The Frenchman

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  “He doesn’t like it when we break rank. He may be the beta, but Fermin has his eyes set on becoming an alpha one day. Bart doesn’t want any of us to try and take that title from him. It doesn’t make for good pack dynamics to try and compete.”

  “John is still alpha, though. That can never be taken from him.”

  Bart glanced over his shoulder to check on the boys, then turned his eyes forward again.

  Johannes walked a little closer, his blue eyes nervously watching the superiors. “There can still be squabbles among the mid-rankings like us, but like I said, Bart doesn’t want us to fight. Don’t upset the balance.”

  It didn’t seem right to Darren. It was a poor excuse for making Johannes feel like he couldn’t rise above, like an omega could never become an alpha, and it didn’t settle with his wolf. He knew this because it made him squirm without quite understanding why.

  There were still many things he didn’t understand about being a loup-garou, but the one thing he could grasp was that his emotions and mind were not entirely his own anymore. The wolf spirit in him, which John referred to often, had a soul of its own. It was complete with everything it needed to be a conscious, living entity within each loup-garou. It had feelings, instincts, desires, and those things should never be ignored.

  They arrived in a meadow of rich grass that rippled like a green sea blown every which way by tempest winds. On the opposite site, nearly half a mile away, was their target. A stuffed sack that was once used for holding flour, suspended from a low-lying branch by rope. He had watched this game from the back veranda at the chateau. The boys would run and touch the sack, then run back. It was simple enough, but much harder in practice.

  They all took turns, running forward and running back. Edmund and Fermin, of course, were able to touch the sack without plowing straight through it or missing their target completely in the mad dash to get to their destination. Some skittered to a stop too soon, undershooting so they wouldn’t collide with the sack. Others completely disappeared in the woods beyond the sack altogether.

  When Darren’s turn came, he made sure not to go at top speed. He touched the sack successfully because he could see where he was going, and came back only to receive an unexpected blow from his beta.

  Bart struck him across the chest and sent him flat on his back. Darren caught his breath and looked up into his dark, glaring eyes.

  “You did not do what I asked. You run your fastest and that was not it. The goal is precision. Do it again.”

  Darren was certain something in his chest had cracked, a bone perhaps. Yet, he stood and shook off the pain, knowing that if the rest saw his weakness, they would remind him of it later. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, the same way he ran that first morning in Longleat Forest before he realized the kind of abilities he had been endowed with.

  Just as before, he crashed into a tree and splinted the wood. Bits of bark fell around the protruding roots and Darren staggered away to recover. He heard them snicker, but he ran back anyway, a failure in their eyes. For now.

  Johannes was next and he ran, but not as fast as Darren knew he could. Yet, he didn’t call Bart’s attention to it, lest his friend receive the same beating that he did. If Bart thought Johannes could move faster, he would be yelled at for deceiving his beta all this time.

  They did this for what seemed like hours, running back and forth in turns. None of them tired, though. Their stamina proved to be remarkable and if Bart had his way, they would do this well into the evening without break until every single loup-garou could run and touch that bag without fail. Yet, even some of the boys who had been doing this almost every day for months, hadn’t quite figured out how to stop with such accuracy.

  Despite his previous offense, Bart proved to be a competent teacher. Some of his instructions made the difference between Darren crashing into trees and crashing into the target sack itself.

  If he made a mistake in the next exercise, however, it would be far less forgiving than the tough bark. For the next drill, the boys were to climb the trees and jump from branch to branch at least twenty feet off the forest floor.

  It was clear as soon as Bart ordered them up, that many of the boys loved this training and treated it much like a game. Darren, however, did not. He had never climbed a tree in his life, nor was he ever given a chance. He had missed out on the playful adventures of childhood in exchange for a sickbed.

  Darren stood at the base of the tree and looked up to the first branch that was well out of his reach. The others were already scaling up into the canopy, but he couldn’t find a way to even begin.

  “Darren!” Bart barked. “Are you waiting for an invitation from the tree?”

  The boys tittered in the same way they did when Bart had struck him earlier in training.

  “I… I don’t know how.”

  In an instant, Johannes leapt from the tree he had claimed and came to Darren’s side. “I’ll help him, monsieur.”

  Bart accepted this and turned his attention away for the moment. Johannes took Darren’s hands and without a word, pressured his thumbs into his palms. Darren winced at the sudden pain and watched in amazement as the second manifestation of his curse became visible.

  Sharp talons, a deep and grisly brown shade, grew in place where his fingernails once had been, extending from his fingers as if being drawn from their sheath by the force of Johannes’s touch.

  “You’ll learn to make them appear on their own after a while, but this will get you up the tree for now. Just latch on and get up that way. The wolf will take over the rest.”

  When he was done with the second hand, he left a stunned Darren to scurry up his tree once more with his own set of claws. Darren wasted a little too much time marveling at his claws before Bart yelled at him again.

  He didn’t understand how a wolf would know how to climb when Darren didn’t. Wolves didn’t dwell in trees, but in dens beneath the earth. Following Johannes’s instructions, he reached up and dug his claws into the trunk and pulled with all the strength he could. The nails did not bend or break against his weight, but only pulled and strained against his fingers and the tiny bones that he relied on to climb higher.

  He propped his feet against the trunk and climbed, first with one hand reaching up, and then the other. Sure enough, just as Johannes said, his wild instincts took over and with each foot of tree he scaled, it became easier, more natural.

  He came to his first branch and the others were already far ahead of him, jumping and leaping from one tree to another. His footing wasn’t sure and his sense of balance wanted to fail him, but one look down told him that he couldn’t miss his mark. The fall alone could break his body, but how well could he heal from a fall like that?

  Darren aimed for a closer tree and jumped. Just barely, he grabbed the limb and pulled himself up, but that wasn’t how the other boys were doing it. They were jumping from one branch to the other as if they were hopping across river stones. Some, like Fermin, didn’t even crouch before a leap and seemed to be running through the forest up in the air.

  It was slow, terrifying work, but Darren got to the point where he could jump and not feel the need to regain his balance. All the while, he wondered what any of this had to do with being a loup-garou. At what time would any of these skills become useful? The gardening and the shifting he could understand, but this was a new level of ludicrous that he couldn’t comprehend.

  In the treetops, far behind the others and unable to keep up, Johannes doubled-back to join Darren.

  “You have to go faster,” he said.

  “I know,” Darren grumbled. “This is harder than it looks.”

  Johannes jumped to his branch and it bounced with the added weight. “Don’t think too much about it. If you take time to think, you lose ground.”

  “How does Bart expect everyone to go at the same pace?” he complained, watching the beta keep up with the others from the forest floor.

  “The pack is only as slow as its
slowest member,” Johannes explained. “If you are running from hunters, you have to know how to keep up with the rest, so we all survive.”

  Darren’s brows furrowed. “Hunters?”

  Johannes shivered and nodded. “Yes, they’re humans who seek out our kind to kill them. I’ve never seen one, but the others say that they’re monstrous, hateful men. They live their lives believing the stories their ancestors have told and they hunt us, thinking that they’re doing the world a service by exterminating loups-garous.”

  They sounded terrible, indeed. Yet, how many other types of men did the same to their fellow humans? Wars were a prime example that men had the hearts of devils. How much worse could a hunter be than a man who sought revenge?

  The creaking of branches and taunting of the boys faded ahead, many of them vanishing behind leaves. Darren couldn’t even spot Bart’s gleaming white shirt on the woodland path. They had fallen so far behind that it seemed no one remembered they were there. Would it be so in a harried escape from hunters or a rival pack? Would Darren fall behind just as easily and be forgotten?

  Beside him, Johannes swayed a bit, his blonde hair tossed in the breeze that made the leaves around them quiver.

  “Are you all right?” Darren asked.

  Johannes snapped to attention and nodded. “Yes. I am fine. I’m just hungry.”

  A defiant idea that would satisfy them both entered Darren’s mind and he jerked his chin to the forest path. “Let’s go get you some food, then.”

  “It’s a long walk back to the chateau.”

  “No,” Darren said. “I mean, let’s try to hunt for something. Something small, of course. Just for you.”

  Johannes looked to him with a mix of excitement and apprehension in his eyes. “We need to try and stay with the others.”

  “You can’t stay with the others if you’re starving and don’t have the energy to continue.”

  Darren’s logic seemed to break through the rigid rules and structure that John’s institution had ingrained in him. His friend gave a quick nod and together, they hopped down onto a soft bed of leaves alongside the path.

  They waited a little longer until the rest of the pack was gone, and then set off on their hunt to find food. Darren had plenty of experience hunting small game after spending three weeks in the wilderness, but no matter how hard he looked for the signs in the earth, he couldn’t find the trail of a rabbit, a fox, or even a snake. It was as if all the other animals had sworn off this piece of land, knowing it was inhabited by predators.

  Perhaps the forest took pity on Johannes, because they did find something much better than a hare. When they came upon a stream some distance from the path, Darren grabbed Johannes and held him still, his gaze fixed across the water.

  There, lapping up water and her legs spread wide to help crane her neck down, was a doe, unaccompanied by a fawn or buck. Darren took a quick survey of the area, smelling and watching for any other signs that the doe was not alone. None. She was free to take.

  In a move that he didn’t expect, Darren summoned forth his wolf, asking it to help him catch his prey. He hadn’t done anything like it in the entire month that he had been loup-garou. His eyes turned golden, muscles tense and claws extended on their own without persuasion.

  Johannes whispered something, but Darren wasn’t paying attention any longer. He rushed forward with blinding speed, leapt straight over the creek and pounced upon the deer. She didn’t even have time to raise her head from the surface of the water before his claws and fangs sunk deep into her neck.

  Blood spilled out and drenched the front of his shirt as it ran over his lips and chin. The doe’s fur scratched at his face, nearly rubbing it raw as she struggled to get free. Darren wrestled it to the ground and pinned it there, all four hooves kicking wildly at her assailant. Her feeble cries for help were too short and too raspy to be heard by any other creature around. Within just a few moments, it was over and the doe lay lifeless beneath him.

  Johannes rushed to the stream’s edge and tried to cross it as Darren had, but his jump came short and the hem of his pants were dampened by the slow-moving water.

  Darren straightened and looked to his hand, shaking and dripping with the bright red blood of his quarry. The boundary between man and beast had been crossed and Darren thought he would exult in it. He did not. He might have caught a meal for Johannes, but what was he given in return? A racing heart and a mind that couldn’t comprehend or cope with the thoughts that he had when he had taken down the prey.

  In the moment, he had gloried in the kill, wanted to snuff out the life of that animal like it was fate and his hands were the procurers of it. That deer would have been hunted down one way or another, but Darren had to be the one to kill it. That’s what his wolf believed, what it wanted his human side to believe as well.

  Yet, for the first time, he truly became horrified and disgusted with what he had become. He wasn’t just a man with golden eyes and claws, or a boy who could run fast and throw boulders across rivers. He was a beast. A monster whose two halves warred over whether to pity the carcass he straddled over or devour it.

  Johannes, his eyes golden as well, dropped to his knees by the belly of the deer and tore into it with little hesitation. Darren staggered away, stepping over the rivers of blood that snaked through the blades of grass to taint the clear water of the stream.

  His stomach lurched at the sight of the deer’s intestines spilling out in Johannes’s hands and the way his friend bit into the flesh, sullying his clothes just as badly as Darren’s. He was sure he would never forget such a stench as long as he lived.

  Through the haze of trauma, fear, and sensory overload, Darren did detect something new. Another loup-garou was near. In an instant, he appeared by the deer and attacked Johannes. The smaller of the males cowered under his assailant.

  When Darren had taken a heartbeat to realize it was Bart who had tackled Johannes. A hideous and frightening roar erupted from the beta’s throat and Darren snapped into motion. Without a single thought to his own safety or the fact that this was insubordination of the worst kind, Darren leapt on Bart’s back and wrenched him away from Johannes with such force that even he was surprised.

  They rolled together, away from the carcass, fangs and claws ripping into immortal flesh in a flurry that lasted little more than a moment or two. Bart pushed Darren off with his feet and sent him tumbling away toward the edge of the creek.

  Darren stood and faced him, eyes still blazing gold and the blood of two loups-garous and a doe mixed on his chest and torso. His cuts were beginning to heal already, but the battle wasn’t over.

  A familiar sensation consumed him, claiming his body in a way that harkened back to that first night when he and Bartholomew were in Longleat Forest. The essence of his savage spirit reached out and lashed at Bart with tempestuous vigor.

  Bart stopped and snarled at Darren, his own gold eyes rife with fury.

  “How dare you!” he bellowed.

  Then, as if two Titans clashed in the heavens, a force stronger than his own pierced through and smacked Darren with such strength that he crumbled to his hands and knees. Once strong and daring, his wolf had stuck its tail between its legs and begged for mercy. Darren unconsciously hunched his shoulders inward, attempting to appear smaller and less threatening to his superior.

  Bart charged forward and that unforeseen force that subdued Darren nearly crushed him into blind subservience. Is this a taste of what Bartholomew felt when Darren had treated him so?

  The beta gripped the back of Darren’s neck and pushed his face into the soil until he could taste it and feel the grains of dirt go up his nostrils and sting at the edges of his eyelids.

  “You will never get in the way of my discipline,” Bart growled. “Do you understand?”

  No, Darren didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why Bart would punish Johannes for taking care of himself. He didn’t understand why, when Darren was the one to kill the deer, that Bart woul
d go after Johannes instead.

  He heard the rest of the pack stir in the trees and watched the scene unfold. Johannes moved from his place by the deer and in a surge of courage which Darren couldn’t help but be proud of, the loup-garou spoke up for himself.

  “I was hungry and Darren caught the deer for me,” he said. “He did nothing wrong.”

  Bart loosened his grip on Darren’s neck, but wouldn’t relent as he snapped at his subordinate. “You should not have eaten first. Darren should have taken his fill before you. You are at fault for that, but he defies my authority.” He looked to the others as Darren’s lungs burned with the need for air. “Let this be a lesson to you all. Honor the order of the pack. If you stray from it, there is only chaos. Those who are stronger and more dominant go first. Those who are weaker go last.”

  The beta wasn’t even upset that Darren and Johannes broke away to go off on their own. He was upset because of the order in which they ate and that Darren tried to defend his friend. As he lay in the dirt, unable to struggle under the weight of Bart’s heavy power, all he could think of was how backwards it all seemed. How wrong and unfair it was that loups-garous like Johannes, who could be strong if he chose to, were terrorized unnecessarily.

  Darren might have hated what he had become and despised the feral beast within him, but he had to agree with the wolf that this was not the way of the loup-garou.

  Chapter 8

  John could hear the whispers of the boys that trailed behind him and Bart. They simply could not stop themselves from talking about what happened earlier that day at the stream.

  Though they thought he would be fooled by their low tones and hushed words, he heard every single one of them. They were not the first boys to try and trick him with their secret conversations and they wouldn’t be the last. As an alpha, he heard every utterance from their lips, even those spoken by Darren and Johannes in the far back of the group. He let them believe they could keep their secrets, but he was more than dismayed to hear about the occurrence from them rather than from his own son.