A Symphony of Howls

by Val St. Crowe

  She lay down next to me.

  I rolled over on my side so that we were looking at each other.

  “Is it really awful?” she said. “I mean, would it be so awful to be mated to him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t be sure.”

  “Well, how do you feel? Do you have an instinct about him?”

  I sighed. “I… not really. He said that once we were mated, we would feel a bond. I wish I knew what to do.”

  “I think you’re hesitating because you’re afraid,” she said. “But if Vivia said that the two of you are meant to be, then it’s true.”

  Maybe she was right.

  But as I went to sleep that night, I thought about the way it had felt to become a wolf. The call had felt so right. I had known, in my bones, that I was meant to climb that fence. I wished I was that sure about Judah.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Oh, there you are,” came Vivia’s voice.

  I looked up from the breakfast bar, where I was eating a sandwich with Sinead. It was lunchtime the next day.

  Vivia pulled up one of the stools, right next to me. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I want to get started on the preparations for the mating ritual between you and Judah.”

  “Get started on them?” I said. “I haven’t even agreed to do it.”

  Vivia drew back. “What? But of course you want to mate with Judah. He is your mate. The two of you are meant for each other. Besides which, the Northeast Pack is becoming unstable. The ritual needs to be performed as soon as possible.”

  “Listen, I’ve only been on one date with Judah,” I said. “I feel like he and I should talk again before I agree to… to…” This was bizarre, that’s what it was. Bizarre.

  “Well, I’ve spoken to him,” said Vivia. “He said that he was willing to go forward, as long as you were.”

  “I know. He told me that as well. But that doesn’t mean that…” I hesitated. “When are you thinking this ritual should happen?”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow?” I was aghast. “How could I possibly be ready for all of this by tomorrow?”

  Vivia patted me on the shoulder. “All right, I see that you’re having a bit of trouble adjusting. But I know that you’re going to come around, so I’ll tell you what. I’ll go ahead with the preparations, and we’ll give you a bit of time to think about it. You can always call it off if you aren’t ready.”

  “Wait, you want me to decide between now and tomorrow night? I can’t possibly do that.” I looked to Sinead for support.

  But Sinead seemed very interested in her sandwich.

  “This is what you were meant for,” said Vivia in a quiet voice. “Your whole life has been building towards this. You must have always realized you didn’t belong where you were. That’s because you belong with Judah. You belong with his pack. Trust me, once you do this, you’ll feel as though you’ve finally come home.”

  I just shook my head.

  Vivia smiled at me. “Don’t worry. This is the right thing, I promise.” She got off the stool and swept out of the room.

  Once she was gone, I turned to Sinead. “This is absolutely nuts. She can’t possibly be serious.”

  “Well… I think she’s trying to do the best thing for everyone. Vivia knows where you belong.”

  “I know where I belong.”

  “Which is where?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “None of us belong here with Vivia, you know? We’ll all eventually mate up and find a pack,” said Sinead. “You’ve found your mate. What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t… I’m not in love with him,” I said. “Shouldn’t I feel…?” I thrust my hands into my hair. “It’s too fast.”

  “That’s the human side of you talking,” said Sinead. “Wolves move fast. And once the mating is complete, I think Judah’s right about the bond.”

  I gazed at her. “I thought you’d be on my side.”

  “I am,” she said. “I’m not… I want you to be happy. And it’s like I said, you go and look for a mate for me and send him after me, and then we’ll be together again. I can’t stay here forever either. If you deny Judah, what are you going to do? He’s your mate. No one else is coming for you.”

  “Don’t say things like that,” I said, and I got up and left the kitchen, feeling dangerously close to tears.

  I went for a walk out on the grounds, and I thought about calling Desta again. But I didn’t think she’d have much advice for me. All her relationships were forced too. Maybe that was just the way things were for supernatural creatures. Maybe it was only humans who got things like free will.

  I knew I didn’t belong in the human world.

  Judah was my mate. Everyone seemed sure of it except me. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t like Judah. Maybe with time, I would come to love him. He seemed like a very good man. So… what was I waiting for?

  Sinead was right.

  No one else was coming for me.

  I went back and found Vivia and told her I would do the mating ritual.

  She gave me a hug and told me she was happy for me. She said that it was normal to feel nerves, but that it was going to be beautiful, I would see.

  I hoped she was right.

  * * *

  I thought perhaps I’d get to talk to Judah again, but he didn’t come by or call. I didn’t have a way to get in touch with him. So, instead, I spent the rest of the day and the next day with Sinead, and we tried to cram an entire lifetime friendship into a few hours.

  She was excited for me, but I was still apprehensive, and so I made a rule that we would not talk about Judah or my being an alpha or the mating ritual. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. Not because I thought it was a bad idea. I had already decided it was the right thing to do. But because it was all very scary, and I didn’t know what was going to happen.

  While all this was going on, Vivia had Alan down in the basement, rearranging all the furniture, because that was where the mating ritual was going to take place. I asked if it was strange for the ritual to be taking place here and not with the pack, but Vivia said that it would be easier for me not to be uprooted yet. She said that I would be more comfortable here. I guessed she was right.

  At some point in the day, I decided to call Desta. Not for advice, but because this mating thing was a big deal. I was going to be with Judah for the rest of my life and I was going to be an alpha. I should tell my sister about this event in my life, this huge, huge event.

  But she didn’t answer when I called, and I couldn’t leave it on a voicemail or send her a text.

  After I hung up, I felt again like things were moving too fast. I had barely become a wolf or gotten settled in my new life, and now suddenly, I was being mated and sent off to live with a pack. I knew that Sinead said that this was what happened to all werewolves, but I was so confused and everything seemed to be going at the speed of sound.

  Maybe I wanted to call Desta to see if she thought it was insane too.

  But then, what would Desta know about anything? When I thought of the complications in her life, I realized that it was probably par for the course. Neither of us was going to have a typical human life, not anymore. We weren’t human.

  The time went too fast.

  Before I knew it, Sinead was helping me into a long, flowing light blue dress that she had selected from the wardrobe and we were fussing with my hair, which we were leaving down. Sinead wanted to curl it, but I said that it was too much trouble. Judah should get used to my looking the way that I looked normally, not all dolled up.

  “This is your mating ritual. You have to look stunning,” said Sinead. She curled my hair anyway.

  An hour later, I emerged, hair in long ringlets, makeup artfully applied, and I was escorted downstairs to the basement.

  The basement had been transformed. Now, instead of the living area and the game room, there was a king-sized bed in the center of the room, swathed in red satin sh
eets. There was an aisle, like a red carpet, going to the bed. In the background, there was soft music, slow and romantic, played on strings. It was coming through the surround sound speakers, so it seemed to be coming from every direction.

  Everyone was already down there, on either side of the aisle, waiting for me.

  Judah looked up at my approach, and he strode across the room to stand at the foot of the bed, where the carpeted aisle ended. He was wearing black slacks and a black suit jacket over a linen shirt. The collar was open, baring a bit of his chest.

  Sinead let go of me, and I was standing alone at the end of the aisle, looking up at Judah across the expanse of the basement.

  Vivia was next to me. “You look beautiful,” she said to me in a soft voice.

  “Thank you,” I said, and my voice sounded shaky.

  Vivia raised her voice. “We are here tonight to celebrate the union of Camber Fordham and Judah Wulfsben. Together, they will be the alphas of the Northeast Pack. Long may they rule!”

  Rule? I thought it was democratic.

  Everyone applauded.

  Vivia wrapped her fingers around mine and raised my arm into the air, like a symbol of victory. “The moon calls to you both in the darkness. Do you answer the call?”

  “I do,” Judah responded from across the room in a voice that carried.

  And then everyone was looking at me.

  Was I supposed to say something? I guess so. I didn’t know there were going to be, like, vows. Someone should really have prepared me. “I do,” I said, but my voice wasn’t nearly as loud or as strong as Judah.

  “May you always be bound together in the moonlight, in the teeth and claws and fur of the wolf pack,” said Vivia. “May your union bring you joy.”

  Everyone clapped again.

  Vivia dropped my hand. She smiled at me, giving me a nod. Then she backed away from me.

  Everyone else followed her, and they all went up the steps, silently, slowly.

  I craned my neck up, watching them ascend. When the last person had gone through the door, they pulled it closed and the sound echoed. Then there was nowhere to look except at Judah, who was waiting for me across the room.

  I swallowed hard.

  He extended his arm, holding out his hand to me.

  I took a deep breath.

  And then I began to walk towards him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It seemed to take forever to reach Judah, but when I did, he seized my hand, and his palms were warm, and his fingers were trembling slightly.

  He was nervous too.

  I thought this might reassure me, but it didn’t. It only made it all worse. I wanted Judah to take charge and to be comforting and make this all easy for me. Instead, he had trouble looking into my eyes. He kept meeting my gaze and then looking away, his gaze flitting about the room, as if it everything he saw made him uncomfortable.

  I felt uncomfortable too. The lavish bed and the music, it was all too much. It spoke of a romance that didn’t exist between us. How could we possibly do this now? Already?

  Judah’s fingers tightened around mine and he tugged me a little closer. He licked his lips and then he looked into my eyes—full on into them, not looking away.

  I realized right away that he was determined to kiss me, and I felt panic rising in my chest at the notion of it. What was I doing? Was it too late to get out of this? If this was so right, why didn’t it feel right?

  But then his lips were on mine, and they were soft and warm. There was nothing wrong with the kiss at all. It was a nice kiss. I opened my mouth to him, but he didn’t respond. His tongue stayed in his mouth. Mine stayed in mine.

  And then we broke apart.

  He sucked in a noisy breath through his nose and let it out. He looked at me. He looked at the bed. He looked down at our hands, which were still entwined. He let go of me.

  I felt the urge to put my hands together, so I did, and I massaged the place where he had gripped my hand, as if his grip had hurt, even though it hadn’t.

  “Well,” said Judah.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He tried a laugh. “This is, uh, very uncomfortable.”

  I laughed too. “I know. It’s, um… is this normal for it to be so fast? Isn’t there usually any courtship?”

  He massaged his nose. “I honestly wouldn’t know. I wasn’t alive when the last alphas of our pack mated. I’m not sure exactly how it’s done. I didn’t even know about this ritual, or the words to speak. Vivia knew those things.”

  Well, that was interesting.

  “Not that it’s much of a ritual,” he muttered. “They’ve just closed us up in here and expected us to, uh, go at it.” He grimaced.

  I squared my shoulders. “Well, do we have to?”

  He raised his gaze to me.

  “I mean, couldn’t we say we did it, but not do it? And then wait a little bit, and get to know each other and then maybe we’d feel more at ease?”

  He shifted on his feet. “If we don’t mate, we’re not, you know, mated.”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  There was a long, long silence, during which neither of us looked at each other.

  I squared my shoulders. “All right, well, then, we should probably try kissing again.”

  “Okay,” he said. He stretched his neck and then faced me.

  I stepped closer, pressing myself into his body. I slammed my eyes shut.

  His mouth on mine again.

  Another closed-mouth kiss. A perfectly nice kiss, all things considered, but there was no passion in it.

  Feeling bold, I initiated another kiss. This time, I stuck my tongue in his mouth.

  He recoiled, staggering backwards.

  “Oh!” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

  “No,” he said, straightening, running his hands over his jacket. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t have— You startled me is all. We can… we can try that.” He took a shaky breath, as if he was trying to psych himself up for it.

  “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to…” This was all horrible, wasn’t it? “I mean, we don’t have to French kiss in order to, um, to mate. That’s not necessary.”

  “I guess not.”

  “If you’re not ready to—”

  “I should explain something to you,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He grimaced again. “No, no, I can’t explain it. It doesn’t matter anyway. After tonight it won’t matter, so…” He shut his eyes and shook his head. He looked agonized.

  “Is there…” I folded my arms over my chest. “Is there something about me that you don’t like?”

  His eyes snapped open. “No,” he said too quickly.

  My face fell.

  He reached under my chin with one finger and lifted my face. He peered down on me. “You are lovely. You’re perfect.”

  I bit down on my lip. “But you don’t want to do this with me.”

  “I do,” he said, but it sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as well as me.

  “Listen, I don’t know if I want to do it either.”

  “I do want it,” he insisted.

  “But—”

  “Listen,” he said. “The bond will be there after we’ve mated. We should just get there, a means to an end. It doesn’t have to be complicated. There doesn’t have to be a lot of…” He searched for a word, groping at the air.

  “A lot of what?”

  “Foreplay?” he said, cringing.

  “Oh,” I said. “I guess not.”

  Another long silence. The music seemed oppressively loud all of the sudden.

  He gestured. “Face the bed.”

  My jaw worked. I thought about refusing. What would happen if I backed out? I could back out, couldn’t I? He wouldn’t force me.

  I hesitated, thinking through all my options, and I knew that if I refused, that I was refusing my future and my destiny. I could stay here for a little longer, but I’d
be treading water. I was an alpha wolf. I needed a mate and a pack. Judah was offering these things. I had to trust that he was right, that the bond would materialize.

  So, taking a deep breath, I turned and faced the bed.

  His hand on the small of my back, applying gentle pressure. “Lie down.”

  I let him push me face down into the red satin sheets. The bed was soft. I closed my eyes, and then I turned my head so that my cheek was pillowed against its softness. I opened my eyes.

  He was unzipping himself.

  This… this wasn’t how I thought this would go.

  But I didn’t shut my eyes. I watched him take himself out. He was soft. He wrapped one of his own hands around himself and stroked. He wasn’t soft for long. He saw me watching him then. Our gazes met. He blushed.

  I looked away.

  There was a rustling sound and I looked back. He had a condom packet he was opening. He sheathed himself and then he gathered up the skirt of my dress and lifted it.

  I shut my eyes again, feeling air against my legs as he bared them.

  He peeled my underwear away, and then I was very bare. I opened my mouth to say something. This wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t ready, and it wasn’t going to be comfortable and—

  But then it was happening, and the condom was lubricated, and I was glad of it. I bit my lip again, as he entered me, and I was filled up, invaded.

  It didn’t hurt. It didn’t feel good either. It was like nothing, like a stranger stroking my nose. And it was quick.

  Maybe ten strokes and he grunted and stopped, and I felt him pulsing inside my body.

  And then… well, it was the strangest thing ever. It was a similar sensation to the way it feels when you are climbing into higher elevation, and you swallow, and your ears pop, and suddenly you can hear again and your head feels so open.

  There was a kind of pop, and everything was open. I could feel Judah in a way I hadn’t felt him before. Not physically, not exactly. I could feel his presence and I could feel his emotions. And that wasn’t all. There were others that I could feel. Minds and bodies and other emotions—how many separate individuals I couldn’t say. They were far away, but they were there, and I was connected to them. The pack.