by Rose, Aubrey
The examination went quickly, although Damien did have to ask Jordan more than once to stop giving him compliments on each body part he examined. True to his word, when they headed out afterward to the local bar, Damien offered to buy the first round. Jordan carried their beers back to a booth where it was unlikely anyone would overhear their conversation. Damien adjusted the dark glasses over his eyes. They itched the bridge of his nose, and he'd grown accustomed to not wearing them around the house. In public, though, his scars might attract attention, and he had no idea how to control the glow coming from his eyes. It had never been an issue before.
Damien sighed and drank a gulp of cold beer. The brew was mildly tart, acidic, and very hoppy. Damien's nose twitched at the citrus scent but the liquid went down smooth and cool against his throat.
"How's Mara doing?" Damien asked. "I haven't seen much of her."
"She's still smelling her way around," Jordan said. "Kyle and Katherine have been making friends with her, but she's a bit standoffish. Condescending, if I could be so blunt. I get the sense she's not sure if she wants to stay in the pack."
"She can leave if she wants to," Damien said. "It's not as though we have a mate for her here. Just as long as I know she won't be spreading word about Julia anywhere."
"You spared her life," Jordan said, his drink clinking on the hard top of the table. "I don't think she's one to forget a debt she owes. By tradition, she's yours to do with as you please."
"Tradition be damned," Damien said. "I won't have someone in my pack who doesn't want to be part of it. It's just Julia I'm worried about."
"Mara will come around," Jordan said. "We might need to find a mate for her, but she'll come around."
"Agreed. How has she not fallen in love with you yet?" Damien asked, smiling. "Have you grown that much uglier since I lost my sight?"
"I'm hideously ugly," Jordan agreed, sipping his beer. "It's the beard that did it. Besides, I'm saving myself for you."
"Ah, yes, almost forgot about that. That's the only reason you're here."
"You know it," Jordan said. "That, and this pack makes me feel better about being so ugly. At least I'm not crippled."
Damien let out a burst of laughter, almost spitting his beer out onto the table.
"So you'd rather Mara leave? Being as she's the only other shifter who is whole, body and mind?"
"Body, she's whole," Jordan said. "That girl has muscles on her muscles."
"I think you're just saying that because you fought her to a standstill," Damien said, but Jordan was still off in thought about the girl wolf who had just recently joined them.
"Her body ... her physical body will be fine. Her mind, I'm not sure about. The other pack did a number on her."
"She'll get better," Damien said, the thoughts of Trax and his gang flitting a dark memory across his mind. "And then the two of you will plan a takeover of the pack."
"I'm sure she will," Jordan said, cracking his knuckles in precise staccato succession. "But if I wanted to take over the pack, I would have already. You're no match at all for my cunning wit and dexterity."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Damien said.
"Anytime," Jordan said. "You know I'd follow you anywhere. To the ends of the earth and back."
"You don't have to follow me around to the ends of the earth." Damien raised his glass. "At least not anymore."
"Let's drink to that, then," Jordan said.
"To finding a home at last for our ugly, crippled pack," Damien said, raising his glass.
"May we grow in number and loyalty," Jordan said, clinking his beer mug against Damien's. Damien drank deep, the cold liquid giving way to foam as he finished his drink. He licked his lips.
"Isn't it strength?" he asked.
"Hmm?" Jordan was still finishing his beer.
"May we grow in number and strength? That's a scripture verse, isn't it?"
"Yes, you're right," Jordan said. He took the last sip of his beer and set the glass down slowly, so that Damien could barely hear the faint clink. "But I happen to think that loyalty is better."
CHAPTER THREE
Julia
Julia gritted her teeth, her eyes closed, trying as hard as she possibly could to shift into wolf form.
"Feel the power run through you," Granny Dee said, her hands on Julia's shoulders. "Your body is not just a body. It is a part of the universe, and you have the power to change that part of the universe. Don't think of anything but that power."
Julia let her mind run blank. There was no power within her that she could sense, nothing at all. She thought of Damien, of how he had looked at her after they last made love.
No. No thoughts. Back to the blankness.
Julia chided herself for being so mentally weak. She'd thought that shifting would be easy, once she knew how it was done. But Dee's instructions had run from the most basic—just imagine you're already a wolf—to the complex—take two deep breaths and loosen the tension between the ribs in your chest to let your skeleton slide into its other form. Finally Dee, exasperated, had thrown up her hands. "It's not something that can be taught!" she said. "You have to feel it."
Julia didn't feel it. If she felt anything, it was a bitter disappointment that her grandmother, whom she had looked up to all of these years, would turn out to be helpless in the face of this problem. Dee had always been able to fix anything, whether it was a scraped knee when Julia fell over a log or a homework problem she was struggling with. Now, though, there was nothing she could do to help Julia, and it frustrated Julia more than anything.
"I don't think this is going to work," Julia said, letting her shoulders relax. "I don't feel anything at all."
"No worries," Dee said, her go-to phrase for when anything wrong happened. "We'll figure it out. Keep working at it."
"Sure," Julia said, although she wasn't sure what she was supposed to keep working at. Nothing they had tried had shown even the glimmer of helping her shift.
"Child, come here," Dee said. She sat down on the couch and Julia sat down next to her. Dee hugged her close, and Julia let her cheek press against Dee's wrinkled face. Her skin was thin as birchbark, and just as spotted, but cool to the touch.
"Julia, dear," Dee said. "This isn't just about shifting, is it?"
Tears leaped into Julia's eyes, and she was helpless to stop them from running down her cheeks. Her face turned hot as she hastily wiped the tears from her face.
"It's just ... it's Damien," Julia said.
"Do you want to start a family with him soon?" Dee asked.
Julia nodded, her voice too uncertain to rely on.
"Child." Dee's voice was strict, now, and Julia looked up into eyes that pierced her to the soul. Ever since Dee had shifted back into wolf form to fight Trax's pack of scouts, she'd started to glow from her eyes when she turned emotional, just as Damien did. It scared Julia, to think that someone she thought she knew had an entirely different side to her.
"Yes?" Julia said.
"You have your schooling. That's something you've always wanted."
"Yes," Julia whispered.
"And do you want a family now?"
"I never did!" Julia cried. "I never did, but now I do. I'm looking forward to college; I'm sure it'll be wonderful, but ... " She waved her hand in the air helplessly.
"But this is an ache in you," Dee finished.
"Yes," Julia said, "It's important, and so is school. I can do both." She realized that she was sitting up straight in her chair, every muscle tensed. She'd dreamed about going to college for so long that it didn't seem right to let family become the overriding factor in her life. But now that she'd met Damien, she understood what it was to want a family—not just to want this as an intellectual desire, but to long for a child that was both of theirs and to feel that longing in her entire body. She didn't know how that fit into her plans for attending college, but she knew that she wasn't ready to give up her old dream for the sake of her new one.
"You said that I was h
ypnotized," Julia said.
Dee brushed her long white hair back and knotted it at the base of her neck.
"That was a long time ago," she said.
"Would the werewitch know?"
"You don't want to go back there," Dee said. Her eyes glowed white at the edges of the irises as she spoke. "It's dangerous."
"But if it's the only way to find out how I can shift—"
"It's not, my dear," Dee said. "And even if you did go back, there's no guarantee the werewitch would still be there."
"She is."
Julia and Dee both turned to the source of the voice in the doorway. Mara stood there, arms crossed. Her dark hair, almost purple in its darkness, hung loosely over her muscled shoulders. A thin white tank top clung to her body, curving around her chest and showing off her toned arms to the greatest extent.
"There's no need to interrupt our conversation," Dee said, her voice icy. "I would have stopped talking if I'd known you would intrude."
"I'm just trying to help," Mara said. "If you'd rather I not—"
"The werewitch is there?" Julia asked, a note of desperation stretching out of her stomach and into her voice. "Where?"
"Where she's lived for ages, before even this old one was a pup," Mara said, tensing her muscles as she looked at Dee.
"Which old one?" Dee said, the white lines of her eyebrows lifting only slightly. "You mean your pack elder? I'd be careful speaking so carelessly if I were you."
"Is this your pack?" Mara's mouth twisted upward into a barely-veiled sneer. "I thought you were all just a bunch of wolves thrown together."
"Wolves thrown together can form the strongest pack," Dee said.
"Oh? How does that work?" Mara said, cocking her head as though she was speaking to a pup.
"Have you never seen a beaver's dam?" Granny Dee said. "Or a nest in the hook of a pine branch? The twigs that snag in each other's bends, those are the ones which truly hold fast."
"I wasn't informed that we were in the business of building nests," Mara said, obvious contempt dribbling from her words. "I was part of a pack that ran smooth as metal. We fight. We win."
"That is a sweet sentiment, my dear," Dee said. "Except the last time, you lost."
Mara winced, and underneath her cool exterior Julia saw a flash of pain, true pain. Was she so committed to her previous pack? They had treated Julia like an object. She couldn't imagine that Mara had been treated much differently.
"I did not lose," Mara said, but her voice had lost much of its sharp edge. "Trax lost."
"True," Dee said. "A pack is only as strong as its leader."
"We say that the pack is as strong as its weakest pup."
"That seems to place a lot of pressure on a pup," Dee said. She glossed over Mara's use of the word we, but Julia saw her eyes track Mara's lips when she spoke about her previous pack. Mara noticed it too.
"Trax's pack was all strong," Mara said.
"Because you abandon wolves when they are weak. Or is that not what happened with Kyle when he was young?"
"There's no other way!" Mara said. Her eyes darted from Julia to Dee, as though she was a cornered animal seeking an exit. "If you're weak, you risk the pack."
"Those who would turn their back on a helpless pup—"
"Don't quote scripture to me, old woman!" Mara cried. Her hands trembled in fists at her sides. "I'm sure that's what your pack uses to justify creeping around like mole rats under the earth, hoping to stay out of sight. Weakness, not strength. Hiding, not fighting."
"It isn't my pack," Dee said quietly. "It's Damien's."
"A blind wolf! Ha!"
Julia seethed. How dare Mara speak about Damien like that? He had saved her from Trax's brutal pack. He had spared her life where anyone would have simply killed her.
"And you," Dee said, continuing as though Mara had not spoken, "you don't understand strength."
"If you weren't so old, I would consider that a challenge."
"Find me in wolf form sometime and we'll see how much of a challenge you can stand," Dee said. She took Julia's hand. "Let's go, dear."
No! Julia wanted to cry out. What about the werewitch? She needed to know more about where the woman lived, how Julia could reach her. But Dee was already moving her away to the door and Julia could tell that one moment more would see the two of them at each other's throats.
"I guess as old as you are, you've forgotten how to fight," Mara said, taunting her.
Dee turned around at the doorway, her eyes glowing white around the edges of her irises.
"Better than forgetting what it is I'm supposed to be fighting for."
CHAPTER FOUR
Damien
Damien walked down the back porch of Julia's house, across the meadow, and to the edge of the forest where the soft grasses underfoot turned into crackling pine needles. He stepped carefully. Normally in human form he carried a wood cane to guide him, but he would have no use for the cane where he was going. He wore few clothes, for the same reason.
He stopped at the edge of the woods, just inside the treeline. Stretching his arms over his head, he breathed in. The pine smell was overwhelming in the air, and the birds calling back and forth seemed the only creatures alive in the forest. Damien pulled off his clothes easily and began to shift.
Although sometimes he was forced to shift rapidly, as for a fight, Damien preferred to take his time changing from human form into wolf form. The stretching of skin, the cracking of the joints—these changes made him feel alive, and he loved to pay close attention to the shift. First the bones in the ribs, turning and knitting themselves more tightly. The muscles of the legs stretched here, and here they contracted, and the joint of the knee switched and bent. He let his wolf form take over slowly, slowly. The fur, sprouting between his fingers. His fingers shrinking, his nails becoming claws. Then his snout pushed out his face, and this was the part where he felt most alive.
He breathed in, fully a wolf now, and the world came into focus around him.
The resin from the pines differed from one tree to the next, so strongly that he could pick out the trunks of each one around him. The earth smelled of wildness and animals, and here was the trace of a fox who'd been chasing rabbits in the meadow. Underground he could smell the rabbits' den, the tunnels stretching out beneath the forest floor. Nearby a deer must have died; the scent of rot was carried on the wind. And farther on, faintly, his pack—he could make out the distinct scents of each of them, their trails from days previous and also from that day. He would track them. He would follow them.
He walked to find Jordan's trail and held to it fast. Once he was certain he knew the way, he began to trot, then to run. The inner parts of this forest were familiar to him by now, although he always feared a downed tree when he was running—the scent of the broken wood might not reach him before he met the obstacle. As he ran through the forest, he picked up speed and certainty. The wind shifted and he was able now to make out all of the things in his path before he came to them. And the scent of the wolves grew stronger and stronger, until they were just over a hillside. At the crest of it he howled in joy and heard the rest of his pack call back. All except Mara. Her scent was strange to him, new and not yet so familiar that he could track her without effort. As he came into sight of the rest of the pack, he could hear Jordan bark in recognition. They were running, they kept running, and Damien joined them, falling into easy step with Jordan.
Now they ran at full speed, indulging their need for exercise and loving the brisk air on their backs. Kyle and Katherine tousled, losing ground and being left behind. Damien smiled inwardly—the two were inseparable, and he was glad that Katherine had been able to find someone else after he'd found his Julia. Then Jordan nipped at his ear and he nipped back, playfully tumbling over each other now that they had reached the edge of their territory.
"Farther?" Mara stopped and looked back at them expectantly.
Damien shook his head just before hearing Jordan prepare to lea
p, claws digging into the ground. He rolled down and out of the way, and Jordan tumbled over him and into Mara, knocking her to the ground. She yipped at him and leapt over his back as Damien feinted a snap towards his haunches. Kyle and Katherine bounded into the clearing, and soon they were all five of them at play like a litter of pups, bowling into each other in rowdy leaps and nipping each other's heels and tails.
It was nice to see his pack so active, having fun for once. They'd traveled for almost two years before finding this place, and now that they were settling in, they were able to relax their guard just a bit. Kyle and Katherine were still building out their cabin in the woods behind Julia's house, and Jordan was almost done with his shelter, a small den that was built into the crack between two boulders and topped with a moss roof. Mara—well, Damien didn't know yet what to do with Mara.
During play, she seemed at times to be too invested in fighting. One of her snaps came so close to Damien's ear that he could feel the air moving his fur as her teeth came together next to his head. When she shoved against him, she shoved hard, as though she were trying to push him over. Once when that happened, Damien heard her weight shift just beforehand and was able to roll back on his haunches. Mara fell forward past him, her claws scrabbling at the pine needles, trying to find purchase. She snarled then, a real snarl.
"Easy there." Damien thought it wise to break up the play fight before anything too serious happened. Mara had probably gotten carried away, that's all. Jordan noticed immediately, but Kyle and Katherine were too busy romping flirtatiously to care.
"You coming?" Jordan said, nudging Damien's shoulder back toward the house. Damien paused, trying to decide whether or not to confront Mara, then decided against it. Best to talk with her privately, save her from some embarrassment in front of the other members of the pack. Her scent was aggressive, but that might just be the play fighting that brought it out in her.
"Yeah," Damien said, and followed behind Jordan. He could almost feel Mara's gaze on him as they left the clearing and bounded away toward Julia's house.
