by Noelle N
I was Luna but I was, at the very essence of it, human; and so, after the normal service ended, Adrian motioned me aside and told me that I could easily sit out for the next half of the funeral.
"We're going to be shifting," he explained quietly, his voice painfully flat like he was trying his best to keep the emotions at bay. "Paying our respects to Spike in wolf form but if you want, you can stay – "
"No, it's alright," I assured him, still sniffling and dragging the sleeve of my jumper across my nose, which was disgusting but I hardly cared because Spike was dead. "I'll just be over there." I pointed to the back of the courtyard, where Dimitri was watching the proceedings with an overall air of boredom like this was something he literally saw everyday. Adrian reluctantly nodded and I reached forward to give him a quick pat on the shoulder. "Take care of him, please," I added, jerking my head subtly at Jed, who was still staring unseeingly at Spike's body. "And take care of yourself. I'll be right there if you need anything."
"Thanks, Luna," returned Adrian, a tinge of gratitude seeping into his voice as he quirked the faintest of smiles at me and stepped away.
Before turning to leave, I took a few steps closer until I was next to Jed and reached down to give his fingers a fleeting squeeze. They were frigid cold, I realised, and he didn't squeeze back. In fact, there was not a single glimpse of emotion from him, save for the way the muscle along his jaw ticked as he clenched his jaw even tighter, and I quickly pulled my hand away and headed off.
Dimitri was yawning openly when I came up, dragging a hand through the stubborn locks of his hair and flipping a switchblade in his other hand. I didn't know how he got it, but so long as he didn't stab me, or anyone with it, I figured he could have it. Besides, who was I to argue when I had two knives with me whenever Jed wasn't around, one of which was silver and hanging around my neck?
"If you're going to be snivelling the rest of the service, sit over there," he muttered to me in disgust, pointing to the other end of the low-rise wall he was sitting on, before sneering at the weeping Lorraine, who was standing near the front by Spike's casket. "It's terrible enough to have to hear that woman wailing like a cat in heat. You could wake the dead with that amount of noise. Maybe that's what she's trying to do for her mate," he added dryly.
It was a good thing that Dimitri was far away enough and spoke quietly enough for no one else but me to hear. Too drained to argue, I simply placed my palms flat on the wall and pushed myself up on it. But it was higher than I expected and I fumbled midway through, only to have Dimitri unexpectedly grip me firmly by the elbow and haul me up.
"Thanks," I murmured, once I'd settled down beside him and heard him make a dismissive noise in return. By then, most of the members in the pack had already shifted and as sad as the overall atmosphere was, I couldn't help but feel fascinated by the way everyone looked.
All wolves, a perfect synchrony of black and brown and grey and white in the dark. I'd never seen all of Titan gathered like this and I couldn't help but think of the perfect irony of it – that it'd taken losing someone to bring everyone else together, but this was the kind of silver lining I knew Spike would like.
"Just out of curiosity – " Dimitri's voice was strangely quiet when he finally spoke, barely audible in the soft silence. And when I glanced over at him, I realised that he was staring fixedly at the pack. " – is everyone here a part of Titan?"
"Yes," I replied, making sure that my voice was just as quiet as his because it seemed unlike Dimitri to be so discreet about something. It was like that time when Jed and I figured out his alias – the more he kept his real name hidden, the more lethal the situation really was. This felt the same. "Phobos and Deimos heard about it and they offered Jed their condolences, along with Mimas because that's where Jed found Spike's body. But this is a closed service."
Dimitri kept silent for a prolonged moment. Then, after a cautious glance around to make sure none of the wolves were looking our way, he tapped the space separating us and held out his fingers briefly to me, keeping his actions as surreptitious as possible. "Phone."
I bit my lip and slowly slid my phone out of my pocket, setting it down on the space on the wall between us. He swiftly grabbed it, shifting his jacket over the device to hide the bright light. When he set it back on the wall, the screen was dimmed to the lowest, and I would've missed the message keyed across the screen entirely had it not been for the glow of the street lamp near us.
Abnormality in stance detected.
My eyebrows shot up at the unusual message that I couldn't even begin to decipher. But when I cast a sideway glance at Dimitri, who refused to look at me; all the response I got from him was a deliberate jerk of his head in the direction of the pack. Hesitantly, I followed the direction of his gaze, my eyes navigating through the varying hues of fur; some glossy, others darker under the moonlight, tails down and heads bent in what seemed like mourning, and –
I stilled, a sudden shiver of realisation glossing its way down my spine.
Was it truly mourning? Or was it –
I almost jumped in surprise when I felt something nudge me, and when I glanced back down, I realised that Dimitri had typed another message when I was focused on observing the wolves. Bracing my hands on the wall, I lowered my head and tried to read the message without being entirely obvious about it. There were only three words on it and I felt my breath catch at the first:
1) Alpha
Without reading the rest of the message, I took my attention off the phone to look at Jed. This was an area I wasn't quite acquainted with; the books on mythology and folklore I read hadn't particularly highlighted this aspect of werewolf behaviour, and I had a feeling that I'd find better information if I'd actually studied a book on wolves.
Dimitri was right. One quick glance at Jed – his sleek black fur was impossible to miss, along with the fact that he was standing right in front of everyone. His gaze was still directed at the casket, but his head was instinctively lifted, tail up and looking every bit like the intimidating, dominant Alpha that he was.
Mentally cataloguing his appearance, I glanced back down at the phone.
2) Pack
The rest of the pack was standing in the way I'd already observed. Tails down, heads bent, not in mourning, as I'd come to realise. Perhaps animals had emotions, but they were more in sync with their instincts than anything else. And when it came to wolves, instincts would lead a wolf to assume a stance that could only be considered as passive in the face of its leader. And when wasn't a wolf passive?
Only in the face of another wolf they do not consider Alpha.
The thought flashed in my mind just a split second before I glanced back down and realised that Dimitri's next word affirmed what I now suspected.
3) Outlier
A chilling dread seized me, and it wasn't the same hollowness I felt when I found that Spike was dead. No, this one was different – this one made my toes curl in terror, my spine blanketed with a chill that seemed to engulf me whole, and I dragged in a sharp, painful breath as I stared at the outlier that Dimitri had already spotted:
One wolf in an obscuring brown coat of fur that blended in perfectly with the rest, tail down, head bent; only not entirely the same as the rest because its head was not as lowered as the rest were, and its ears were just slightly pricked.
We had a rogue on our hands. An outlier, a traitor, a Judas.
This was a perfect pretence, I thought as I stared at the wolf, the realisation dawning on me feeling like sharp shards raining down in my head. It's a shame your instincts gave you away.
All the clues were adding up, like a plethora of puzzle pieces that were slowly but steadily falling into place. I remembered how Jed had once placed his hand over the book hidden beneath my jacket and gave me a necklace with a silver blade.
Don't trust anyone, he'd said.
Did he already know that there was a rogue in Titan, or had he merely suspected it? But then just as quickly as that recollection cam
e, there was another one following on its heels, this one sending my head spinning with the suspicion that there was more than met the eye. After all, Jed's mother had thought differently in her notes.
Rumours are that the following packs may be home to members of the syndicate, she'd written. Bergelmir, Fenrir, Ganymede, Kalyke, Surtur, Titan.
Was that wolf just a rogue? Or was he one of the monsters too?
Suddenly, I felt very, very afraid. Not just for myself, but for Jed and the rest of Titan. "I'm going home," I murmured to Dimitri, fighting to keep my voice calm. Surreptitiously, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and stood up. "Can you walk me back?"
To anyone else within earshot, I would've sounded perfectly normal, just tired, like the funeral had exhausted me. And if I was being entirely honest, it had – the sadness was exhausting, but there was the pressing matter of finding out if our suspicions had been right. Dimitri didn't miss my pointed glance and his eyes narrowed for a brief second before he let out a sigh and grabbed his black jacket, begrudgingly pushed himself off the wall.
We walked back in silence, and I knew better than to bombard Dimitri with a volley of questions at a time like this. No, it was too risky and the night was too quiet. Our voices could easily travel if we spoke. It wasn't until we reached the front porch that I turned to him, finally figuring it was safe enough and we were far away enough to speak.
"Can you wait out here until Jed gets back?" I asked him. "There are some things I need to check."
"What am I – your guard dog?" Dimitri rolled his eyes but, after a moment or two of hesitation, reluctantly settled down on the front steps, chucking his jacket aside and bracing his elbows on his knees. "Hurry up."
"I could get you a drink or something to eat or – "
"No, I just need you to hurry up before I die of boredom. Do you really want to attend two funerals in a day?"
Despite the sombre mood all round, I found my lips tugging up in a faint smile as I shook my head at his sarcasm. "Thanks. I won't be long," I told him gratefully, and headed into the house, letting the front door swing shut behind me.
Once inside, I made a beeline for the library, pilfering through the boxes that Jed had stored in the bottom shelves. He'd been sorting through most of his mother's things over the past few days – discarding the painful memories, safekeeping the treasured ones and sifting out the convoluted history that would somehow aid us in taking down the monsters. When he wasn't sorting through the boxes, I'd stashed them away in the library for safekeeping, behind a hoard of books that kept them perfectly hidden, only to take them out when Jed needed it.
But now was the time to unravel everything and I rummaged through the boxes until I'd found the one labelled Photographs. If Jed had found out about the ring from the photos he'd seen of his father and brother, I had no doubt that I'd be able to find another clue from one of these as well.
It didn't take long for me to find them. Find the photographs that had been pointing to the signs that sat right under our noses all along. I had just finished stacking them into the furthermost corner of the box for Jed to see at a later date when I heard a commotion from outside. Had it not been for the fact that I'd left the door to the library wide open, I wouldn't have heard it at all.
That was my cue. They'd probably all shifted back by now and the service was over. Quickly shoving everything back into its original place, I left the library, carefully shutting the door behind me. When I stepped into the main hallway, Lorraine's loud shouts were all I could hear, jarring and mutinous in the silence.
" – can't even set foot out of Titan-land!" I heard Lorraine say angrily, as I stepped out of the house and shut the door behind me. She was gesturing wildly as she spoke to Jed, who had his jaw clenched in clear aggravation as she stopped him from heading back home. "If it isn't a curfew, it's perimeter breaches, and what good is stepping up security when my mate was killed despite it?"
There were several other people, mostly the members of the pack closest to Jed, who were standing around and watching Lorraine's meltdown. Lance and Adrian were attempting but failing to dissuade her from yelling at Jed, while Dimitri was exactly where I'd left him earlier – sitting on the front steps of the porch and watching Lorraine with an overall air of boredom, like she was making a huge deal out of absolutely nothing. Jed spotted me first and the tense look on his face relaxed just fractionally, before Lorraine began yelling at him all over again.
"If you were any bit the Alpha we all thought you were, you'd be stepping up your game here," she said harshly, unfazed by the loud gasps and sharp protests at her words. Lance hastily apologised to Jed for his sister's behaviour, while Adrian looked exasperated by her tantrum. She ignored them and threw a furious glare at Dimitri. "You would not be allowing such lowlife trash into Titan – he's the reason Spike is dead!"
"It would've been the easiest thing in the world to snap your mate's neck like a twig," drawled Dimitri, now looking mildly irritated by the way she was making him a target. He deliberately flipped the switchblade several more times in his hand and sneered. "But I wasn't paid to off him so I'm afraid I can't claim credit for that."
"You didn't have to be the one to off him, asshole," spat Lorraine. "You could've easily been a rogue still in contact with Prometheus. You should never have been allowed to go scot-free and were it not for you cowering behind our Luna every chance you get, I would've run you out of here before anything could've happened to Spike!"
"Lorraine, don't do this – " Lance insisted, placing a calming hand on his sister's shoulder, but she shook him away before whirling back around to face Jed, her eyes flashing in fury.
"Declare war on Prometheus, Alpha," she hissed, glaring defiantly at Jed, who simply looked at her calmly. "Because if you won't, more people are going to be dead. Titan would be destroyed, and more people would suffer the same fate as my mate. Or are you too much of a coward to go to war?"
I didn't miss the way Jed tensed at her words, his fingers furling into fists by his sides, and I automatically took a protective step forward. "War's only going to bring about more bloodshed," I said quietly, trying to meet everyone's gazes squarely when they turned to look at me before finally meeting Lorraine's gaze. "Just think about the ramifications of – "
It didn't register to me that the words I'd said had hit a raw nerve until Lorraine angrily yanked her arm away from Adrian's loose grasp. "Do you even know the hell I've been through ever since I lost my mate?" She snarled, sounding absolutely livid now as a terrifying, primal growl ripped from her throat before she took a bold lunge forward at me.
Everyone seemed to move at once. I had almost begun to brace myself for her attack when I found Jed in front of me in an instant; his hands gripping my elbows firmly as his tall, broad frame blocked an irate Lorraine from charging right at me. Dimitri had bolted up and taken a firm step into Lorraine's path, while Lance and Adrian were physically restraining her by gripping her arms tightly, with Katya and Jade desperately trying their best to calm her.
I wasn't going to lie – I was terrified, and not because of the fact that I'd almost been attacked; but because of just how much Lorraine had changed in the wake of Spike's death. Jed seemed to sense that I was trembling and he tugged me closer towards him, looping a comforting arm around my waist as he pulled me in until my cheek was resting lightly against his chest. I automatically let out a relieved sigh when I felt the comforting warmth of his body, wanting nothing more than to head back into the house and curl up against him until I was filled with nothing but thoughts of him.
"Alpha, if I may offer my perspective on things," began Giles after awhile, his voice hesitant as he tried to get Jed's attention. Jed stiffened and turned to him, eyes guarded as he waited for Brutus to continue speaking. "I don't think war's an entirely bad idea."
There was a pause – unsteady, uncertain, conflicted as everyone present considered the option at hand. War had never been an option prior to this; I always figured Jed was on t
he defensive because he didn't want to be on the offensive the way Claudius, and then Malthus, had always been. But Lorraine, whose eyes were now gleaming with something very akin to terrifying vengeance, had planted the seed of doubt in his mind.
Brutus was the next to break the silence, a grim look on his face as he nodded. "Best burn them to the ground before they burn us."
There were murmurs of assent at this – the ones who usually accompanied Jed on missions seemed all in, while the minority kept their opinions to themselves but looked disagreeing. Lance was the only one among the latter group who voiced his opinions, saying, with a solemn shake of his head, "Spike wouldn't want this. I know he wouldn't."
"How would you know what Spike wants?" Lorraine hissed indignantly, but thankfully didn't say anything more after that.
"We've got enough people." Adrian's voice was quiet, thoughtful, when Jed turned to look at him. "Enough weapons. We could take them down if that's what you want."
"You can't." Dimitri's voice was unexpected, a sudden chill that seemed to douse the overall atmosphere. He'd taken a step back during the discussion to lean against the nearest pillar, but he was looking directly at Jed now. It was a look that spoke volumes, because it was cautious in the same way he'd looked at me earlier when he was pointing out the abnormality to me. "You're underestimating Prometheus."
"Right, because we have to take your word for it since you're so trustworthy." Brutus's voice was laced with blatant sarcasm; but unlike his usual cocky statements, Dimitri simply gave him a contemptuous look before glancing away, returning to flipping his switchblade around again.
Jed let out a quiet sigh that I barely heard, but rather felt because he'd still had his arm latched around me. I wondered if anyone else could sense his trepidation – that internal warring between being the Alpha that he wanted to be and being the Alpha that everyone else wanted him to be. Finally, after a few seconds of inner turmoil, he glanced over at Adrian, whose eyebrows knitted in faint worry as he regarded Jed.
