Circle of Wolves

by Jacqueline Roth

  “Why tell me now? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Why didn’t you tell me before I…” He stopped himself. He’d almost said it, before I fell in love with you. It was impossible now. Whatever he was, he was simply a hiccup in the long years that would be her life.

  This was not a reaction she expected. Not yet. The worst was yet to come. “What is your ancestry, Evan? Who were your parents’ parents’ parents? How old are you? These are things you haven’t told me.”

  Her voice was soft and it did reach through to him. He looked around him. These people went to a great length to protect their history, to protect their secrets. It had been less than a week and they had taken him into their confidence. Alexi had asked him to help with his daughter’s hunt. There was some symbolism there, he was sure. Alexi was showing his trust, he had said.

  “This is a lot to process.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do this quite this fast but Father insisted. Alexi’s including you in the preparations for the hunt and your accepting has pushed this along. I know the history seems a bit much but how else was I to convince you of the rest? Was I wrong? Did I approach it wrongly?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head and stepping over to where she stood. “No, in any other circumstance I’d be badgering you with questions. This is just a bit more complicated than I imagined.”

  “So we’re all right? At least say we’re still friends, Evan.” Her voice sounded pained and desperate.

  “At least?” He had calmed down enough to realize that though what he knew about her past and her family had changed, what he knew about her had not. Her eyes searched his and he still saw the same signs in her body. The wide eyes, the teeth catching her bottom lip, the stance that almost seemed to sway toward him, hands held slightly in front of the center line of her body as if she wanted to reach for him. He could feel her attraction to him fill his lungs. What she was, what he knew of her hadn’t changed.

  She didn’t answer his question but he hadn’t expected her to. He lifted his hand to touch her face and she leaned her cheek into his palm. He lifted her chin to make her look into his eyes. “I could make a joke about older women but the truth is I was hoping for more than your friendship, Kira.”

  Her eyes closed. “There’s one more thing, Evan.”

  He frowned. She still seemed frightened. Whatever this one more thing was, it was obviously what had been worrying her. “Kira, just tell me what it is. I’m sure it can’t be as bad as you think.”

  She gave a short harsh laugh and pulled away from him. “Evan, has Alexi mentioned anyone by the name of Val or Valeri to you?”

  “No. No he hasn’t. Should he have?”

  “No. But Alexi often does things he shouldn’t.” She smiled sadly and reached for a small envelope inside the box. Opening it she pulled out the photo of a small boy. Evan took it from her and examined it. It looked remarkably like Demetri, the boy from the school. This must be the one she had said was no longer with them.

  “Was he your son?” If she was almost two hundred, she was certainly old enough to have had a son.

  “No, Evan.” Her face was twisted in puzzlement. “How could I have a son when I’ve never taken a mate?”

  “You’ve never taken a mate?” Something in him lifted at the idea.

  “Of course not. You’d have known. We’re Wolves, Evan.” A wry smile suddenly broke on her face. “We mate for life.”

  He grinned at her. So no deceased husband, no ex-husband. He liked that. He liked that there was no rival, present or past.

  She pulled a second photo of a young man from the envelope. “But I will not lie and tell you I have never been in love, Evan.” She handed him the picture. The young man was dark, with an almost swarthy complexion. Dark eyes flashed up at him mischievously. He looked up at her.

  “Over forty years ago a young boy was brought to us by friends. He had been bitten by his father, who had been a curse wolf. The attack had killed the boy’s mother and local authorities had executed the father and placed the boy in an orphanage. These friends stole him away and brought him to us.

  “Althea had lost her grandmother by that time and was alone. She took him in and raised him. I adored him from day one. He was bright, lively and made me laugh.” She looked down at the picture of the young man. “I was away a great deal and saw him rarely for a long time. Then I left home for a while when he was seventeen. My duties to the family were a bit different then and I spent five years away learning what would be needed to meet those duties. When I came home, I came home to a charming and handsome young man. He quite literally swept me off my feet.”

  She pulled another photo from the envelope. It showed Alexi, unchanged, standing next to the young man. “They were thick as thieves and hard to resist. Valeri, Val, was a curse wolf, Evan. Together, however, Alexi and Ivan, or occasionally Alexi and I, were able to contain him so he could run free with us on the full moon.”

  “What happened to him?” Evan reached to brush away a tear that formed in her eye and threatened to slide down her cheek.

  “He was killed. By a mage.” She quickly gathered the photos together and shoved them back in the envelope. She put them in the box and closed it.

  “Kira.” Evan placed his hand on her shoulder. “I do understand. I lost someone I cared deeply for when I was young. I thought she was the only girl I’d ever love. I lost her and she died.” He slipped his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly. There wasn’t a day that thoughts of Cassandra didn’t flitter in and out of his mind. He had known her from childhood and adored her. “I do understand.”

  No you don’t, she thought wearily. He thought her distress came from the loss of Valeri. It didn’t. It came from the loss she was terrified would come once he knew the truth. She leaned back against him and felt the warmth and hardness of his chest against her. She closed her eyes and relished the moment that would probably never come again. His arms so strong around her let her forget for a moment, let her sink into the feel of him. “I’m sorry for your loss, Evan. If you loved her as I loved Val, I’m so terribly sorry.”

  Evan held her tight. He thought he should feel some jealousy, something that she had loved so profoundly. But he didn’t. It only seemed to make things feel so much more right. She understood. She had loved a curse wolf. Had loved him deeply. This seemed not a bad thing to him.

  Sighing she pulled away from him and walked to the frame. She scrolled up. “Evan, look here. Do you see the dotted red line?”

  Evan looked up and saw the line. It ran from the name of Andrie Gregoravitch to the name R. Dracul. The last name was followed by several other surnames in parenthesis, ending with the name Wyton. “The red dotted line indicates a connection by a bite. Dracul changed his name for obvious reasons. He became a werewolf because my great grandfather’s youngest son bit him. He used magic, blood magic to extend his life far beyond that of any human, mage or no.”

  “Wyton? But Kira, he’s one of the darkest mages that ever lived. The man was a monster. It took years and cost the lives of several Masters to stop him…” Her raised hand stopped him.

  “Yes, Evan. I know but that is a story for another time. I need to tell you a different story.” She turned to face him. She drew a deep breath. Whatever had been plaguing her all night was now about to be said.

  “About twenty-five years ago trespassers camped on our land. I don’t believe they knew they were on our land. They were scholars, not navigators and I’m certain they must have been lost. They were studying the mythos of the region. Called themselves Mythoanthropologists.”

  Evan’s heart dropped. His breath actually stopped for a moment. He fought to stay focused on her words.

  “It was the night of a full moon. I wasn’t feeling well and had told Alexi I wouldn’t run with him and Val that night. I warned him to take Ivan with him. I learned a few hours later that he had been unable to find Ivan and the two had gone off alone. Val was a very powerful wolf and could be difficu
lt to control. I went after them.

  “When I found them, Val was crouched and was stalking something. He had gotten away from Alexi momentarily and Alexi had just caught up. I was too far away to intervene. A small child, a small boy in red and black pajamas had wandered into a clearing. Alexi reached him before Val and grabbed him by the shoulder to pull him away. The boy began to scream and struggle. Val lunged for them. Alexi gripped the boy harder. He never meant to bite the boy, only pull him to safety. He only meant get him away from Val. The boy struggled, Val lunged, Alexi overcompensated and his teeth sank into the boy’s skin tearing across his shoulder.

  “That’s when the light came. I was trying to reach them when I heard Alexi yelp in pain and saw him run for the cover of the trees. Val lay still on the ground. Alexi cut me off. He wouldn’t let me go to Val. By this point the mage stood over the body. A woman cradled the boy in her arms. The mage fired large orbs of light at Val’s body, again and again until the woman grabbed his arm and made him stop. Val’s body began to return to its human form. I still remember the look on their faces as they realized the implications of what had just happened.”

  Her hand reached out and the document scrolled down. Evan was staring at her face, his brain wouldn’t form a coherent thought. He followed her gesture. There on the document connected to the box that read Alexander V. Gregoravitch by a dotted red line was a box that read Evan W. Forester.

  Circle of Wolves

  Chapter Eleven

  Whispered Prayers

  She sat on the edge of the table, the position she had retreated to almost a full quarter hour ago. He hadn’t spoken a word. Not even to cry out in disbelief. No recriminations. No questions. No words. He had not made a sound since the soft moan that had escaped his lips as he had slid down the wall to sit beneath the framed evidence of her family’s guilt. His head was resting on his arms as they folded across the tops of his knees. He hadn’t even looked at her.

  She wanted to speak to him, to offer him reassurance but what was there she could possibly say? Nothing would change what had happened. Nothing would change the fact that they were responsible for what he saw as the curse, the burden, the horror that had been his life. She wanted to tell him she understood. That she had seen the pain and agony Val had suffered at transformations, that she had seen the way he was shunned by others, even her own family at first. Her mother had never accepted him. Her father, after a sound lecture on her responsibilities to her family, had simply pretended he didn’t exist. Alexi had raged at her at first but had come to know the young man as a small boy and so his anger did not last long. Nico had not yet been born.

  She watched the light brown head and wished she could see inside it. Wished she could know what he was thinking while at the same time knowing she would be too frightened to look if she could. She had almost resolved to speak to him when he lifted his head and looked at her. The look caused her breath to empty from her lungs in a swift expulsion. She had been unable to read his feelings, being so confused by her own. Now what he was feeling was clearly in his eyes. It wasn’t the anger that she had expected but hurt. He was hurt.

  Her tongue felt thick and slow as she forced words from her mouth. “Evan? Evan, Alexi was only trying to protect you. Val would have killed you.”

  His stormy eyes closed and he shook his head. She thought he was angry with Alexi. Well he was, in a way, angry that Alexi hadn’t told him immediately. But as the initial shock wore away he realized Alexi, big affable Alexi, had been trying to save his life. He was arrogant, rude and an absolute pain in the ass but Alexi had become his friend. Alexi had been trying to save him.

  He couldn’t even sustain his anger at this Valeri. He had simply done what he had to do. He had simply been the victim of his curse just as Evan was a victim of his. He himself had come close to killing. He would have killed had he not hesitated that night and had his friends not intervened and saved his intended victim. That reality was glaring at him, full faced, at the moment. Had he not had Seth and Marcus, had they not been strong enough, fast enough and lucky enough he could have done what Valeri had done.

  “Evan?” Her voice broke the silence again. It was barely more than a whisper. Her eyes were on his and she was watching him closely. He was fully aware what he was feeling was unfair, that it was a misdirection of his anger, his pain. But he could find no other target at the moment.

  Why hadn’t she stopped it? Why hadn’t she tried to stop him? He knew she had told him she had been too far away but if she had just gone with them that night none of this would have happened. If the princess had just come down out of her tower that one time, then his life would not have been ruined, been made this trial that it was a great deal of the time. He could have had the things he wanted so desperately. He could have had a normal life.

  He couldn’t exactly shout these accusations at her. They were unfair. But how much of my life has been fair? he thought miserably. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

  Her eyes lowered from his. “I was supposed to tell you sooner, Evan. I was supposed to tell you that first night. Alexi had already confirmed what we thought we knew about you, about what type of person you were, I was supposed to tell you. But then the magic and there was the light again… and I couldn’t.”

  “Why didn’t Alexi tell me himself?”

  She drew in a deep breath and met his eyes, “Because I insisted that he not. I insisted that I be the one to tell you this along with everything else I have to tell you.”

  His forehead creased as he registered her words. “There’s more? Good gods, Kira, what more could there be?” He had been stationary too long. The muscles in his legs protested as he rose to his feet. “What the hell else could you possibly have to tell me?”

  “There is more, Evan but maybe this is enough for now. Maybe we should go and you can think about this. You can decide if you hate Alexi, my family, me or all of us.” She looked down at the floor.

  “No!” The force of the word brought her head up, surprise registering in her wide eyes. He crossed the distance between them faster than she expected him to move. He reached out and grasped her upper arms. “No, you don’t get to decide this. You don’t get to play the princess with me, sitting there on your throne deciding what crumbs you will or won’t throw my way. If there is something more I have a right to know, then you’ll tell me now.”

  “Princess?” Her voice was low, almost dangerously soft. Instinct reared and Evan almost pulled back. “Is that what you see?”

  He dropped his hands from her. “Yes. That’s what I see.”

  “Then you’re a bigger fool than Nico. He has his age to use as an excuse, you don’t.” She slid off the table. He hadn’t moved away and now she was standing, her face only inches from his own.

  “Right, he’s only what? A hundred? One fifty? He’s such a young one.”

  “Nico is twenty-four. He hasn’t had his first transformation yet. Our aging doesn’t slow until then, until we become adults.” She tried to tell herself this was his anger talking, that he wasn’t usually so deliberately obtuse. He couldn’t really see her this way. He couldn’t really be so wrong about her.

  “He’s a bit old isn’t he? I met Katerina. She’s what? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

  “He is a bit late, yes. But the transformation is earlier for girls. It’s simple biology, Evan. We become sexually mature faster than boys.” She really didn’t want to be giving him a biology lesson at this precise moment in time.

  “That’s not how I remember things.” He stepped back from her, putting a few paces between them.

  “Really? How many female werewolves have you known, Evan? How many did you watch reach adulthood?” She was growing angry now. She knew he had a right to be upset, to hate them and to blame them. Still, something in her wouldn’t let it go unchallenged.

  Evan didn’t answer but just stood looking at her. He himself had been a “late bloomer”. His transformations had undergone a change when he was s
omewhere between seventeen and eighteen. They were always excruciatingly painful but there had been an element of sexual desire, of sexual pleasure that had accompanied them as he got older. He had thought about girls earlier than that. Had been curious and had even thought about the ideas of family, relationships and the like long before he believed normal for a young man. He had always written it off to wanting what you can’t have. It wasn’t until then that he began to recognize that how he was looking at the young women, one particular young woman, in his life had changed.

  “Evan, being as we are, considering the implications of mating for us, nature has been merciful. We don’t reach sexual maturity at the same pace as humans. We reach it much later. Our social structure, our traditions push mating back even farther. By then, hopefully, we are ready to make those lifelong choices with some semblance of reason.” She sighed and leaned back against the table. “Evan, I’m exhausted and I can tell you are as well. Can we leave the rest of this for tomorrow? I promise you, neither of us is up for the further history lessons that it would involve. Besides, you need to tell Alexi that you won’t be helping him at the hunt. He’ll have to stand alone but I’m sure he can handle it. Father managed it, so will Alexi.”

  “Kira, I promised Alexi I’d help and I will. I don’t go back on my word.” She seemed fully willing to tell him whatever this further secret was but maybe she was right. He was tired. This had been a hell of a shock and he did need to digest it.

  She was shaking her head when he met her eyes again. “Evan, you can’t help now. You can’t seriously want to help now. Now after what you’ve said. You blame me, I know that. If I had just gone with them, if I hadn’t been selfish and had just gone with them…” Her voice trailed off and she looked away from him. “I’ve blamed myself too, Evan. If it makes you feel any better. I was sorry for what happened to you. It was my fault you were attacked. My fault that Val died. We’d had an argument earlier that day and I admit I refused to go in part out of pique. So you’re right, it is my fault.”