by KL Mabbs
Faelon woke and stretched out in the way of wolves, her tongue rolling in her mouth. Her belly rumbled. She needed food and the energy. As fast as she healed, the bullets she had received yesterday took power from her. Only a few of the men had shown enough courage to attack her, but she had healed from the intermittent wounds. Though one bullet had stayed lodged in her longer than the rest. She could smell the metal it was made of, lying beside her, where her body had pushed it out.
A foreign object.
If her bitch had housed the Yeii, the way she and her sire did—that was a human regret. But she missed the soft wetness of her bitch’s nose as it pushed at her, caressed her. She put the emotion away. Today she was a wolf. She had other concerns. She was hungry and Michael was still out there.
She stood and shook, a ripple running across her fur. She padded across the cave floor, the debris and brush carted in by countless animals drifting along with her. More had fallen from the roof when the earth had shook last night. An avalanche or rock slide from the noise—more words PAC had supplied.
Outside, the weather had changed, settled from the storm of the previous day. Hunting would be easy today. Snow was piled high, unbroken anywhere near her. The wind blew from the north; had it been blowing from the south she would have known Michael was near her. She loped out into the rocky hills, her nose questing, her ears up, alert for any hint of sound that prey would make. Far in the distance, she could see the mountain that had held her captor’s cave. She would stay wary for helicopters, and men, but she wouldn’t ignore an enemy.
An easy lope ate up three kilometres as she searched for spoor and found it: a deer, born last season.
When she found it, it was dead. The rock that killed it still lodged in its skull.
She looked up. Her hunt had carried her to the cave she had been held at, but now it was a ruin. The back of it had collapsed—the walls near the stairs had fallen and the area was open to the weather. Movement drew her eye. Her paw pads touching the ground quietly, jagged rocks littered the area, making her approach slower than she would have liked. When she was close enough, the motion she had seen—the man that had given her water. Buried in the same padding that had covered the steel bed in her cage. He was bound. Prey only, now.
She growled.
Jared reacted, turned awkwardly to see her. Faelon put her nose to the man. His sweat rose up from his skin. His heart raced, fear seeping from his scent. And under that—Faelon understood now. She put her nose to his bound hands, pried her teeth around his bindings. Jared tried to move, to run, but the shattered wall behind him stopped his movement. She bit down, her teeth and jaws grinding, working on the material. Her strength much more than a normal wolf. A metallic taste coated her tongue. The binding snapped.
That is for your kindness, Jared Oberi, Faelon thought.
Fear had been the stronger smell, but was covered by a scent much like a “gun,” and she could smell Jared’s confusion, and Michael. He was here. Had been. But she searched anyway. Her nose and eyes looking for him in the ruin of the cave but she could only go so far down the stairs before rock stopped her. She followed the scent back up, and near the blood that had marked her own exit from the building, she found his direction before it was lost in the snow. What she found though froze her muscles and raised the hackles on her back. The spirit of the Naklétso was too strong. The scent riding Michael the way it had with her the one time she had given into the rage of the animal.
The throp . . . throp . . . of a helicopter sounded.
Faelon leapt from the fabricated stone all around her and buried herself in the snow, all but her eyes glaring from the natural blind. The copter approached, almost silent, but for the beat of the air under its spinning wings, like the seed of some trees. It landed in a storm of wind, as furious as last night’s but centered in one place. The thrum of its wings slowed and halted. She watched Jared climb from the wreckage. He stopped before climbing into the machine and looked out over the landscape. His eyes seemed to find her, narrowed in to find her own.
She heard him speak then to his rescuers. “I don’t know. There was . . . There was a wolf. Just now. And I . . . a not-cub.”
“What!” A shout over the wind.
“I don’t know,” Jared said. “I can’t remember anything else.”
Faelon ran as soon as the copter left the area. She ran as if her life depended on it. As if Michael’s life was in danger.
She followed his trail, lost it, and found it again, over and over. When she got to the cave that held the strongest spoor, she stopped. A growl erupted from her throat without her volition, instinctively. Those instincts warred with her. She had followed those drives when she had first met Michael and bonded with him—first, briefly, at the trap, and then in his cabin, fully. The same battle had raged in her, making her vulnerable and helpless to find a mate out of season.
To find any mate that would be worthy.
Those intuitions had displayed a new nature to her, told her she was as different as a wolf from a deer, as plants from snow. From human to Naklétso. But they had led her to Michael, to her being human, and now she had to listen to those human perceptions that had been buried for so long.
She stepped into the cave. Her growl rumbled in the confines of stone that held her future. The black wolf was here, but it was only her mate that shifted on the ground, his motion showing him waking from sleep, his eyes adjusting.
Faelon’s confusion grew. She edged closer.
“Faelon?” Michael said.
She sidestepped, searching for the other one. The space was empty. Nobody.
She slipped into her other self, her fur rippling to flesh. Her hair brushing her shoulders, her hands wrapping around dirt from the cave floor. Her hips were high, ears back; she was as ready to flee as she was to attack.
“Michael is not Michael.”
“What? What do you mean?” Michael held his hand up. “You mean this?”
She could see PAC wrapped around it like fur, covering the fingers and wrist. Though not-cub had no smell, nor a life force like her and Michael, she could sense his life. It trembled on the wind, as if he had hunted for days without prey, and now needed the rest.
Michael stared at his hand. “PAC,” he whispered. He flexed his hand, closed it into a fist. Faelon saw a shiver run through him.
“The black wolf.” Her teeth snapped together.
“No,” he said, startled out of his reverie. You healed me!” he said. “The Shaman, White Bear Dying, he took me and . . . .”
She interrupted him, snapping out her words, almost a snarl. “Your scent.” Her outer hairs stood up, as if goose bumps had run through her scalp.
She could see his brow crinkle up in thought, his eyes getting fierce.
“My . . . you mean I smell like . . .”
She could sense his fear, but his body contained it, held it in check. Michael was alpha. Her alpha.
“Yes.”
“You thought I was . . .”
“Naklétso. No choice. No thought. Like black wolf.”
“You mean the rage? Is that why?” He reached out to touch her.
She shivered and backed up, one step. That was all. But it was enough to stop Michael. “The cold doesn’t bother me. I’m hot all the time. And I eat as you do, rabbit fur on the inside, but I have choices. I won’t kill without reason.”
Only Michael knew those thoughts, those ideas. Or not-cub. The Naklétso were savage. Full of rage, always wanting to control. Without her sire she would have succumbed. Faelon settled her instincts with a force of will. Is this what human meant? Would her reason, her instincts, and the Naklétso always run and snap at each other like this? She didn’t know, but she trusted herself. Right now, here. She trusted Michael. The gurgle that was laughter flowed from her throat. Elation ran through her. She dropped herself in Michael’s lap in one smooth motion.
“I almost died from his bites. I remember you standing over me. That’s why you kille
d the soldiers that way. So they wouldn’t come back from death. Wouldn’t bring the Naklétso over with them.” He wrapped his strong arms around her waist.
“Talk in cave, with prey animal. Saliva heal, but not make wolf.”
He remembered something he had asked PAC when this first happened. “What about a compromised system?” Death was a compromised system, wasn’t it? That was twelve days ago, no, thirteen. Was that all? He played his hands over Faelon’s flesh, up her side, to the slim curves of her breasts. They were larger than he remembered. “Faelon you’re . . .”
“. . . cubs, yes. Five.”
“My God.” Faelon watched his eyes grow wide, and his scent changed. His teeth showed. Then he kissed her. Faelon wrapped her arms around her mate.
“How?”
She cocked her head at him. “Mate?”
“No, I mean how long?”
“Three moons.”
He wanted to hide her away in a cave for those three months. That wasn’t possible. Not here, not now. Even if they got away from all this, there was still the matter of who had poisoned him. It wasn’t the military. They had used trancs that worked against PAC. Passive control. Blackwater had, at least. Mercenaries always had a client. Samantha’s soldiers had only done recon. And maybe taken the black wolf. God, what were they going to do with that kind of biology?
“White Bear, he thinks we’re shape shifters. He called us Yeenaaldlooshii. It’s the evil version of a Skinwalker. Someone like you.”
She twisted her head, a look of confusion in her eyes.
“No, I don’t mean you’re evil.”
“What is evil?”
“Against God.”
“I know God.”
His eyebrows rose up.
Faelon knew it as surprise and wiped a hand over his face, smoothing the emotion from his skin.
“How?”
“Feel God in the earth. All over. Mother.” God was another word not-cub had told her about, and once she understood it, she knew the meaning, like all wolves.
“Faelon?” He laughed suddenly. “God, I missed you . . . The blood, you were hurt.”
“A tooth-spitter. Gun. Stupid.”
Michael ran his hands over her body, looking for wounds, knowing he wouldn’t find any, but he looked anyway. He couldn’t help himself. Faelon pushed her skin against his fingers, enhancing their touch. Her muscles twitching against him.
“Foreplay, Michael.”
He laughed again. “Now, Faelon?”
“Better than cheese.” She kissed him, fiercely, her skin flushing hot and warming the air between them.
Her amber-gold eyes fixed on his stone-brown orbs. As strong as the earth, they filled her awareness, taking their bond deeper than it had been. Michael quivered against her. She sighed, and kissed his face, his eyes.
“We have enemies, Faelon. Hillman and Harris. The army, two different factions, and even my father, I think.”
“Sire looks like enemy while he teaches cub to fight.”
“How did . . . ?” She didn’t. Michael understood though, a wolf sire teaches his cubs to fight; he plays the predator for a time to teach lessons. Michael and his father had bonded that way in response to how his mother had died. It had probably saved each of them.
“And White Bear?” Faelon said.
“Yes.”
A roar filled the entrance to the cave, deafening the sensitive ears of both of them, but Faelon was moving already, shifting so fast, enough to be at the entrance of the cave as the bear attacked. She lunged at it, snapping her teeth, closing ivory on soft flesh.
Michael scrambled up.
“PAC, full boost.”
Michael didn’t notice that PAC didn’t respond, and that he failed to feel the boost over his adrenaline surge as he leapt into the fray with his wife, his pistol in hand.
Chapter 43 White Bear Dying
The Yeii called to White Bear. Talked to him about knowledge. Lore he knew and didn’t understand. Not totally. His grandfather had taught him so much. And left out the most important lesson. The cost, to his soul, to his family.
How had grandfather dealt with it?
White Bear knew the answer though. It crawled through his brain like bloodworms, decimating thoughts that didn’t fit. Belief and need grew from what was left over. The Yeii taking over, the pathways growing in response to the old knowledge they imparted. The First Man, Etsáy-Hasteén, and the First Woman, Estsá-assun, had a need to be in the world.
But the cost.
His son had known all the legends of the Diné, the way children did. He played them out in his mind and his actions. He was the great hero of the people.
White Bear hadn’t made the decision to step into the Witchery Way. Not fully. He had teased into the lore of his people. And then the black ash had covered his son’s cheek and the sacrifice had been made.
White Bear attacked. The Skinwalker, Faelon, dodged the swipe of his paw, its jaws snapping on fur only, missing the flesh, but ripping his hide. A snarl erupted from his throat. He dropped to all fours and charged, his claws digging into the earth, throwing up snow and dirt as he roared forward. The wolf dodged, driving her teeth into his shoulder. He shrugged, the ripple of flesh and muscle throwing her to land in the snow and roll away. He lunged, the bulk of his five hundred and fifty kilos falling like a mountain to land on the brindle-coated wolf.
If she had stayed there.
His bulk slammed into the earth and stone. Vibrations ran through the ground.
Then his shoulder exploded. Blood spattered the snow, a red spray turning into separate drops, dotting the landscape like seeds blown to the wind. White Bear bellowed out his pain, and twisted on three feet, looking for the cause. Michael Scott. His gun smoked, and the smell of cordite tainted the air.
White Bear roared, and forced his bulk to move through the receding pain. Agony that would cloud his mind if he let it. He slammed into his enemy, catching his right shoulder rather than his body the way he’d intended, and his teeth snapped at Michael’s head. Missing. He was faster than a human and still changing. Had he killed yet? Was his soul as damaged as White Bear’s own?
He heard a growl, and then his leg snapped, giving out from the brindle-coated wolf digging her fangs into the tendon, trying to cripple him. As he turned to club her, another gunshot went off; he ducked instinctively, uselessly, as the bullet lodged in his side. He dug his claws deep into the earth and pushed his bulk towards Michael and his bullets. His smart bullets. Exploding with more force than normal, damaging his body faster than it could heal on its own. White Bear’s claws raked out into the air and struck, not Michael, but the metal in his hands. The gun flew, struck sparks on the cliff, discharged in a roar, and dropped into the snow, lost in the fine powder of last night’s weather. That gave the bloody wolf time to sink her teeth into the same leg she had attacked moments before. His leg jerked and struck her. A yipe of pain rewarded his reflexive action.
A roar filled the air, the earth vibrated and rumbled as if in a storm. An old saying came to White Bear’s mind: third time’s the charm. He didn’t think the person making that claim had been referring to gunshots and avalanches.
White Bear ran. Eating up ground in huge leaps, pushing himself ten metres for every flex of his giant muscles. His body reaching, straining, covering a hundred metres in what seemed like moments. The edge of the cliff came up fast. He had safety here, from the rumble above, and now space to fight two enemies. Open space fell below his hind legs. Snow piled up in a cascade, burying the cave that Michael and the cursed wolf had been in. This was the season for the mountain to shrug off its winter skin. The snow stopped falling and the earth only quivered now. The mound of snow stopped forty metres away, billowing ice particles into the air and creating an ever-growing fog.
The Skinwalkers approached. Fast. Emerging from the cloud of frozen vapour.
They flared out to each side of him, as if they had fought together before, the communication w
as so perfect. The wolf growled. Her body steeled close to the ground, ready to spring. Michael edged forward, knife in hand. He wore a glove on his right hand. A strange affliction, that. One glove, and his feet bare. He was favouring his right shoulder, so he was hurt, but not for long. Skinwalkers healed fast. His own wounds were closed now, the trail of blood that led here petering out as he had travelled.
They attacked, both at the same time, forcing him to choose. He turned from the knife and drove his claws toward the wolf; she leapt from his path, but fifty of the one hundred twenty-five centimetres of his talons raked across her jaw. He heard the crunch of bone rattle the air. The knife sliced across his shoulder and down his side. Before he could attack, Michael had moved back. White Bear’s sense of fear was strong on the wind, from both of them. But it wasn’t personal, their fear was tainted with concern for each other. White Bear shook himself in confusion, his great coat sliding, rippling, as if a wind had caught it. They did not act like Skinwalkers. He roared. The spirits would take them; it was the Yeii that held these creatures as evil.
They would decide.
White Bear attacked. He lunged forward, blending into the ice and snow that swirled around them, twisting as he brought his huge paw up to slam into Michael, cupping his puny body, directing the force of his inertia so that his enemy flew over his shoulder. Seven metres. The drop over the cliff another fifty. If he bounced right, it would be further.
“Faelon!” The scream for his mate echoed in the snow laden mountains.
Then White Bear shifted his weight, facing the wolf just as she had lunged for his back. His claws pierced her side, one set through her lungs, forcing blood up into her throat, the other paw digging into her flank. His teeth sunk into her leg, crunching down on the bone, shattering it, and he jerked his head and pulled. Her leg separated, her paw dropping to the ground as her yelp split the air with an agonized whine.
He picked her up by the scruff of the neck, like a cub. The walk home would be long, but White Bear needed one more thing from the brindle-coated wolf before she died.
