by Renee Carr
I didn’t know if he was asking me or just asking the question out loud, but I answered him anyway. “I’m really confused. I’m sorry that someone did something to you, but I don’t know what a shifter is. You keep saying it, but I don’t know what that means.”
He wiped his nose on the back of his shirtsleeve and spit on the floor. “Sure, you do. You were saying the name of one when you were passed out. ‘Christian, Christian. Come save me, Christian.’”
My eyes shifted back and forth and I shook my head. “Are you talking about the wolf? You change into a wolf too, just like Christian, and a shifter is… it’s a wolf shifter. I get it. I’m sure that I could help you, but I can’t help you from here.”
He was pacing back and forth again. “All I wanted to do was come out here, with my boy, and do a little fishing. Well, it ended up that I was out here by myself because my son just wanted to go out with his friends. I didn’t care, I just needed to get away. Inviting my son was a nice thing to do. Anyway, I’m out here, minding my own business when this deep black wolf came charging at me. Before I could even move, he ran his claws down the back of my arm, and then I passed out.”
I looked around again, making sure it was just the two of us. “Where’s this wolf now?”
He snapped his head toward me. “I don’t know! If I did, I wouldn’t be dealing with you. After the scratch, and passing out, the next few days were a blur. I felt absolutely terrible, I just kept going in and out of sleep. Suddenly, one day when I’m feeling just a bit better, I shifted for the first time. I didn’t even know it was in me, but suddenly I went from a human to a wolf in three seconds. It’s so painful. I want him out. My wolf doesn’t listen to anything I have to say. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”
My teeth were chattering at that point, and I had no idea what to say to him. It was almost as if he wasn’t talking to me to get my advice, but instead just talking to me because he had no one else to tell. He walked toward me and dropped down on his knees, pulling at the neck of the shirt that he was wearing. His face looked tortured, and his teeth were gritting so hard that his jaw was perfectly square.
“I hate this,” he whispered. “The feeling is indescribable. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, not until he comes out. Not until my wolf finds me. But then, once he has, I have all these terrible thoughts, these needs to hunt, to kill, to not have any respect for life. Just like when I found you, I almost ripped you apart right there. Everything in my wolf is telling me to do it. But I knew you would be worth more than that.”
“More?” I asked. “What do you mean? Are you trying to sell me to someone?”
His face look completely insane, but he was in his own world, or a world with multiple personalities. When I spoke, though, he twitched and watched me, trying to pay attention to what I was saying. “You’re here to lure the men. You’re going to bring the wolves to me. In my human form, I’m not a very nice guy, but apparently my wolf is ten times worse. I want to hurt the shifters, to show them what they’re doing to innocent people. They need to know.”
My heart dropped into my stomach, and without thinking, I crawled across the floor toward him. “But you don’t even know them. What if they can help you? What if everything you think is wrong? You’ve been alone, and you’re scared. I can understand…”
He roared out at me, marching toward me and pushing me back against the wall again. He stuck his finger in my face, and I could see the veins twitching in his neck. “I’m not scared. I’m not scared of anything. That’s part of the problem. At least as a piece of shit human, I kept myself from doing anything too stupid because I feared going back to prison. But my wolf takes all my fear away. It’s like he’s speaking to me from inside my head, and I can’t stand it. It drives me crazy. The voice doesn’t even sound like mine.”
I didn’t know what to tell him, but I knew he was hell-bent on destruction. If only he could see that not all the wolves were bad, at least not Christian, and he was the only other wolf that I knew. There were obviously more: the one that had turned him and the one that had turned Christian, at the very least.
I let him calm down for a minute, watching his chest rise and fall as the anger simmered up and down his tensing muscles. I didn’t want him to turn into his wolf. I could tell he was already out of control. I was pretty sure if he did, he would kill me. After a few moments, he walked over to a rickety old chair pressed against a leaning table in the corner. He pulled it out and sat down, putting his hands over his face.
That was my chance, the only chance I figured I would have. “But maybe there’s another way.”
He didn’t look up, just shook his head and groaned. “I never wanted this life. When everything happened, there was no one there. There was no one there to help, just like the rest of my life. I’ve always been alone. I’ll continue to be alone, and I’m just fine with that. In fact, I guess I’m not alone anymore since I have this wolf. He seems to be the only one that has my back, even if the things he wants me to do scratch at even my conscience.”
I shook my head and put my hand out, but I didn’t move from the spot that I was in. “But I know someone who went through the same thing as you. I watched him. He was out here in these woods, and he was bitten by a wolf. He almost died, having seizures and fevers, and then suddenly he started to get better. At least I thought he was getting better. One night, he turned for the first time, or shifted, as you call it. He was scared, angry, and didn’t know what to do with himself. So, he set out, searching for answers.”
The man pulled his hands down, his face calm, and sat back, crossing one ankle over his knee. “Oh yeah? And what did he find?”
I glanced up at the window, wondering if he was out there, wondering if he knew I was missing. “I’m not sure what he found out. But what I do know is that the anger quickly began to fade with whatever answers he’d found. I know he’ll help you. He’ll be there for you, welcome you in. He’s that kind of person. Even with the wolf inside of him, Christian doesn’t…”
I didn’t mean to say his name, but what did it matter? It wasn’t like this guy knew who he was. He leaned forward, his dark eyes flashing with gold. “Go on, what were you going to say about this Christian?”
I swallowed hard, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “He’s going to come for me. And when he does, we can explain everything to him. We can explain it together. He knows what it’s like to be scared and he’ll understand what you did. As long as you don’t hurt me, he’ll be willing to do anything to help you.”
For just a split second, I thought maybe I had gotten through to him. But I hadn’t. Very slowly, a smirk curled on his lips and his eye twitched. I curled back into the corner, knowing what he was about to say wasn’t going to be good at all. I’d never hoped for something the way that I did right now, huddled in the corner. I had never hoped for reprieve or rescue like this before.
Very slowly, he creaked from his chair, walking toward me with heavy feet. He stopped and looked down at me, spitting to the left. “Now you’re speaking my language. I heard you talking about Christian when you were unconscious and I smelled a wolf on you when I found you. I didn’t expect you to actually be human, but it’s not a problem for me. In fact, it’s even better. When your Christian comes to find you, I’m not only going to kill him, but I’m going to kill every single shifter that’s with him. And when I’m done, and you’ve witnessed the whole thing, I’m going to take you and feed you to the wolves that changed me.”
23
Christian
“Who are you talking about?” Arthur asked me, stepping forward and putting his hand on my ruffled back. “Take a deep breath, get control of your wolf, and talk to me plainly.”
I breathed deeply in through my wet nose, letting the air trickle out of my jowls. My heart calmed just a bit, and I collected the facts in my head. “I’m talking about the nurse that’s been taking care of me. But she’s more than just my nurse. I’m in love with her. I’m prett
y sure she’s in love with me as well. If she was out in those woods, that meant she followed me and was looking for me. When I went home, she wasn’t there, so I headed to their main house but her scent split off before I reached the door. I followed the trail down through the woods and found several places where she had fallen. Finally, I came upon a clearing where I not only found her scent but the scent of another strange wolf. Her blood was on the ground and there was no sign of her.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and he put his hand to his chin, walking back to the boulder. When he turned, he looked at me with caring instead of bewilderment. “And what did this wolf smell like?”
I thought about it for a moment, reaching back into my senses to pull up the smell that I had found next to the ruffled leaves. “Wild. The wolf smelled wild and feral. I could still smell his human on him very strongly, so I can only assume that he’s a new wolf, a new shifter. But there was something about his scent, something dark and ominous. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I just knew it wasn’t right.”
“And there was no sign of her?” he asked again.
I shook my head. “No. I found her flashlight about 200 yards away in the leaves, where she had first fallen. Then as I reached the clearing, I could see where her body had hit the ground in several places. On the other side was a large tree with remnants of her blood on the bark. On the ground, there were two different spots, one with drops of her blood, and one with drops from the wolf. From the smell of his blood, I could tell his wound wasn’t deep or serious. If it was, he had healed it with his wolf before he changed, leaving just remnants of it. The blood wasn’t that old either, not even dark or congealed yet. I wanted to go after them, follow the trail, but I figured it was best that I bring you along with me. I wasn’t sure what I would be facing.”
Arthur nodded and gave me a comforting half-smile. That smile quickly faded as he let out a long, deep breath. “One of the issues that we’ve been having with the dark wolves is the fact that they are hunting for others to join their pack. They want an army of dark shifters, enough to wage war against us, and against the humans. Sure, they hate us and they want us gone, but we’re not the only thing they have their eye on. The dark wolves aren’t happy with just coexisting. They aren’t happy with running the wolf shifter underground. They aren’t even happy with living amongst humans. They believe they’re a superior species.”
“How can that be?” I asked. “They are no different from us. They shift, they run in packs, they fight, and they have the DNA. Why would they think they were superior?”
Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head. “I don’t know where it started, or when it started, but it’s an age-old rivalry that I thought had been stopped 50 years ago. Apparently, I was wrong. The thing about the dark wolves is that their DNA is actually not the same. It’s different from the others, holding a deep ancestral magic within its structure. They can’t do magic spells or silly things like that, but if they strike the right person, the one with the original DNA to turn, one drop of their own blood will create a nefarious personality within the human. If that human is already on the more dangerous side, a deep-seated anger grows quickly in their belly.”
My ears perked, listening for any sound of wolves or others coming in our direction. I was always on the watch when I was in my wolf form. “So, they’re recruiting and then they train these wolves to turn against us?”
“Not exactly,” Arthur replied. “They turn the human into a shifter, and then they abandon them for a certain period of time. Apparently, they believe that creating isolation and loss is the best way to break the human down to the point where the wolf can take over. So, they leave them scrambling in the world for a while to see if they can survive it. If they do, they then reintroduce themselves to the wolf that’s taken over the human.”
My lips snarled and a low growl came from my hollow chest. “That’s bad. That’s really bad. Especially if they have her. I don’t think they’re trying to turn her, I think they’re trying to lure us in. I know you protect the others, but I need to ask this of you. Please, will you come with me to save Libby?”
Arthur had been looking down, but his head quickly snapped up and his eyes grew as wide as saucers. He stepped forward and narrowed his eyes. “What did you say her name was?”
“Libby,” I replied. “She was born and raised in this town, so if this is where you’re from, you may have known her. I don’t know how long you’ve been a wolf, though. She’s a bit younger than me, but not that much.”
His eyes shifted away from me and I could see a contemplative look on his face. I wasn’t sure what I had said to get that reaction, but it didn’t stop him from asking questions. There was obviously something stirring in his mind. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was about to find out.
Arthur’s hand raised up to his chin again, and he glanced over at me for a second. “Tell me about Libby. Tell me what she does, if she has any secrets or dark past. Anything you can tell me will help.”
I wasn’t sure how it was going to help me find her, but I had trusted Arthur so far, and I wasn’t going to stop now. “Well, she’s a nurse at the local hospital. She’s lived in Apple River her whole life, and currently has a place in town, but I’ve never been to it. She stays at her mother’s house quite a lot. Apparently, years ago, her father left one morning to go fishing in the national forest and never returned. They searched and searched for him but never found a body or any trace of him, for that matter. She told me that everything had been wonderful in their family and he had no reason to just leave them. Afterward, when they finally told her and her mother that they couldn’t put any more resources into the search, her mother got upset and went out for a drive. During that drive, she was in an accident and she ended up paralyzed in a wheelchair. I think she’s paralyzed from the waist down because she still goes out in her garden and cooks, and she is a very wonderful lady. They have a very curious story. It kind of reminds me of the shifters.”
Arthur had turned away from me as he listened, and I waited for him to turn back. He was silent, and the silence took over the cave. I shifted my paws, scraping my claws against the ground and breaking that silence. Arthur sniffled a bit, and then walked angrily forward, taking off his clothes and tossing them off on the boulder. Turning back to me, he had a look on his face that spelled determination but there was also a bit of fear hidden behind his eyes. “We can’t waste any more time. We’ll both track and get to her as soon as we possibly can.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” I replied, finding it a bit strange how urgently Arthur wanted to help. At the same time, though, I didn’t care—I just wanted to get out there and find her. I wanted to find her alive, and I wasn’t sure how much time she had left.
Arthur rapidly changed as he always did and took off at a run out of the cave. I followed along behind him, putting my nose to the ground and sniffing with every step. He caught the scent quickly and we were off, racing through the woods, dodging the large trees and branches as we went. I wasn’t used to running in the daylight, and I liked the warm sun beating down on my fur.
“I might know where this is leading,” Arthur said inside of my head. “If I’m right, I’m going to be upset. I thought about searching the exact area that I’m thinking of just a few days ago. I figured there couldn’t possibly be anyone out there, though; we would have sensed them by now. It seems the dark shifters are getting even more sneaky with their tricks. They may be hiding the scent of the dark wolves.”
Hurrying across the uneven forest bed, we leaped over a small embankment and landed on the other side. As we did, our claws scraped through the ground, and for just a second, I lost her scent. But Arthur never did. He took off with great strides, and I was struggling to keep up with him. It didn’t matter to me, though—whoever could get to her first would be able to help her. Just when I thought I had lost him, I came screeching to a halt, almost ramming right into him on the other side of a hill. His large wolf head nod
ded through a thick patch of trees and vines. “Do you see the shack? I can smell the wolf and Libby from here.”
I took in a deep breath, catching both scents as well. Then I paused, thinking of something I hadn’t thought of before. “Arthur… how exactly did you know which one was Libby’s scent?”
His head stayed in the same position and his eyes were clamped onto the shack. “Come on, I don’t think we have much time.”
I didn’t even have a moment to re-ask the question before he was racing toward the shack. I took off after him and growled loudly as we approached the door, leaping forward and knocking it down off its hinges. It slammed loudly, snapping two rickety floorboards, and blew plumes of dust. I looked back and forth, finding Libby curled up in the corner, her hand up and a whimper coming from her chest. The new wolf was standing over her, enormous with long, dark fur and clothes ripped around its body.
The dark-haired wolf spun around and its snout creased in a snarl. “I thought you would never get here.”
My head snapped toward Arthur. “How can he talk to us?”
Arthur dug his claws into the ground and sunk low, snarling loudly. “I told you… dark shifters are magic.”
With that, he took off racing toward the wolf with absolutely no apprehension in his body. That wasn’t like Arthur. He was very careful all the time. As he came up off of his hind legs, slashing his front claws through the air, the dark wolf swung its body right and left, slamming its head into Arthur’s side and sending him flying across the room. Arthur’s wolf hit the uneven 2 x 4 walls, and whispered loudly as he slid down to the floor, a gash bleeding from his side. The wolf was strong, probably stronger than Arthur and me combined. But I wasn’t going to let him have Libby, even if it was over my dead body.
