The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series)

by James, Adrianne

  “All right, let me just pull your information up. What is your name?” She sat back down in a huff, no longer being overly polite. Mackenzie didn’t blame her after the way she had exploded.

  “Mackenzie Duncan.” The woman began typing away and within a few minutes the printer began making noises. Reaching behind her, the woman grabbed a small stack of papers and a pen and placed them in front of Mackenzie.

  “Sign here, here and here.” She pointed to all the places marked with an X. Reading the document was nearly gibberish. A lot of legal stuff that she had no clue what it meant until she saw the word voluntary. She was leaving the most prestigious school in the country voluntarily. If only she felt like she had a choice. Mackenzie signed each and pushed the papers back to the woman.

  “Thank you, about my tuition?”

  “Take your copy of these and go see Financial Aid. They should be able to tell you if you are early enough in the semester for a partial refund.” Mackenzie smiled at the woman and began to walk away, when she heard, “Whatever personal issues you have going on, please remember you can always reapply. A college education is important and throwing away a chance at Harvard may just haunt you for a long time to come.” She was being haunted all right, but leaving Harvard was the least of her worries.

  The financial aid office was a bust as she had missed the deadline for any sort of refund by three days. She would just have to make do with what money she had on hand and figure out the rest of her life before the next full moon.

  Chapter 7

  Day after day, the sun rose and set, and the moon high in the sky sent shivers through Mackenzie. Her sleep was no longer sound, as she would wake up crying and sweating, from the nightmares that plagued her. Every night was the same thing. She was running around the woods, looking for campers, and killing them with her bare teeth, ripping them apart as if they were made of paper. When she would go to the water to take a drink, her reflection would not be that of a wolf, like she knew she was, but of herself, enforcing her fear that she was the monster.

  Mackenzie had taken a few buses east, not caring where they were stopping. Mostly, she walked. She refused to be in a small, enclosed area with anyone, just in case, every myth was wrong. Maybe wolves could turn more often than on a full moon. Maybe they would do something to make her angry and she would “wolf out” as she started calling it.

  Any time she happened to pass by a library, she would go in hoping they might have stocked different books than the last. It was a shame that the only books that featured Lycanthropy were considered fiction. Even so, she combed through them. Any piece of information to help her cope, help her learn what she was, and help her learn what that really meant.

  Without any idea of what town she had wandered into, Mackenzie slipped into a little bagel shop for breakfast. She had been walking since eight that morning and she was starving. Standing in line, she couldn’t help the shiver that ran along her skin. Someone was watching her. Glancing around the shop casually, she hoped to spot whoever it was.

  When no one seemed to be paying any sort of real attention to her, Mackenzie turned back to face the short line ahead of her. Her stomach growled loudly just as she stepped up to the register.

  Since the change, Mackenzie seemed to be constantly hungry. She would eat three times the amount she used to and it was doing very little to help her dwindling cash reserve. Ordering three bagels, all with cream cheese and lox, she paid and thanked the woman. Mackenzie picked up her breakfast, finding an empty table in the back of the shop. If no one could sit behind her, she would be able to see if anyone was really watching her.

  Whatever that park ranger did, didn’t actually affect her at all. At least that was working in her favor. She supposed she should be grateful for the fact that she hadn’t seen anything to say that she was in trouble. If she had hurt anyone that night, they would be searching for the girl spotted leaving the scene of the crime with blood covering her bag. She had no run-ins with police or anyone searching for her as she thought she might after leaving Harvard.

  Mackenzie pulled her notebook from her backpack and opened to the page she had created as a calendar. Three days. She had three days before she would turn again. Suddenly, her appetite disappeared.

  Dumping the last bagel into the trash, she walked back up to the counter, which thankfully, no longer had a line.

  “Excuse me; I was wondering if you knew of any forests or woods around here? I have a project I need some stuff for.” Mackenzie knew it was a lame lie, but throwing something out there was better than them asking and her losing her cool. Again.

  “Yeah, two towns over. Granby. They have a huge state park.”

  “Thank you.” Mackenzie walked out of the shop with at least a plan for the next few days. She still wasn’t sure about anything beyond that, but she would worry about that if she managed to survive wolfing out again.

  ~*~

  There was no public transportation available so Mackenzie had to walk. There was one good thing about her newfound healing powers, her feet never hurt or got blisters from being on them for too long. However, she would have to invest in some new clothes soon since hers were becoming looser every day. Between all the walking and an apparently incredibly fast metabolism, she was dropping the extra weight she had always carried. She was still far from looking like a fashion model, but being at a healthy weight was definitely in the near future.

  With every step, Mackenzie glanced at her surroundings. The paranoia had yet to dissipate. Every person she passed, she inspected and to her utter horror, her instincts kicked in and she would take in a giant whiff to smell them, hoping to gain a better sense of who they were. When she tried to fight the urge, her entire body was on edge.

  After five hours of walking, Granby came into view. It was a small town with a lot of little Mom and Pop stores lining the main streets. The houses all had yards and it felt as if by simply walking into this town, Mackenzie transported back in time fifty years. Trees were everywhere, a mix of bare branches, and orange and red hues lined many of the streets. If Mackenzie had been there for any other reason, she might have even reveled in the idyllic quality. Unfortunately, she had things to accomplish. There was time for admiration of the town’s beauty later.

  First thing, she needed to find a place to stay for the next two nights. She knew very well that she wouldn’t be staying anywhere near the town, or the people in it, on the third night. That night was reserved for the beast. She would check into some kind of motel, and then find the state park the bagel girl had mentioned. She needed to learn those woods as best as she could in the next two days to be able to go deep enough to protect anyone from her path.

  The further into town Mackenzie got, the more she could see the outline of the trees of the park on the horizon. If she had any chance of even checking them out that night, she needed to get going—and soon.

  A bed and breakfast sign swung from a large, white farmhouse with a wraparound porch and a beautiful bay window. The yard was extremely large, but the best part was the land looked to go on for miles, right up to the edge of the state park.

  Sighing in relief at yet something else to add to her list of things going in her favor, she knew she had found where she would be staying. Mackenzie climbed the steps to the porch. What looked to be immaculate from the street, actually had signs of wear and tear that only a house loved by its owners can acquire. The house featured paint patches from touch-ups, different colored nails in the floorboards, and a homemade swing hanging from the ceiling that needed a new set of chains and a fresh coat of paint. She smiled, wishing she had grown up in a place that she could call home for more than a year or two at a time. This house had obviously been lived in for many years. At least, she chose to believe that and didn’t really care if it were true or not.

  Mackenzie pushed open the door and a little bell jingled overhead. A few children ran through the room chasing after a cat. The brown blur darted under a table that sat low to the gro
und and when the children kneeled to try and coax him out, a hiss resonated through the room. Or maybe it was just Mackenzie who heard it since no one seemed to pay any attention to the children still desperately trying to reach the cat.

  As if she knew what the cat was thinking, Mackenzie rushed forward and touched the children on the shoulder, gaining their attention. They pulled their little hands out from under the table just as the cat’s paw, its sharp claws extended, swiped forward, missing the children by mere centimeters.

  “Hey, I think the kitty might want some time alone.”

  “But we want to play with him! Mommy said it was okay.”

  “I am sure it was, but I think the kitty might be a little tired of playing now. I see a checkerboard over there. Maybe that could be fun.” Mackenzie pointed to the bay window that overlooked the front yard. It had a bench built into the wall just under the pane of glass with a little table right in front of it. The table had been painted to be a permanent game board for both the checker pieces and the chess pieces that sat in a box on the floor.

  “Oh! Good idea!” The children ran off, the cat completely forgotten. Getting down on her hands and knees, Mackenzie peered under the table. Her new amplified eyesight could see more clearly in the dark than she thought was possible, making the outline of the cat as detailed as the individual pieces of fur. The cat spotted Mackenzie and backed up, pressing itself along the wall with its fur standing on end.

  “Hey, pretty kitty, the kids are gone, you can come out now.” Mackenzie made some kitty calling noises that never actually do any good but everyone does anyway. The cat only responded with a powerful hiss that sent shivers down Mackenzie’s spine. “Okay, fine. See if I ever save you again.”

  Huffing at the cat’s attitude, she wandered over to the front desk. She hoped that they had a room available and that it wouldn’t drain the last of her cash. The door behind her jingled, and all at once, her senses went into overload. She could smell something, something that made her feel like she was home, that made her feel safe. Her entire body relaxed and she had no idea what had made the change.

  When Mackenzie looked over her shoulder, she saw a woman that exuded power, but more than that, the woman looked at her two younger companions with a motherly love. Her own mother often had that look. While she may be critical and they may not actually get along very well, the love was there. That, she never doubted for a second.

  The young man who accompanied the woman, who was tall with broad shoulders and a fitted shirt that showed off the muscles of his sculpted chest, had deep brown eyes that just so happened to be looking directly at her. His lips ever so slowly lifted into a lazy half smile and then he winked at her. Looking away quickly, Mackenzie almost missed the girl with them who kept her eyes to the floor and shuffled her feet as they all moved forward.

  ~*~

  Luckily, for both Mackenzie and the trio who came in after her, they still had rooms available. She could feel the young man watching her, but she refused to turn back around. She had no business looking at anyone like that; nothing could come of it anyway. Men complained about a normal woman’s time of the month, what on earth would any man think of her time of the month?

  Taking her key from the man behind the desk, Mackenzie practically bolted for her room. With every step away from the newcomers, she lost that safe feeling and her nerves were on edge again.

  Once she reached her room, opening the door turned out to be more problematic than it should have been. She put the key in the lock and when she went to turn it, the key snapped in two. Staring down at the broken piece of metal in her hand just angered her. Why couldn’t she get control of her strength? Would it always be like this? What if she tried to shake someone’s hand, or hug someone? She could crush them. The more time that went on, the more of life’s pleasures that were taken from her without her having any choice in the matter. She hated it.

  Returning to the front desk, she tried to breathe deeply, tried to count to ten and back down to one, even tried thinking happy thoughts, to calm herself down before she spoke to anyone. But nothing worked. She couldn’t conjure any happy thoughts at the moment. All she could think of was bared teeth, hideous breath, and blood. So much blood.

  “My key broke in the lock.” Mackenzie didn’t wait in line. She didn’t say excuse me. Her manners were simply gone and she really didn’t care. They were lucky she was clenching and unclenching her fists to give them something to do because all she wanted them to do was crash through the stupid desk.

  “Oh my! I am so sorry about that. Let me get you a new room and room key.” The woman worked quickly, making the adjustment on her computer before handing over another key. “Room seven, just up the hall and to the right.”

  Mackenzie just nodded and turned to find her new room when she bumped right into the girl who never took her eyes off the floor. Before Mackenzie could force herself to apologize, the girl looked up with murder in her eyes. Her yellow green eyes.

  “Watch where you are going!”

  Mackenzie couldn’t respond. It was as if cold water had been dumped on her head. All anger left her body but her heart continued to race, beating faster with a feeling of hope that she might not be alone after all.

  “HELLO! What are you fucking deaf?”

  “Your eyes? Have they always been that color?” Mackenzie whispered.

  “What? Oh. Yes, yes, they have now leave me the fuck alone.” The girl walked away quickly to find her group.

  As if she had never found her cool, her muscles contracted, and her eyes narrowed as she watched the girl with the long blonde hair and slim figure retreat. Mackenzie took a deep breath and when that didn’t work, she punched a hole through the wall in the hallway as she walked toward her room. She looked around hoping no one had spotted her and when she was sure she was in the clear, she ducked inside.

  Chapter 8

  As soon as Mackenzie had calmed herself down, she locked her room and headed for the back door of the large farmhouse. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one with that idea.

  The woman from the lobby was standing next to the door, putting on her jacket. While the woman looked to be in her early forties, she was extremely beautiful. Her light brown hair had been tucked into her jacket and when she reached up to pull it out, Mackenzie saw that the woman’s hands were not soft and elegant as she imagined they would be. Seeing her standing there, in designer jeans and a killer coat, with hair that looked to be styled by a professional, she kind of expected to see perfectly manicured fingernails and maybe a ring or two. Instead, the hand had short fingernails with dirt lining the undersides of them without a single piece of jewelry in sight.

  “Going out?” the woman asked, opening the door.

  The weather was still cold, but it didn’t matter. The beauty that was before her took her breath away. The scent of the earth and the moisture in the air drew her forward. Apparently, being a Werewolf really makes a girl appreciate nature.

  “Yeah, thanks.” The moment that Mackenzie walked through the door her skin began to hum as the fresh air and hard ground beneath her feet worked their way into her system. It took every ounce of self-control she had to not run through the grass to the trees to start exploring. It didn’t matter what she was doing, as long as she wasn’t trapped inside the walls of the house. It wasn’t until she heard the footsteps behind her that she spun around with her adrenaline pumping, ready to strike if she needed to protect herself.

  “Whoa, sorry about that. I just wanted to walk the trails in the park. I’m Margret.” The woman held her hand out for her to shake and after a moment, Mackenzie took it in her own. Calm seeped into her skin, pushing back her protective nature. As much as she craved the calmness, alarm rang through her. It had to have been Margret that set her at ease, but it was such a sudden change. Pulling back, she stared at this woman, wondering what on earth she was. Was she a vampire? Werewolves were supposed to be able to sense them right? Was she a witch? Somewhere she read tha
t Werewolves were magic and magic could feel other magic. Or was she another Werewolf?

  “Mackenzie. Excuse me.” Mackenzie took a harsh right as they entered the tree line following one of three paths laid out. Hoping the woman took the hint and didn’t follow, she stayed the course. Once she felt she was far enough away, she looked over her shoulder. Margret was nowhere in sight. Taking in a deep breath of relief, she hoped she was just over reacting.

  When she felt she was far enough from the entrance, and certain that no one was close by, she ventured off the dirt path and into the thick forest. Large trees, each with its own unique scent, surrounded her. She was really beginning to get the hang of the sensory overload she gained with her change.

  The quiet snapping of a twig was common, she had found, when out in the woods far from where people roamed. She was in the animal’s territory and they made noises, disrupted the environment around them, and didn’t care for her presence too much. But the twig snapping wasn’t what caught Mackenzie’s attention. Someone was out there, screaming and crying.

  Mackenzie sprinted toward the sound. She had to help whoever it was, this far off the path they could be hurt or lost. She at least knew the way back. But when she reached a small clearing in the trees, and found the source of all the commotion, she wished she had never come.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” the bitchy girl from the house yelled without even turning around to look at Mackenzie.

  “I heard all the noise, and thought someone might need some help. Sorry.” Mackenzie turned to leave and heard the girl mumble something about “no one can help me now.” Not knowing what to do, Mackenzie went back. Maybe she could find Margret and tell her where to locate the girl. Maybe Margret would know what to do. She really shouldn’t care, the girl was a royal bitch and all, but no one should be alone when they are that upset. But finding the woman who she practically ran from just an hour before wasn’t something a practical person would do. But was she even a person anymore? All she knew was that girl needed someone and it wasn’t her. Unease settled in her. Mackenzie had always followed her gut instincts and she was questioning it. Looking back at the girl, and hearing her tormented cries, Mackenzie knew she had to find Margret to help her. She couldn’t leave her like that without trying to help, no matter how much the two of them clashed.