They walked on into the morning. The late start and extended break in the woods had bought them a few extra hours of energy, though Uriel told them to speak up if they began to fade.
“You’ve been quiet,” Forest commented.
“Thinking things over,” Uriel said. “I’m wondering...first, how Roy and the rest of them made it this far if they were in the same shape as Jezebel. Also...I’ve been thinking about expansion.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well...the woods we’ve been walking in, for instance. From this creek to the nearest highway is twelve miles at the widest point. Were we dressed appropriately for humans, we could have caught a cab and been home weeks ago. It’s not going to get any better. Humans, for their short lifespan, are prolific and productive enough to fill these woods within the next fifty years. Where will we go when they’ve spread across the globe? There’s only so much wilderness, and there are so many of us. We could face another near-extinction, or worse.”
“There’s only one thing worse than near-extinction.”
“Exactly. I’ve ruled my people in a reactionary way from the start. Most alphas do, honestly. Avoid, attack, acquire. That’s how we deal with humans.”
“Didn’t you say there were wolves who lived in the cities?”
“Sure, but in order to do that they’ve had to suppress and mask their wilder sides. Most of us—myself included—couldn’t live that way. Not without losing our sanity, anyways.”
“So wild, free, and extinct...or suppressed, repressed, and alive. Those are your choices?”
“There has to be another option,” Uriel growled in frustration.
“What set you on this thought train anyway?” Forest asked.
Uriel glanced at Forest’s gently swollen abdomen.
“I realized that my future goes beyond my own existence,” he said quietly. “I don’t want our child to grow up without us.”
Forest blushed.
“I’d almost forgotten,” he confessed. “So much has happened, it’s kind of just...hibernating in the back of my mind. I haven’t had a proper freak out about it or anything.”
“Are you planning one?” Uriel asked, amused.
“Are you kidding? Of course I am. As soon as we’re somewhere relatively safe and I know that I’m not going to be gunned down or kidnapped for a reasonable amount of time, I am absolutely going to lose my shit over this. I’m a worrying kind of person, but the one thing I never thought I would have to worry about was getting pregnant.”
“Don’t worry too much,” Uriel told him soothingly. “As soon as we get you back to my people, we’ll have more information. Then you can panic, if there’s reason to.”
“A rational panic attack. That would be a new one.”
Uriel laughed, and Forest grinned. Uriel took a moment to appreciate the way the morning sun illuminated Forest’s shy little smile, the way his eyes sparkled like the ocean over his reddened cheeks. Every time Uriel glanced his way, he was struck by just how beautiful Forest was, gangly limbs and all. It surprised him that Forest wasn’t more experienced in love, but he supposed his natural awkwardness would go a long way toward distancing people. Weak people, he corrected mentally. After the life he’d survived, a little awkwardness couldn’t scare him.
He took Forest’s hand and kissed it. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, and for a moment he forgot how they had been brought together by force. He wanted to believe that he would have chosen Forest no matter the scenario; more, he wanted to believe that Forest would have always chosen him. Unfortunately, there was no way to be certain of either. If the desperation for any kind of connection hadn’t bonded them, the baby would have. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want Forest to feel obligated to stay with him if he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t sort out how to express that without giving the impression that he wanted to be free of Forest.
Which was the last thing he wanted. Forest had given him gifts he couldn’t possibly be aware of. Hope, sanity, an anchor, perspective—everything he’d lost or lacked, Forest had given to him, naturally and freely, just by existing in Uriel’s sphere of awareness. He wanted to tell him that, too...but it would feel like a manipulation at this point. As far as he could tell, Forest hadn’t really chosen yet. He’d promised to stay as long as Uriel didn’t give him a reason to leave. That wasn’t a choice. It was Forest going with the flow, as was his way.
Uriel didn’t broach the subject over the next few days. They slept and hunted as they traveled, falling into a comfortable pattern. Comfortable for everyone but Jezebel. She whined incessantly, trying Uriel’s patience daily. He couldn’t imagine why Animus had chosen her as a subject for study, but he suspected it was partially a ploy to get her to stop talking.
“Hey Jezebel,” he asked one day, when she was being particularly prickly. “Forest was just telling me that he worked for Animus before he was turned. Do you think anyone else was chosen that way?”
“We all were,” she said brightly. “I was Animus’ personal secretary. I handled all of his affairs...oh! Not those kinds of affairs, I mean just his meetings and things, you know. And let’s see... Roy was elephants. I mean he worked with the elephants, he was the keeper. The others did random stuff around here and there, I didn’t really pay attention.”
“You were his secretary? Did you happen to see anything pertinent to the field work program?” Forest asked, his interest piqued.
“Oh, yeah, God I must have printed a billion fliers, and there were all these meetings and agendas and locations and things...”
“Locations,” Forest said quickly. “What locations do you remember?”
“Does it matter?” she huffed.
“Yeah, it matters. What locations do you remember?”
“Oh, I don’t know... there was a group heading south, near the bay. And then one going due north, up into the tundra. And...um...oh! One right near here, actually, by Baneston? Not by it, by it, but in the woods, you know? Um...yeah, maybe twenty miles outside the town.”
Uriel felt the blood drain from his face.
“Jezebel,” he said, harnessing every ounce of patience to control his voice. “I need to know everything you saw about that operation. Even if it didn’t seem to mean anything at the time. Tell me everything.”
“Jeeze, okay. Let’s see. Departure date was in the fall, I think. Yeah, middle of fall. I remember that it was going to be a long post. I had to be sure to order enough self-heating sleeping bags and thermals and stuff. There was a personnel exchange scheduled three months after that.”
“How many?”
“What?”
“How many people were supposed to go on this trip?”
“Eight each time. I remember that specifically, because it’s twice as many as he sent anywhere else, and I thought that was weird because this one is so close to the home office, why would he put eight people on it? It’s not like they’re in any real danger, the town’s right there and they have cell phones and things so it didn’t make any sense.”
“Do you remember anything else at all?”
“Yeah, there was a ton of equipment ordered that I wasn’t allowed to double check. Animus did the ordering and checking himself, which really annoyed me because it’s like what do you even pay me for? Guess he agreed with me, because as soon as the project was set he had me turned.”
“Eight is nothing,” Forest murmured. “You and I could handle them alone.”
“Unless they called in reinforcements after our escape,” Uriel pointed out. “When we get close we’ll scout the situation before we do anything. My concern is that we still haven’t seen Roy. If he took a chance and hit the highway, Animus’ men could be the least of our worries.”
“Fantastic,” Forest groaned.
The closer they drew to Uriel’s old home, the more certain he became that Roy had gone off for human assistance. He stopped sleeping; every time he closed his eyes, the image of the bomb disintegrating his fa
mily rose up in his mind, sending adrenaline coursing through his system. He opted to rest with his eyes open instead, which wasn’t much better. He sensed that Roy had done something terrible, something that would change shifter lives all over the world. He brushed the feeling away, chalking it up to sleep deprivation and paranoia, but he could never fully shake it. Forest noticed, and tried to help, but there was nothing to be done.
On the seventh night after they had changed direction and lost Roy, Uriel called for a halt.
“What is it?” Forest asked.
“Listen,” Uriel told him.
Forest listened for a moment. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. It’s nowhere near time for silence yet. If there are animals here, they’re being quiet. I want to know why before I lead you all any farther.”
“Let me come with you,” Forest said.
“No,” Uriel said. “I won’t be gone long. Stay here with the others, keep quiet, lay low.”
“You’re just going to go alone?”
“Better alone than worried about you and the baby. Sit. Stay.”
“Play dead, roll over,” Forest muttered.
“Yeah, yeah, complain all you like, but you’re staying here. That goes for the rest of you, too. Make yourselves invisible. I’ll be back shortly.” He kissed Forest before disappearing into the silent woods, expressing far more than he’d intended to. He left Forest wringing his hands, suddenly aware that Uriel might not come back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Uriel shifted in the face of unknown dangers and crept through the woods, aware of every unavoidable sound he made. His breath echoed through the trees around him thunderously, and the scrape of his claws on the ground felt sharp in his ears. Slowly, carefully, he tiptoed through the unnatural silence, wishing he could float above the ground as he had in Forest’s dream. Silence deepened, and he could hear his own heartbeat.
A deafening pop followed by blinding light stopped him in his tracks, and he thought for sure his end had come.
“Identify yourself!” a booming voice commanded.
“Who wants to know?”
“We have you surrounded. Identify yourself.”
“Uriel.”
“Pack and tribe designation.”
“What?”
“What is your pack and tribe designation?”
“Alpha. Iterin pack, Astris tribe.”
The lights shut off with a loud snap, and Uriel blinked the bright spots from his vision. Other lights, of a more reasonable brightness, illuminated the near distance, outlining the silhouette of a man in uniform. Uriel rubbed his eyes, willing them to clear enough for him to see properly.
“Sorry about that,” the man said, clasping his wrist in greeting. “We’ve been waiting for you. Follow me, please.”
Uriel frowned and sniffed the air. There were at least a dozen people around, most of them pure human. Why would they be waiting for him, specifically? How could they have known him by name? He cautiously followed the man into a brightly-lit trailer. Guards stood at attention and saluted him as he passed. Uriel had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dead or sleeping; their behavior made no rational sense as far as he could tell, not unless he had been utterly mistaken about the shifter/human relationship.
The inside of the trailer was sparsely furnished. A wide desk sat at one end with a door to a bathroom on the other. Chairs were positioned on both side of the desk, one behind and three in front. The walls were covered with maps, pinned with photographs and articles, crisscrossed by red string. One photo stood out above all the rest. The unmistakable sour face that still haunted his dreams: the infamous Mr. Animus.
The man walked to the desk and took the seat behind it, gesturing for Uriel to take his own seat. He pulled a bottle of liquor from a cabinet by his knee, along with two glasses, one of which he offered to Uriel. Uriel declined; the last thing he wanted right now was a mind-numbing drug.
“Who are you?” Uriel asked.
“My apologies. My name is Jerome Wrigley, Secretary of Interspecies Relations, and, at the moment, acting Ambassador of same.”
Uriel could only blink. He’d spent two hundred years hiding from these people, and this guy was trying to tell him that there was an entire government class devoted to interspecies relations?
“I realize it may come as a shock to you. Care for a drink? No? Alright. Maybe I should rewind a bit, give you some history you might not be aware of. How much do you know about the war of 3032?”
Uriel instantly bristled, growling dangerously.
“I see,” Wrigley said thoughtfully. “You were a teenager then, correct? Old enough to witness the damage, but not quite old enough to grasp the politics that brought our two species to that fateful battlefield.”
“Politics!” Uriel scoffed. “The politics are always the same. Your kind is frightened and fascinated by mine. You have two goals: to tame us or to eliminate us.”
“And you have three,” Wrigley answered. “Avoid. Attack. Acquire.”
The shock of hearing his own words come out of this human’s mouth shook Uriel to his core.
“Where did you hear that?” he demanded.
“It’s common knowledge in my line of work. It’s my job to know all that can be known about you and your kind, specifically your rules for interacting with humans.”
“Why?”
“Back to the war of 3032,” Wrigley said, sidestepping the question. “At that time, shifters had control of this entire continent. Humans had overpopulated their side of the globe and needed to expand. This continent contained vast expanses of wilderness. At least it appeared to be wilderness to the humans who landed here; in reality, the shifter territories were so large that humans could spend days in the woods and never see a single one, only to cross an invisible boundary into a less agreeable pack’s territory. It took a while for humans to realize what they were up against, and by then they had already colonized the eastern coast and were rapidly spreading their civilization westward.”
“This all happened in 3032?” Uriel asked dubiously.
“Oh no, this was years before. About fifty years, if I remember my history correctly. Tensions rose between the shifters and the humans, and though several treaties were struck, they were always violated in short order by one side or the other. Shifters and humans who were unhappy about an arrangement would sabotage it, causing battles to break out with alarming frequency. By 3032, human leaders and alphas alike were tired of the fighting, and had decided to come to a final agreement, even if that meant sending the humans back to where they came from. Now here’s where our history gets a little hazy. Humans don’t have the advantage of looking back into their own memories for the specifics of long-dead battles; we must rely on documents and verbal traditions to remember where we came from.
“What we do know is that the human leaders went to the meeting in good faith. They spend a day and a night with the shifters, discussing options for mutual existence. Legend says an agreement was struck, and the next day was to be one of celebration. On that day, someone—nobody knows who, or why, or even which species they were—dropped a bomb. We suspect the villain was human, since the bomb was made from the waste from our own technology, and shifters aren’t known for their willingness to fly.”
“Of course it was a human,” Uriel said heatedly. “Shifters would never commit genocide against themselves.”
“Wouldn’t they?” Wrigley asked with a raised brow. “Seems to me you’ve built your reputation on your willingness to slaughter your own as it suits you.”
“Execute,” Uriel corrected sharply. “A punishment reserved for the worst offenders.”
“I see,” Wrigley said knowingly. “Maybe our species aren’t so different after all.”
“Why am I here?” Uriel asked impatiently.
“Right, back to the history then. After that unfortunate incident, humans and shifters alike were scrambling to regain order. A new government was implement
ed, along with a new set of laws. The northern woods and parts of the southern and western wildernesses would be designated off-limits. A reservation act, if you will. All mention of shifters was stricken from common knowledge. We allowed the stories to fade into rumors, then legends. Only those within the highest circles of government were to know that shifters existed at all. We were to maintain a hands-off policy until the shifters decided to establish relations, if they ever did. Since your generations outlast ours by centuries, we assumed it would take your society longer to heal from the devastation; as such, you would be the instigators of any new relationship.”
“Surprisingly wise,” Uriel said wryly. “But you still haven’t told me why I’m here. Or rather, why you’re here, since by your own admission these woods belong to me.”
“Right. Getting to that. There was one exception to our hands-off rule. If we discovered that some human organization had discovered shifters and was interfering with them, we were to intervene swiftly. That is why we’re here. We received a call three months ago from a wildlife biologist who claimed that the facility he worked for was having him stalk impossible creatures. He suspected illegal bio-engineering. We sent a team to investigate immediately, and they never returned. We sent another, larger, fully weaponized team. They also did not return. After that, it became a fully militarized operation; but by the time we got here, there was nothing left of the biologist’s team or either of ours. We had no evidence, nothing to go on except what the shifters were willing to tell us.”
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