by Zandria West
I knew I should never have come back here. I feel like my heart is stuck in a fucking vice and someone is notching it tighter and tighter. I need to get away.
I have a daughter.
Am I too much of a coward to even look into her eyes? I’m here. I should see her. I should tell her… what?
I have no fucking idea.
I bend down to the river once more, hoping that the frigid water might help clear my mind. I see my reflection – the off-centre list my nose has got from being broken one too many times. The swelling over my cheek-bone and the beginning of a black eye starting to form. I look terrible. I look the way I feel.
For a moment I think of turning and running into the forest, heading for the Arvonne wilderness where there are ravines so deep that you can drop a stone and never hear it land, and trees so ancient they pre-date the Barrier itself. Then, as I think of the Barrier, I remember why I’m here.
Lana is the first human I’ve ever been close to. I close my eyes for a moment and think of her. It’s not just the quest or the magic of the bond, it’s her. I can’t leave her. Even if that means facing a past I’d hoped to have left behind forever.
I look around, breathing in air that is as familiar to me as my own skin. There was a time when I couldn’t have imagined I’d ever live outside this forest. Now, being back here is fucking breaking me. Whatever else I can say about Vera, though, she’s right. If I’m only going to stay the one night, I should meet my daughter.
A fire is burning vigorously in the central pit, and I see people milling around the campsite, doing their daily chores. Such a familiar scene. I remember hundreds – thousands – of days like this. Endless nights spent around that fire once the chores are done. Quiet conversation. Fresh meat. Too much liquor. The occasional fight breaking out. Paul’s off-key singing. The feeling of closeness, of home.
That feeling is gone for me now.
I step into the clearing, scanning the group, looking for a girl the right age. Will I know it’s her? I see people noticing me and falling quiet. Some faces I recognise, others I don’t. Some are just suggestions of faces I knew when I was young, worn and faded by age or grown into fullness over the years.
I should bow my head as I approach. I should keep my eyes low, and hunch my body over, try to make myself as unthreatening as possible. That would be the polite thing to do, given my circumstances. That I don’t is a sign of how long I’ve been gone and how distant I am from my pack. I no longer even care to accept my place as an outcast. The whole thing feels like an elaborate game of charades and I don’t want to play right now.
I spot Gabriel, Alex and Lana seated on the ground in one corner. Nobody is sitting too close to them, which is probably a good thing. I’m glad to see that Alex has a protective arm around Lana’s shoulders. With his instincts and reflexes and Gabriel’s magic at the ready, I feel confident they can keep her safe from whatever threats might arise. And I have no doubt that Paul will keep his word, for today at least. I try to meet Lana’s eye, but she looks determinedly away. A sick feeling stirs in my gut. I know what she saw, and what she probably thinks it meant. I can guess how much it hurts her. I wish more than anything I could take it back, make it all have happened differently. There’s no time to deal with it now, though.
I can’t help but think that it might all be about to get worse.
I walk into the centre of the camp. The silence as I approach is uncanny. I see young men sizing me up, wondering if they could take me if they got the chance, always their first thought on encountering an unfamiliar male. Women give me appraising looks, some with a barely concealed heat. New, lone males do not often come to the Grey Pack. They’re considered valuable property by the females and are fought over viciously.
I’m not new though, and I’m not on my own.
‘I’m looking for Briony,’ I call to the watching circle.
No point in pretending. No time for it now.
‘What do you want from her?’ A man stands from amongst the group. He’s nobody I recognise. Dark-haired, tall, strong. His expression is hard as stone. His face is broken by a single long scar that runs pale down one cheek. He crosses his arms over his chest.
‘Just to see her. Talk to her if she’s willing. I learned I’m her father. Is she here?’
I hear shocked murmurs spreading amongst the watching crowd. The man who spoke growls low. I don’t flinch. I see people looking between us, like they’re expecting a fight and are ready to place bets on the outcome.
And then, a little girl steps from one of the small dwellings just outside the fire.
My heart stops the moment I set eyes on her. I don’t see myself in her: I see my mother, who died years ago. Her forehead, the set of her jaw, her mouth…
‘Briony?’ The man and I both speak her name at once.
The girl’s eyes grow wider as she looks from one to the other of us.
The man turns to me. ‘I won’t let you do this,’ he says. ‘You won’t take her from me.’
I try to keep my voice calm though my anger is like a rising heat in the centre my chest. ‘I’m not planning to take her from you. I’m here for one night, and then Briony will never see me again. Don’t you think it’s only fair that she has the chance…?’
He strikes without warning. He’s a brawler, I can tell it in a moment. He has an elbow to my gut and a knee to my balls before I can say another word. I collapse over myself in cold, sickening agony.
‘Get inside,’ I hear him yelling, his voice full of angry command. ‘Get inside and don’t you dare show your face again tonight, or you’ll be next.’ It takes me a second to register that he’s not yelling at me, he’s yelling at the little girl in the doorway. At my daughter.
Fuck that.
I suck in a lungful of air and force myself to stand, although the world is still spinning around me and I feel like I’m about to vomit.
‘Reuben…’ I hear Vera’s warning coming from somewhere nearby but right now I don’t care.
I launch myself at the man with an incoherent yell. My shoulder makes heavy contact with his abdomen and we fall down together in a scrabbling, punching, wrestling cloud of dust. I’m heavier, though not by much. I manage to get him on his back and pin him there, my forearm pressing into his throat. I lower myself over him, looking into his tepid grey eyes. He’ll fucking hate that. Even worse than being hurt, holding eye contact in a position like that is a sign of my absolute dominance over him. I see his face contort with pain and rage, but a heartbeat later he looks away. Submission.
For the first time since I got here, I feel good. Victory hums in my blood, pounds in my veins. I’m stronger. It’s only right that he should submit to me.
‘Let’s try that again. I’d like to meet my daughter. This isn’t how I wanted to do it, but right now, I’ll take whatever I can get. And that includes you. Do you understand me?’ I lower a little more weight onto my forearm until I see him struggling, unable to breathe. Panic flickers over his features. I let go, and sit back, listening to him gasp for breath.
When I’m confident he’s not going to try another move on me, I stand up and brush myself off. I make eye contact with Lana for a moment. I can feel her shock pulsing through the bond. I incline my head to her, a small gesture of apology. It’s all I can offer her right now. I catch a glimpse of Vera in the crowd too, her expression unreadable, appraising me coolly. I ignore the watching pack and turn to the dwelling, where a pale face and wide, dark, scared eyes are staring out at me.
11
REUBEN
The hut is small and dimly lit. A lamp flickers in one corner. I make out lots of different coloured rugs, their geometrical designs in the familiar style of the Grey Pack weavers. Rugs are bundled on the floor for sleeping and hung on the walls for decoration. The home Vera has made for herself and our daughter is simple, but warm and comfortable.
I expect Briony will be scared of me after the fight that just occurred on her doorstep. If anything,
she looks curious.
‘May I come in?’ I growl, awkwardness making me gruffer than I mean to be.
She doesn’t speak but moves back to allow me to enter. I step through the doorway and into the room. I focus on the girl before me.
‘How old are you, Briony?’ I ask, crouching down so our eyes are level. I’m aware that I’m a stranger to her and I don’t want to frighten her. Her long dark hair falls in wild curls past her shoulders. Her eyes are grey and flecked with deep green. She wears woven leather bracelets up each of her small arms, and a light grey shift. Unmistakeably of the Grey Pack. Unmistakeably my blood.
‘Almost nine.’ She meets my eyes, her expression serious. ‘How old are you?’
I smile. ‘Almost thirty-nine,’ I say. How long is it since I’ve had to account my age to anyone?
‘Older than the river?’ she says. ‘That’s what Mama always says. Older than the river and older than the trees.’
I laugh. ‘Just about. My name is Reuben Greyfall,’ I say. ‘Paul is my uncle, but I haven’t lived here for a long time now. I… knew your mother before I left…’
‘I heard what you said outside,’ she says sharply. ‘Is it true? You’re my father?’
I nod, unable to find any words to say.
Werewolf children are raised knowing of blood and sex and death from a young age. It’s hard to avoid such things, living with the pack. They need to be prepared for their first turning, which is probably a few years off still for Briony – for girls, it comes with the first moon-bleed.
‘I’ve heard about you,’ she says. ‘Mama always said you’d come back one day.’
I feel a weight settle in my chest, heavy and uncomfortable.
‘I can’t stay, Briony, you understand? I may only be here a day and a night. We’ve come to ask the help of the Grey Pack…’
‘You and the human?’ Her eyes are wide and curious as she says the word.
‘Her name is Lana,’ I correct her gently.
‘She must be very brave to come here all alone.’
I nod. ‘She is. And she trusts me. I have promised to protect her.’
‘I’ll tell Grampa Paul to help you. He’ll listen to me. He always does.’
I restrain a smile at her words. What do I know? Maybe she’s right, maybe a request from her would make all the difference.
‘Thank you, Briony. That’s kind of you to offer.’
She shrugs and at last a smile brightens her face. ‘If someone’s in trouble you should help them if you can. Do you want to visit my treehouse? Grampa Paul built it for me just this spring. It’s the tallest of everyone’s.’ She takes my hand and pulls me back out of the hut. I brace myself as I see people pause to watch us, but Briony doesn’t even seem to notice. She leads me away from the fire to where trees stand like tall, silent sentinels watching over the camp. ‘You can still climb, can’t you?’
‘I –’
‘I’m teasing!’ she laughs. ‘You should have seen your face!’
She’s quick and confident as she ascends the dangling ladder. I follow her up, less steadily. It has been many, many years since I’ve climbed one of these. Treehouses are built for children. It might seem like play but it’s not – when the moon swells to completion, those who are too young to change must be kept safe, and the safest place is high above the forest floor, where no wolf can reach them. My earliest memories are of sitting in my treehouse – really just a few rough boards nailed securely enough to hold my small weight – and watching everyone I know become wolves. Even after years, the transformation is still agonizing, though the pain goes quicker with practise. I remember the cries and groans of the pack adults as they changed, and then the silence as they ran free in wolf form, far off into the forest. I remember watching my father’s transformation – he was a powerful man and even more powerful as a wolf. His fur was silvery-grey from a young age, and he was lean and muscular and fast. I remember him looking up at me for a long moment, as if to check that I was safe, then turning and loping from the clearing off into the night. I heard the pack howling many hours later, a haunting sound echoing off the distant hills.
‘What do you think?’ Briony makes room for me to sit beside her.
For a moment I’m worried I’ll be too heavy for the little platform, but then I remember that Paul made it. My uncle is careful to a fault in all he does. The platform would probably bear an ox if it could get up the ladder. I lower myself to sit beside Briony as she swings her legs cheerfully, showing no sign of anxiety about the dizzying distance from where we sit to the ground far below.
‘It’s wonderful,’ I say.
‘I come up here sometimes even when the moon’s not full. I like it. It’s peaceful and look, you can see all the way to the mountains –’ She points to the horizon, where the Tavir Range looms ominously. Snow-capped peaks glow pale in the sunlight. The view takes my breath.
‘Are you happy here? With the Pack?’ I ask finally.
‘Were you unhappy? Is that why you left?’ she asks in return, looking back at me.
I pause and think about my life these past years. Happy is not a word that comes to mind. I’ve been remorseful. Angry. Obsessed. Broken. Lonely. So very, very lonely. Until Lana…
‘I didn’t leave to be happy,’ I say, finally. ‘I left because I had to. There was work I had to do.’
She frowns, her small face surprisingly serious. ‘More important than the Pack?’
I take a breath. ‘For me. At that time. Yes, more important.’
‘Why?’
I turn to Briony. This is the moment I’ve been dreading: the moment of truth. Of everyone, she at least deserves to know it.
‘When I was young, after I first started turning, I did something bad. Something I’ll regret as long as I live. The wolves I used to run with were wild and reckless, they looked for danger. They were too easily bored. One of them found a… a break in the Barrier. They form from time to time, because the magic is not perfect. We passed through into the human world. I thought we were only going to explore, to see what it was like. And that’s all we did, the first few times.
I was the youngest and the slowest and one day I managed to slip down a slope and was injured. The others ran off and left me, but a young woman, a human, found me and tended to me. She bound my ankle and gave me food. When she understood I was far from my own home, she offered me hers to stay in, even though I was a stranger to her. I fled during the night. The ankle took weeks to heal.
Then one night, we passed through the Barrier again, but this time not in human form but as wolves. We came across a small settlement on the edge of the forest. We…’
My voice chokes up as the memories come rushing back. The screams of the villagers. The way they tried to run but stumbled and fell. They were not quick enough, never quick enough to get away.
‘They were unprepared for our attack. And we slaughtered them. I was wild with the blood and the power. I barely knew what I did, until it was too late. I found myself face to face with a tiny child, a baby, his mother lying dead by his side. Then I recognised her. His mother was the woman who had helped me with such kindness.
As soon as I realised what I had done, I fled back across the Barrier and swore that from that day on I would live to atone my deeds. I would live to protect both worlds. Later, Gabriel’s magic found me, and when he asked me to join him, I knew it was what I must do. Your mother was distraught. We’d been destined to be mated since we were just cubs. She didn’t understand why I had to leave. I promised I’d come back in secret, every third moon, just to the edge of the Pack’s territory to see her…’
I trail off. Briony has listened in silence. I’m scared to look at her face. Me. Scared. After all the dangers I have faced, after everything I’ve done, I’m scared of a little girl. And then, I feel something – a gentle touch. She’s taken hold of my hand. She still hasn’t said a word. We sit there, in silence, for a minute. I feel the racing of my heart start to slow, the t
ension ease from my shoulders.
‘I didn’t know about you, though…’ I say gruffly. ‘Not until today. I just couldn’t continue. I was torn between two lives. One day I stopped coming. It seemed like the right thing to do. I hoped that Vera would also move on with her life…. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’
I’m scared that Briony is going to ask me if I would have come back if I’d known. Would I have returned to the Pack if I’d realised that Vera was having my child? I don’t want to face the answer to that question, because however I answer will be wrong.
I’ve saved lives. Not as many as I would like, and certainly not enough to atone for what I did, but some. Every life counts. And this small life beside me – what difference might it make to her to have me here?
‘Was that your mother’s mate who I fought before?’ I ask carefully.
She nods. ‘His name’s Andreas. They haven’t been together long. He wants me to call him Papa, but I still don’t know him well. He came from the city…’ Briony shrugs, like that is everything that needs to be said about him.
‘Does he hurt you?’ The growl just comes out of me.
‘He wouldn’t dare,’ she says fiercely. ‘Grampa Paul would kill him if he did. And hang his skin from a tree for all to see, that’s what Mama always says.’
I smile. ‘Sounds like Grampa Paul takes good care of you.’
She nods enthusiastically. ‘He says there’s nothing more important than family.’
I swallow, the moment of lightness gone. I am their family and I left without a backward glance. Betrayed them with my disloyalty. No wonder Paul hates me so much.
‘He’s right, little one. Family is everything,’ I say, trying to keep the pain from my voice.
‘But what about your family?’
‘They are my family now,’ I point down to the little group off to the side of the fire-pit.
‘The human? But you cannot mate with a human? Can you?’ Briony’s horrified expression almost makes me laugh. If only she knew…
