by Sonja Bair
David sidled up to the Santa Fe Alphas, who stepped back and allowed us in.
“What’s going on?” he whispered to the male Alpha.
“Tasha won’t change back into human form. She knows that her death is coming and has chosen to remain in werewolf form for the punishment.”
“And they want her in human form to tell them about how she regained control?” I whispered.
“Yeah. Henry and Carole are going to force the change now.”
Even as he said the words, Tasha barked a sharp note of pain. Henry had his hands dug deep into her fur while Carole grabbed her head. The other Alphas looked on intently, but I had to close my eyes and turn my head.
When the howl stopped, I opened my eyes to see Tasha lying face down on the ground, naked. She didn’t move, but I could hear a soft moaning noise.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” Her voice cracked and she followed her question with a sob and curled into a ball.
“Because we need answers.” Henry’s voice, clear and loud, held no sympathy to her situation.
Her pain and remorse were so evident, it broke my heart. I couldn’t do anything about the death sentence or her previous actions, but her nakedness was a humiliation I could remedy.
“Give me your jacket,” I murmured to David. He shrugged out of it immediately. Hesitantly approaching Tasha, I held out the jacket. I dropped it on her still-curled form, then retreated back to the circle. David took my hand and squeezed it.
“Tasha. What happened after you killed the college student?” Carole demanded.
“I don’t know,” she gasped between sobs. Although she pulled David’s coat around herself, she remained huddled face down on the ground.
“Yes you do. Sit up and look at me,” hissed Carole.
Oh so slowly, Tasha uncurled and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. Although she looked up at her Alpha, it was through a curtain of hair that fell over her forehead. “I only remember flashes after the stadium. It was like hovering above myself and watching this crazy beast that looked like me run. There wasn’t anything I could do. I tried to grab the beast, but I could only watch. And thank God, the animal ran away from the campus. I thought that maybe everything would be okay. That after running and getting away from human smells, I could get control back. But then the beast,” her breath caught in a hiccup, “I mean I smelled a human on that hillside. And that was it. Even my spirit that was floating above the beast lost it. I joined the beast ripping into the kid. I loved it. I loved the feeling of flesh between my teeth. Of blood flowing down my face. I killed that boy ruthlessly and enjoyed every second of it.”
She dropped her head and cradled it in her hands.
Carole huffed a breath of impatience. “We already know how you ripped Lee McDell to shreds. We want to know how you came back to being rational.”
Silence hung heavy for about a minute, then Tasha gradually lifted her head and spoke louder and clearer than she had so far.
“Because after I ripped him to shreds, a sense of peace settled down on me. I felt good. I felt better than I had for months. Powerful, yeah, I felt powerful, but I also felt right and whole. Like the crack in my soul had healed.” Then the confidence flushed out of her and her whole upper body seemed to melt from the top down until she was slumped on the ground, face first again. Her words were once more muffled and broken.
“But… I had killed somebody to feel that way. So I ran away, trying to put miles between me and the body… After a couple of minutes, I came to the decision that I had to stop and face the consequences of… of… what I had done. So I waited for a search party to find me.”
Silence filled the air around the circle of Alphas. I glanced from person to person, but each was a mimic of David’s granite face. When Henry stepped toward Tasha, her huddled form spasmed and she pulled herself tighter. Henry reached down and grabbed her head, uncurling her from her hunched position. Silently, Carole stepped beside her mate and put her hand on his shoulder and nodded. He took a deep breath and tensed his muscles. Closing my eyes and turning away, I nearly choked. I couldn’t bear witness to what was coming. But the crack of Tasha’s neck intruded into my willed ignorance. Although the contact was gentle, I jumped as David’s hand touched my shoulder. “It’s done,” he said gently.
Opening my eyes to glance up at him, I leaned into his tall, strong body. “What now?”
“The Maine pack will take care of her body and will want to mourn the loss of their pack member. The Alphas will reconvene tomorrow at the scheduled meeting time and discuss the new developments.”
“Let’s go then. This night has been much too long.”
“I agree, but it isn’t over yet. We need to communicate tonight’s action to our pack.”
Although I understood the need, I wasn’t looking forward to reliving it again. And I wasn’t looking forward to whatever craziness Gina’s response would be.
But my house was empty, the Eagle was gone, and Gina wasn’t answering her cell phone. I stood in the driveway, baffled—where could she have gone? And how did she get the Eagle to start? “Can you do magical Alpha werewolf GPS on her?” I asked David.
Looking down at me, he cocked an eyebrow up. “Yes. And so can you. In fact, I would presume that you would do a better job at it than I since you have spent more time with her.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I realize that. But I wasn’t and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Gina is probably getting herself in trouble right now.”
Putting my hands on my hips, I sighed in frustration and rolled my shoulders and head back. The nearly full moon was cresting over the Santa Lucia foothills. Wasn’t the moon supposed to guide werewolves? When teaching me the basics of werewolf culture, David had mentioned that the werewolf tendencies are stronger during the full moon, but as a supernatural species, they weren’t controlled as much by it as legend would have it. Still, I thought as I watched the moon break free of the mountains, I’d take all the help I could get. Shutting my eyes tight, I made a wish on the moon for Gina to be okay and keeping out of harm’s way.
“Okay.” I turned to David after finishing the wish. “How do I find her?”
“The Alpha tendencies will come naturally. Just focus on Gina and you should get a sense of where she is.”
Nodding, I shut my eyes and concentrated. In my mind’s eye, I pictured her round face with olive skin, framed by her dark hair. Although I could form a mental image of her, my emotions around the teenager welled up much stronger. Admiration for her strong will, frustration at that same strong will, curiosity at her role in this werewolf crisis, and overlying all these emotions, a sense of protectiveness toward my young packmate. But there was no sudden vision or realization of where she was. Frustrated, I gritted my teeth and tried to focus again. A sudden breeze blew hair into my face. I tucked the strand behind my ear, annoyed at the tickle, but the wind blew the ends right back. Reaching up to wrap my hair into a makeshift bun, I realized that my bare arms didn’t register any breeze. Working off a half-realized idea, I let my hair go and focused on the wind swirling around me. It was blowing in a southerly direction, but more importantly, it whispered in my ear—not in any verbal way, but with a nearly subconscious urge. I leaned into the urge and let it fill my being with a direction.
“She’s somewhere south of us. Maybe back by where we all met for Tasha’s trial.”
David nodded, pleased. “I’m calling Pedro and Philip in. They need to be part of this thing.”
“And what exactly is ‘this thing’ going to be?”
David tilted his head and looked down at me. “I’m not sure, but I’m getting a feeling that Gina is not acting as a team player for our pack right now.”
I grimaced. The wind that wasn’t wind had whispered the same idea.
Chapter 29
Using my newfound tracking ability, I directed David to turn down a dusty road that skirted the field Tasha had been executed in. Gina was
near, I could feel it, but where exactly, I didn’t know. None of the headlights passing us were the Eagle’s, but the whisper-wind leading me was decreasing in volume. She was now either very near or very far away. My magical talent was being frustratingly opaque with its directions.
“Pull over for a second, David.” I needed to focus for a moment.
The car slowed to a stop at the side of the road, spitting gravel against the side of his SUV.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest. Pedro cleared his throat to talk, but David shushed him.
“It’s okay, David. If Pedro has something to add, go for it. My spidey-sense isn’t all-knowing or even very vociferous right now.”
“It appears that there are a group of cars parked ahead of us. I recognize several of them as being Alpha cars.”
My muscles tensed. Sounded like a place where Gina would implant herself, welcome or not.
“Is this one of those secret Alpha meetings?” Philip asked, leaning into the front seat.
“Looks like it.”
“So, do we…”
“I don’t know,” I snapped, unnecessarily harsh in my frustration. I sighed. “Sorry, Philip. But I’m really not sure how to work this. If we walk in and Gina is there, are we going to have to fight to keep her safe? Or has she won over the Alphas? What’s her agenda?” I banged my head against the headrest.
David picked up his cell phone, switched it to speaker, and hit redial. We had called her and Rex a dozen times, but she never answered. Maybe this time…
The phone rang seemingly endlessly, but the moment before the call went to voicemail, an enthusiastic hello echoed through the car.
“Gina!” all four of us yelled in varying degrees of relief and anger.
“Hey guys! What’s up?”
My hand shot up, motioning quiet when all three males would have given her two earfuls of rage. Each man had to visibly pull back their anger. “Gina,” I said with forced calm, “when we came home, we couldn’t find you and as your fellow packmembers, we were concerned. Where are you right now?”
“Yeah, well. I saw that you couldn’t start the Eagle so I went outside to take a look at it. I took a class in small engine repair in Girl Scouts. Isn’t it awesome that my Troop did a class in engine repair? We had this kick-ass leader who…”
“WHERE. ARE. YOU.” David nearly spit out each word.
“I’m with a bunch of Alphas. Why?”
“Are you out past the vineyards in a field by a small lake?” I asked.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Who are you with, specifically?”
Gina listed off the Alphas who were undoubtedly the ones meeting behind our backs.
“Can you walk away from the group right now and have a private conversation?” I asked.
“Sure.” There was a momentary pause and the slight noises of movement. “Alright, I’m away from them.”
“First of all, are you safe?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
My jaw clenched with frustration. Was she really that infuriatingly obtuse or was this an act? “Because there are some Alphas who want you dead, Gina.”
“Oh, just my parents—these Alphas are chill. Besides, they were super interested in my new ideas. Hey, did I tell you that I had a really great breakthrough about the meaning of my dreams? Oh, probably not; I came up with it while you were gone. Well, okay, to be fair, I had a little prompting from this guy that helped me fix the Eagle. But anyway...”
My stomach dropped as I reached a horrible deduction. “Someone helped you fix the Eagle?”
“Yup, and before you give me the stranger-danger lecture, Rex was right there. No one would mess with a…”
“What did this guy look like?” I raised my eyebrows at David and he grimaced back. I guessed that he had come to the same realization as me.
“Ummm, normal? I dunno—brown hair, average height, old but not really old. Some sort of accent, maybe Southern?”
“And you happened to start talking about dream interpretation with him?”
“It came up, I guess. He asked some really great questions and when I was answering them, it suddenly became clear. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about werewolves, I pretended it was about something else. And I don’t think you’ll like it, but I figured out what’s causing the werewolves to go crazy. That fire that was burning up people in my dreams? So the fire really isn’t some bad thing that we have to get rid of, it’s a normal part of us. But we have to feed the fire or else it will burn us up. So what’s the fire? Well, here’s the part that you won’t like— werewolves are naturally aggressive, yes? And when we get really violent, what do most American packs do?”
She paused, so I guessed she wanted an answer. “David said that in Santa Fe, they would go hunting.”
“Right, same with the Denver pack. But we would go hunting for deer or elk, or some animal like that. All the American packs do. But remember how I said I visited Spain? And how they didn’t hunt animals, they hunted people? Criminals or the homeless—people that didn’t really matter that much…”
A sudden barrage of retorts to her assumptions all tried to come out at once, but those retorts tripped over each other and I ended up choking on the words. My stuttering gave David time to gently squeeze my knee. His pointed look reminded me of the overarching point of this conversation. I would have time to rant about compassion later. Gina carried on, oblivious to my response.
“So I figured out the reason that werewolves are going crazy. We aren’t fulfilling our basic needs. Werewolves are the predators, and predators weed out the weak animals of the world. It’s better for the whole ecosystem to make sure only the good, strong prey survive. It’s called culling. You teach biology, Freya, so you should know this. But we aren’t wolves, we are werewolves, people-wolves, if you want to call it that. And for werewolves, our prey has to be non-werewolf people. Animals aren’t good enough prey. So when we aren’t culling out the human population, we go crazy because killing is what we were made to do. It’s a basic need. And when I was telling the Alphas about this revelation, they told me about how Tasha got control after she killed the guy, so it totally makes sense and backs up my theory. Even though they were beginning to understand the concept, no one was willing to say it. But I am willing and I have and I will say it again—American werewolves need to copy the Europeans and start being predators of humans again.”
She ended on an upbeat, as if she were expecting praise for what she had revealed but I didn’t have any sort of comeback. While Tasha was being forced to explain her rationality after her killing spree, the same thought had briefly passed through my brain before I squashed it down; there was no way in heaven or hell I was going to be part of a group that condoned, or even encouraged, killing humans.
“What did the other Alphas think of your idea?” David’s tone was emotionless, as if he were merely asking about the weather, not discussing murdering humans. A glance in his direction revealed his granite face. A question crept its way into my brain—what if he approved of this plan? And my immediate gut reaction horrified me—I would do what it took to keep him alive, consequences be damned. No, I thought, shaking and scolding myself, I wouldn’t ever go down that terrible path of justification. Not for anyone. And then the tiny voice whispered through my supposedly steel resolve, Are you sure you’re sure?
Gina’s voice interrupted my morbid thoughts.
“The other Alphas were thankful for my willingness to lead the change. They’re discussing details now.”
“We’re coming to join,” I said.
“Noooo… I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I know you, Freya. You will come in here, all righteous and up in our business, telling us what werewolves should and shouldn’t do. I know you are an Alpha and all, but this is something the real werewolves have to discuss.”
Silence descended in the car. Philip let
out a low whistle.
“Gina,” David said oh-so-calmly, “you will go to the side of the road. If Rex is there with you, he will come as well. Stand next to the Escalade. We will pick you up there. Do this now.” And then he hung up.
He didn’t reach for the ignition for nearly a minute. I studied him and I watched Philip and Pedro study him as well. As he turned the car on, he swiveled to look in the backseat.
“Do you consider Freya to be a real werewolf?”
With absolutely no hesitation, both men answered with a firm yes. I was shocked at the quickness and sureness of their answer.
David turned to me. “Freya, do you consider yourself to be a real werewolf?”
“Yes, I’m an Alpha.”
“No, that wasn’t the question. Freya, do you consider yourself a real werewolf?”
I pursed my lips together and looked between David, Philip, and Pedro.
David’s voice was soft, hardly above a whisper. “Gina’s lack of understanding about your status will be addressed properly. But Freya, the fate of this pack depends on your honest answer. Do you consider yourself a real werewolf?”
A flippant answer about never having grown four legs sprang to mind, but I dismissed it almost as soon as it occurred. This wasn’t the right time, plus it didn’t ring true. I may never have changed forms like them, but over the last few weeks, I had experienced moments that made me realize being a werewolf was more than having fur and a tail. There was a deep sense of belonging that radiated between the four of us in the car. Each in their own way, these people had become part of my life, part of something that wasn’t exactly a family, but the bonds were just as strong. And though I didn’t look like them when they were in wolf form, that detail was one of the least important parts of this belonging. An insight hit hard—I was a werewolf.
