Red packed as many supplies on me in my bird form as she could. I wished I had time to carry more, but I didn’t as night was falling, and I needed to make it back to my friends. For the second night in a row, Grace had to fight for control of her wolf. I was certain we almost lost her before she submitted to me, but luckily enough, she did, and we had a restful night; no wolves tried to come out to where we were. Grace was losing her battle with the curse, but I wasn’t going to give up on her.
I felt slightly guilty after my mother’s impassioned speech. Here I was hiding off in the corner of the wolf territory, and the wolf village was in chaos. I knew the sleeping children above me needed me to stay and protect them, but it was still hard to hear the pleas of people and the howls of the wolves.
21st March
When we woke the next day, it was like the horrible night hadn’t happened. I could pretend we were just camping, and Grace sure did keep it cheerful enough for the children to do just that, but the older children knew the reality just as Nikkan, Grace, and I did. The curse was destroying the wolves.
“Can we go back today to check on them?” one of the older kids asked.
It was obvious that they had heard all the howls also. I didn’t blame them in the least for being worried. They had left behind parents, grandparents, and older siblings.
“We can’t go back until it’s safe,” I answered before Nikkan could. He would have said the same thing.
“If we can make a safe zone here, then maybe some of the parents, if they aren't cursed yet, could come here,” Nikkan suggested. “They could live on the ground away from the children but still be able to see and talk to them. We could build a real house for the kids, like the tree people have.”
That sounded like a good enough idea to me, but I wasn’t sure how to execute it. I had built my own place, but that was on the ground. I wasn’t really versed in how to build treehouses. Azren was safe and secure by the time I was born, and I wasn’t sure how to do that from scratch. It was a whole city in the trees, and I didn’t know where to start to make one house. I couldn’t think too hard as Azren took too many seasons to count to build, but we had to start somewhere.
“How about I head back to the village and pick up supplies, see what I can find,” I suggested.
Nikkan nodded.
“I’ll come with you.”
“I can stay with the kids,” Grace added.
“But wouldn’t it be easier if they had your help too?” Samuel asked.
He was the oldest of the kids. He probably didn’t have too long before he was old enough to be cursed also, but for right now, he was safe from it.
“I can take care of the camp. It isn’t like anyone is going to come and cause trouble right now. It is day time.” The boy had a point.
I looked at my friends. We weren’t going to be gone too long, and it was daytime. And besides, I could fly back in only moments if we needed to help.
Nikkan nodded like he was on the same thought path I was.
“Okay. You keep the younger ones to the trees just in case, and we will be back by lunchtime.”
Samuel nodded to Nikkan and then to me. I could see the boy was confident enough. He would be fine.
Nikkan, Grace, and I took off back to the village. Where I could normally run back in record time with my new endurance, I took it slow for my friends. Grace was still a bit weak from her fight with the curse, and Nikkan was the ever-attentive boyfriend. He carried her part of the way despite her protests.
“So, you didn’t get to a chance to tell us if you found anything,” Nikkan began as we got out of sight of the kids. I had turned back one last time to be sure they were fine, and they were.
“We didn’t find much. It seems Red keeps newspapers from all the kingdoms. We went through them, and the only thing we found was that a Prince from Aboria was born around the same time as me.”
“Could he be your twin?” Nikkan asked.
Grace burst out laughing.
“Not possible. They are as much alike as night and day.” She tried to keep her laughter down but still found it quite funny.
I shrugged. I knew very little about Prince Fallon. I had no clue what he looked like.
“How do you know that?” Nikkan asked as I raised an eyebrow at Grace.
“He’s in all the magazines we import. Haven’t you seen him before? He’s that really good-looking guy with a crown. I’m sure you would have seen him at the magazine stand. I think he’s always on a cover or two every moon cycle.”
“Good-looking?” Nikkan asked. I could see the jealousy on his face.
Grace laughed again.
“Not as good-looking as you.” She grabbed his arm and twined her fingers with his. That seemed to appease my golden-haired friend.
“What do those magazines say about him?”
I didn’t think I was related to him as I could picture the guy Grace was talking about. I never knew his name, but I was vaguely aware who Prince Fallon was, and we looked nothing alike, but I had to wonder if there was some sort of connection. He was the best lead I had so far. It wasn’t like any mysterious babies adopted seasons ago would just be roaming around the forests of Elder so I could ask them.
“What’s he like?” I asked. Grace seemed to know more than the newspaper I was reading.
“Handsome, but not as handsome as you,” she added again for Nikkan. “And he seems to know it. He doesn’t go anywhere without women throwing themselves at him. They say he’s the most eligible royalty as he doesn’t have any siblings and will inherit the throne outright when his father wants to be done. You can’t imagine how many girls want to be a princess that’s guaranteed to become queen.”
Nikkan made a gagging face behind Grace’s back.
“What does he do for a job until he becomes king?” I asked. I had heard that some royals had other jobs or trained with their military. If I remembered right, the King of Aboria wasn’t much older than Red, and he was likely to rule for quite a few seasons.
“Job? Does Prince Fallon work? I doubt it,” Grace replied with a flutter of her eyelashes. She might have said Nikkan didn’t need to be jealous, but I could understand that look on her anywhere. She had a crush.
“No job?” Nikkan asked, puffing out his chest as if that made him a better candidate for Grace.
Not that my friend could say much. Nikkan spent most of his time as a wolf sleeping around my house. We made most of the border runs together, but that was about all Nikkan would do as a job. Not that it meant much. Most people in Elder didn’t have traditional jobs, at least, not the people living in the forests. We had enough stuff to get done each day just not to go hungry or cold. Jobs were an afterthought or a talent.
“Then what does he do all day?” I asked. I wanted to understand this Prince Fallon better.
Grace shrugged. “Not much of anything, I suppose. All the pictures I see of him are when he is at parties. He seems to do those a lot. And he must like them. He’s always smiling.”
Okay, I really had nothing in common with the Prince of Aboria. But that didn’t mean I was giving up quite yet. It was possible what I needed to do was meet this prince. Maybe he could tell me where he came from and give me a better clue as to where to look. Adoption by a stranger wasn’t that common in Elder. Most people knew who their parents were, even if they weren’t raising them. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I felt like I needed to talk to this prince.
“Even if he’s handsome,” Nikkan drew out the word while his nose wrinkled in disgust. “He doesn’t sound like he provides much. A pretty face can’t catch you a meal or build you a home.”
I nodded. That much was true.
“And that’s why I’m with you and not running off to Aboria to try to catch the eye of a prince,” Grace said as she patted Nikkan’s arm.
I had to agree with Nikkan. The prince didn’t sound like much, but he was a lead. If I didn’t find any new answers here in Elder, I was going to have to look furthe
r into him.
We all three stopped talking as we came to the village. I didn’t think it was possible that it could be in more disarray than before, but it was. At least a quarter of the huts were torn down or burned. Off to the west, I could see there was smoke, possibly from a burning hut.
People littered the street. As we walked into the village, I could tell most, if not all, were still alive, but that was likely due to the magical wolf that resided inside them. Wolves had much faster healing, so even if they were fighting and getting hurt, they weren’t dying, yet.
It took every part of me not to stop and try to help. The children needed help first, and then we could look at the rest of the people. When they had a safe home, we could turn to helping the cursed.
“What do we need?” Grace asked, trying not to look around either.
“Nikkan and I’ll try to find as many boards as we can; you look for nails and hammers,” I directed her.
“And blankets,” Nikkan added. “They could use more blankets. I saw that little curly-haired one shivering this morning. They don’t have fur to keep them warm like us.”
“Once you get what you can, head back to the camp. Don’t wait for us. I don’t want them alone any longer than they need to be,” I told her. “Nikkan and I’ll probably have to make several trips to carry what we can find.”
Grace nodded and kissed Nikkan’s cheek before heading off into the village.
“I figured that the wall we didn’t finish would be the best place to get boards.”
Nikkan nodded his agreement as we began to walk to the edge of town. It would be easier to skirt around the town than go through all the carnage that blocked the streets, so we took the longer route around town.
As we approached the wall, I could tell we were right. Unfortunately, with just two of us, it was going to take a bit of time to haul all the unused wood to our camp. Nikkan and I stood before the stack of wood.
“We should probably take the trimmed boards first,” I assessed. They looked like the floor of the tree houses in Azren.
“Or we take it all,” Nikkan suggested. As usual, Nikkan was crazy ambitious.
I had no idea how he planned to pull that one off. He motioned to a cart nearby. Together, we could probably pull the cart back to the camp, but we still could only fill it full enough that we could pull it. We were strong, but not that strong.
“We still can’t take it all,” I told him.
“And why not? Is your animal form just for show, or could you be an ox and actually pull this thing?”
I nodded to my friend. I hadn’t thought of that. While my new animal form very much felt like just a part of me, I hadn’t thought to do more than run as a wolf or fly as a bird. He was right.
“Then, let’s do this.”
I paused.
“But you better not let anyone try to eat me!”
Nikkan threw his head back and laughed. I wasn’t exactly sure if that was a yes or a no.
We first loaded up the cart. When we got as much on it as possible, I moved to the front of the cart and stared at it. I wasn’t exactly sure how to make it work, but we would. I let the change take over my body, and I was instantly an ox. I looked back with my changed eyesight at my friend. He was grinning that his wild idea was actually going to work. I moaned at him to hurry up, and he quickly harnessed me to the cart.
It was a slow trip back to the camp as we couldn’t take the direct route through the trees, and we ended up leaving the cart further away than we would have liked, but Nikkan and I managed to bring a full cart of boards to the camp in one trip. Now, we just needed to figure out how to make a treehouse. But that was going to have to wait. I needed to hunt on the other side of the wall and get food for the children.
I expected a quick trip to catch something and bring it back, but that wasn’t going to be the case when Sera showed up.
“Feeding time for the cubs?” she asked as she found me gutting a deer.
I had been lucky and found an animal big enough that it would feed them for days. I was going to have to use my bear form to carry it back. I nodded to her as I worked, my arms were covered in the guts of the animal.
“What’s the plan to do next?”
I finally looked up at her. I didn’t have a plan. I was at a dead end. We thought I was possibly part of the key to stopping the curse because the women who brought me to Red told her that, but if I couldn’t find out where I came from, then I wasn’t any help. I shrugged before going back to the animal in front of me. I had too much to get done and not enough time. Twenty-two children depended on me to get them food and keep them safe. I didn’t have time to figure out any more about how to save them from the curse. I was failing.
“You’re not giving up, are you?”
“I can’t give up if there’s nothing to give up. I’m a ghost. I’m not a citizen of Elder.”
And that was the truth. I wasn’t in the record books. I was no one. At least, helping the wolves and the children survive gave me a purpose. What was I otherwise?
“Nothing? You really think you are nothing?”
“According to Elder, I am.” I stood up and looked down at her. She crossed her arms across her chest and huffed at me.
“Really, Castiel? I thought I knew you better. The Castiel I know is strong and wouldn’t let little things like this get in his way. Guess I was wrong about you.” Sera threw her arms in the air and marched away.
I tried not to watch her go, but it was too hard. Her receding form faded into the trees. I knew I’d upset her, but it was the truth. I didn’t know what to do next. I wanted to help my friends, but I didn’t know-how. Helping the kids gave me something to do until I could get more crazy ideas out of Nikkan. When I ran out of thoughts, he was always there to give me more. That’s why I needed to go back and be with him and Grace. I just needed a few nights to reenergize and think, and I would be back.
Camp and hungry children were waiting for me when I returned to my friends. Grace took the deer from me and instantly went to work, making it into a meal. When she took the meat that she could use tonight, Nikkan took the rest and wrapped it enough to keep it from spoiling until we could finish using it tomorrow.
Night came too quickly, and our fed wolf children were tucked in their hanging beds. I was exhausted from our day and my fight with Sera, but I knew what was coming. The curse was growing quickly in Grace.
Grace was worried before she turned, but she couldn’t stop it now. She had to turn. The pull of the night was too great. I turned with her, and Nikkan tried to keep up, but as soon as she was a wolf, Grace took off into the woods.
She took off on a hard run, heading north of the village. I didn’t wait for Nikkan and took off after her. Grace ran fast, but I was faster. When I finally caught up with her, I had to tackle her to the ground. She yipped and growled at me, fighting back. I could see that Grace wasn’t in control. The wolf staring back at me wanted to kill me for stopping her.
‘Grace,’ I pleaded with her, “Come back to us.”
The wolf growled and tried to buck me off her, but I wasn’t just stronger; I was also larger than her. I had to press harder to keep her to the ground and worried I might hurt her, but the opposite wasn’t an option. I wasn’t going to let her go free and hurt herself or others, even if she wanted to. I wasn’t going to let my friends down.
Grace growled at me again.
‘Grace, please. Fight it. I know you can.’
Grace bucked more beneath me, and with her twisting and wiggling, she was able to move her head close to my foreleg. Clamping down, I felt the pain but ignored it. I wasn’t letting go that easy. Grace shook her head and then suddenly stopped. I felt the images come to me in a rush.
Grace was sorry and regretted hurting me. She was back in control. I stayed where I was until she looked into my eyes. Slowly, she faced me, and I could see my friend in her eyes. It was one more night, but she was still in control. The curse hadn’t won yet.
Slowly, I let go of my friend, ready to stop her if it was just a trick. Grace nodded to me, and I motioned behind us.
‘We need to head back to Nikkan. You left him in the dust.’
Wolf Grace gave a little chuckle and nodded to me as she took off in front of me back the way we had run. I didn’t give it any thought as we picked up our pace to head back as to why Nikkan hadn’t caught up with us. Yes, cursed Grace was fast, but she wasn’t fast enough to outrun us completely. And Nikkan wasn’t a slow wolf.
Grace howled as we neared and saw the scene before I did. Nikkan was on the ground as four wolves took turns jumping in and biting him, taking chunks of his fur and skin with them. Grace didn’t wait as she charged forward. I knew our odds weren’t the best with four crazed wolfs against three as it was, so I changed my form. I wasn’t going to fight fair. My size grew as I neared, and long brown fur covered me. I could feel the power in every step as I neared my friends.
I didn’t wait for an invitation as I swiped at the nearest wolf. One powerful hit and the wolf went flying. It hit a tree and whimpered. It wasn’t long before the other three wolves knew what they were facing, and all turned to me. That was fine with me. I was ready for it. As each wolf moved, I was able to get in a hit. Even if the wolf got a scratch or bite on me, it wasn’t enough to stop me. It wasn’t a fair fight. I was four times the size of them in my bear form. When the wolves had enough for the night, they turned and ran back the way they came, and I slumped to the ground beside my friends. It was going to be a long night.
22nd March
We spent the rest of the night, keeping Nikkan safe as he healed, and running the attacking wolves away from the tree where the children slept. If I had to guess, it would be they came because of the meat hanging in the tree with the children. I could have brought the meat outside the wall, but it was too late to matter much. They already had the scent. It was daylight by the time we made it to sleep.
God of Shifters Page 5
