by R. Lee Smith
“What?” Nona jerked back, her mouth dropping open in real dismay. “I would never do that!”
“But you want to. Don’t bother denying it. I have to look at you every day when you ask me to go target shooting and I…can’t. When you and Gef and Madira come back, you’re right over there with them, butchering and skinning and getting blood up to your elbows and I can’t even look at you! You want to go hunting, you want to make a spear and stab things, and everything you do, you try to share with me, and you hate me because I can’t.”
And God help her, but the only words that wanted out at hearing this were: You could at least try, you stupid bitch! Nona shut her mouth and kept it shut, but oh, it was a damned near thing.
“Every time I start to think this is my life, the whole rest of my life…I want to die.” Heather’s voice cracked and she looked away for a while, but eventually she looked back and her eyes were dry. “I’ve come too far just to die now. I don’t want to give up, but I…I’m not you,” she said, not without a note of bitterness. “I’m dealing with this the best I can, believe it or not.”
“I’m not saying different, am I?” Nona’s restless fingers found a chunk of bark she could break off and throw at the snow. “Do what you’ve got to do. I’m not going to stop you.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“Do what?”
“God, you’re going to make me say it.” Heather rubbed a hand through the knotted mass of her hair, sighed, and loudly said, “You’re going to tell Kruin that you want to join the pack.”
“I told you, it’s not that simple. Yeah, he’ll probably do it,” she interrupted before Heather could start the next series of sensible facts. “But once he does, we’re on the same level as Mika and the other unmated bitches. We have to share their den. We have to feed ourselves.”
“Or we have to take mates.”
Nona threw out her empty hands. “Hey, if that’s your in, then go for it, but don’t expect me—”
“Of course I expect you!” Heather broke in, with her own You stupid bitch! running silently beneath her angry shout. “It has to be you! You’re my chief! They don’t even want me!”
“They don’t want either of us,” Nona said stubbornly.
“For God’s sake, listen to that!” ordered Heather, pointing at the sky as another gather-all howl went up, this time with Nona’s actual name woven impatiently into it. “I have a pretty good idea what’s waiting on us and I know you do too, so don’t give me this…this prey-piss about how they don’t want us!” Heather backed up, rubbing at her mouth as if the lycan insult left a stain on her lips, or a taste. “Nakaroth wants you.”
Nona pried up another piece of bark and broke it between her fingers into smaller and smaller shards.
“If you don’t want him, you know, fine. I can think of a dozen others right off the top of my head who’d be happy to have you. There’s even a few who’ll settle for me, but they’re all Fringe wolves. They’re looking to ride my pussy pass into High Pack, which means until I get in, until you get us in, no one is going to do a damn thing with me. Except Vru, maybe.”
The last word faltered. Thoughts of Vru swelled in the quiet that followed, became thoughts of Vru with Heather. There wouldn’t be any more gifts of bloody meat and grimaces that tried to be smiles from that one. He didn’t have the patience for the ritualistic forms of courtship and display all the other lycan adhered to, and whatever inclination he’d had to try was long gone now. Now all he was waiting for was the chance to catch one of them alone.
“I need your help,” Heather said. “I’m not completely blind to what I’m asking, but…Please. This is it. This is where we are and this is what we have to do. I know you don’t like me very much. I know you never wanted to get stuck with me…or any of us, but I mean, of all of them, especially not me.”
“Knock it off,” said Nona. It was the best she could do.
Heather did, but only for a few seconds. Then she started right in again with, “Please help me. You don’t have to stay with me. I won’t ask you to, if you just…please, help me get someone who isn’t going to…hurt me. What difference does it make to you anyway?”
Nona’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Heather’s cheeks colored. She dropped her eyes, visibly struggling to work out a plausible excuse, then gave up and said simply, “It means I woke up. I saw you with him. With Nakaroth.”
Nona’s breath ballooned out of her in a gust and wouldn’t come back right away. She stared at her hand and said nothing.
“God, you have to be crazy! You have to be completely insane to have someone right there who wants to feed you and give you a home and keep you warm and…and…” Heather broke into noisy tears and Nona listened to them without moving, without speaking. “And don’t try to tell me you hated it because you didn’t!” was her final, furious word before she whirled around and ran back toward High Rock.
No. You didn’t spend all day thinking about something you hated. Even now, it was enough to bring a faint bloom of warmth into her cold body, her cold heart.
But even then, she thought of walking away. She could leave right now, go back and take Heather by the hand, and just walk into the woods. But couldn’t see where that future ended. She only saw the two of them swallowed up by white.
Kruin howled. The words had changed. No longer Come, High Pack. Come and witness, but Come, Nona. You will come. You will witness.
Nona picked up Heather’s bundle of sticks and carried it with her to the clearing of High Rock. She set it by the fire, not so close that it could catch an errant spark. She did this without looking directly at anyone, but even staring straight ahead, she felt the charge in the air. Mika, Samatan, and Laal were all crouched together at the foot of the raised rock, demonstrating various degrees of excitement. The Fringe-wolves, too, were gathered, muttering at a discreet distance. And Nakaroth, Nakaroth at the center of it all, faced off against Kruin with a dead animal at his feet.
“The pack is gathered,” Kruin announced. His eyes, hard, shifted to Nona for a silent ‘Finally,’ before resting on Nakaroth again. “Speak and be witnessed. What do you bring before me?”
“Meat of my hand.”
“Why do you bring it?”
“I have more than I can eat. I have enough to feed another.” Nakaroth raised his voice slightly, letting her hear the meaning and the humor in his next words. “I have enough to feed cubs.”
Kruin acknowledged the meat with a stare, but did not come down to formally accept it. “Is there one among my protected you would have for your mate?”
Mika whined and half-stood, then crouched back down, bouncing on her heels and licking her chops. Beside her, hulking Laal offered congratulatory licks and pats, but Samatan seemed reserved. The arm she had draped over Mika’s shoulders was still, bracing, and the glance she sent back to Nona was certainly pointed, if not unkind.
The urge to fall through the ground and disappear from all this rose, thick and strong as bile. Nona swallowed it and waited.
“Not yet,” Nakaroth said, pretending not to hear Mika’s whurf of confusion or see the dawning realization opening in her eyes. “She walks outside the pack, yet I will have her. Take her in and High Pack will have a fine bitch, a strong hunter in days to come, and all the fierce cubs that come of her.”
Kruin answered this the same way he’d acknowledged Nakaroth’s kill—with a pensive stare and no sign of consent.
After a moment and not without a hint of amusement in his ritually submissive tone, Nakaroth said, “Do not take her in and still I will have her, and High Pack will have a new second.”
Kruin’s eyes narrowed.
Nakaroth lifted his chin, a gesture that was as much challenge as it was submission.
“You say you will have her.” Kruin’s gaze shifted to Nona, turned troubled. “Will you have him, Nona of Earth? Is there another you would choose over this wolf? Or none at all? Speak and be witne
ssed.”
Nona looked around, not to asses her options, but just to see Heather. She sat in the snow under the tree where Leila had died, her arms loosely wrapping her knees. Her expression as she watched this stupid drama play out was serene, a little sad, maybe, but mostly tired. Now and then, she shivered. It was getting colder every day.
Doing this didn’t mean giving up, she decided. It just meant making changes. It meant she’d be allowed to stay here as long as it took to actually learn how to survive. She could learn to hunt and prepare furs and figure out which plants she could eat and which would kill her. It meant Heather would be taken care of by someone who knew how. If she wouldn’t come with her when Nona left High Rock, Nona could leave her behind knowing she was protected and if…when Nona found a way back to Earth, she’d come to get Heather and find her alive.
And for that…for that, she would do anything. For only that. Not for him. Not for his den or his body pressed hot on her back…or his hands on the sides of her head and his gold eyes swimming together and his voice like quiet thunder in her heart…I see you…See me.
The clearing was silent. How long had she been standing here anyway? Not long enough to make Nakaroth nervous. He was still smiling, still confident of her answer.
“I’ll have him,” Nona said. “For a while.”
Not an enthusiastic acceptance speech by any means, but Nakaroth wagged his tail anyway.
“Know this, human,” said Kruin. “You cannot choose the wolf save that you also choose the pack. When you stand beside him, you stand before me. Are you agreed?”
“That depends,” said Nona, pointing back at Heather. “When you take me in, you take us both in. Are you agreed?”
Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say. Several wolves exchanged guardedly scornful glances and Mika sneezed as she sat sulking while her friends leaned up against either side of her, comforting her with murmurs and pats.
Kruin did not acknowledge his pack’s disapproval and showed none of his own, merely said, “You are her chief. If I am your lord, it is within your power to give her as tribute.”
Nona looked at Heather.
Heather waited.
“Take her,” said Nona and now she had nothing left.
“High Pack welcomes Heather of Earth,” said Kruin without looking around to see Heather wipe at her eyes. “And you, Nona? Do you give yourself to me, to be given to this wolf as mate?”
She’d known this was coming, but no matter how much she thought she was prepared, her jaws tight and it took everything she had to unlock them and say, “Yes,” like she wasn’t trying to stab him with it.
Another, slightly louder, wave of growls and mutters passed through the pack at this scant reply. Again, Kruin ignored it. He raised a hand, beckoning. Nona took a few steps, then a few more. He kept his hand raised and claw crooked, waiting. Nona forced her clenched fists open and walked across the clearing until she stood directly below the raised rock, her head tipped all the way back so that she could look him in the eye.
Kruin let her hold that pose for a good minute so that everyone could see her showing throat. When he was satisfied with her submission, he jumped down from the rock and let her put her goddamn head down. Before she could retreat, Kruin placed his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length, but holding her tight. “High Pack calls you, Nona,” he said. “I take you in. You are a traveler in my land no longer, but my own protected.”
Everyone was watching. Waiting. Someone growled. Someone laughed.
Dull heat fanned up Nona’s cheeks. “I just want this to be over,” she whispered, her lips barely moving. “Tell me what I’m supposed to say and let’s get on with it.”
Kruin did not answer right away. His gaze remained steady and his expression remained outwardly unchanged, but his hands shifted minutely, communicating a sympathy he did not show in any other way. “Call me your chief and lord.”
Nona dropped her eyes, breathing hard and too fast. It was a while before she could speak, but when she did, her voice was steady. “I recognize my chief and lord.”
“I see Nona of High Pack.” Kruin pressed his nose to her bare throat in a perfunctory show of dominance, then released her and turned his brooding gaze on Heather.
For a moment, Nona felt certain he would call her over, maybe claim her himself and put this whole thing behind him…but Heather wouldn’t meet his eye and the longer he waited, the more pronounced her shivering became until it was obvious to everyone that she was in tears. Kruin shook his head and finally turned away to take possession of Nakaroth’s kill, signaling an end to the gathering.
The pack dispersed. Mika was the first to go, throwing a poisonous glare at Nona as she went, but keeping her sneezes to herself. Laal and Samatan followed, flicking their chins skyward with nearly identical expressions of resignation as they passed Nona. Madira and Sangar came down from their place high on the slope to lick Nona’s throat. Ararro and Gef came afterwards to offer their own throats; Nona mumbled hellos and kept her tongue to herself. Those Fringe-wolves who had not left on their own by this time were sent off with snaps and growls, some of them giving Heather sidelong stares as they withdrew to the edge of the clearing to bed down. Several low-ranking wolves lingered, but kept uncharacteristically to themselves rather than group up as they usually did. Vru skulked along the ridge for a while, his gaze slashing back and forth between Nona and Heather, until with a snarl, he caught Lura by the arm and took her away with him. His cave was low on the slope, where the broken sound of Lura’s whines and Vru’s grunts were easily heard.
Hearing it, Nona looked at Nakaroth. She quickly looked away again, but it was too late. He’d been watching her. He’d seen. And now he came for her.
“Is this where you throw me over your shoulder and carry me away?” she asked bitterly.
“No,” said Nakaroth and offered his hand. “This is where you walk at my side.”
He waited.
The pack was watching. Heather was watching.
Nona took his hand and walked.
22. Mates
Nona had lived all her life in one city or another. She knew about caves, but had never seen one except on TV, where they were constantly dripping water, had swarms of rabid bats funneling in and out, and were usually home to monsters or mutants or both. This was not that cave. Beyond a short, S-shaped tunnel to deflect the wind, the cave opened up into a large living space. Just how large, she couldn’t tell. Not much light made it past the curves of the cave’s mouth and soon, winter’s sun would be down anyway, but it was at least big enough that she couldn’t see the far walls. And it seemed a comfortable space, for a cave. No rocky teeth biting down from the ceiling or stabbing up from the floor. Here, the ground was smooth and level, with almost as much head room as her apartment had.
“How did you do this?” Nona asked, scuffing her shoe across a floor as flat as her kitchen linoleum.
“I didn’t,” Nakaroth said from behind her, where he stood watching her gather her first impressions of her new home and only coincidentally blocking the only exit. “It was sluagh-shaped a thousand years ago, like all of High Rock.”
“What’s a…a sluagh?”
Nakaroth considered the question for some time. “Hunters,” he decided. “Great hunters of the sky, creatures of the Underearth. Stronger than they seem and braver than they know.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“I fought alongside them in the war.”
“Am I going to see one?” she asked, squinting into the shadows at the other end of the cave like she thought one was going to pop out of the floor.
“Perhaps. Who can say? I never thought to see one. But not here, I think, not in High Rock. They live in the valley now.”
And she lived here.
Nona reached out to touch her new reality’s wall and found it cold, hard…admittedly, not damp and full of bats, but not pleasant by anyone’s definition. She let her arm drop and stared despondently
into the dark. Her efforts to dredge up something, anything, nice to say about this whole situation resulted in a weak, “Where do I sleep?”
He moved past her and almost instantly disappeared, his black fur indistinguishable with the shadows at the far end of the cave. She heard him rummaging in a familiar way with objects somewhere in the dark, then heard the crisp tap of stones and saw sparks. He caught one expertly in a bit of tinder and lit a candle, revealing more of his cave to her.
Nona saw the bed first—a bachelor-sized, leather-wrapped mat over in one rounded corner. She wasn’t sure what had been used to stuff it, but it did appear thickly padded and piled deep with furs. Within easy reach of the bed, Nakaroth kept a corked gourd, probably holding plain water or maybe some of that bitter green tea that was all the lycan seemed to like, and a wide clay bowl full of ash and stones—a lycan space-heater. It didn’t look too bad, apart from how small it was, especially after sleeping outside in the weather all this time, but she sure wasn’t tired and the longer she stared at the bed, the less ready she felt to be in it.
With effort, she wrenched her gaze away and turned in a slow circle, taking in the cave’s few, yet well-made furnishings like she gave a damn. Shelves carved with astonishing precision into the solid rock of the wall to hold his small collection of clay dishes. Shallow ledges for the setting of candles. A pair of flat-topped protrusions—one large, one small—formed a primitive table and chair where, clearly, Nakaroth was prone to sit and polish his trophies.
Not a euphemism. Several dozen skulls of various creatures were stacked on poles or hanging on the wall after first being cleaned, smoothed and sometimes painted or carved. The longest, straightest wall in the cave was studded with sets of antlers, many of them wider than she stood tall, and from every prong hung leather cords strung with teeth and claws, a silent testimony to a hunting prowess even she hadn’t been able to escape.