Raised by Wolves

by Bridget Essex

  Oh, shit.

  Emily and Connor change into wolves.

  So, adult werewolves have grace and speed when they change, but kids...well, they're kids. They don't know how to do anything gracefully yet, and when Emily and Connor become their wolf selves, it's this kind of weird, blurry, air-bendy thing, watching their bodies morph and change. It's not instant, and it's more than a little weird as their noses lengthen, as they bend forward so that their fingers can shorten to the digits of a wolf, tails erupting from the bottoms of their jeans...

  And then there, standing with Victor between them, are two wolf puppies.

  They're a little older than what you might think of as a “puppy” in this form: their legs are elongated, their muzzles longer, too. They look super gangly and utterly adorable, but then that adorableness disappears as Emily snarls, her lips up over her sharp, puppy teeth, and she throws herself onto Connor.

  The two pups tumble together as Loren literally falls off of my lap, out of the chair and onto the hard ground. She struggles onto her knees, peering up over the chair, and stares at the scene before her, flabbergasted.

  “What,” she whispers, and then she says it again, staring up at me.

  But Emily and Connor are really going to town at this point, snarling and nipping and growling, and I'm kind of worried that Emily's about to open one of Connor's veins. All of the adults, of course, think this is Super Hilarious (they always encouraged me, when I was a kid, and all of my cousins who were close in age to me, to wrestle together and try to out-fight one another), and they're laughing as Emily and Connor roll around on the brick patio outside the French doors. But when the rolling becomes a little erratic, and Connor snarls, shoving Emily off of him, he manages to shove her...

  Right through one of the French doors.

  I stare at my girlfriend, whose eyes are currently as round as the moon, and I make a decision.

  I pat Loren's shoulder gently, and then I'm on my feet, sprinting toward Emily, who's finally landed on the hardwood floor inside the house, surrounded by broken glass. The chairs were far enough back that none of the adults were in any danger of getting sprayed with pieces of the windows.

  “Em, are you okay?” I ask her, kneeling down beside her, taking care not to kneel on the glass. But, instantly, I can tell that she's not all right. The scent of blood fills my nose, and when Emily gets up, shaking broken glass out of her fur, she winces, holding up her front right paw. I take her muzzle gently in my hands, turning it. Shit, her cheek is bleeding, too. But the cut in her paw is gushing blood.

  “Poor girl,” I tell her sympathetically, glancing up at everyone. “Rod, can I get some bandages?”

  “I'll fix her up,” says Rod companionably, appearing at my elbow. And he looks sadly at me, gathering Emily into his arms, lifting the pup up as if she weighs nothing at all. “You're wanted for something else, Becca,” he says then, his voice low. “Good luck.”

  When I turn back toward the room, all of the adults are now standing in front of their chairs. And they're all staring at me, stone-faced.

  “What?” I murmur, clearing my throat.

  This is...odd.

  But then my eyes sift through the crowd, looking for Loren...and that's when I realize she's not where I left her.

  God, did she leave? Was it all too much? Well, of course it was too much. Did she flee out into the night, terrified by the sight of violent kids becoming violent wolves? I wouldn't blame her. I just wish I could have explained...

  But even as I think these thoughts, I realize that it isn't the case. Because I can see Loren now, as the adults move to the side, forming a sort of aisle down the middle, taking their chairs with them.

  And in the very center of the room, I see her now, my mother. Standing right beside Loren.

  Loren looks very, very uncomfortable. My mother has an arm draped around her shoulders, drawing Loren to her in an awkward sort of hug. But Ma isn't looking at Loren at all; she's staring at me.

  “I'm sorry it had to come to this, Becca,” she says then with a light shrug. “But it's time.”

  “What, time to go?” I ask, my voice in a low growl. I have no idea what's going on, but there's something about the way my mother just said those words...as if there were a threat implied in them.

  “Sweetheart,” my mother sighs, like she just said the most obvious thing in the world, and I just didn't get it, “today's the day. Today's the day you challenge me and assume your rightful place as head of this pack.”

  The hair is standing up on the back of my neck. With humans, that normally means the human is creeped out by something. But when it happens to a werewolf, it means the werewolf is pissed about something.

  My hackles are rising.

  “Mom,” I say, my voice level and even, “if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times—I'm not fighting you. Ever. Now, I've got a lot of explaining to do to my girlfriend. That is, if she still even wants to be my girlfriend after she's learned exactly what we are.” I glance at Loren, my heart pounding hard within me, hoping against hope.

  “...we?” asks Loren weakly, gazing at me with a very furrowed brow.

  I take a step forward. I'm going to make my way down this path that my relatives so thoughtfully made for me, and I'm going to take my girlfriend in my arms, and I'm going to get her out of here. Not because the air in the room has turned positively hostile (and it has, the atmosphere thick with tension), but because I have to come clean now. I know I should have told her before this moment, but it never seemed like the right time. The cat is out of the bag... And I'm going to tell her the truth.

  I'm going to tell her everything.

  But when I take that first step, my mother tightens her arm around Loren's shoulders, shaking her head.

  “I'm sorry, Becca,” she says clearly, “but you will fight me. That's why I invited you here today. With Loren. She was required because I've done everything else I can think of to get you to commit to your duty. And now, you've forced my hand.”

  I stand there, my hands curled into fists, realization dawning in waves.

  That's why I invited you here today.

  With Loren.

  My mother didn't ask us to the family dinner so that she could meet my girlfriend. She asked us to come here because she saw how much I cared about Loren. She realized that she could use Loren to get me to do anything she wanted.

  Which, you know, is something you'd expect of an archvillain, someone evil.

  Not your own mother.

  “Ma, you're joking,” I tell her, shaking my head, voice firm. But the look on my mother's face indicates that, no, this isn't a joke. Not at all.

  She snarls at me now, and she squeezes Loren's arm. Loren winces, but she doesn't make a sound. Her face is flushed, and her nostrils are flared, and even though we're twenty feet apart, if not more, I can scent her fear.

  Loren's terrified.

  “Ma,” I begin fiercely, “if this is what you were planning, why didn't you have someone grab her right away, when you took me into the kitchen?”

  She sniffs, shaking her head. “This isn't some dire hostage situation, dear. We're going to have our nice little fight, and then we're all going to share some after-dinner coffee. We had to eat dinner first, of course.”

  “Of course,” I mutter.

  This whole situation is no big deal to my mother, I realize. She has been trying to get me to commit to fighting her for as long as I've been alive, and I have refused for as long as I've been alive. And when she discovered that there was someone I loved—very much—she leapt at the chance to take advantage of that. I realize, standing here, bristling as I stare at my mother, that none of this is personal to her. My mother gets what she wants. She's pack leader. She's Alpha.

  She knew that, by using Loren, she'd get me to do what she wants.

  And she's right.

  “Just...let her sit down,” I say helplessly, indicating the closest sofa to my mother. “And let's...” I
take a deep breath, rub my damp palms along the thighs of my jeans. “Let's get this over with.”

  Even as I hear myself say those words, everything inside of me is screaming out at me to flee the situation. To get out of this, to take Loren away. I don't know if my mother would stoop to hurting Loren...but she's my mother, and I've witnessed her do many things I didn't agree with. Could I really put violence past her?

  Regardless, I have to fight her. For Loren's sake.

  I draw in a deep breath. I never paid all that much attention when my mother was teaching me and my cousins about the Alpha rite. I mean, it's kind of ingrained in us; we all know the rules. In order to become Alpha of a pack, you have to fight the current Alpha and win. Pretty straightforward.

  But when my mother fought my grandmother...I think she killed my grandmother. She's never really talked about it; I don't know if my grandmother died from injuries sustained in the fight or because my mother actually ended her life with teeth and claws. I guess that's something I should have asked about, but I never saw a reason to. I guess I didn't want to know.

  So, what I'm wondering is this: is this a fight to the death?

  That'd be ludicrous, right? This is the age of McD's and cell phone selfies and ordering something on Amazon one day and getting it the next. There is no way that something so archaic and stupid could be what my mother wants.

  After all, she wants me to win. She doesn't want to die.

  My mother lets Loren go, and Loren sags down, sitting on the edge of the sofa and staring at me with haunted eyes. I glance around at the people on either side of me, searching for Rob's familiar face, and that's when I realize how deep this rabbit hole goes.

  Because Uncle Kyle has Rob's arms pinned back. Sonia is standing beside Rob, gritting her teeth, but so far, she isn't restrained. She's my mother's second; she wouldn't jeopardize her place in the pack to help her son. At least, I assume she wouldn't. To go against my mother in this situation, unless it's an Alpha fight challenge, would mean immediate expulsion from the pack. And, for a werewolf, the pack is so much more than family. It's...everything.

  “Come on, dear,” says my mother in her no-nonsense tone. She walks past me, her high heels clicking on the wood floor and occasionally crunching on a bit of broken glass, obliterating it. “Let's go do this outside.”

  I glance back at Loren, but my cousin Jimmy has her elbow in his hand, and he's helping her to her feet. So I guess she's coming with us to watch this spectacle. Great. As if my nerves were shattered enough, wondering if my mother intends this to be a to-the-death fight...but now I have to attack my mother in front of the woman I love, the woman who, after all of this, will probably get a restraining order against me and never want to see my face again.

  Uncle Kyle comes alongside me, and Rob—cooperating with my uncle—gives me a forlorn look.

  “I could take Kyle in a second; no offense, uncle,” he tells Kyle over his shoulder.

  “None taken!” Kyle says brightly.

  “But I can't take on everyone,” says Rob, lowering his voice and glancing at me, his face full of worry. “So...what's going to happen here?”

  “Oh, I don't know,” I mutter. “I'm assuming some bloodshed. Possible death.”

  Rob was about to joke, but when I deliver that last part, he goes pale. “You don't think—”

  I shrug. “No idea. But if it comes down to it—”

  I don't finish my sentence, because my mother has reached a spot that, I guess, she finds acceptable for this wolf duel. She turns around, and then she toes herself out of her high-heeled shoes, tossing them behind her onto the lawn.

  One of her motion sensor lights has been activated by us marching on the grass, and it shines down on us from up high on the house, illuminating the backyard like it's a night game of soccer.

  “So, my dear,” she says brightly, spreading her hands, “are you ready?”

  Our relatives have formed a wide circle around us, and I glance at them, sniffing the air. It's hard to tell exactly what they're thinking, because everyone's so muddled, but it's interesting... I think they're all pretty sympathetic to me. Or, at the very least, they're uncomfortable about this.

  Good. That's important.

  I take a deep breath, squaring my shoulders.

  Okay. Time to call her bluff.

  “Ma,” I tell her, using my most soothing voice and holding my hands out in front of me, palms up, “you can't be serious, right? I don't want to be pack leader. I've never wanted to be pack leader. I just want to be happy. You're a great pack leader. No one needs to take over for you, not for a long time. You're in your prime.”

  My mother stares at me across the expanse between us. She's lowered her chin, and her eyes are glittering as she looks up at me through dark lashes.

  “Good luck, dear,” is all she says, ignoring everything I tried to tell her.

  And then, my mother transforms.

  Most often, werewolves get out of their clothes, because, well, who likes buying a new wardrobe every few months? When you transform from your human form into your wolf form and you're still wearing your clothes, the clothing shreds into rags. Our wolf bodies, as werewolves, are much bigger than normal wolf bodies, and there's no way the fabric can hold up to so much pressure.

  My mother was wearing a pretty expensive dress, but she didn't even think about it. Her entire body rolled forward, like she was about to do an elaborate swan dive, and then she simply became a wolf. A big, black wolf who's staring at me with dark, glittering eyes, her lips up over her teeth, her fangs long and glistening in the too-bright beams from the floodlights.

  Across from me, my mother snarls a warning.

  I need to transform. Or she's going to come at me in my human form.

  She's not going to wait.

  I hold up a hand, and then I'm growling as I unbutton my shirt quickly, shrugging out of it and tossing it onto the grass. My bra follows, and then I'm out of my pants and panties, tossing them onto the lawn.

  For werewolves, the naked human form of a fellow werewolf just doesn't hold the same titillation as it does for humans. We don't think of it the same way, just because we have to transform around each other so often. And think about it: wolves are pretty much always naked.

  But Loren seems to be a little shocked that I just tossed off all my clothing, because she actually tears her gaze away from my mother's wolf form to stare at me, instead, her eyes growing even wider, her mouth open as she breathes out.

  Loren's going to see me transform.

  I didn't want it to happen this way. I wanted to tell her someday, maybe. Eventually. I mean, the very thought terrified the hell out of me, but I knew it was going to have to occur if we were going to stay together. There's no way that I could ever keep such a big part of myself hidden from her.

  And there's no way that I would want to, either.

  It's messed up, the way that I'm having to reveal such an enormous part of myself to her now, around so many other people, but at least it's happening. No matter what else goes down tonight, she's going to know the true me.

  For better or for worse.

  I take a deep breath. I lift my nose to the sky, and, overhead, there's a big, beautiful full moon nestled among a bank of clouds. Of course.

  I can't help but smile as I transform, as the human parts of me fade away into nothingness, replaced, instead, by all that is animal.

  Turning into a wolf is like diving into warm water. First, there's the feeling of softness that surrounds you, soft warmth, as your body is cocooned in your fur. It's not painful, as your thighs shorten, as your knees invert; it's all smooth, the way your bones start to grow or shorten, your muscles changing inside of you. You're mostly made of water, anyway, and water is movable. My nose lengthens, my teeth grow, my fingers shorten, grow thick claws, as I fold forward. I dive into the wolf, and it's like I was always the wolf, like there's no part of me that was ever human.

  It's been a long time since I became my
wolf self. Too long, maybe. As I stand there now on all fours, beneath that beautiful full moon, surrounded by my pack, I...remember. That's the best word I have for it. I lift my snout to the air, I breathe in the cold night air, and the wildness moves me through so profoundly that I'm lifted up by it, filled by it.

  I am it. I am, in that moment, all wild.

  My mother is pleased as she takes two long strides forward. She lowers her head, her hackles up, her feet treading with purpose, but I can also tell that she's glad I'm here, glad that we're finally doing this.

  But as happy as I am to be the wolf again...I'm not happy that I'm about to fight my mother. I don't want to. My entire life has been spent trying to convince my mother that this is a barbaric, archaic tradition that has absolutely no place in the modern world. And she would always remind me that it's the wild animal inside of us that commands it. We are, all of us, wolves, and the only way that a wolf will listen to another wolf, will obey another wolf, is if that wolf is its Alpha.

  As my mother and I circle each other, I try to get my bearings, try to keep Loren in my sights at all times, or—if I can't see her—at least scent her. Rob, too.

  Everyone around me is on high alert. There are, thankfully, none of the kids around.

  Because, I realize, my hackles rising even further, a growl escaping from deep in my throat...things are about to get ugly.

  And that's when my mother strikes.

  One moment, she's standing on all four paws, about ten feet away from me, her eyes trained on me; the next, she's leaping through the air, her front two paws extended, her mouth open and her teeth glittering in the bright floodlight. I wasn't expecting it, even though I was tensed for the eventuality of an attack, but I still manage to bound out of the way, turning at the last moment to avoid her claws scratching my right shoulder.

  I turn quickly, but my mother is quick, too, and since she's so close, she's already at my throat, snapping her jaws in the small space between us.