by Red, Lynn
Damon filled his lungs with a long, slow breath. “My parents always kept me a little in the dark about all this. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t know anything about Skarachee politics or anything else. I really didn’t. I didn’t even realize werewolf politics existed until that guy started calling me Alpha this and that.”
My phone buzzed again and when I went to reach for it, Damon stopped me with a squeeze of his fingers. “Don’t,” he said. “I know who it is anyway.”
As good as the bells on that door sounded when they signaled our exit from Steve’s ice cream parlor, it was nothing compared to how it made me feel when Damon’s motorcycle thrummed underneath me and we left that town hall in the dust.
*
“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” Damon said as his friend came out the door.
When the guy turned around, my jaw just about hit the floor.
“Better to see her,” Hunter said, turning to me. “Very nice to meet you…”
“Err, Lily,” I said.
I looked back and forth between them. Long, dark-brown-leaning-to-black hair? Check. Green eyes that glittered in the sun, and too big to be not tested for steroids at a body building contest? Check.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “I didn’t offend you, did I? Sorry if I did.”
“No,” I said. “Not at all, it’s just that you two seem very similar.”
“Are we about to hear another inbreeding joke?” Damon looked at his friend. “She had quite a shock. First place we stopped was the middle of town. She saw—”
“So you learned our secret? We all have the same mother.”
I laughed, nervously at first, but then louder when Damon’s friend cracked a smile.
“When I saw him,” I tilted my head to Damon, “for the first time, I just figured he must be one of a kind. He’s so big that it doesn’t seem very likely many others could be around.” I took a breath. “But then we get here and the first two people we see are like fuc—sorry are like giants.”
“Lily,” Damon said, patting me on the back. “Breathe more.”
I screwed up my face and looked at him. “I was nervous rambling, huh?”
He smiled. God I love that smile. Even when he’s telling me to shut up.
Hunter grinned. “Does she know my last name? That’ll make it even funnier.”
“No way,” I said. “Don’t tell me.”
“Hunter King,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
Damon shrugged. “What can I say? Coincidences are hard to believe sometimes.”
After the laughing died down a little, Hunter grabbed my bag, which Damon grabbed from him. “Oh,” he said. “Alphas don’t like being upstaged, I guess. Anyway, come on. I got plenty of room.”
“We were going to get a hotel,” Damon said.
“Oh bullshit you were. You’re staying here.” Hunter led us toward the house – a small, red-brick place that looked cozy even from the outside. “My best friend, closest thing I have to a brother, comes to town for the first time in going on three years, and you’re getting a hotel? Bullshit. Come on in.”
Holding the door, he ushered us inside, into a living room that was mostly empty, save a couple of very large, plush couches, and a television that was way too big for anyone normal to own.
“It isn’t much,” he said. “But it’s what I got. You guys can have the room down the hall. Unless you can’t stand the idea of staying in the same room, in which case—”
Damon coughed then grinned.
“Right, well as I was saying, down the hall is your room. You two want something to eat? I think I’ve got some… meat or something. Maybe.”
“Yeah,” Damon said, laughing. As soon as we got here, he seemed to lighten up. I guess I could understand, even though I didn’t really have anyone like Hunter was to him. Except Grandpa Joe, I guess. “Listen, you go get us some, uh, meat or whatever,” he said in a gently mocking voice, “and we’ll get settled in.”
“Sure,” Hunter said. “Just down the hall.” He was already on the way to the kitchen, grumbling about food.
Down the hall and to the left, Damon carried our bags and tossed them on the floor before having a seat on a bed so big it almost didn’t fit in the room.
“That was quite an introduction,” I said, sitting beside him.
“Oh, Hunter? He’s always like that. He’s a lot like you, really. Definitely not all pent-up and in a shell like I am. He used to drag me to things I’d never do. He forced me to ask out the first girl I ever dated.”
For some reason, that stung. I didn’t want to admit to jealousy, especially over something that stupid, but he saw it on my face.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Sorry if that bothered you, I didn’t mean to say something that hurt.” He brushed some hair back behind my ear.
I shook my head. “No, it’s nothing,” I lied. “Just tired I think. Long day. Weird day.”
He took the bait and let me change the subject. Thank God for the small things.
Some urgent clanging in the kitchen made him smile. “Listen, Lily,” he said in his serious voice. “I don’t know what we’re going to find here, but I don’t want you hurt.”
“Oh no, no, no,” I said. “We’re not going back there again. You and your being overprotective is what drove us apart in the first place. We’re not gonna play that game again.”
I stood up and pulled my laptop out of the backpack I’d packed and set it on the bedside table. “I’m here because you need me, and no matter how much you don’t want to admit that, you know it’s true.”
A shadow crossed his face. I knew he didn’t want to upset me, but I could almost see him falling back on the excuse that I needed protection. But instead, he just nodded. “All right,” he said.
We sat in silence for a moment.
“That was weird, huh?” he said. “Those people at that ice cream parlor? I guess… maybe that’s why my parents kept me away from town as much as possible. I wonder if way back then, they knew I was supposed to be, well, what I am?”
“Maybe a part of moving you away from here was because of all that? Maybe aside from getting you near Poko, your parents were trying to protect you from… well, that?”
Damon closed his eyes and fell back on the bed, stretching his arms above his head so far his shoulders popped. “I don’t know about much anymore. Every time I think I have things figured out…”
I laid down next to him, taking my place in the crook of his arm. “Hey,” I said. “Look at me.”
He turned his head to the side and grunted as he opened his eyes.
“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out,” I said. “And no matter what, we have each other, right?”
Damon smiled, stroking my hair. “Yeah. Nothing’s ever going to change that. You’re right. We’ll figure it out.” He kissed the top of my head.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I heard that note of concern in his voice. “It’s not me you’re worried about.”
“It’s…”
“Be honest. We’ve been through this before,” I said, sliding my hand under his shirt and running my fingers over the muscles on his side. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Yeah. It’s just… I hope I’m as ready for this as I think I am. I hope I can be as strong as I need to be, you know? As strong as Poko believes I am. As strong as you need me to be.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I just have to get used to being Alpha. I have to be strong for everyone now. I can’t rely on others anymore. It has to be me.”
That last line took me by surprise. How did he know I need his strength? But I can be what he needs to be too. I can hold him just as tight as he can hold me.
“You are,” I said, letting my hand rest on his belly. “You’re everything you need to be. You just have to let yourself believe it.”
Three
Damon
Damon’s eyes snapped open.
Somewhere, not too far off, a chorus
of voices called out; howling, clear, and chilling, wordless cries pulled him from sleep. His ears tingled at each different tone ripping through the night.
As strange as hearing all those howls was, it made Damon feel like he was in a home he’d never known, not really anyway.
Turning onto one side, he propped himself up on his elbow and turned as softly as possible to look at Lily without waking her. One brown curl had fallen across her perfect face. He pushed it behind her ear, and she stirred enough to make him freeze.
Letting out a soft snort, then a breathy snore, she freed him from stasis.
She looks like an angel when she sleeps. How did I ever get this lucky?
The sight of her kept his attention for a moment longer before something pulled inside his chest. Like a muscle, exercised just slightly too hard, a tingle spread across his torso and up his neck.
Suddenly, it wasn’t only the howls he heard. No, it was a scent. He pulled a breath into his lungs, and realized he was smelling life. In his mine, he formed an image of eight wolves, gathered in a clearing, calling to the moon.
Calling to him.
The bed creaked but not enough to faze Lily. He checked, just to make sure, pulling the blanket back up to her shoulder. Instantly, she grabbed it and curled the downy quilt around her hand, pulling it under her chin.
One last brush of his fingers against the exposed skin on the back of her neck satisfied Damon’s need for her. “I’ll be back soon,” he whispered. “I promise.”
As soon as he emerged from the bedroom, a flicker of light from Hunter’s giant television caught his eye. “You here?” he asked in the darkness. “Hunter?”
No answer. Just the non-committal drone of some sports channel’s newsfeed.
“Hello?”
There it was again, the twinge in his chest, urging him to go out into the night, to experience his other nature, his wilder one. When he finally crept into the living room, he saw rumpled blankets, and by the door, a pile of clothes.
Damon snorted a laugh. So that’s how I keep from having to buy new jeans.
It felt strange to undress in the middle of his friend’s house, but there was just no fighting it. Not anymore. Damon needed to let himself be what he was. Fighting it was just a pointless exercise in frustration and guilt. Back in Fort Branch, he’d never do what he was about to do, but out here, things were different.
Everything was different… except him.
Damon was among his kin, his pack.
He was so exhausted after they ate that he just fell asleep in his clothes, so he pulled the shirt off over his head, undid his belt and dropped it all to the ground. When he went to try the door, he shook off the last remnants of the shame he felt at wandering outside totally naked.
It was already partly open.
The September air kissed his skin. A chill crept down his back that made all the little hairs running along his backbone stand at attention.
Every time he’d done this before, he very quickly ended up either in a fight or blacked out. He gritted his teeth, made up his mind and knelt.
Crouching on the manicured grass, Damon’s knee sunk in.
Just like Poko taught him, he imagined his body changing.
Long, hard hairs stretched his pores. Damon’s hands and feet went first to claws, then to paws. His thick muscles grew leaner, longer and loose.
It should have hurt. His muscles twisting, bones sliding into new places, it should have hurt like absolute Hell.
But instead, it felt good.
The world around him exploded to life. Sights and sounds and smells filled him.
And then the howls came back.
Bursting through the night, he felt them call him.
Damon started to run, awkwardly at first. He looked back to where he’d been and saw two split socks.
Shaking his head, snorting into the air, he charged forward into the brushy woods.
Something was calling him, he knew.
And he was going to find it.
*
A strange darkness ringed the tiny cabin.
Damon approached slowly, sensing that this is where the voices wanted him to be. As soon as he entered the clearing, the baleful howls silenced one by one.
It was a lonely cottage, all by itself, nestled inside a clearing that extended a few feet on either side before returning to fairly dense scrub trees. Off in the distance, the top of a bluff was barely visible if he craned his neck. Behind that rocky outcropping hung an orange half-moon that seemed closer than it should have been.
Standing up, his muscles contracted, his lupine hair vanished, and Damon was once again Damon, and once again, naked in the dark.
Carefully, he slid through the shadows to the side of the wooden house and peered through a window at what he was afraid he was going to find.
Two Skarachee, bound in silver, stuck halfway between man and wolf. He’d seen that before – he’d been that before – but seeing two of his kin bound and gagged, helpless, sent a wave of revulsion through Damon’s whole body.
Gritting his teeth, he swallowed hard. If this is what it means to be a leader, then this is what I have to do.
A gentle tap on the window above his head was all it took to send it swinging open with a soft creaking sound. He reached up, grabbed the worn, wooden windowsill and silently scrambled up the side of the building, and inside.
The first breath that Damon took of the cabin’s dense, thick air filled him with the sense that something was not quite right. His hand fell on a light switch as he felt his way around, but he decided not to risk it, instead letting his eyes adjust to the filtered moonlight coming through the thin curtains.
Thankfully, it only took a second before he was able to make out details as he circled the bodies.
No clawmarks. No teeth. I knew it. This has nothing to do with werewolves.
Damon touched one of them gently on the arm. The skin was leather, hard and dry. Where the chains had fallen loose and slipped, he noticed the tell-tale black burns that silver left.
And then, all at once, he had to turn away. He couldn’t look anymore, couldn’t stand it. I can’t… I just can’t. This is too much, too real. I want out, I need out.
He turned to the window, but just as he was about to give in and run, the front door groaned and opened. Two pairs of feet moved along the floorboards.
“Why do we have to keep coming back here?” It was a woman’s voice, resonant, though quiet. “I did what you wanted me to, what’s the point of coming back to stare at the mummies?”
“Quiet. Be quiet,” a man said. “Something’s amiss.”
The woman took a deep breath and released a sigh. Footsteps had almost reached the top of the stairs. Damon shot a quick glance around the room. All he saw was a split, ragged-looking wicker clothes basket, and a pile of trash in the corner.
“After you,” the man said as the door slid open. Briefly, it hung against something on the floor, giving Damon a split-second to crawl back out the window. As soon as his feet were out and his head disappeared from view, the door opened with a squeak.
The four footsteps – two of them clomping like boots, and two moving with the stutter of high-heels – moved to the center of the room. Damon curled his bare toes in the tiny space between the boards on the side of the cabin, but supported most of his weight with his hands clutching the windowsill.
Don’t give out… don’t let go.
He felt his heart pounding in his chest, but somehow, he thought of Lily’s angelic, sleeping face. He thought of her words the night before. “You’ll already what everyone needs. You just have to believe you are.”
Damon tightened his jaws.
“Why do they do this when they die?” It was the woman talking. “Why can’t they just keel over like normal people?”
The man clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You’re crass, Danness.”
“I’m crass? You’re the one who summoned me to do your dirty work. You�
�re the one who won’t let me go.”
“Not just yet,” the thin-voiced man said. “There’s just a little more to be done, and then you can flutter back to whatever hellhole you call home.”
The woman laughed sarcastically. “Carrell, you forget which one of us is the immortal and which one of us—”
“Dredged the other up to get a war started?” The man – Carrell – snorted. “What would I do without you? Aside from have far less dyspepsia.”
Damon wanted to pull himself up and look, but he dared not, even though it sounded like the two people in the room above him were in full make-out mode. Shortly, the woman gasped a sharp breath.
“You’re choking me? Oh naughty boy,” she said. “I’m supposed to be the one playing dirty, you mangy old warlock.”
The words sent a shiver down Damon’s spine. A warlock? Did that mean the woman was his ward? Or… whatever warlocks called their demons? Poko dropped enough vague hints that Damon was aware of all kinds of things existing outside the realm of normal, but he had no idea it went this far.
“What’s left for me to do?” Danness breathed. “Why can’t we get out of this place and go do what we both want to do?” She curled her words in such a way that Damon was vaguely sickened.
A boot heel tapped rhythmically on the wall right above Damon’s head. Seconds later, the high heels clicked just inside the window. Danness let out a drawling ‘hmm…’ making Damon tighten his whole body and freeze in place.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I don’t know why you’re so excited about this plan of yours. It’s all so petty, all so mortal.”
“It’s not for you to care,” Carrell snapped. “What I do is my business, succubus. What you do for me determines whether you live or die. We’re clear on that?”
“Testy, testy,” she said. Damon could almost see her rolling her eyes. “Two hundred years should have been enough to teach you some patience.”
“Do what I told you,” Carrell said, ignoring her. “The young pup of an alpha will be here soon. We can’t have him finding these two without any signs of a wolf attack.”
So that’s it… a set up? But why? What could this—
Danness laughed another cold chuckle. “If it’s a wolf attack you want, why not just do it yourself? You’ve certainly had the practice.”
