“Cool.” I took off my modern sweater. “Then I’ll wear it. But only because I think it’s pretty.”
Katy laughed. “Of course. I mean, it’s not like you’d want to impress your husband.”
I smiled, hoping this dress might give me a fighting chance of doing just that.
When the sun set, Luther sent one of his freaky-looking henchmen to fetch me. The way the man glared at me, you’d think he should’ve brought a collar and leash to walk me out.
In the cool, crisp night, my toes curled over in their silk slippers and I drew the hood over my head to keep the gentle breeze off my cheeks. Already I could hear wolves howling at the sky, breaking free of their human form and running through the greater forest surrounding us. A part of me hoped my mom would be out tonight—that we might even cross paths. If I were her, and my daughter had married the alpha, I’d run up here with the hope of seeing her. But then again, Mom didn’t know I could take on wolf form, so she wouldn’t expect to see me out here.
The entire time we walked through the mansion grounds and toward the large pair of iron gates I lost myself in thought, wondering what color my fur would be, and what color Luther’s was. Typically, modern wolves, because we don’t Shed our human skin, would have the same color fur as their hair—roughly. So mine would be dark brown, almost black. A redhead might be dark with a red sheen, and blondes were usually greyish wolves, or even champagne. But Luther Shed, so there was no saying what color he might be.
The henchman stopped dead once we reached an opening in the sky, where the thick trees broke apart for a seemingly steep drop just ahead. I came to stand beside him, moving my eyes to where his rested on the slender man taking up residence on a rock by the cliff. He stood tall, legs slightly apart, watching the moon as though it whispered secrets to him. It was silent out here tonight, the powdery snow muffling almost every sound but the labored breaths from us walking in such cold.
In a subtle shift of his head, so small I barely noticed it, Luther made it clear that he knew we were behind him. The henchman bowed to him, then to me, and backed away, his crunchy footfalls becoming distant before they disappeared altogether. Luther stayed up there on his rock by the backdrop of flat black sky and basked in the gentle rays of the moon’s light. There were few stars out tonight, or maybe I just couldn’t see them so well because of the clouds. They’d moved in over the sky like fingers hiding a secret, low enough not to cover the moon but to reflect its bluish glow.
“Take off your cloak,” Luther said in a deep, formal voice, keeping his back to me.
I pushed the blue hood off my head, a little disappointed that he didn’t even see me in my awesome clothes, and unfastened it from around my chest. As it dropped to the ground, exposing the low neckline of my dress, I was really glad that Katy reminded me to leave the silver wolf dagger in my room.
“Now your dress,” he said coldly.
For a moment, a flush of shame rushed through me and made me hot. I didn’t want to be naked in front of him, but it was more about the icy cold air than that the man might see me. After all, wolves had never been all that modest, given that they sometimes danced naked around fires before they turned. And, around our bonfire on summer nights, quite often fornicated in plain sight.
Reluctantly, I untied the strings at my shoulders and slipped off my dress, turning my feet inward as it landed around them. A soft breeze moved in to touch my nakedness and I covered my chest with warm hands.
Luther turned then and leapt down off the rock, walking over without so much as giving me a second glance. I’d at least expected him to see what he’d purchased, so the disinterested look in his eye made me feel… unworthy. I hated that he made me feel that way about myself. It made me want to punch him.
“You lack the strength to turn at will. You, like me, will need the power of the full moon to take on wolf form,” he said, slipping a leather chain over my head, the round stone on the end falling against my chest bones, warm where it had been in his hand. “And even then, you will need this.”
I picked it up, keeping one hand over my breasts, and studied the strange carving on the pearly surface. “What is it?”
“It’s a moonstone, and this bine-rune helps it draw on the power.” He lifted a hand to the moon. “Without it, you will not be able to draw enough power yourself to turn, so do not lose it because I will not give you another. Bine-runes take weeks to produce.”
“Why?”
“Because they involve certain rituals that take time. I had this made for you when you signed the contract, in case you lost your own. But it never occurred to me until today that no one had made you one in the past.”
“Well, no one knew I could turn.”
“As you said earlier. Which, of course,” he said with a cute, kind of breathy laugh, “explains the shame I saw on your face when we first met and I asked of your heritage.”
I lowered my face, feeling that shame heat my head.
“Do not do that.” He tilted my chin upward. “You must at all times remember that you are my wife—the alpha female of this pack. And even without that title, you are Wolf—the most powerful and majestic creature on this earth.”
I smiled, committing his gentle and warm touch to memory. It wasn’t what I expected at all. I think maybe I imagined slimy wet hands and cold fingertips. But he was… kind of lovely.
My nakedness became more apparent then as his eyes moved down my body, soaking it up, his fingertips gently smoothing the length of my arm to pick up my hand. “Come,” he said. “Bathe yourself under the light of the moon.”
I followed him, slipping off my shoes as I stepped away from my clothes, and as my bare toes touched the shallow snow they felt immune to the cold I expected. It was there; I was aware of it; but it didn’t sting. Luther helped me onto the rock and I sat down cross-legged, feeling a connection to the power of this night that I’d never felt before.
He pressed himself against my back and swept my hair away from my shoulder, bringing his lips to my ear. “I want you to do something for me.”
“Okay,” I whispered, losing myself a bit.
“No matter what you hear, do not turn around.” He cupped my cheeks from behind and turned my face straight, aiming my nose to the greater valley below. “Close your eyes and imagine the moon’s light entering your heart and moving throughout your limbs.”
“Okay.”
“When you see me next, I will be in wolf form. Do not be afraid.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” He gently drew his body back from mine, and the cool air rushed along my spine in his absence. I blocked it out and shut my eyes, feeling things change in me that I hadn’t felt before, like the muscles tightening deep in my limbs and under my ribs. Luther didn’t say what would happen when I imagined the moonlight inside of me, so I didn’t expect to feel the way that my bare skin touched the rock change. The gristly feel against my freshly shaved legs became a smooth, fluffy feel. I felt it where my wrists rested against my thighs, too, and every one of my senses became sharper. I could hear each animal in the forest nearby; the birds, the ants, the wolves. I suddenly knew how many wolves were out there tonight and I could smell each one; Brian, Ashley, Mom. My heart skipped a beat. She was a mile to the south. Exactly. I felt excited and scared, unsure how I knew that, but I could feel her spirit too, I think; she was joyful. That’s what it felt like—that same feeling you get as a kid in a bouncy castle. Mom was always like that after a run on the full moon, as if it recharged her soul.
I drew a deep breath and let my beating heart wander through my limbs, doing its thing. It was instinctual. With the power now inside of me, my body seemed to understand how to do what it was supposed to do, like riding a bike. But the excitement that it was even possible to turn seemed to almost slow the process down. I tried to relax, but as I took some deep breaths and tuned into the night again, I heard what Luther had warned me about. I smelled it. And it made me want to throw up my dinner.
Blood. A warm, sour-milk smell. Dead flesh. For a moment I thought he’d killed something, even thought that he was dead, but details licked my mind and showed me images that I’d conjured up after being given descriptions of Shedding. An entire body of human skin and flesh; the face, the dull expression; limbs emptied of bone, like clothes left in a pile; a spreading circle of blood melting the snow.
It was painful for him. I always thought it would be, but hearing him grunt and whimper made it obvious, made it real. Made me pity him and also feel closer to him. I wondered if he’d ever shared this with anyone before. As much as I could tell that he tried to fight the pain, the sound of sheer agony ripped at my heartstrings, raw and husky and high-pitched at the end, until it all stopped. Dead silence ensued.
I waited, wondering if he was dead too.
Then a plush, soft tickle of fur brushed against me a moment later and I opened my eyes, even though he told me not to, meeting with the stark glow of moonlight on a black wolf. He held my gaze, as if he was telling me all his secrets in that one look.
“Wow,” I said, reaching up to touch him, but as I moved my arm I saw the half-altered human skin there. I reeled it back in and cupped it in a tight hand, running my thumb over the fur sticking up out of each of my pores. It just felt like the hind of a half-shaved dog when its fur started to grow back.
Luther hopped up on the rock beside me and nuzzled at the moonstone with a slightly wet nose, so I closed my eyes, holding on to the stone tightly, and forced myself to relax—to let my body do what it was born to do.
A rush of sharp bile raced up my throat and a tight feeling squeezed my navel. I felt dizzy as my height changed, like dropping suddenly as you swing high and come back down in a playground. The cliff drop opened out in front of me until I felt too much space, and my eyes flew open in fear of falling, but everything looked different. The colors had changed. It made perfect sense to me, all of it. It wasn’t black and white or even blue. The trees weren’t just trees. The rock beneath me wasn’t just a rock, because none of it mattered to me in the way it did before. It was information. Every smell, every sound—it all told me a story about what had been. I could smell Luther beside me and I could smell his presence here long ago. Maybe weeks ago. I could smell his fears and his concerns, even though I couldn’t mark them down to say what they were exactly. I just knew he was worried about something last time he was here. I knew so much more in this form than my human one. Things I never even thought I needed to know, like the obvious distance of that tree behind me to the other one.
I tuned my ear to the forest then to listen for my mother, but she was long gone. The only trace was a hint of her scent on the breeze. I didn’t know it before, but I could smell her—all my life I could smell the joy, but I just didn’t know I’d been smelling it. Now, it all made sense to me on a different level. I could even smell the difference between me and Luther, and I wondered how my dad had missed it: how did he not know I was half wolf all these years?
Then again, unless you were looking for it, you might just think I smelled different. No one would have guessed why. It could be for any reason. But once you knew, once you recognized the smell of a half-blood wolf, it was easy to pick up. That’s why Luther found it so easy, and why none of my pack knew until I told them. None of them had ever seen a half-blood before.
I turned my wolf head and fixed my eyes on Luther. I would say ‘looked’ at him, but it wasn’t like that. I didn’t need to see him to ‘see’ him. I fixed my eyes on him as a kind of statement. I wanted him to show me how to run like the other wolves—how to move through the forest without touching it.
He took off, and I got to my legs, feeling the strength and the force and the power not only within them, but beneath them. My paws were thick and heavy, and they didn’t feel the cold like my human feet did. They hit the snow with certainty, sinking lightly before finding footing on even the slipperiest surface.
I took off behind Luther, seeing the branches long before they became an obstacle. No matter how thick the brush or how low the beam I dodged it, running behind him as if I’d been doing this my entire life. I understood the joy then. I understood why my mom laughed so much after a run. I could feel the cold air move through my lungs and the heat of the speed ignite my limbs. I never wanted it to end. I could live in this form for the rest of my days and be completely happy.
Stepping away from my own thoughts then, I looked ahead to Luther, his slick black tail swinging cheerily behind him. I never understood how anyone could fall in love with him, but seeing him in wolf form I could now see how it was possible. Of all the wolves I’d seen run and play in the wild, either werewolf or natural wolf, I’d never seen anything like Luther. The first wolf. Son of Carne. I wanted to run beside him, but a part of me stepped up to say I had no right, so I quickly reminded that voice that I was his wife. I had every right. I was the only one in the pack that did.
He glanced at me as I pushed my shoulder against his, running at his speed, but he didn’t bite at me or growl. It made me feel included, accepted. We ran like that, as equals, for the longest time, never getting tired, taking in the night and the smells and the sounds, until we came to another steep drop and he stopped suddenly.
My sensitive nose took in the situation and assessed it. We were here for something. Luther had something he needed to do.
I hung back as he jumped up on a rock, placing two heavy paws on the edge and puffing his chest up as he measured the night. He looked majestic in that pose, royal, and I just wanted to be beside him.
Keeping my head low in respect, I jumped up beside him, looking down on the empire he’d built. Below, several wolves gathered in a clearing, more arriving by the minute. The darkness stepped aside down there for the brightest moonlight, reflecting off the snow and showing the remarkable coloring of each wolf: grays and blacks, champagne and patched coats, like my mom. We had a beautiful pack, and until now I’d never had the chance to truly appreciate that.
Luther took another slight step onto the edge and then sat down, angling his snout to the sky. I knew what this was. I knew that pose. His chest expanded and mouth narrowed as he let out a long, haunting howl.
I closed my eyes and sat down beside him, filling my lungs with air before letting it out in a deep, longing cry. Everything I’d felt, everything I’d suffered, everything I’d lost came out in that sound for all to hear, and the spirit in me felt like the moon heard. It felt like Carne would take that message from the moon. That he understood. That he would do something.
Below us, the pack joined the chorus and others from all around the forest and further into town called back, offering tales to the night that no other could understand. I felt unified, connected in a way I never had been before, and my whole heart knew it owed this to Luther. How could I ever look at him the same again?
I could feel the respect and adoration of my pack rising up in subtle pulses from below, and it wasn’t just aimed at Luther. They knew now. They saw me for what I truly was. Half wolf or not, I was one of them. I had been accepted back into the fold in the truest way. I was enriched by it.
Luther stopped howling then, his head shifting slightly as he looked to the outer rim of the gathering below. Then he pressed his shoulder to mine and jerked his head. My eyes followed. And there she was: grey and white, with a kind of gracefulness to her that instantly marked her as female. I wanted to call out to her. I wanted to dance around and say ‘Look at me, Mom! I’m a wolf!’ But she saw me. She knew.
Mom lowered herself into her front paws, tail down. It was a wolf show of respect, a bow. And as others noticed her, they too lowered themselves, until at last the entire pack bowed before us. Luther lowered one paw in a half bow, and I did the same, my heart racing in a unique way to what I was used to. I just wanted to yell out to Mom and tell her I was okay, that Luther wasn’t so bad and my life really wasn’t all that terrible, but something in the way she’d looked at me said she already knew that. I was
in wolf form; how could I not be okay now? What else in this entire world mattered now?
When Luther rose beside me I did too, watching until the last of the pack had done the same. In the distance smoke from the great bonfire at the gathering fingered its way toward us, mingling with the icy air and making me think of marshmallows and melted chocolate. Luther didn’t strike me as a S’mores kinda guy, so I doubted we’d meet up for post-run snacks at dawn, and it wasn’t until now that I realized how much I missed that—even as a human, that part of the ritual had always been my favorite.
Luther turned away then and hopped down off the rock, leaving me alone up here, wondering if I should follow or stay put. But he stopped and looked back at me when he reached the thick tree line, as if he was waiting for me, so I leapt down and, with a bounce in my step, my whole body alive and overjoyed like a dog out on a walk, trotted to his side.
I’d seen it before, watched the wolves in my pack play and frolic, but when Luther opened his mouth as I approached him and lightly bit my shoulder, I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by it. Until he jumped up, linking his front paws around my neck and biting my ear. He wanted to play. How cute!
But I had no idea how to play—what the rules were. Any of them.
I thought back to when I’d watch my mom and dad play in wolf form. Mom would always lie on her side and let Dad tackle her first, the two rolling around on the ground. But they knew each other so well and nothing she could ever have done would offend Dad. But what if I bit Luther and wasn’t allowed to? Or if it was my duty as a wife to submit to him in play—to let him win? I had no idea, but then I’d never been a wolf before, and Luther knew that. Surely he’d go easy on me if I broke any rules.
I flopped down under Luther and made a sweet, playful growling noise. He must have played like this with wolves before, because he did exactly what Dad used to. It felt kind of tickly as he sunk his teeth into my fur and shook his head, trying to get a good chunk of skin up in his playful bite. I wasn’t going to let him, though. He was the alpha, but I wanted to be top dog tonight.
Red: The Untold Story Page 14
