Pack Obsidian Gold

by C. M. Stunich

  Her smile was a slice of wicked as she pushed through the door and started off across the wet, snow spotted field outside the house. She moved leisurely, as if she had nothing to do instead of everything to do, all at once. Run a kingdom, seek out a traitor, care for the wounded.

  Nikolina Castille was a true queen.

  I wanted to emulate everything about her except for her cruelty.

  For a moment, I just sat there and let the sunlight stream in, grateful that in this instant, everything was okay. In this instant, my men were still alive, I was still here, and a small portion of my missing pack members were no longer suffering.

  But in instant, everything can change.

  In an instant, the whole world can fall apart.

  I felt the spike of fear and pain through our pack connection.

  Nic.

  I was off the stool and up the stairs in seconds, standing over the bed in another tick of the clock's fragile hand, and then I was just fucking staring at him as he thrashed in the sheets and blankets, caught in the middle of a nightmare. He must've fallen back asleep after his coffee comments.

  “Hey!” Che snapped, grabbing onto Nic's shoulders and pinning him to the bed. The larger boy straddled Nic's waist, using one hand to tear the covers from his face and the other to secure his wrists to the mattress. As soon as he blinked his eyes open, I knew what Nic was dreaming about.

  He was dreaming about dying.

  About coming back to life.

  About the impossible.

  Majka used to say, 'the only surety in life is death.' As a werewolf, as a creature of the earth, I wasn't sure if I was comforted that there were no longer any sureties … or terrified that the one hard and fast rule of the universe was now broken, shattered into pieces.

  I could see those pieces, those ruined bits, floating through the eyes of my lover as he first gazed up at Che, and then over at me.

  “Zara,” Nic said, his dark eyes hooded with purple circles, his skin sallow and pale. I crawled onto the bed next to him as Che released his wrists, pulling Nic's hand to my mouth and pressing my lips to his knuckles.

  A few seconds later, Silas stumbled into the room, eyes wide and panting. He must've felt that awful surge, too, just like I had. Our pack connection … it was getting stronger.

  “Now are you going to tell us what happened last night?” Che asked, breathing hard, shirtless and beautiful from his position on top of Nic. He rolled off and sat next to him, knees tucked up, face hard. Che Nocturne might not have been a part of what happened with the … stag or forest spirit or whatever the fuck it was, but he knew. He knew about that broken promise between life and death and it was scaring the shit out of him.

  “I died,” Nic said, sitting up and letting me lean into him, wrap my body around his and comfort him with the touch of pack. “I fucking … I was dead. I felt my body give up, my spirit flee.” He rubbed his palms over his face, still shaking, sweat dripping down the sides of his. “I don't understand.”

  “Maybe it was a near-death experience?” Anubis said, sitting on his knees near the end of the bed, his navy blue hair even more mussed and tangled than usual. He cocked his head at us, like maybe that would give him a different perspective on the matter. But his eyes … they were dark with the truth. He was trying to be scholarly about it, but in our hearts, we all knew.

  Nic had died and come back to life.

  “No,” Nic replied, running his fingers through his dark red hair. “There was nothing near about it. I felt myself pulling away from my body, but when I reached out and tried to grab it, my fingers felt slippery.” He closed his eyes, a shudder passing through him. “I knew I'd never see Zara again. I …” Nic exhaled and shook his head, pulling away from me and crawling off the end of the bed. He was naked, but he was certainly not aroused. “I need to go for a run.”

  “You want some company?” I asked, feeling this knot of worry inside my gut. This wasn't something Nic was simply going to be able to run off. He lifted his wrist up and stared at the black and green rose tattoo for a moment.

  “No company,” Nic said in a low whisper, lifting his head to look at me. He tried to soften the words with a smile, but it was hard to believe the expression when it didn't reach his eyes. Sweat dripped down the sides of his face as he dropped his arm to his side. “I'll be okay. I just … I want to run and I don't want to think.”

  “Okay,” I said, even though my heart ached to go with him. If he wanted a moment alone, then he deserved to have it. “Don't stay gone too long though.”

  “Why? You'll miss me too much?” he teased, but that special brand of humor was missing. Fuck. Poor Nic.

  “I don't feel complete without you on my left side,” I said, tapping my shoulder and giving him a smile in return, one that I hoped conveyed even a fraction of the love I felt in my heart for Nicoli Hallett. “I'm on my way to see Majka, but after … we have a few messes to sort out.”

  “I wouldn't miss it for the world, Alpha,” Nic said, giving an exaggerated bow before turning and padding out of the room, past Silas and down the stairs. I could feel him shift before he even reached the open front door, nails clicking across the wood floors of the cabin.

  “We need to know what happened last night,” Montgomery began as I looked up and met the brilliant green of his eyes. His white hair had come undone from his braid during the night, loose strands sticking out at random angles. It was nice seeing him like that, not quite so put together. He was as fallible as I was—we all were. Prone to mistakes. Human even at the same time we weren't.

  “I know,” I said, licking my lower lip and glancing to the right, toward the open window and the icy drops of rain that were beginning to fall. I could see Nic's auburn form darting across the grass towards the woods. With a small sigh, I looked back at the boys and lifted up my wrist. They'd seen it in the shower last night, but I hadn't explained where it'd come from.

  Hell, even I didn't really know the answer to that.

  “If it's too painful …” Tidus began, but I shook my head, shifting my attention over to him and his beautiful storm gray eyes, the tousled blonde of his hair. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to just drop everything and drive the two hours to the coast, put on a wetsuit and learn to surf with Tidus Hahn.

  But that seemed like a far away, almost impossible sort of dream.

  And a remarkably selfish one.

  I was the alpha-heir and my people were suffering.

  “No, it's alright. You guys need to know what happened. I have a strange feeling about it, like it ties into something bigger.” With another deep breath and a quick look around the room, making sure I met the eyes of all six men left in there with me, I started the story. I began with Nic bleeding out on the dirt floor of the dark warehouse, to the explosion of our magic that sent us flying through the yard, and ending with the death of the white stag and his ultimate gift.

  'Hush, my sweet child. Hush and don't cry.'

  The forest spirit—because that's what I was assuming it was, a nature spirit of some kind—had spoken to me with a certain level of care and reverence. Was that simply the way it spoke? Was it because I was werewolf? Or because I was alpha?

  “The Forest Spirit,” Anubis said, repeating the title I'd given the stag. “Mother earth's messenger.” With a groan, he pushed himself off the bed and padded naked to the dresser, taking a pair of folded pajama pants out and slipping them over the bronzed perfection of his ass. They were patterned with colorful Japanese anime characters, and I knew right away that he'd unpacked them from one of his boxes and stored them in the drawer. I couldn't imagine any of the other boys wearing anything like that.

  It made me want to get to know Anubis Rothburg better.

  “What does Mother Earth's messenger want with us?” Che asked, his voice low and quiet, made of shadows and silk. Today, he wasn't mocking or sarcastic. No, there was a humility to his voice that wasn't there before.

  “I have no idea,” I sa
id, looking over at Jax and meeting his ice-blue stare. “But I intend to find out.”

  Majka was waiting for me in the field of wildflowers behind the big house, dressed in a black gown trimmed with white fur, her brilliant red hair coiffed and tidy, her ebon dark eyes focused on the wet limbs of the trees. Now that it'd started raining, most of the snow was gone, the water clearing away the last traces of winter and making room for spring.

  Finally.

  Poor Mr. Heath would've loved to see how brilliant the bright blooms beneath my feet were. Thanks to his teaching, I easily picked out several species and named them aloud.

  “Cape Jewelweed,” I said, pausing to point out the orange bell-shaped blossom near my bare toes. I'd dressed in one of my Pairing gowns, but had neglected to put on any shoes. Majka did not approve of footwear of any kind—with the exception of her lambskin house slippers, but only, and I quote, because my bones are old as sin, Zara Wolf. “And these are deer orchids,” I continued, gesturing at a beautiful purple flower shaped like a wolf's gaping maw.

  “The names humans give to flowers are of no use to me,” my grandmother said, her voice clear and strong despite the droplets of rain spattering her wrinkled face. “The orange one there can be crushed and rubbed into the skin to fight off the itching from poison ivy. As far as the purple ones, you can dig up the bulbs and eat them raw or boiled. Also works as a treatment for mild epilepsy.”

  My grandmother cast her gaze over to me and I raised my eyebrows.

  Wow.

  That was impressive.

  And far more useful than simply knowing the proper Latin names for the beautiful blossoms.

  “I hear you've made your mother proud,” Majka continued, turning to look at me, her black dress billowing in the same breeze as my own. I looked so much like her in human form, like a younger clone. But not in wolf form. Nothing at all like anyone else in my family in wolf form. Why? It was a question I'd wanted to ask for years, but one that I was almost afraid to hear the answer to.

  “Yes, Alpha-Majka,” I said respectfully, my own red hair loose and tangling in the wild wind. We wouldn't speak of the specifics, not out here when anyone could be listening in, but I knew from her facial expression that my mother had told her everything. I had said she could trust her.

  “Glad to see my line isn't a complete and total failure,” she continued, gesturing me forward with a single crook of her finger.

  I walked through the tall, wet grass, flowers clinging to the wolf fur on the bottom of my dress. This was a relic from before Majka's time, when one of our older ancestors had taken down an entire wild wolf pack for their Hunt. The thought made me uncomfortable. Just as I wouldn't hunt down a group of backpackers in the national forest, I also wouldn't feel comfortable hunting wolves either.

  But still, the dress was an antique and wearing it wouldn't bring the dead wolves back to life. Hiding history, erasing it from existence, that only gave cause for it to repeat itself. Just because something awful happened once upon a time, burying one's head in the sand or erasing it from the view of others didn't wipe away that sin.

  “What do you want me to teach you, Alpha Heir?” she asked as I moved toward her and offered up my wrist. I hadn't shown it to Nikolina this morning, and I wasn't sure why. As soon as I showed Majka though, I saw her red brows go up, her lips pinch into a tight flat line.

  “What is this?” she hissed, reaching out and taking my hand, studying the black mark, turning it this way and that, making it gleam emerald in the weak gray light from above. It wasn't exactly the prettiest day outside. “Where did this come from?”

  My grandmother, the previous Alpha Female of Pack Ebon Red, lifted her gaze to me and in it … there was a strange mixture of fear and … excitement.

  “Last night,” I began, but she waved away my words. I knew I couldn't tell her the truth of what happened, not out here.

  “You'll invite me for tea later,” she said and I felt my stomach clench nervously. “Introduce me properly to these males of yours.” She turned away but not before I saw a strange, satisfied smirk etch her mouth. “Come with me, Zara Wolf.”

  Majka started toward the dark line of trees ahead of us, moving underneath their thick canopy and out of the rain. I trailed behind her, patient but curious. I had no idea where we were going, and no idea what to expect from these lessons I'd asked for. I knew, too, that I'd need to take another look at the book my grandmother had given me, find some way to translate it or at least understand why I'd been given it in the first place.

  My grandmother didn't do anything in half-measures.

  “Don't dawdle, keep up,” she snapped, waving her hand at me.

  I sped up, making sure to stay close on Majka's heels.

  We walked for quite some time, much longer than I expected. It was hard to keep my calm, taking a quiet forest stroll when I knew my people were being treated for physical and emotional wounds that were almost beyond my comprehension. I couldn't imagine what had happened to them while in captivity—torture, starvation, rape. I just didn't know, and I wouldn't until I had a chance to talk with some of them and see how they were doing.

  Just before leaving the Pairing House, I'd sent four of the boys to pick up Harlem and Aeron from the hotel where we'd left them last night. And Whitney? I could only imagine the chaos that'd ensued when she'd gone back to the Coven with her broken Maidenhood.

  But Majka would not be rushed.

  Several miles into the forest and I was wondering why we had yet to shift; I also knew better than to ask.

  At the edge of a particularly thick copse of trees, I paused, sensing a shift in the air.

  Magic.

  At this point, I knew exactly what it was that I was feeling.

  “Majka,” I began, but my grandmother was already stepping between two of the thick, dense trunks and disappearing into the shadows. The power in this part of the woods caressed my skin like a spring breeze, the scent and feel of it too similar to the magic I created with the boys for me to be afraid. It was neither good nor evil, just a natural part of the wood. It could be used by anyone for either purpose.

  Taking a deep breath, I straightened my spine and stepped into the shadows.

  The air was cool and moist, scented with the pungent loamy odor of wet earth and decaying leaves. As I entered the darkness, my eyes adjusted to the change in light and I found my grandmother kneeling next to the still surface of a pond.

  “Come here, Alpha-Ki,” she said, swirling her fingers through the cool waters.

  I did as she asked, kneeling down beside her, my eyes darting around the strange copse. This was no ordinary bit of forest, that much I knew for sure.

  “Karma,” my grandmother said, and it took me a moment to realize she wasn't just speaking the word. She was calling out someone's name.

  A shiver overtook me as the water in the pool rippled, pale fingers curling around the wood at the end of a small, old dock.

  Something was coming.

  It took everything I had in me to sit still and wait. Majka wouldn't lead me somewhere that would get me killed, and I knew for a fact that we were still on pack land. Whatever this was that was making its way out of the water, it would be of no danger to me.

  Blue nails dug into the wood, and a thin, pale body followed after, a girl with hair as red as my own and eyes as dark as the endless depths of the sea. She dragged herself onto the dock in a torn and tattered dress with shredded lace and pearl buttons. It must've been very pretty, once upon a time. Even in her tattered state of disheveled deshabille, she was a beautiful mess.

  “Karma,” Majka said as the girl stared up at us, her long red hair tangled in front of her round face, her lips blue with the cold, the side of her neck disturbingly still. She was not breathing; her heart was not beating.

  She was dead.

  My stomach twisted and I felt this icy, primal fear sweep over me.

  That last frontier … death … it was starting to feel less and less
final. And although part of me—the most, basic primal part—felt a certain sense of relief that I wasn't simply going to blink out and disappear into the endless void of space, I think I was also in shock. Death was supposed to offer some sort of peace, right? Rebirth into a new life.

  Not … whatever it was that this girl was suffering.

  Dead and still in pain, still trapped.

  “Alpha-Red,” the girl croaked, in a voice of shadows and deeps, wetness and endless cold. She cracked a smile with her blue lips that teased my flesh into goose bumps. The wolf in me wanted to run as far away as I could get, close my eyes against this blip in the natural order. But the human side of me ached for her. “Alpha-Heir,” she breathed, coughing up water as she sat back on her bare heels. “You seem a little different from the last time I saw you,” she added and I noticed Majka smiling.

  “I am not Alpha-Red anymore and this, this is not Nikolina. This is my granddaughter, Zara.”

  “You have a granddaughter?” the girl asked, studying me with a keen eye as she yawned and plucked a bit of kelp from her tongue. “Oh, I must've slept for a long, long time. How many years has it been then?”

  “At least thirty,” my grandmother said, folding her legs and putting her wrinkled hands on her knees. “The last time I came to see you, you were fast asleep and I didn't want to wake you.”

  “I dreamt my whole life from my start to finish,” the girl said with a long, almost wistful sigh. “Almost twice over. It's a blessing you woke me though. I quite like the beginning; it's the end that I don't enjoy so much.” She held a pale hand up to her throat, drawing my attention to the bruises on her neck. Her eyes were dark and far away. “The strangling, the drowning … the dying.”

  “I need the pearl,” Alpha-Makja told the pretty little dead girl as I sat there in the shadows of trees, glancing up at the thick, heavy canopy, so full and tangled that I could no longer see the sky. I dropped my gaze down in time to meet the girl's.

  “The pearl,” she said, tapping her fingers against the buttons on her dress. At first, I assumed that's what they were taking about, the peal buttons. “For your granddaughter?”