Feral

by Berkeley, Anne

  Adding to the charade, she clung to my arm, hopping up and down on her toes, batting her ingenuous eyelashes at my parents. They never stood a chance. She had an uncanny talent for inducing pity. The girl could charm the skin from a rattlesnake with those eyes. I, myself, was impressed with her ability to transform into a virtual angel. Especially when I knew she was the devil incarnate.

  “You can stay,” Mom caved. “But remember to turn your phone on.”

  I forced a smile. “I will.”

  After embarrassing me with a hug, which I brushed aside because I didn’t know what direction my life was about to turn, my parents left, chatting freely as they ambled down the pathway to the car. The group of us huddled behind the drapes, spying. The boys, with their keen supernatural hearing, all laughed at something my Mom said and then grew abruptly sober, glancing appraisingly in my direction.

  “What?” I snapped self-consciously. “What did she say?”

  Max sighed and excused himself from the room. Crispin stuffed his earbuds back into his ears, flushing. Caius and Bacchus ignored me, diving back into their game with renewed enthusiasm. Lucius scoffed and rolled his eyes. At whom, I wasn’t sure.

  “I know you heard her!” I pressed, turning to Hailey. Surely, she would tell me. Us girls, we had to stick together. She blinked, apathetic.

  “So boys don’t float your boat. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  I bubbled a laugh. “I’m not gay.”

  Hailey shrugged and left the room.

  I whirled, meeting Bacchus’s eyes. “Seriously. I’m not.”

  “Doesn’t bother me.”

  Caius shrugged indifferently and grabbed his crotch in a gross display of machismo. “Sugar, I got the cure for that right here.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Chill, Thale, it was a joke. Have a sense of humor.”

  “Seriously,” Lucius concurred. “Caius is far from homophobic. Although, it was much funnier when he said it to me.”

  Oh. Well, that made sense. If Lucius was gay, Caius would be the last person to lure him to the straight side. I guess Caius’s comment would be funny in a completely sarcastic way—to which I could fully relate. Sarcasm in my household was as coveted as caffeinated beverages in the morning.

  “Don’t be so surprised. Not all gays are fashion-forward and have lisps.”

  “No, but you are a werewolf.”

  “We’re lycan. Werewolf is so cliché. And we’re not without diversity. In fact, we’re probably more accepting of it than humans.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I’ll explain it to you someday when you’re more acquainted with our kind.” Leaning against the wall, Lucius crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to know why everyone looks so disappointed, well, how did you look at me a minute ago?”

  Like it was a loss for the female race. Lucius was some serious eye candy.

  “Exactly, only you’re lycan now. The loss is twofold.” Because woman didn’t often survive the change. Females were few in number and coveted among the lycan population.

  “Whatever.” How concerned for my welfare they were only minutes ago. Now, Crispin wouldn’t even acknowledge me. Lucius and Max couldn’t even suffer to be in the same room. They weren’t any different from any other boy. I shouldn’t have expected otherwise. Shallow, insensitive, predictable creatures they were.

  My parents, they were a different story.

  Infuriated, I went in search of my cell phone. How could my mother infer doubts about my sexual preference? Don’t mistake me; I had nothing against the notion, except that I wasn’t a lesbian. I was thoroughly attracted to the male anatomy, just not the puny brains they were born with. Nevertheless, for my mother to suggest I was anything other than heterosexual because I hadn’t slept with Marcus was entirely despicable. I never felt so affronted.

  Throwing the door to the bedroom open, I found one fine male specimen standing in his prime. I paid him no mind as I entered the room and retrieved my cell from the bedside table.

  “Come right in,” Icarus mused, sliding on a pair of jeans.

  “Just one of the guys, right?”

  “Give them a few hours. They’ll come to their senses.”

  “What do I care? I’m leaving anyways. Let them think what they want. They’re probably envisioning me making out with some hot brunette right now.” Switching my cell on, I paged through my messages. Ten missed calls from my parents. Six from Marcus. Nineteen from Peyton. Skank. How could she think I’d talk to her? True friends along with respectable men I was beginning to think were fictional, existing only in my far-fetched, idealistic brain.

  “How long do I have until the moon waxes?”

  “A week and a half, two weeks before you feel the full effect.”

  Long enough. “I’ll go home tomorrow as planned. It’ll clear your name. Just give me a week to talk to Marcus. If we can’t come to an agreement, than you do what your first instinct was and…well… you know. It’s the best solution I can come up with in the time given.”

  Nonplus, Icarus scrubbed his jaw. “Thaleia—”

  “I’m not here to lay a guilt trip on you if that’s what you think. It’s for the best all the way around. Myself included.”

  ΑΒΩ

  Because there were no spare bedrooms, I spent the night in the bathroom. It wasn’t comfortable by any means, but it was clean and it had a lock on the door. Apparently—to my disappointment—the lock wasn’t message enough to keep Icarus out, because I woke in the morning, squinting against the lights of the vanity, to find him brushing his teeth before the mirror.

  He wore only navy sweats, which sat low on his hips. His back was lean, muscled, his olive skin tanned from the summer sun. Raven’s black hair just reached his shoulders. Running his hands through it, he pushed it from his face, tucking it behind his ear, revealing his defined jaw. In the mirror, my eyes trailed from the curve of his chin to the plains of his chest and down the line of black hair that ran from his navel and disappeared beneath the waist of his pants.

  Rinsing the toothbrush, he ran his thumb across the bristles, tapped it on the edge of the sink and then dropped it in the glass on the vanity. I couldn’t help notice it was my toothbrush, the one I lifted from Jack’s house. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Did he pilfer it in revenge for using his on the toilet? If he did, he hit the mark, because I’d burn it before using it again.

  Aware that I had woken, Icarus’s eyes met mine in the mirror, catching me ogling. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, but I saw it. I brushed it off. He wouldn’t need to worry about me much longer. Soon enough, his domain would return to its normal activities.

  “You look as comfortable as a giraffe in a Lazy Boy.”

  Indeed, I did. I had curled up as small as I could on the upholstered bench, though sometime during the night I had stretched my legs, and now they stuck out like stilts, one toward the floor, the other parallel with my body. I sat up, stretching languorously from head to toe.

  “You could’ve slept in the bed.”

  “Didn’t sleep much anyways,” I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep. “No point in both of us being up all night.”

  Nightmares plagued my sleep, which lasted for no longer than two-hour intervals. I awakened panting and sweaty from anything between reliving Marcus’s attack to envisaging the bone shifting change that would claim me in a few nights time. In others, Icarus and his cousins were dead while some faceless lycanthrope raped me amongst their bodies. The last was a scene from AWIL where David sat talking to Jack in the theatre, only Bennie played Jack’s part and my parents were the stuffy British couple killed during their dinner party. Mutilated and decaying, their undead corpses urged me to kill myself before I killed again. With their images fresh in my mind, I spilled my resolve like a long awaited confession.

  “I changed my mind. Turning into a monster every month, I don’t think I can handle it. I might not ever have the control you displayed
today. The idea of harming or killing someone is abhorrent to me. I can’t take the chance of losing control the way Marcus did. And I think you’re right, Marcus isn’t a person I can put my trust into, knowing he doesn’t have that control himself. And to be brutally honest, right now I hate his fucking guts. That being said, I want…” closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and opened them again, “I want you to kill me.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “It wasn’t an easy decision, especially when every ounce of your being, every instinct tells you to live, but yes. Yes, I’m every bit serious.”

  “And you don’t think you should discuss it with me?”

  “No, it’s my life.”

  “I’m doing the killing. I think that entitles me to a say in this.”

  “No, it’s not the way I want to live. You can’t make that choice for me.”

  “You won’t be a monster, Thaleia. Feral, yes. You’ll be slave to your instincts. The baser side of the wolf will take over. You’ll feel disoriented at first. Often, when you wake, you might not remember things. But in time, you’ll regain self-control.”

  Dropping my head into my hands, I rubbed my face, suppressing a groan. “Why are you doing this? You didn’t want me around and now you’re trying to talk me into staying. You can’t pick and choose when to like me and not.”

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “It would be a lie if I said no, though it’s only partly the reason. The rest, I’ve just explained.”

  “You have every right to be upset, but—”

  “Then I’m sure we won’t have any trouble coming to an agreement.”

  “Sit down,” he demanded, when I stood to leave. Grinding my teeth, I sat, but only because he asked. For some odd reason he didn’t use his imperious voice. “Contrary to your belief, I wasn’t speaking of killing you. You’re Marcus’s responsibility. My intention was to leave you to his devices. But you were in my territory. And the truth is my cousins want you to stay. I told you, I use my control judiciously. I could pull rank on them, but I don’t want to. They’re old enough—the majority of them—to make their own decisions. Besides, they’d leave if I did. And I’d rather not lose my family.”

  “You could lose them by letting me stay.” They could all be killed protecting me. The thought made my stomach curl.

  “I have to choose the lesser evil, Thaleia. But as long as you obey me in all things, we can minimize the risk of anyone getting hurt.”

  “So I don’t really get a choice in this, do I?”

  “Neither of us does.”

  “Are we done then? I’d like to go home.”

  “Not quite,” he said, twisting the lever for the shower. The water sputtered from the showerhead, evening out to a steady hiss. “You have a week with your parents. No more. Give them whatever excuse you want, but you can’t live there anymore.”

  “They’re not just going to let me go.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re eighteen. A legal adult.”

  “What about school?”

  “Skip. I don’t want you leaving your parents house. It’s not our territory. I need to keep your exposure there minimal. Is that understood?”

  “But I’m graduating this year! I can’t just—”

  “You’re not to leave the house,” Icarus said in his alpha voice. My mouth snapped shut. Prick bastard. I wished a bad case of worms on him. “You do leave the house and I find out, you will be punished. And trust me, when I’m done with you, you’ll wish I made you scrub the toilets. Ask any one of my cousins. They’ve been on the receiving end once, and once only.”

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My life was officially over, and not in the way I’d intended. Death was easier, theoretically. I’d never been dead to know. Friday night was a close call, but no cigar. I remember there was no pain. For that, I was grateful. Perhaps I was in shock. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. I blacked out, but in those moments before I did, I felt peace and resolve and for all I knew, it was the end. If that were the precursor to death, I’d take it. For the zillionth time since then, I wished I hadn’t survived Marcus’s attack.

  Evidently, Icarus was finished with me. Denoting the end of our conversation, he opened the door and cleared his throat. I woke from my brooding and left him to shower. Perhaps when I returned next week, I’d secretly swap his conditioner with Nair. He’d certainly kill me then.

  In the kitchen, the boys scurried around the island. Crispin was mixing pancake mix at the sink. It had the viscosity of spackle. Bacchus stood at the stove, battling a grease fire with the Aunt Jemima dry pancake mix and an oven mitt. Lucius circled the table, pouring orange juice into mismatched tumblers. Max was eating a bowl of cereal, wiping a rivulet of milk from his chin. At the far end of the counter, Caius was spreading butter onto a stack of blackened toast.

  I ducked into the laundry room and started the washing machine with a twist of the dial. Yes, I’d acquainted myself with the appliance yesterday. Though my goal wasn’t in any way resourceful. Nor did I care that it was filled with darks when I was setting the cycle to hot.

  Icarus needed a little cooling off.

  On my way to the stove, I started the dishwasher then extinguished the fire by covering the frying pan with a lid. I then turned the burner off and opened the window over the sink to air the smoke from the house. I cared only because I would be living here in a short amount of time and I wanted the kitchen to be in working condition when I returned.

  “We were making you breakfast,” Bacchus said, professing their act of contrition. The tip of his nose was covered with a dash of flour. He sneezed, three times in succession.

  “Please,” I said with no humor, “don’t do it again.” Dropping the frying pan into the sink, I doused it in hot water, sprinkling it with a pinch of powdered dish detergent to let it soak.

  “We want you to stay,” Crispin blurted. “Icarus told you, didn’t he?”

  “Goddamn it!” Icarus shouted, storming up the hall. Soap bubbles crowned his head, dripped down his shoulders and the plains of his chest. He wore only a towel knotted around his waist. His feet slapped wetly on the floor. “You used all the hot God damn water!”

  Grabbing a large bamboo spoon as he rushed past the stove, his intention was clear. War it was. I bolted around the table, pulling chairs out as I went, obstructing his path. He thundered through them, kicking them aside. He came close to catching me, his fingertips skimming the waist of my jeans, but I arched my back and dodged forward, taking cover behind the island.

  “Stop it!” Crispin protested. “You can’t hit her! She’s just a girl!”

  “Shut up, Runt,” Icarus growled. “And go to your room.”

  Crispin winced at the command, but did as told and stalked off to his room. Icarus turned to me, offering a warning. “You’ll stop this right now, Thaleia or I’ll hit you twice as hard.”

  “You lay one finger on me and I’ll break it the fuck off!”

  Sneering, Icarus rocked back on his heels. “Come here. Now.” He pointed to the floor at his feet, using his Alpha voice. The urge to obey was nearly irrepressible. I wanted to claw at my skull, my mind warring with itself. Self-preservation told me to heed his warning, while my will held on with sheer might, keeping my feet rooted in place. Tightly, I shook my head.

  “No.”

  Digesting my response, Icarus blinked, and if I thought he couldn’t get any angrier, his expression iced over, proving me wrong. “Get out.” He didn’t shout. Or raise his voice for that matter; he spoke in such a low, composed tone, I didn’t dare to point out I didn’t have a car.

  “Icarus,” Bacchus objected, as I went out the front door. I didn’t wait to listen, but I could hear them shouting from outside. In that, I was almost relieved to be out of the house.

  Starting up the driveway, I could feel everyone’s eyes on my back as I left. I forced myself to walk tall, keeping my pace measured, but as I reached the street and the house grew out of s
ight, I set off at a jog, placing as much distance between Icarus and myself.

  Maybe it was wrong, but I felt liberated getting away from Icarus and his cousins. The constant stress of the unknown was suffocating. I felt like I could breathe again. My problems hadn’t gone away, but at least I could take one thing at a time, and at a pace I could handle.

  And maybe I was being dramatic. I didn’t need to off myself, did I? If Hailey was able to survive solo for thus long, perhaps I could too. I was strong enough to stand up to Icarus. That alone was evidence of my willpower, wasn’t it? I just needed to figure something out until I gained control. Bennie would help me there. He would think I was boss. The hard part was breaking the new to my parents. It wasn’t something I could hide from them.

  Another half hour and I was walking up the driveway of our Martha Stuart, picket fence home. Before stepping inside, I grabbed the mail from the mailbox and scooped the paper from the stoop, throwing the door open wide while I paged through Saturday’s flyers.

  “Thale, there you are,” my mom said. “How was your night?”

  “Amazing,” I answered, still paging through the mail. “We had sex all night long, lots and lots of heterosexual sex. I never realized penises came in so many sizes. I always thought it was a myth, but it’s true. Oh, and the twins, you wouldn’t believe what you could do with two of them at once! I just couldn’t get enough. It was a good thing they were all up for the challenge. Pun entirely intended.”

  My mom laughed as usual. Intolerantly, I dropped the mail onto the table and glared. “Can you not be a normal mom for just once? Is it so bad that I didn’t hand it over to Marcus? I’d think you’d be relieved, especially knowing what he did! He cheated on me, damn it! And all you can think is that you’re daughter must’ve switched sides because she didn’t sleep with the star quarterback? I resent that entirely!”

  Only when I finished my rant did I notice my mom was looking past me. Braving a glance over my shoulder, I found Icarus smiling disarmingly, decked in a pair of khaki linen chinos and a white cotton tee, his hair wet and tousled from the recent shower.