by Sam Hall
Sylvan was a fucking millstone around my neck, literally. The ache of that first fucking bite, where he’d bit me while I was still human, flared again hard, as if to keep me where I was supposed to be.
Fuck that.
I’d been jerked around by him, by prophecies, by unknown genetic quirks, by seers, by psychic attacks, even by mysterious wolf gods since I got to Sanctuary. I was done. I transformed from a ball of light into human form, still lit from within, my hands an unearthly green as I grabbed the rope and tugged. I grit my teeth, feeling like a furnace flared within me, burning hot as I put everything I had into this—breaking the bond or pulling Sylvan along with us.
Then I remembered the green-eyed woman I’d seen in his dreams. He was already bonded to whoever the fuck Branwen was, this link between us an artificial one created for some mystical bullshit reason, and I was done with it. I let the fire inside me burn hotter and hotter, my whole being now one of heat and light. Then, the bond broke.
I shot through the darkness, arrowing through space beyond countless stars, to join the radiant constellation of my mates. But I didn’t slow when I reached them. Instead, I swept past, catching them in my wake as we kept flying higher. There was nothing to see here, nothing but blackness and pinpricks of lights, yet some internal compass had me flying up. Then those great red eyes appeared.
I felt twinges of fear, of protectiveness at the sight of them. Unlike the Great Black Wolf I’d seen in visions, this one encompassed the whole sky. His mouth opened, his tongue lolling out in a wolfish smile, his white teeth shining brighter than the stars.
I should have been terrified. This was a Wolf God. He looked like galaxies hid like fleas within the sable of his coat, but for some reason, I hung in the space before him with the guys at my sides, and felt no such sensible fear. We were fucking pack. Nothing was going to take us down now, not even divine creatures. I threw back my head and howled my disdain, now in Tirian form, the guys joining in. Our howls rose, twining together to become one note, ringing out throughout the universe. We were giving the Black Wolf notice. We were here, and we were done cringing away from this fucking shit.
The Great Wolf reacted predictably, straightening up from wherever he stood on the fundaments of known space, the hunch of his shoulder, the angle of his head indicating an attack was imminent. I felt the clamouring whispers of concern, of worry, but I held firm. I was not bowing down before these motherfuckers. We were strong, so fucking strong. We were a Great Wolf in ourselves.
Thought controlled reality here as I felt the lot of us meld and mesh until we were just that. It was a confusing thing as suddenly my brain was full of a million clamouring thoughts and feelings. I eyed the Great Black Wolf taking ponderous steps towards us as I struggled to hold on under the onslaught. Run, stay, fight, stop, hide, fade, go back to reality, howl, cry, rock in the corner, snarl our disdain—each thought or feeling smashed into me, screaming that it was the way forward.
Enough!
I nearly cried from the relief the command brought, but it was not mine. Instead, I felt the warm woody presence of Finn and his alpha control bring order. We now faced down the Black Wolf united.
We ran towards the great beast, paws somehow gaining traction on the great nothingness we hovered in, while the Great Black Wolf tossed his head and then did the same. It was then that I saw the error of our ways. We might be a Great Wolf now, combined of the essences of the seven of us, but he was so much more. Having been fed on the souls of countless people, they were like tiny winking stars within his coat as he approached, growing larger and larger. It was then the constant thread of fear burst through, the new evidence of threat forcing it past Finn’s order.
It didn’t matter. Our body contained a momentum now, and we were being sucked into the Black Wolf’s orbit, no more able to fight him than gravity. He paused as the realisation struck us, his grin hungry now. Then, like some kind of horrific snake, the details of the Great Black Wolf grew fuzzy and obscure, until only the red eyes and yawning jaws were truly visible. They grew exponentially bigger, large enough to swallow the world, all the worlds, all of existence on all the planes of reality. I thought of Morgan and his mates, the men who we’d seen face down the Great Wolf in the cave under the Volken city, and the way they’d faced down the beast, not willing to sacrifice their bond, drawing strength from each other as they were swallowed down. It felt like I collected everyone to me, holding them close to my chest, murmuring reassurances as we ploughed on.
This was horrific, a bad trip gone wrong, but it seemed we were on a track and could not change it, so I focussed on our bond. If we were to go, so soon after becoming a pack, they would go with my love. I pushed it out into every single one of them—the most complete and radical acceptance I could muster. Instead of the incoming threat, I concentrated on them, all the memories, sensations, feelings, thoughts, needs, wants, and desires I’d ever had for each and every one of them, including the way they cared for each other. From the platonic mateship of Finn and Slade, to the burning, all-encompassing love of Jack and Hawk. They were everything now as the world narrowed down to just us. And then we hit the Great Wolf.
Being swallowed was not what I expected. It wasn’t a physical peristaltic process. We weren’t chewed and then gulped down. Instead, we disappeared into a place of complete blackness. It was cold, dark nothingness.
I reached for my mates, but of course, could not find them. This was the void, and bonds and relationships didn’t exist there. And yet, I couldn’t stop reaching for them. Where it had been a conscious thing beforehand, needing an intention to reach out to one of them, now it was as automatic as breathing. I kept searching for them, my body, my brain aching as I did so.
While hanging in a vacuum did a lot to focus your attention on what you could feel, mine became pain and need. My stupid brain wouldn’t let up, insisting over and over that the guys were here, that I just needed to reach out to them, the pain growing sharper and sharper with each minute. I wanted to cry, scream, claw at my skull, anything to make it stop, but I didn’t have any of those things anymore. I was just a tiny mote of consciousness, flickering painfully in the darkness, about to burn herself out.
This is the end, I thought, and the effort of forming those words just made the pain flare brighter. I can’t fight this. This was never meant to last. What makes me so special that I would form a pack of these men and be the centre of it? This is the way it all ends, for everyone. All you are winks out and then you’re no more than memories in other people’s minds. And who will mark my passing?
If I’d had a body, I’d have closed my eyes and tossed it back, skydiving into the blackness, rushing towards my fate rather than fighting against it. I was rewarded for my surrender by a slow decrease in the pain. As it slipped away, so did I, until there was only one thought left of me.
I love you.
The words lit a match to the world and boomed in the darkness, sending shock waves out in the infinite space, something it shouldn’t be able to do. This place was the absence of everything, and I’d created something. As if invited in by that denial of this place’s fundamental physics, more rushed in. Warmth, need, desire, the guys’ consciousnesses all popped into being one by one, and as they did so, I felt my strength return.
Are you OK?
What the fuck is this place?
Where did you go?
How do we get out of here?
I didn’t get a chance to answer any of them, and probably wouldn’t have wanted to. For the moment, I just basked in the fact that I could consider doing so. But that wasn’t enough. It never is for human beings. We are creatures of desire, and I desired to get the fuck out of here. I collected our consciousnesses together, and then…pushed.
Like the Wizard of Oz, revealed as a small man behind his projections, the void tore and dissolved under our combined will, and for a moment, I saw the man that looked so like Sylvan staring out at us, his wolf skull helmet pulled down low across his
eyes. And then we arrived, taking our human forms in a familiar landscape of endless white.
Well done, the Great White Wolf said, emerging from the featureless landscape, green eyes first, then the rest of her body. You are pack.
19
When my eyes opened, I saw the shift of light in the room—or lack thereof—and realised that we’d been out for some time. I peeled myself off the bed, having no memory of moving from the chair to here, but several arms reached out and pulled me back down again. It was then that I heard the groans and rustles of my men waking.
Jack woke first, looking up blearily, and took a moment to blink his vision clear before smiling when he saw me. His eyes trailed down until they came to the bite mark he’d left on me, and there they stayed. He tugged me down beside him until we were lying there face to face, his smile not faltering. It felt sweet and close, like we were a couple of teenagers who’d just found love or something. Then we heard Hawk’s groan.
His head popped up over Jack’s shoulder, and his grin was a reflection of his lover’s when he saw us.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“To you too, love,” Jack said, and tugged his head down to kiss him.
My clit, the little fucking Trojan, twitched at that, but I told her in no uncertain terms that there would be no more playing today, and tomorrow also had a question mark against it. I felt a deep, not entirely unpleasant ache up inside me that would need looking after in the next few days. Surely the good women of Sanctuary would have some sort of recipe for this, an ointment or salve to ease the pain of being very well used by your harem.
And I was. I rolled onto my back on the bed, arms stretched out above me as I just relished that. I’d never had a day where I’d lost count of the orgasms I’d had before I came to Sanctuary, and I definitely wanted to revisit that when we got home. Shack up in our new place, lock the gate, and see just how far we could go…
“Someone’s looking pleased with themselves.” Slade looked down at me with a smile, his eyes still crusted with sleep. “What’s got you thinking happy thoughts, princess?”
I liked the way his hand slid across my abdomen possessively, like he had a right to it. Consent was king in Sanctuary, something I was bloody happy about, but I liked that we could start making assumptions about each other—that we did want each other, that we would, for the most part, welcome each other’s touch.
But not right now.
I grabbed his hand before it slid any further.
“Sorry, but the vag is out of order until further notice.”
He grinned and then kissed my forehead. “S’OK, love. I dunno if I’ve got another one of them in me. What the fuck was that?”
“Good question,” Finn said, his voice scratchy. “That needs to be the first task on the list.” The others groaned at that, and it was now apparent everyone had woken up.
“Glad you broke that bond with that fucker, Sylvan,” Aaron said. “Only one seer for this pack.” I glanced back to see Brandon’s smile, which quickly turned into a kiss.
“So, who’s breaking the news to him?” Jack asked with a wicked grin.
Hands went up all over the bed.
“Well, while you guys are working out who gets to be arseholes to our only source of Volken intel, I’m having a bath. I saw some kind of bathroom back here,” I said, rolling off the bed.
There was a simple wooden tub already filled with water, stone cold now, so I shivered as I dropped into it. Everything hurt, but I felt a burning need to get clean. We were bonded now, I didn’t have to keep walking around like I’d been rolling on the floor in a porn theatre.
“You OK?”
Brandon moved over to the bath, grabbing a washcloth and cleaning the blood from his neck. I was momentarily distracted by the trail of a single drop of water wending its way down his chest, but recovered and answered, “Yes.”
It seemed like a manifestly inadequate word to use as a response, but I realised as I shivered, sluicing off the coarse lemon scented soap I’d lathered in, that all words were. How do you fucking describe metaphysical, sexual, bonding, giant wolf god experiences?
He seemed to understand, dropping the cloth back into the tub, his grey eyes warm. “C’mon, I’ll dry you off.”
And so, in the quiet of the late afternoon, my mate patted me dry with a towel worn soft with much use, and then we dressed, ready to face this feast the albino dudes wanted to hold for us and then Leifgart.
“Ah, our Tirian guests, I…” Ralnor’s voice trailed off as he inspected the lot of us with wide eyes, the very pale irises standing out clearly in the early evening sunlight. “You’ve become a pack.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling the guys move closely around me. It was as natural as breathing—this need to be close to each other.
“Well, this is auspicious! We celebrate the pursuit of Branwen by Lonan at this time every year. To have such a successful hunt and the creation of a Tirian pack within our village brings us much honour.” He gestured to some of the women bustling around, bringing dishes out to be placed on long trestle tables. “Gitrud, Jana, bring our guests a drink immediately.”
Branwen. My jaw tightened at the name of the woman I’d seen in Sylvan’s dreams.
The women dropped down into neat curtseys and then rushed to do his bidding, coming back toting more tankards of the like given to Sylvan. Speaking of the Volken seer, where was the little bastard?
“Sylvan?” Finn said. That was interesting. We weren’t quite in each other’s mental space, but there seemed to be a degree of groupthink happening here. “Where did the Volken seer go?”
“Volken seer? The man with the blue eyes you left in the square?” If Ralnor looked chuffed before, now he was ecstatic. “Elen, Cynar, Mael! Bring the rugs and the best pillows. Not the ones from the meeting hall! They stink of your worthless hides! Yes, the ones in storage.” He turned to us and gestured expansively at the table of food. “I will have the seer brought before you forthwith. Please, come and eat! Formalising bonds can be exhausting, from what I’ve been told, and you plundered the old portal ruins.”
“Thank fuck,” Slade murmured to me as we moved towards the table. “I’m about ready to eat the crotch out of a low-flying duck!”
So, with that, we piled our plates with food, having missed meals all day. As if summoned by the offer of sustenance, Aaron’s men returned and joined the line, and the chatter as everyone served themselves was upbeat.
“We’ve retrieved most of the important stuff, Moonie,” Johnno said, carefully forking food so as to not aggravate his injured side. “We’re bloody lucky these Uldareel--”
“Uldariel,” Aaron corrected.
“Whatever they are, they did us a good turn collecting our stuff. Sorted it all out, even picked up stray bullets and shit. We are short on food, though. We’ll need to see if we can buy something from them or start hunting.”
“Good to know. I’ll follow up with Ralnor later, once everyone’s fed.”
Ralnor buzzed around like a blur arsed fly, making sure the place of honour was set up just so, and then he ushered us over to what looked like a massive daybed, heaped with cushions. The seven of us ended up reclining against them, eating with concentration at first, then slowing down to savour the complex and unusual tastes as our bellies filled.
“Ah,” Ralnor said as the sun began to set, his men now seated at the edges of the square, some eating with gusto, others toting tankards in one hand, yet more with arms wrapped around the waists of pretty girls. “The time of Branwen ends, and the time of Lonan begins. We celebrate the coming of the Great Wolf on this night, the longest night in the year, marking the time when his eternal pursuit of white Branwen threatens to come to an end, when he closes down on her heels, cornering her in her den, approaching her with a low growl.”
Chuckles went around the square as Ralnor spoke the words with a theatrical flair. Some of his men growled as he spoke, their sounds muffled by the necks of their women.<
br />
“Is this the year when Lonan brings his mate to ground, swallowing the light forever?” Two youths came running up in answer, dipping sticks wadded with fabric in the fire so they caught alight, then bringing the flames to their lips before spitting what was apparently a flammable liquid into it, sending great plumes of fire into the night sky.
“We say no!”
Cheers went up at this, the youths now dancing with considerable grace, some of the other younger members of the village running to join them. They twisted and twined, looking for all the world like flames personified.
“Mead… mead… mead…!” cried the crowd as the dancers twirled, making circuit after circuit around the fire. Great brown bottles were handed out among those sitting down on chairs or cushions or even bare stone, and they took great swigs from the bottles before passing them on.
“For your pack’s strength,” Ralnor said, handing one to us. It was huge and heavy, several litres at least. “May it bring strength to Branwen and allow the sun to shine again.”
Hmm, I’d seen who they called Branwen—both in human and wolf form—and wasn’t entirely sure how the two meshed, as they seemed very different. I guess the same could be said for me and my Tirian, bossy bitch that she was.
I merely refuse to accept the stupidity you have been raised to believe.
Yeah, right.
“Who the hell is Branwen?” Finn asked.
I shared with my pack the vision I’d seen when in Sylvan’s head, which caused a shuffle of interest in the group.
