by Lucy Lyons
I’d had my own place in that pain, and even now, I felt the sharp pang of guilt just thinking about all the times I’d kept my silence when I knew my Venatores brother was causing her harm—not out of apathy for her pain, but because I didn’t know how to express what I was seeing.
There was no love lost to my former society of hunters. Yet, it was the foundation of my identity. Once upon a time, I saved the world from monsters most people didn’t believe existed. Then an evil zealot turned me into one of the things I hunted, and I couldn’t seem to find a way to forgive myself for becoming the thing I was taught to hate. Every new path seemed to remind me of how narrow and myopic my old world was as I discovered new creatures that the Venatores swore “couldn’t exist.” Yet, how could I consider giving myself to Ashlynn, another monster, “for better or worse,” when I knew there wasn’t going to be a “better”?
The music increased in volume and tempo and people started to dance around the fire. It touched something primal inside me, something that was neither man or wolf, or at least not entirely in either part of my torn psyche. My heart began to pound in time to the percussion that that had been added to the guitars, and I thought about the Irish flute that was wrapped up in my bag in the cabin. Every time they started to play together, I considered getting it out, but I’d never been invited, and I didn’t want to intrude. That was the biggest problem I had with the pack, after all.
Caroline had brought me here to save my life. Her power had made her an automatic target, but she’d won the fight. A bunch of the younger males smelled conspiracy and had taken it upon themselves to ensure that her place as “honorary alpha” never became more literal. To the paranoid minority in the pack, I was some double agent in a cold war that didn’t exist between wolves and vampires, and there was nothing I could say or do that would change that. If I’d taken Ashlynn up on her to duel for the throne next to hers, I’d be fighting for the rest of my life.
Despite the twitching in my fingers and my tapping foot, I opted out of social hour and made my way to my cabin in the darkness outside the glow of the fire. Bernie had me shacking up with two girls I’d never met from a pack in Oregon, despite it not being the full moon. I didn’t complain. After all, it showed Ashlynn I was still willing to do my duty by the pack. There was also my suspicion that Bernie was trying to save me a heap of trouble by doing some matchmaking and getting me off the market.
Knowing I was sharing my space meant that it was no surprise when I smelled unfamiliar female wafting from my current lodgings. When I opened the door to a nearly naked nymph lying on her stomach on my bed, it barely registered, and I merely nodded as I passed her on the way to the hot shower I was suddenly craving. A naked wolf was the least surprising thing I saw most days, male or female. Dealing with Ashlynn’s riotous emotions took it out of me, and I felt the need to wash myself to get rid of the negative energy.
I set the temperature of the water as hot as I could stand and stripped down, leaving my things in a pile on the floor as usual, making a mental note to pick it up after. If I hadn’t had company, I’d have left it there until morning, but I had limits to how much I wanted to look like a bachelor. I climbed into the tub and closed the curtain as steam started to fog up the eight by ten mirror over the pedestal sink and let the water cascade down my shoulders and back.
The hot water was so relaxing, I didn’t notice I was no longer the only inhabitant of the room until the curtain moved and cold air rushed into the void and chilled my back and legs. My hands were braced against the wall, and I stood very still as smooth, lithe fingers rubbed soap in circles over my skin. I kept my breathing even despite my physical reaction to her touch. Neither of us spoke as she washed my back, and I waited to know her intentions before making my move. In a culture as comfortable with nudity at all times, from outdoors around the fire, to playing in the lake and platonic cuddling, my Catholic sensibilities had kept me in a state of perpetual shock for the first few weeks. Now I knew it was as likely she simply wanted to touch me as this was a sexual overture.
Her hands moved over the muscles of my back and then moved lower until she was dragging her fingernails over my ass and rubbing my thighs. Still without speaking, I turned to face her and grabbed her wrists, holding her hands away from me.
“You’re a very pretty girl, and I’m sure we’ll have another chance at this, but right now, I simply want to be left alone with my thoughts.” I looked down into eyes the color of maple syrup, fringed in black lashes too long and thick to be real. It was the first part of our encounter that surprised me—not only that she’d spent so much time in animal form that her eyes wouldn’t change back but that she showcased it and drew attention to them.
“People say you think too much,” she rasped, and my tongue flicked out over my lips at the tremor in her voice.
You have spent too much time in wolf form, I thought to myself. Poor thing, probably sent here because no one in your own pack will protect you and claim you because you can’t pass.
“Guilty as charged. But you still need to get out. I will probably like you very much, but I haven’t been a wolf for long enough to have lost my need for privacy from strangers.” I gave her a gentle push and held the curtain for her as she stepped out.
“You won’t tell them I failed, will you?” she asked, and suddenly the voice that sounded pushed out of misshapen vocal cords sounded young and afraid.
“Of course not. Why would I lie about you?” She didn’t respond, but I felt a weight leave the room. It bothered me that there was some threat behind the women being set up with me. I hadn’t known before that it was a test, something I’d have to take up with my alpha sooner than later.
The shower now ineffectual at reducing my tension in any way, I turned the water colder than I would’ve preferred and quickly washed up. The girl was nowhere to be found when I came out with a towel wrapped around my waist, and I let it fall to the floor while I scrounged through the dresser for a pair of shorts. The music was still going strong, and the smell of barbeque slammed into my gut, reminding me that the full moon was just days away and my body was ramping up for the change.
I found Ashlynn near the grill, laughing and flirting with some of the next round of alpha-male hopefuls. With her arm in a vise grip, I dragged her off toward the woods to the sounds of complaints and a few growls from the men I was taking her from. In response to those men, I turned and let go of the tight control I had on my power and my rage. They’d sent me a child. Answers were owed, and no beta wolf was going to threaten me or stop me from getting them.
“Either you’ve lost your mind or you have a death wish,” she snarled once we were at the edge of the lake. I stared out at the moonlight on the water, a near full circle of light that rippled as the breeze moved across it, pushing my hair back from my forehead.
“Why the hell would you think it’s OK to stick a near-child in my cabin? That poor creature’s barely eighteen, if that, and tortured, and you thought I’d like that? That’s what you think of me?” I clamped down hard on my power as I noticed my vision sharpening, the wolf straining for freedom from the confines of my skin.
“What are you talking about, Clay?”
“I’m talking about the girl who offered herself to me in my cabin. The one who looks barely legal, has feral eyes, and can hardly speak because her vocal cords are partially shifted? You know, my mandatory lay for the night?”
“Mandatory…” Ashlynn exhaled hard, nodded, and then began her familiar “thinking” pacing. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since I got here.”
“But no young girls?” She stopped and gave me a hard look.
“Of course not. Why would I suddenly freak out now if I’d been going along with it all these months?”
“Just wondering if it was the age or the… wolfishness of the girl that bothered you most.”
“No. She’s not ‘wolfish,’ Ashlynn. She’s been forced to stay in wolf form. Her eyes…”
I paused and took a breath. “Her eyes are hunted. She was so afraid I’d tell somebody she let me down. She apologized for failing.”
The pacing was full stop by then, and Ashlynn started to leak power. When she was truly angry, it was easy to see how she’d bested all the males in the pack for her position. I had alpha abilities and was powerful for my age as a werewolf, but nothing I had compared to the raw, primal fury that raised gooseflesh on my arms.
“No one will stand against the ones who did this. The practice is old, Clay, and the wolves haven’t changed much from centuries past. I need you with me tonight, at my side. Not as my mate,” she added, raising a hand to stop me before I could object. “I need you to perform the duty Caroline would, as my enforcer. In fact, I think we need her too, if she’ll come.”
I picked my jaw up and tried to formulate my thoughts into a sentence that wouldn’t insult or offend her. Ashlynn had already made and broken promises to our friendly neighborhood vampire, and burned through more patience and long-suffering than anyone thought possible.
“Ashlynn, your uncertainty does Caroline and the vampires a great disservice. I won’t repeat what you said to her.” Caroline would come for me without question. But Ashlynn needed to learn how to ask for herself. “Call her. Every time you have Henny or the prof or me do it for you, you disparage her position as an alpha of this pack and as the leader of her people.”
“But you’re the one…”
“I’m the one who brought a problem to my alpha’s attention. It’s your job to solve the problem, and you’re the one who admitted you can’t do it alone.” I smirked and she growled at me, her power suffocating me with its intensity.
“Back it down a notch, Ashlynn. I’d hate to have the whole pack descend on us before you have the backup you’re so pissed about getting.” I shuddered under the weight of all that power and tried to copy what I’d seen her do, drawing that power into me like I was inhaling it deep into my gut.
I felt the heat of a hundred fires, and then the wolf inside me leaped to the surface and my insides cooled to a livable temperature as the preternatural creature inside me bore the brunt of the power. I stopped trying to absorb her anger and power, and my whole body trembled uncontrollably as I tried to keep my feet under me.
“OK, that sucked, and I probably won’t ever try it again,” I laughed shakily and braced against a tree, gulping cool evening air like water after a trek through the desert. I finally glanced up at my alpha and blinked, glancing down at myself to make sure the heat hadn’t literally burned my shorts off.
“How did you do that?” she gasped, and I shrugged at her, still dizzy from the exertion.
“I don’t know. You do it, and I knew you didn’t want everyone knowing your powers being undermined, so I tried to help. Burns, though.”
“Yeah, because that’s not supposed to be possible. What the hell do those Venatores do to you guys? Caroline has power greater than any other sorceress alive, and she’s what, twenty-three? Now you have abilities every werewolf is told they’ll never accomplish after a year?”
“To be fair, you said it yourself. Werewolves are told they can’t. Doesn’t mean it’s true.” I pointed a finger at her, and she sighed and smiled at me. “You’re a pretty lucky alpha to have such powerful friends at your back. You must be important.”
“Yes, I am. I’m the alpha for the largest and most powerful pack in the United States and allied with the most powerful master vampire and sorceress on the continent. I’ll call your friends and tell them to meet us at high moon,” she declared.
“It’ll go better if you ask politely.”
“Don’t push me right now. I just saw you perform an impossible feat of power that suggests you should have my throne, and I didn’t kill you for it. There’s still time, though,” she finished with a saccharine smile.
I cleared my throat and saluted her before taking a couple experimental steps away from my leaning post. My legs worked with minimal jelly-quivering, so I sauntered off with as much swagger as I could muster with sweat pouring down my body. Ashlynn might have the authority and the importance, but I had a new mission. Instead of worrying about the thing inside me and how it made me less human, I was going to learn everything I needed to for complete control over the beast within and the magic that accompanied it.
Chapter Three
Henny and the professor were by their own, quiet fire as usual. Henny was the pack witch, but she was human, and from what I’d seen, the pack regarded her as an accessory. At least it meant that when she wasn’t acting in an official capacity, she had the freedom and privacy to work on her rekindled romance with her once-estranged husband.
“No, it’s definitely a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ moment that I’m totally bummed to be missing,” I chuckled as the professor handed me an icy bottle of beer. I shook the water and bits of ice off it and popped the top, spinning it into the nearby garbage can.
“I’d say I don’t believe you told her to be polite, but you always were a little more earnest than diplomatic,” he replied, and I saluted him with my beer.
“I’m glad Henny went to get the girl. I feel terrible after the fact for not asking for her name, but, at the time, I mostly just wanted to put some distance between us,” I sighed and took a long pull from my bottle.
I glanced up at the moon and felt the pull at my insides. I stretched out my empty hand and watched with detached fascination as the fingers stretched impossibly long and thick claws extended from the nail beds. My wolfed-out hand glistened in the moonlight and the almost painful tingle of the air on the raw skin made me inhale sharply.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to…to that,” he choked, and I quickly reverted my hand to its human form.
“Sorry, Professor. I haven’t gotten used to it either. I didn’t mean to break it out and start waving it around like a drunk with a gun.” I stared at the moon and downed the bottle, and Professor Eldritch replaced it before I could say anything.
“The moon’s pulling at you more than usual, isn’t it?” he asked, and I nodded.
“I don’t know enough about the moon to understand the change, but yeah, it feels like the full moon tonight, but I’m managing my power like a totally benign phase.” I clenched my human-sized fist and stretched out the fingers again. “My skin’s just a size too small.”
“Well, there’s an eclipse of the moon only a couple of days out. I’ve never experienced one of this magnitude. It would serve as good research to see how it affects the pack.”
There was a crackling of underbrush, and Henny appeared at the edge of the circle of log seats. I smelled fear and pheromones, and the dark-haired girl with golden eyes followed her into the light. The prof handed her a bottle, and she sat down. I glanced over at Henny and opened my mouth to argue, but the girl popped the top off the bottle, and a fizzling sound was followed by the saccharine sweet scent of cola.
“How old are you, honey?” the prof asked as he got comfortable in his beach chair again.
“What’s your name?” I added, and Henny laughed.
“Her name is Goldie, and she’s seventeen. Good catch, Clay. I’m glad you were paying attention.” I swallowed the lump in my throat as I recalled her hands on my back in the shower.
“Not good enough. I should’ve noticed the moment I walked into the cabin, but I was too focused on my thoughts. I’m sorry,” I continued, turning to face Goldie. “You shouldn’t exist. No werewolf under eighteen should. But beyond that, you aren’t a thing. Your alpha should be protecting you.”
“My alpha turned me, even though he said I was older than he likes. Almost no one in our pack is over eighteen, aside from the enforcers. He forces the males to challenge him when they turn eighteen. The females sometimes choose to, to try to make it all stop, despite the fact that nobody has ever survived.”
The firelight swam before my eyes, and I carefully set my bottle on the ground before I crushed it in my hand. I knew we were monsters, but ne
ver had I heard of such an abhorrence. Ashlynn forbade the creation of new wolves unless they asked to join the pack, and it was voted on by all the members. Those who lost control and attacked a human were put on trial to decide if they got to live. Yet, out there was a wolf who defied everything that our people stood for, imprisoning near children for his own pleasure.
“You can’t go back, Goldie. But how do we keep you here without starting a war? I don’t want to hurt kids if they’re forced to fight,” I rubbed the thick scruff on my chin thoughtfully while the prof shrugged and raised an eyebrow at me.
“Bernie and I met a while back when I tried to run away the first time. He got me out here—promised to do whatever it took to keep me safe and make the pack take me in,” she explained. “If you’d chosen me, the pack would have to keep me.”
“The pack’s keeping you. You don’t have to be someone’s girlfriend to stay.”
Goldie chuckled and rubbed her arms. “Good, because I don’t really like to be touched by men.” She hugged herself and tucked her knees up under her chin. “Wolves are even more phobic than regular folk, which is weird, considering how few propagate.”
