I got up and started to walk back to my place. I had to think and come up with a plan. There had to be something more I could do. Heck, my mother was the leader of the whole kingdom. There had to be something she could do.
I made it almost home when I heard a branch break. Whipping around, I planned to attack whatever was following me. My knife was in my hand without a moment’s hesitation as I was readied to attack. I stopped when I recognized the red wolf peeking around a tree.
“Grace,” I called to the wolf. She lost her shyness and bound over to me.
I ducked as she moved in to give me a sloppy wolf lick. That might be an okay way to greet another human wolf, but I didn’t appreciate being covered with wolf spit.
“I don’t think so,” I tsked at her. “So why are you out here? Shouldn’t you be back with the wolves? If any of the tree villagers are out, they’ll shoot you on sight. You should probably be going home. I’ll see you in the village tomorrow after I talk to Red again.”
Grace pushed me with her nose toward the way I was already walking.
“Yes, I need to head back.”
I took a few steps towards my house, and she trotted along beside me.
“That’s the wrong way,” I told her. Surprisingly I was fine talking with wolves. I was more than used to my best friend Nikkan as a wolf. He spent at least ninety percent of his time as a wolf, so it wasn’t strange to me, but it was a little hard to understand what Grace was saying. “The wolves live the other direction.”
Okay, she knew that. It wasn’t like I needed to explain that to her. Wolf Grace sat down by my feet and didn’t move to go back to her village. It seemed like she had something to tell me.
“Fine, we can go to my place,” I told the wolf. “Then you can head back to the wolves. I’ll even walk you back to keep you safe.”
Wolf Grace happily followed me back to my house. I opened the door and let her in.
“I have your clothes from the other night,” I told her as I went over to the basket by my door and dug through it, pulling out her clothing. I set it down on the couch and walked back to the kitchen to get some water on the stove to make tea for us.
“I’ll step out so you can change after I get this water heated up,” I told her with my back to her as the kettle filled from the slow trickle of my sink.
“Castiel, I think we need to talk,” Nikkan said as he walked into my house.
I turned back to my friend and noticed that Grace was in the corner of the room, hurrying to get her shirt on. Her back was to us, but I was pretty sure her cheeks were flaming red by now. Nikkan’s eyes went straight to the corner as mine did before he looked back to me. He didn’t say anything more.
The hatred behind his eyes was something I had never seen directed at me before. Without a single word, Nikkan stormed out of my house. I set the kettle down on the stove before hurrying to the door to chase my friend, but before I had the chance to chase him or try to explain, he was already deep into the woods.
“Great,” I said, running my hand through my hair as I came back from the doorway. Nikkan got the completely wrong impression.
“Sorry,” Grace said quietly, her cheeks still flaming. “I figured I could get dressed before you turned back around. We get pretty good at taking off and putting on clothing with all the transforming.”
“Not your fault,” I told her. And it wasn’t. Nikkan ran off before either one of us could explain things to him.
“But he was already mad at you. I can’t imagine how bad it will be now.” Grace looked hurt by the whole situation. She bit her lip like she was going to cry. “I screwed up.” The tears were ready to fall, and I had no clue what to do. Crying girls was Nikkan’s specialty, not mine, though thinking about it, that probably wasn’t true either.
“Really, Grace. Not your fault. And he will get over it once I finally talk with him. I promise. We’ve been friends forever. Nikkan will understand this is just a big screw up. Really.”
Grace seemed to pull her tears back and nodded but didn’t look entirely convinced.
“I’m still sorry.” The tears were barely being held at bay. I needed to act fast to avoid anything messy.
I smiled and handed her a cup. She took the tea from me and walked back to my table. I followed with the hot tea kettle to pour us each a cup. My house wasn’t too warm; I hoped the tea would be enough to warm her up from her run outside.
“So why were you in the woods? The tree people are terrified of wolves. It isn’t safe for you to be running around as a wolf.”
Grace bit her cheek and nodded. “I know….”
I stirred my tea leaves as I waited for her to continue. One thing Red had taught me well was how to wait when someone was talking.
“I’m scared to stay in the village,” she blurted out and then quickly grabbed her cup to take a sip and not have to talk more. I just waited, and she realized I wasn’t going to ask more. I nodded for her to continue, taking a long sip of my tea, too.
“Ten people fell sick this morning. If I stay there, I’m going to becoming a monster like the rest of them, or I’ll end up as their food. One of the newly sick wolves killed a wolf person last night. I can’t stay there. I don’t want to become a monster or be eaten by one.”
I understood. Part of me feared for Nikkan. Fight or not, he was still my friend, and I didn’t want him to become part of the curse either. I didn’t blame Grace, in the least, for not wanting to be in the wolf village. I had no idea what the solution should be, but I wasn’t going to send her back to someplace she was scared to be.
“You can stay here,” I told her. She wasn’t sick, and I knew she’d be safe with me from the wolves or the tree people. I’d keep Grace safe.
4
7th March
Grace refused to sleep on my couch bed since it was my house. She said she absolutely couldn’t take my bed. No matter how I tried to convince her, she just wouldn’t do it. So, we both ended up sleeping on the floor. Neither one of us would budge. My back was a little sore when I woke, but I didn’t care. I had enough other problems to deal with. Grace was curled up in my one blanket, looking like the wolf she could become but in her human form.
Nikkan was crazy to think I had something with Grace. As I stared at her right now, I still couldn’t picture anything but being friends with her. She was just Grace. In fact, I couldn’t imagine how Nikkan could see her as anything other than the younger sister she felt like. She was cute, but it was little-sister cute.
Grace stirred and then stretched, a full-body stretch cracking her neck down to her toes without opening her eyes. The wolf was ever-present in her. Slowly, she opened her eyes and stared at my very dull ceiling.
“I don’t have much for breakfast,” I told her as I stood up and walked into my kitchen. “Normally, Nikkan gets extra eggs for us because I don’t have chickens. But he’s been gone a couple of days, and I don’t have any food beyond some meat and bread my mother gave me yesterday.”
“That’s fine,” Grace said as she sat and stretched further.
I rummaged through my cupboards and pulled out the meager breakfast I had to offer. Grace sat on the floor and just watched me as she talked.
“Do you remember Mira? She was short and had that wild blond hair that was always sticking up in every direction. She moved back yesterday.”
I nodded. I didn’t exactly remember who she was talking about, but I had a feeling quite a few people moved back, not of their own free will.
“And Ashton moved back too,” Grace added. “The village is so full right now, there aren’t enough homes. Some of the guys had to stop building the fence and start some new homes.”
That had to be stressing Micco out. He needed that fence built before the remaining uncursed wolves could go off into the woods to live without being affected by the curse. But he needed homes for all his wolves until they could leave. It just was a tough situation all around.
“Do you think Nikkan will come back tod
ay, and we can explain yesterday to him?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I had a feeling Nikkan wasn’t coming back for a while. It took him days to come back after I just asked her out. I could only imagine what he was thinking about now. It would be weeks if he chose to come back at all. I kind of had the feeling he wasn’t going to return until he knew the truth, and if we couldn’t tell him the truth, he’d never know.
“Well, he should. I mean, he just walked in here and didn’t even say sorry,” Grace continued. “It was embarrassing. I’m used to shifting with the wolves, but Nikkan wasn’t among them. He’s never gone for a run with everyone else. He’s different.”
Oh, I had a good feeling if he came back it wasn’t going to be to apologize. I kept that to myself. Nikkan wasn’t really the apologizing type as it was, but this was one thing I was pretty sure he’d never budge on. And it was going to be impossible to find and talk to him. His typical reaction when he didn’t want to speak was to turn into a wolf and run away. How the heck were we supposed to have a real conversation when I had to chase him, and he couldn’t speak back?
I got how Grace felt. It was embarrassing because she obviously felt the same way about me as I did her. There was nothing romantic between us and nothing to be ashamed of or for us to apologize for because nothing happened, but I doubted that was what Nikkan was going to be thinking.
And with that thought, there was a knock at the door. Grace looked up at me and quickly stood. I had no clue who would be visiting me early in the morning, let alone knocking at the door. I hoped it wasn’t Red. She’d be more than a little upset to find Grace in my house.
I opened my door and surprisingly found Micco standing there. Behind him stood Nikkan and a few more of the male wolves from the pack. They all had scowls on their faces as they tried to stare me down; four big, burly men with arms the size of tree trunks, doing their best glares. Not that they cared, but none of them intimidated me in the least. Muscles didn’t mean strength. Trust me. That was lesson number one with Red. She wasn’t more than a sapling tall and could kick the butt of any person: woman, man, or wolf.
“We are here to escort Grace back to the village and make sure she gets there safely,” Micco explained while I stayed in the doorway. He didn’t look happy to be at my house, but it was something else I couldn’t put my finger on.
I looked over my shoulder, and Grace stared back in shock at Micco. She hadn’t been expecting to see her alpha. I had a feeling why Micco knew Grace was in my house, but I wasn’t sure about the whole escort situation. It didn’t seem like Micco. He was usually more laid back. He wasn’t into bossing his wolves around. At least, he never had been in the past. Maybe it was the curse.
Micco was the alpha of the wolves, but he was just a citizen of Elder. Red was the real leader. While he had some control, it wasn’t really absolute or that he could be ordering people to be certain places in the kingdom. Grace was a citizen, too, and had the right to go wherever she pleased in the kingdom. Micco was overstepping his authority by ordering her where to go.
“Grace, do you want to go back?” I asked, loud enough for all the people outside my house to hear.
“No,” she whispered and quickly averted her eyes from Micco and the group.
Micco was her alpha. He hadn’t given a direct command that she go back to the wolves, but he could. Unless she left the wolf village, she had to do what he commanded. It was a wolf thing. At least, he was just asking for the moment.
“Thanks for the offer, but she’s staying here for now,” I told Micco, but looked at the wolves behind him instead. Most of them sneered back at me, and a few made fists at my words. Micco had to understand what was I saying.
I wasn’t scared of a gang of wanna-be alpha wolves. Not a single one of them stood a chance against me. I had spent winters training on how to fight and defeat wolves. It was a joke that they even thought so. It indeed showed just how much I was an outsider to the wolves.
“She belongs with her people,” Nikkan spat out from behind Micco’s shoulder. If Micco wasn’t the alpha and in charge, I was pretty sure Nikkan would have been pushing him out of the way.
“The same people she’s afraid of?” I raised an eyebrow at him in a challenge.
I looked at Nikkan specifically to see if he could understand that Grace feared the wolves. She wasn’t with me to play house. She was staying safe, away from the sick wolves so that she didn’t get ill or become their next meal. Grace was smart, and Nikkan had to know that much. He had spent the past two winters pining over her; he had to know this wasn’t some whim. She’d thought it through. If he wasn’t just thinking with jealousy, maybe he could have understood better that she was scared.
Micco seemed to understand why Grace was afraid, but the men behind him didn’t. I could hear them grumble amongst themselves, but I ignored them. I focused on Nikkan. He was the only one that needed to be convinced.
“Grace came here for my protection from the sick wolves,” I began, pleading with my eyes as much as I could. Nikkan had to know that protecting Grace came first. He would have done the same if he wasn’t so resentful.
“No one is so sick that you have to run away,” one of the men interrupted me. I didn’t rise to his challenge as I focused just on Nikkan.
“Not according to her. Someone was killed yesterday in the wolf village, and she feels safer here.”
That got their attention. None of them spoke for a moment. Micco seemed lost for words. I could tell that was a secret they were trying to keep hidden. I wasn’t trying to get Grace in trouble with all of them, but she didn’t feel safe, and they had to know it was true. She probably wasn’t safe. In fact, most of them probably weren’t safe. Micco, the strongest of them all, went head to head with a cursed wolf and had to fight a hard battle to win. None of the weaker wolves stood a chance against a cursed wolf.
“You told an outsider,” one of the men accused her in barely more than a whisper.
Grace was now right behind my back, partially hidden but close enough to hear everything. I could feel her hand on my back, and she was shaking. It seemed I was right in that it was a secret.
“Castiel isn’t an outsider,” Micco corrected the wolf. “He’s welcome any time in our village, and I keep no secrets from him. He’s spent more time with us in the past three winters than his mother.”
“He’s a tree human,” the same man spat out like the word ‘tree human’ was a dirty word. How ironic that he was acting the same way that the tree humans were acting towards the wolves.
Nothing was ever going to change if the people didn’t start seeing themselves as citizens of Elder, not one kind of human or another. We were all part of the same kingdom, but it seemed like neither side wanted the other ones there. It surprised me that the wolves continued the hate when it was them that faced being killed for being what they were. I wanted them to have more compassion, but then again, they were wolves. Compassion wasn’t one of their greatest traits.
Micco nodded to me like he understood why Grace was at my house. I kind of had the feeling if he didn’t have all the responsibility to keep the wolves safe, he might have had an extended visit with me also. He nodded his head to the men behind him, and they all stepped back away from the doorway to my place. Everyone except Nikkan.
“But Grace needs to come home with us,” Nikkan told everyone that had moved as he glared at me. He couldn’t just give up.
This would have been much easier if he had stuck around long enough for me to explain to him what was going on. Heck, if he had been home, he could have slept with Grace on the floor instead of me. He could be the one protecting her. There was no way he would listen to me right now, but I wished I could go back and get him to see it the way it truly was.
“Grace has already said that she doesn’t want to go with you,” I reiterated her position. It went over as well the second time as the first.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s a wolf, and you’
re a human.”
Nikkan was trying so hard to keep Grace from me that I almost wanted to laugh. She had as big of a crush on him as he did on her. There was nothing going on between us. I had to keep my laugh hidden as I stared back at him, or I was pretty sure the fight would turn physical as he wouldn’t see the humor in the situation.
“That didn’t seem to matter at any point in the past three winters to you,” I reminded Nikkan.
He huffed and didn’t respond. He couldn’t argue with that.
Grace finally peered out from behind my shoulder. She frowned at Nikkan as he stood by himself, still trying to confront me. The other men were moving back away at Micco’s command and no longer threatening to Grace. She knew she was safe and was going to be able to stay. Micco was with the men as Nikkan continued to stand on my doorstep.
“Castiel is your best friend? Why don’t you start acting like it?”
The other male wolves with Nikkan now were standing a good two or three saplings away from him. A couple hid their smiles as Grace started to lay into Nikkan. Everyone knew that the female wolves had more than a little fire in them.
“You ran away before we could talk to you yesterday, and if that was any indication of why Castiel is living here alone, I get it. You must have run away before too. Instead of dealing with your problems, you pretend it’s everyone else’s fault. Grow up Nikkan. Real men take care of their own problems and don’t have to drag five men along with them. Deal with it.”
Grace moved and was now standing side by side with me just inside my house. She was just getting going, and I planned to make sure I was back far enough away to not have that anger directed at me, from either of them. I slid back a bit more, so she was now in front of me.
“You don’t have the right to come here and make demands of me. I can go where I please when I please. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need a man to tell me what to do.” Grace looked over Nikkan’s shoulder and was glaring at the men with him. “And to bring a group of wolves with you? Really?” She was now shaking her head like it was the craziest thing Nikkan had ever done.
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