Oh, God. My stomach plunges downward in despair, and something inside me curls up to die. I shift back to human, wrap my arms around myself, and stare at the ground. Warren thinks I'm disgusting. The pain from the thought nearly knocks me to the ground.
“Clarification, please.” Emma walks up to me. “You have implied you can take any form.”
I swallow. “Anything I can fully visualize. I tried to be a Tasmanian devil last night, but that didn't work because I don't know what one looks like.”
“You just need to know what it looks like?” asks Warren's father. “Not how it's built or how it behaves or any real details? Just how it appears?”
Miserable, I nod.
His hand falls onto my shoulder, and he gives it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you, Michaela. You're a very brave young woman with a very impressive gift.”
It takes effort to accept that with a nod rather than a derisive snort. Some gift. Warren isn't impressed by it; he's repulsed. He isn't going to want to touch me again. He's probably not even going to want to talk to me again.
There are a few more questions from others, which I answer numbly and without any real thought. Several people stop by just to tell me the display was amazing, but most people don't look too happy with what I showed them. And there are a lot more people refusing to even look at me than people who want to talk.
There's much whispering about the implications of an all-were. And about whether we're too dangerous to allow.
All-were. I suppose that's as good a name for me as anything.
It should upset me there are people discussing, in earshot, whether I should be executed just for existing. But it doesn't. The look on Warren's face when he realized what I am refuses to release me from its grip, playing over and over in my mind, stealing my attention and any ability I have to care about anything other than the dark acidic hole eating away at my insides.
A familiar pair of boots comes between me and my view of the ground. Heart fluttering, I move my gaze up to Warren's face. Horror still lurks in the back of his eyes, and I feel my heart shatter at the sight of it.
“Michaela...”
“Warren?”I whimper, bracing myself for being told what happened earlier was a complete mistake, that he could never be interested in a creature as hideous as I am. This preparation leaves me completely unguarded for his actual attack. My balance stands no chance against him as he grabs hold of me, pressing me against him with so much force my bones creak.
“How am I supposed to protect you from something that can be whatever it wants to be?” he growls into my hair.
A realization slams down on me. His horror isn't disgust at my condition, it's fear of the male of my species.
Wanting to howl with gleeful laughter, I wrap my arms around Warren as he holds me virtually immobile. My face safely hidden from his view, I grin at his worry. “Silly wolf. What makes you think a girl who can change into whatever she wants needs protecting?”
His arms get even tighter. “Don't talk like that, Michaela. You don't know how to fight.” He takes a long breath. “Do you even know how to walk as any of those animals?”
Um... “ I moved around as a fox for a while...”
This is met with a massive sigh. “You moved around for a while. And you think that means you can fight this guy?”
I'm not sure the male all-were has any intention of coming near me. But if he did, it's a fairly safe bet I wouldn't want to go along with whatever he wanted. Although that probably wouldn't be fighting...“You have a point.”
Loosening his grip, Warren moves back enough to look down at me, even taking an arm away from grasping me in order to grip my chin and point my face upwards. “Please don't try to fight him.” The words, like his eyes, are filled with pleading.
“I won't.” It hadn't occurred to me to seek him out. Although, now the thought is there... No, the wolf is right. I wouldn't know what to do if I did find him.
Nodding with a sad smile, Warren runs a hand through my hair and then takes a step backwards, releasing me completely. The temperature plummets. I was comfortable a minute ago, but now I can tell it's under zero out here. “You'll take her straight back to the school?” he asks a point over my shoulder.
“Of course,” Tod answers.
He nods again. “Be careful, Michaela.” His voice is thick with things unspoken, but he turns and sprints off around the house, to where the sound of motors revving testify that the wolves are leaving.
My hand goes after him, grabbing at the air, but it's several seconds too late.
Dammit.
Swallowing, I remind myself Warren will be back at school by morning. I can talk to him then, when there won't be so many strange people hovering around.
Hoping that in the dim lighting he'll mistake the redness of my face as something wind produced, I turn to Tod. “Is it time to go?”
He's grinning as he shakes his head. His eyes sparkle with what could be amusement, although it could also be tears from the wind. “Almost.” He starts to walk toward the house, and I fall into step beside him. “We have to tell Grandma good night,” he lets me know as he yanks open a door into blissful warmth.
Emma smiles graciously as we approach her in her daughter's kitchen. She gives us both hugs, but doesn't let us escape quite so easily. “I hoped to see your mother,” she tells Tod.
He sticks his hands deep into his pockets and looks downward. “Mom isn't feeling too well.”
“Yes, that's what she said on the phone.” Emma sighs. “It's apparently code for that louse she broke her life mate's heart over finally going too far.”
Tod doesn't bother to point out that the louse in question is his father, nor to defend him. Instead, he stares at his grandmother with dim annoyance for another reason.“You knew about her and Atherton?”
“Of course I did.” Her hand swishes through the air. “Everyone did.”
He leans his head back and sighs at the ceiling. “Apparently.”
“Not you, dear?” Emma gives him a fond look. “Well, she wouldn't have wanted you to know, I suppose.”
“Why?” Tiredly, he collapses onto one of the stools lining the breakfast bar and unzips his jacket. I go ahead and take mine off completely.
Tod's grandmother looks at him for a long time in silence before she sighs, folds her arms, and starts to answer. “Michael graduated from North Sky the year before Vivianne arrived, and he went to college in Washington. Things might have been different if he'd gone to school in Alaska, because then he may have found her sooner. Not that I can wish for that.” She smiles sadly. “You know I love you kids, don't you? I realized after your grandfather died I'd given your mother the worst advice for her, but none of us would trade you for anything. Not me, not your mom, not even Micheal.”
Expression pinched, Tod nods.“Of course.”
“They didn't cross paths until after she had her master's degree and was interviewing for jobs. She was bound to your father already. Pure politics.” Emma's gaze drifts towards the past.
“Binding the northwest together,” Tod mumbles thickly, for my benefit I assume. “Dad's the first born of the British Columbia den. Mom's the heir of ours.”
Emma nods, then continues her story without more elaboration. “Michael knew instantly, of course. Wolves always do. But Vivianne...” Emma shakes her head. “Everyone could tell she loved him right back, but she wouldn't be swayed by it. She picked up and moved to the lower forty eight. Claimed we needed more presence down there. And there were rumors of Washington seceding.”
Tod is silent, trying to process all of this. I'm not sure why I'm even part of the conversation, much less how I should be adding to it.
“I should have beaten her with a switch and dragged her back here,” Emma states, a frown deepening her wrinkles and making her seem only half her age rather than a quarter of it. “But I didn't realize it at the time. It wasn't until I lost my Bobby.”
Her voice chokes, and she tries to cover it
with a cough that completely fails to hide the tears swimming in her eyes.“We were a political union too. Alaska and Washington. And for so long I thought I'd been trapped into it, but it was what a noble was supposed to do.” She laughs suddenly, a bitter and harsh sound. “It wasn't until he died that I realized how deeply I'd been in love with the stupid fox.”
Tears roll freely now. “He always said he knew the second he saw me that we were meant to be together. Said it ran in his family, like somewhere back in history someone had gotten up to things with a wolf that they shouldn't have been doing, and now they all have the instinct of knowing when they find their mates.” She's still crying, but she's smiling now too.“I don't know about all that, but I can tell both of you something.”
In her pause, she switches her gaze back and forth between me and Tod. I'm the one who meets her eyes, her grandson being too preoccupied with peering at the floor as if he's trying to decipher a foreign language off of it.
“Forget politics. Forget who would and wouldn't be allowed to breed with you. Forget your pride and your history. Forget absolutely everything except love.”
All you need is love.... I would sing the Beatles lyrics or make a joke or think of something derisive to do, but Emma's expression wouldn't allow any of that. The words were corny, but they were uttered with solemn belief, having an air of gospel or, my throat clinches to think of it, a death bed confession.
“Forget politics,” Tod mutters under his breath.“Thanks for the permission.”
Emma takes a breath at the sarcasm.“I never pushed you toward Lyly.”
“Oh, really?” The caustic laugh hits my ears like nails on a chalkboard. “So you're happy to hear I broke up with her?”
Looking like she's been given a potion of youth, Emma starts to grin. “It's a good start.”
Tod doesn't comment, glaring at her for a few moments before he grabs his coat and storms from the room. The door bangs behind him.
Uncomfortable in the extreme, I give Emma a tiny smile and another hug.
“I knew he wasn't ready for any of that before, but I hope he is now. You make sure his head doesn't explode on the ride home, alright?”
Laughing softly, I shake my head. “I'll try.”
“Thank you for tonight.” The elder fox pats my hair like I'm a little kid. “Don't let your head explode either, huh?”
She leaves me in the vacant room, going into the living room, where the rest of the den is socializing. I scramble to grab my coat and thrust it on before I have to face the freezing winter air again. I'd take my time and let Tod calm down, but I'm afraid he's angry enough to drive off without me.
But he's a better friend than that. He's at the car, leaning against the roof and staring up at the sky.
“Tod?” I ask, beyond uncertain of what I should say. I don't understand why he's so upset, so I don't know where to start trying to get him to talk about it.
With a growl, he shakes his head, then jerks open the car door and flings himself into the driver's seat.
I'm not at all convinced letting him drive is a good idea, but he isn't in a mood to be argued with. All trying to take over for him would do is make his temper even more foul.
The radio DJ and his callers are the only ones talking on the way back home. Their babble isn't terribly comforting. They're focusing on a recent surge in missing and mutilated domestic animals in an unnamed small town in Alaska. So far, no missing children. Thank God. But the livestock vanishing from their enclosures are starting to attract attention. Apparently national attention, since this is satellite radio. And one caller mentions the word werewolf. Not good. Even if the host does laugh at the guy.
Snowflakes drift lazily into our windshield and Tod flips on the wipers, which swish gently, completely out of rhythm with the song that comes on in the wake of the human speculation. It's a quiet, old country song, about pain and loss and a love that would have been the stuff of legends if our singer hadn't screwed everything up with his blind stupidity.
Tod's finger jams into one of the tuner buttons, and the numbers shift to a station offering a screaming heavy metal tune. He turns it up, and I can no longer hear the wipers. Or my own thoughts.
The bass thumps against me, making my body throb in unfamiliar ways. I cling to the door handle, holding onto it as if that will somehow make this ride safer as Tod slams us around corners and rushes into the night at speeds I didn't think this car could hit.
It's a small miracle we make it to the school both unharmed by accident and unharassed by the police.
The poor car shudders to a stop as Tod kills the engine by stalling it, leaving the keys in the ignition in his haste to get out of the vehicle. My fingers sting from lack of circulation as I reach over and switch off the headlights.
As I get out of the car, I find Tod pacing about the parking lot rather than going inside.
“Do you think...” His eyes squeeze shut although he continues to pace. “Do you think I could have inherited the ability to recognize my life mate?”
“I don't know.” I edge cautiously toward him, feeling the cold to the center of my bones and selfishly wishing my friend could have started this conversation somewhere heated. “It's possible, I guess. Assuming your granddad wasn't just making things up. Mine is the lord of tall tales.”
A large plume of condensation flows from him as he lets out a deep breath.“I believe him.” There's another cloud to obscure the air as I wait for him to go on. “Because I think I did.”
He leans against one of the ceiling support columns and looks at me, level and serious. “I think...” He looks off into the distance, his eyes going toward the far wall, though he doesn't seem to see it. “Two and half years ago, there was this second when the world sort of rearranged itself and I had this... This knowledge.Some part of me that had been missing walked in and said, 'Hello, you need me.'” He takes a long pause. “And then I turned around and saw Lyly walk through the doorway.” His mouth twists into a pained smile. “She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.”
“Yeah?” I try not to let the illness overwhelming me at the thought of Tod and Lyly as predestined life mates shine through, so I stare at the ground and keep my comment to a minimum.
“I think maybe that's why I was willing to go through so much for her. That it wasn't that I cared about allying with the east, but because deep down, I thought we were meant to be together.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But, Mike...” I look up at the intensity behind my name. “The feeling started before Lyly entered the room.”
“It did?” Hope buoys to the surface of my mind. “So it wasn't for her?”
“No. It couldn't have been.” His eyes fall to the concrete as he shakes his head. “I just let myself get distracted. It was for Aliah.”
“Aliah?” I repeat, a grin breaking through.
His eyes are tightly shut again and his breath shaky.“Aliah.”
“That's wonderful!” I very nearly clap with glee.
“Wonderful?” His eyes spring open to stare at me with incredulity. “I spent the last two years with her sister!”
“It doesn't matter.”
“How can it not matter?” he yells at me. “She was my life mate, and I ignored her all this time because I thought her sister was hotter? That matters!”
“Not was,” I correct softly.“Is. She is your life mate.”
He shakes his head.“She'd have to be an idiot to have anything to do with me now.”
“Maybe.” I put my hand on his arm. I hate to betray a confidence, even if it's one I gained from observation rather than from confession. Tod is three steps past desperate though, and I just can't stand to watch him suffer more than he needs to. “But she'll do it. Because she loves you.”
His eyes rove over my face, as if looking for a trace of lie. “She won't even talk to me.”
I sigh. “Not this afternoon. Not since Lyly started acting like you'd gotten back together.”
He lets out an anguished groan as his head bangs back against the cement support. The look he gives me bleeds misery. “If she can't forgive me for possibly taking Lyly to a dance, how is she ever going to forgive me for the rest of it?”
“She was just upset today.” I try to look reassuring. “If you'd been paying attention, you'd probably have seen she got upset every time you and Lyly got back together. You were just too happy to notice it the other times.”
His skin has turned a sickly shade, a color that stands in rather nasty contrast to his hair. His face twists in a decisively nauseated way.
I sigh. “I didn't say that to make you feel worse. I just meant to say you still have a chance. Because you've hurt her in the past, but she loves you anyway. Even though you've never given her an ounce of encouragement.”
Of Fur and Ice Page 25