed my eyes and sent him a mental message that I didn’t know if he’d get: I’m taking care of this. I can do it on my own.
And then I turned and ran into the inky darkness ahead.
***
In my dreams the past week, I’d been moving through the woods in a wolf’s body. Here, as a human, it wasn’t quite as easy. Running through icy branches, trying to not to slip, with this high, human center of gravity was tiring. I paused to catch my breath, noticing that my heart was pounding wildly, that I was nearly panting. I looked down at my body, just to ensure I was still myself, still Shelby the girl. Parka and jeans, check. Human hands in gloves, check.
I listened again to the sounds of the night. I’d heard owls rustling in trees before and the scurrying of little rodent feet, but now I heard nothing. Did they sense my presence? I was about to turn back to the trail when I heard the snap of branches, the crunch of icy steps.
“I’m fine!” I whispered, half to myself, half to the night.
And then I heard something far more interesting – the sound of trickling water. It should be close now, I thought, my spirits lifting. Ahead was a small meadow ringed with trees and large rocks. It took me a moment to realize the clearing was actually a frozen pond dusted with a layer of snow. I cocked my head, listening for the trickling sound again.
When I stilled my rushing heartbeat, I heard it more clearly – the angelic music of water dripping. It was coming from straight ahead, from a small rocky ledge. In warmer months, the water probably rushed like a normal falls. Here, in the grip of winter, it was a barely running stream.
I paused at the edge of the frozen pond, realizing there was no way to get to the trickle of water without crossing the ice. I took a step, testing my weight on the icy surface. I was pretty light, despite the many, many Muldanian sausages I’d downed lately, and even though I knew you should never ever walk out on frozen ice if you’re not sure it’s safe, I had to continue. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have the chance of preventing the change rising in my blood.
I moved forward carefully, sliding my feet a few inches. Then, feeling bolder, I took another real step. The ice was holding! With the next move forward into the center of the pond, though, I heard a slight cracking sound. I figured the crack was amplified by my heightened sense of hearing. It couldn’t be a really big or dangerous crack. It would sure suck to have come this far and then drown in a pond. A couple more quick steps and I was at the other side, letting out a relieved breath.
As I pulled off my gloves, I gazed up at the moon overhead. It was bright and clean like a fresh piece of paper, perfect white like starched clean sheets. “Goodbye,” I whispered, and then I extended my hand to collect some droplets from the falls. The water was frigid, made extra cold by the wind that had picked up around me. I held my cupped fingers to my lips and drank. Please, please let this work.
I sank down on my knees in the snow, waiting. Please, please, go away, werewolf curse! I didn’t know how long this thing was supposed to take, but the seconds, then minutes, ticked by and I didn’t feel any different. I slid off my hat and held my full face to the moon and let it try to change me. Come on, do your thing!
Suddenly, I heard a loud crack. Some tiny pieces of the rocks and ice above rained down onto my head.
“Holy crapola!” It took me a second to realize someone was shooting at me. I hugged the ground and tried to crawl behind a boulder.
“You cannot escape!” a heavily-accented voice shouted. “Surrender, she-wolf!”
“Ivan?” I raised my head for half a second and another bullet zinged past me into the falls, chunking off ice and rock. “I thought we were friends!”
“We were never friends. I know what you are. I cannot allow you to live and murder innocents.”
I hunkered down behind the boulder again and peered around its side. Ivan was in the bushes at the other side of the pond, his flashlight trained on me and the falls. It had been him I’d seen in the distance. His had been the light moving up the mountain trail – not Austin’s.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I know many things,” he said. “I have eyes on the castle.”
My mind flipped back and forth through my memories of the last two weeks. Who in the castle would have told Ivan I would come here? Wait – who was the one who had told me about the book in the first place? Who had encouraged me to climb to the falls? Eva. She must have been so eager to get me out of the castle, she’d sold me out to the Seven Horsemen!
It was just like the old days, when I’d trusted the wrong people. Boys who had talked me into staying out past curfew. Friends who’d asked me to help them with exam answers in school. I thought I’d changed, that I was finally seeing people for who they really were, but I’d been wrong. My sense of who to trust was still completely out of whack.
Another shot ricocheted off the rocks above me.
“I’m not going to turn into a wolf! That’s why I’m here at the falls for the cure,” I shouted at Ivan. “I stole the book with the map from your library.”
He laughed and then, another bullet thudded into the ground in front of the boulder. “The book was made many years ago by my ancestors to trick the wolves.”
“What? It’s not real?” I ducked back down behind the boulder, trying not to cry. I held my breath as I heard the sound of rustling, of Ivan moving out from the trees.
“The brotherhood is very smart.” I heard the crunch of his footsteps in the snow. “What better to draw out the freshly infected than a map to a promised cure?”
“That really, really sucks! Look, I’m just me, Shel– I mean, Chelsea. I’m just a normal, American girl! I’m not a werewolf, okay? Trust me!”
Another bullet zinged off the boulder, close to my head.
“Shelby...” someone whispered. I didn’t know if it was coming from somewhere in the dark or from somewhere in my mind.
And then, I felt a stirring in my blood. I glanced up at the moon again and my vision started to blur. My skin seemed set ablaze by the white hot light coming from the sky. I felt a quickening in my blood. And then, pain raged through my bones.
I was changing.
Chapter Eleven
IT TURNS out you don’t need any clothes when you’re a wolf. They all fall away, anyway. My boots, or what was left of them, lay useless next to my freed paws. Shredded pieces of jacket, jeans, and everything else littered the ground. I shook my head, trying to free myself from the last bits of my sweater. Through my enormous ears, I could hear the crick-crack of ice as Ivan moved on the pond’s surface. My eyes adjusted to the light. Everything was illuminated by the moon, so bright that it seemed like daylight around me.
I wasn’t the least bit cold. In fact, I was warmed by the pulsing heat of my blood. I felt my tongue lolling from my mouth as I panted. I stretched out my legs, sensing the power in them. Then, I sniffed the air, taking in the scent of Ivan and something else on the wind. More humans.
I heard whispering – Muldanian being spoken quickly and with urgency in the voices. Backup from the Seven Horsemen had arrived, no doubt.
I was cornered behind the boulder. The only way out was to cross the frozen pond, which seemed impossible now that two men took positions in the trees behind Ivan. When
I peeked out, I could see Ivan had almost made it across the pond toward me. If I jumped out and tried to run from him, I’d be shot by the other men. If I stayed put, Ivan would kill me himself.
“Just a minute!” I yelled, but it came out in a strangled howling sound. Crapola. Of course I couldn’t talk like normal people anymore.
Ivan froze on the ice and then turned and yelled something at the men in the trees. They emerged from the brush, shouldering their rifles.
But then, another howl split the night. It had to be Austin – he was coming for me! The men swiveled toward the call and I bounded out from behind the boulder and crashed down onto the surface of the pond, knocking Ivan down in the process.
I skittered to my feet as an awful crack sounded. Ivan tried to get up, yelling to his friends. I made it to the opposite bank as the surface broke and Ivan plunged into the icy water. The men ran toward their friend. I stood watching for a second, the human part of me unable to turn away – at least until a bullet thudded into a tree trunk nearby. One man was trying to pull Ivan from the pond. Another had his sights on my wolf hide again. It was time to start running.
Another howl pierced the darkness as a black and gray wolf appeared at the far end of the pond. But It wasn’t Austin. I’d seen his wolf before, and it was large and brown. This was someone else from the pack, someone who was trying to find me.
I yipped, trying to signal that I was not at the falls, that I was in the bushes on the other side, but the wolf charged toward the men. One man fell into the water with Ivan, but the other turned and fired his rifle.
The wolf yelped and fell in a furry heap on the side of the pond. The man lowered his gun and went to help his comrades in the water. He must have believed I was long gone into the woods.
I crawled low toward the injured wolf, and as I got closer, I caught the scent. Her scent. It was Eva. She was still alive, breathing. I moved as close as I dared.
“Shelby,” I heard her wheeze, her wolf whimper sounding clearly like English in my ears. “Please, call for help! The pack will come.”
“I thought you set me up,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I watched the man with the gun on the jagged edges of the ice. He had Ivan in his arms, but Ivan wasn’t moving.
“Don’t worry about that, now,” Eva said. “Hurry – move into the trees and call for help!”
The man’s gun was lying on the ice; he wasn’t going to be able to get to it easily, but if he did, he would shoot me and Eva. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I leapt to my feet and walked toward the pond, growling. The man had lain Ivan on the solid ice and was helping the second friend out of the frigid water. I moved closer. I could smell his fear as he realized that I was blocking his way to his gun.
“Don’t attack! Call for help!” I heard Eva whisper urgently behind me.
The man heard her sounds and realized she was still alive. His energy changed. He made a dash toward the his rifle.
I jumped at him, teeth bared, but before I could bite him, there was a rush of wind and a blur of brown fur. Austin came flying from the bushes, tackling the shooter and they both crashed into the pond. I was on the edge of the ice and managed to ease my way onto the bank. Austin left the men in the water and crawled out. When he caught the scent of Eva, he bolted to her side.
“Hang on,” he whispered to her, nudging her head.
Meanwhile, I let out the howl for help, the cry I should have issued minutes before. I howled for the loss of my human self, my simple life. And I howled for my friend Eva. The sound echoed through the valley, through my heart. I fell down into the snow, next to Eva, licking her face.
She whimpered, her expression revealing the pain coursing through her wolf body.
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” I said, tears welling.
“I know,” Austin said.
“I thought I could fix things on my own.”
Austin looked at me, his eyes wet and glittering in the moonlight. “Some things you can’t fix yourself. That’s what family is for.”
A howl resounded around us and a second later, Fuzz, Chuckie and the other wolves crashed through the trees, with Boris and a couple of the other vamps on their heels.
I understood that they would take care of Ivan and horsemen who were flailing in the pond. They might even kill them. And I was fine with that.
If it meant the pack would survive, it had to be done.
Chapter Twelve
THE REST of the night was a blur, but I woke up the next morning, sensing that everything had changed. I opened my eyes, grateful to see hands instead of paws. My bed was soft beneath me, the stone walls of my room in the castle a comforting sight. I scrambled out of the covers, my muscles and bones protesting. I was ravenous and exhausted. And I was worried about my pack.
I threw a bathrobe on and ran down the hallway to Eva’s room. I cracked open the door and stepped inside. Eva’s eyes were closed, and Dr. Lyndon was sleeping in an armchair next to her bed.
“They stopped the bleeding last night,” a voice said behind me.
I turned and saw Fuzz in the doorway, his eyes shadowed, his face scruffier than normal.
“She should be all right, but she hasn’t woken yet,” he added, motioning for me to follow him out of the room. When we were outside, he closed the door, placing his hand on the frame. “Eva’s been like a daughter to me,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know she would follow me.”
“And if she hadn’t?” he said.
I nodded slowly. “If she hadn’t, I would have been toast.”
“She’s a wolf. Maybe you don’t know what that means yet,” he said. “Loyalty is one of our strongest traits. She counted you as a friend... as a sister.”
“I didn’t realize that she would be so loyal. She seemed so unhappy to have me around the castle that I didn’t trust her friendship.”
“You can always trust a wolf. Even if she didn’t like you, she’d lay down her life for another member of the pack.”
“I see that now,” I said, my eyes downcast. “She must have realized Ivan had trailed me up the hill.”
“Trailed you? He knew right where you were going,” Fuzz said with a bitter laugh. “He surely planted the map and waited for you to take the bait. Just as his family must have baited others in the past. The camera crew was probably sent by them – they saw you with the bloody steak and had to suspect you were about to change.”
“Yes,” I said, my cheeks warming. “I’m a big screwup – go ahead and say it. Everyone else has. And maybe everyone is right.” I felt hot tears working their way down my face. It was familiar, this scene. I’d played it out a million times before, usually with my own father.
“My darling, you are not a screwup. You’re most courageous, in fact. Another fine trait of wolves.”
I didn’t want to look up, but Fuzz extended his hand under my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. “When I first heard about how you’d saved Austin last summer – how you’d braved the dark woods to help him – I told my son that he’d found the most perfect mate possible. Now I see it firsthand. Who else would trek up a mountain in the dark alone?”
“I didn’t want to be a wolf,” I said quietly. “That’s not bravery, that’s desperation.”
Fuzz curled an arm around my shoulder and walked me down the hall. “Give yourself some credit, my dear. It was gutsy.” He paused at the windows that overlooked the castle courtyard. I could see Austin down near the woodshed, chopping rounds into kindling. “He’s been torturing himself about infecting you. I know that’s why you went, because you didn’t want to be something he hated. But it’s the curse he hates, not you. He loves you. Believe that.” Fuzz gave me a small smile. “Tell me, how did you like being your wolf for the first time?”
“It was...” I remembered running through the trees, seeing things with such perfect eyesight, feeling totally comfortable in the darkness. “It was exhilar
ating,” I admitted. “It hurt at first, the change and all, but then, later, it felt normal.”
A smile split Fuzz’s face. “Aha! I knew you’d love it. I told Austin he shouldn’t fret, that you’d come around.”
“By the way, I know that whole rose thing was fake. I saw you guys talking.”
“You can’t blame an old guy for trying,” Fuzz said with a gentle laugh. “My son, you know, he’s not exactly the most joyful wolf in the pack – I thought some feigned enthusiasm might help, but obviously you’re far too smart to have fallen for that.”
“Yeah.” I watched Austin bring another round of wood to the block, his breath rising as small clouds in the frigid morning.
Fuzz patted me on the back. “Welcome to the family, my girl.”
“Oh, yeah – about my family....”
“Your father replied to your e-mail,” Fuzz said. “Boris printed it out. You can read it later.”
“But I can’t go home. I get it.”
Fuzz let out a sigh. “Not unless you want to be on your own as a vulnerable werewolf pup in Beverly Hills. At least here you have a pack surrounding you.”
“True,” I admitted.
“Don’t worry about your father,” Fuzz said. “We’ve got friends monitoring him. A kind of night patrol.”
“Vamps?”
Fuzz smiled and shrugged. “Perhaps we’ll arrange some tour dates in California once you’re accustomed to Lycan ways.” He turned to head down the stairs. “Now then, I’ll go track down Boris and the e-mail. Might I suggest you put on something warm and go sort out kindling for the fireplace in the kitchen? Cook won’t be up for a few hours and it would be ever so nice to welcome her with a warm hearth. We’ll definitely need kindling.”
Always in Shadow: A Novella (Never Cry Werewolf) Page 10
