by Nox, Serena
I reached out and caught the door with my fingertips, pushing it closed to block out the brilliant sunshine. Then I crawled slowly across the floor to my mattress and sank heavily into it, pulling the covers over my head and curling into a tight ball.
And then I wept. For my Gran, for my mother and for the loss of something precious that had ended before it even began.
Kai
The tether that had held him to her also seemed to have held him together. And when it snapped, Kai felt himself set adrift.
He barely noticed where his heavy feet were carrying him. All he knew was that there was something important that he needed to take care of, right now.
The sun had moved across the valley and was sinking below the far peaks when he finally located the surveying party. Mathe was loping along the riverside, with Faron following closely at his heels. Lorn ranged behind them by several hundred yards, with Dov bringing up the rear, his huge head hanging sullenly between his front legs. All around them were the charred remains of the burned forest.
Kai's hackles raised and he bared his teeth.
When Lorn caught Kai's scent on the wind, he lifted his head and sat back on his haunches, letting out a strong, sure roar that rolled across the valley like thunder. From across the waters, three black heads popped up from the shallows, and Keir and Lew came tumbling across the river with their mother close on their heels. Everyone paused what they were doing to come attend to their alpha.
But Kai was heading straight for Dov.
He snapped the mental link open for all to hear his thoughts. "This insolence will no longer stand," he thought to Dov, hitting him with the full weight of his anger and hurt.
Dov sat back on his haunches and paused as he watched his alpha barrel closer. The subordinate male seemed to be considering his options before he thought, loudly and for all to hear, "What offense am I accused of?"
Kai thundered to a stop inches from Dov's snout, then pulled himself back and up on to his hind legs, drawing himself up to his full eight feet in height. "I accuse you of insubordination and treason, and I banish you from this clan."
The shock that rolled over him from the rest of the clan had no effect on his mounting anger. He raised his heavy paw.
Dov lowered his chin in the gesture of submission, and Kai felt some of his anger cool. His rival would submit.
And then the breath was knocked from his lungs as Dov lunged for him, his great paws wrapping tightly around his ribs as he flung him backwards and snapped his jaws inches from his throat.
"Usurper, I will kill you here and take what is rightfully mine." The righteous anger of Dov's thoughts roared through the singular mind of the clan, and the treachery and treason heard in those words shocked them ever more than Kai's sudden banishment. Kai felt Faron's sudden urge to kill rising, as well as the loyalty of Keir and Lew as they barreled up the riverbank ready to fight for their alpha.
"This is my fight!" he commanded them, and he swung his mighty paw through the air. It connected heavily with Dov's head, knocking the challenger to the side with a sickening crunch. Dov roared as hot blood poured from the open gash under his ear and he rolled over twice before finding his feet again.
Kai flipped himself forward, feeling the pain shoot up from his ribs as he landed on his feet. Ignoring the angry stab of a broken rib, he charged forward just as Dov lifted himself up onto his hind legs. The two great beasts slammed into each other with the sound of thunder. "Kai!" Faron bellowed.
"Stay back!" Kai shouted as he clamped his jaws down on to Dov's throat. But the challenger reared back at the last possible moment and Kai was left with a mouthful of soot-black fur.
Dov lashed out with his own paw, and whipped Kai's head backward. Kai tasted blood as he bit his tongue and the taste enraged him. He roared upward onto his hind legs, swung his mighty paw with the whole force of his eight hundred pounds behind it.
His great claws caught Dov just as the challenger leapt forward to attack. Dov was impaled just as he was making for Kai's throat, tearing open his belly with the force of his own jump.
With an anguished scream, Dov fell to the side, as blood gushed onto the trampled grass of the river bed. Kai looked on in horror as the white snakes of Dov's entrails poked through the wound. The link to Dov's mind let him feel every agonizing breath as if it were his own.
"I did not mean..." Kai began, sick dread filling his mind as he watched his rival panting shallow gasps. "Ayla!" he bellowed.
The female appeared instantly at his side, already shedding her bear form. With her human fingers, she plucked newly sprouted grasses and pressed them to the wound to stanch the flow of hot blood. "He needs human medicine," she declared. "This is more than I can heal." Kai felt her quiet fear and hung his head.
"Then so be it," he ordered.
"I will do this," she responded, then whistled to her cubs. Keir and Lew bounded forward, their human forms not quite fully men, but no longer the small, skinny boys they were.
"My clan has a vehicle and one who knowledgeable of driving." Mathe had stepped forward now, his human face creased with concern. A moon's length of living with the Bear Valley Clan had linked him to their minds, and now he shared Dov's pain just as much as the rest did. Perhaps even more, as his omega status opened him up to Dov's emotions too. Hot rage and resentment poured off of Dov in waves.
"Then so be it," Kai responded quietly. "Be as quick as you can."
"I will do this," Mathe nodded, then shifted mid leap, bounding away in his bear form like black lightning.
"Dov," Kai ventured. "Stay alive."
His mental link was weakening with each pulse. He was losing control of his shifts, his bear and human forms ebbing and flowing as his power over himself waned. But he found the words to speak aloud, his human voice rasping as he choked. "I will kill you for this, I will make you pay."
Noelle
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"
Gabby looked at my hands and I followed her gaze. The small box seemed too small, and strangely light. It was not right. It should have been more of a burden. But this was all that was left of my Gran.
"I...can't." Her eyes were wide with panic as she stared at the box. "Please, Ellie. I just can't see her just...disappear like that."
I shifted the box in my hands, heavy dread closing around my throat. When my sister said she was coming up the peak to scatter my grandmother's ashes, I had envisioned us doing it together. I would bury a small bit at the foundation of the cabin. Then the two of us would hike up to the overlook and let her ashes be carried on the breeze down across the valley below. Then we would embrace each other, our duty as Palmers having concluded as the sun peeked through a break in the clouds.
That was how I envisioned it anyway.
But I had forgotten about my sister's terror of the woods. And I hadn't reckoned on her fear of the ashes I now held in my hand.
"I hate it, it just doesn't seem right. When I die, Ellie, I want you to bury my body so that you can have a place, an actual place to come and visit me."
"But Gabs," I said softly, "she wouldn't actually be there. She's not here anymore."
That panic flared in her eyes again. "I hate that too," she spat.
"Gabby, we have to honor her wishes."
"Her wishes were selfish and stupid."
I put my hand on Gabby's arm. In spite of the brilliant sunshine and the balmy warmth, my sister was still dressed in a heavy wool cardigan. I touched the knitted floral design. "Did Gran knit this for you?"
She nodded and hugged her arms around her body, clutching her treasured heirloom close. I patted her as she shivered.
"I'll take care of it, Gabby. Do you want to stay here?"
She mutely nodded and stepped in to the cabin. When she collapsed into the easy chair, I turned my back to give her privacy and shut the door on her quiet, broken sobs.
I grabbed a light jacket from the hook. The overlook was about a thousand feet up in eleva
tion from here, and the weather could turn at any moment. Grabbing a trowel, I walked around the foundation of the house and found a south-facing spot where the sun would always shine.
The rich, moist earth moved easily, and I quickly dug a six-inch hole right up against the concrete slab of the foundation. When the hole was big enough, I sat back on my heels.
"Okay, Gran. " I whispered and took a deep breath. Then I opened the box.
The gray ash was crumbly and uneven. I swallowed back the gorge that threatened to rise. "It's not her," I repeated to myself. "She's in a better place. With Pa." I dipped the trowel in, and pulled up a scoop. A light breeze scattered a few fine particles that shimmered in the air. The rest I dropped lightly into the hole.
"Rest in peace, Gran," I whispered. "I love you."
Then I pushed the dirt back over the ash, mixing my grandmother with the place she loved and refused to abandon even when she herself had been abandoned.
The box didn't feel any lighter when I hefted it under my arm and began the hike up to the overlook. This was a route I had avoided until this day and for good reason. The trees were stunted and twisted this high up, and the wind was a constant gale in my face. I ducked my head and clambered upward, knowing that my feet would find the way more easily if I didn't interfere with my mind.
Instead I thought of Kai.
The taste of his lips came unbidden; the force of the wind on my skin could very well have been his touch. As I climbed higher, my heart thudded in my ears, but not so much from the exertion as from memory.
He told me to call on him and he would come. It was a strange thing to say, but then Kai was a strange man. And with all the other strangeness that accompanied him, I had no trouble believing that he would come to me if I called him.
As I scaled a small plateau, his name came to my lips. I almost called him, but I swallowed it back just before it could escape. Because I had reached my destination.
The wind whipped my hair and took my breath away even as the view did exactly the same. Pechin Valley spread out before me, the clear air letting me see all the way to far off Bear's Folly mountain scraping against the low ceiling of clouds. Here and there the sun pierced the gray bank, sending shafts of sunlight to the valley floor below, glinting off the lazy river that twisted and wound like a snake. A large swath of forest had burned, the blackened patch a scar on the landscape. I wondered if it had been a lightning strike or something more sinister.
I turned away from the far edge of the valley and looked back along the near side of the river. Over here it was just as wild and untamed and teeming with life as it had always been. Below me a pair of ravens tumbling acrobatically through the air, fighting over a scrap of food. I heard the cry of a hawk, but did not see it until it was just over my head. It swooped over me with a rush of wings and another sharp cry, and then it plummeted out of sight as it dove for unsuspecting prey that scampered far below.
I stood there, breathless. My Gran had wanted to be part of the valley always and in this moment I understood why. I knelt down and pressed my hand to the sun-warmed rock below me and then sat carefully back on my heels.
"I get it, Gran, " I whispered as I opened the box again. "I get it." I inched to the very edge of the rock. Vertigo dimmed my sight for a minute. A small chunk of rock broke free and tumbled out into the void. My heart leapt into my throat and I backed away from the edge. "Sorry, Gran," I whispered. "We're going to have to let the wind take care of you."
As I stood back up again, a gale whipped down from the peak above, knifing through my body with a piercing cold. I cast a look over my shoulder and my heart sank. A thundercloud was boiling upward over the peak, obscuring the very top. Lightning flashed silently inside of it, but I knew I would hear the rolling peals of thunder soon enough.
"Shit, sorry Gran, can't linger" I swore and tumbled the ashes out of the box. The gale caught the crumbled pieces and sent the swirling off of the ridge and over the forest onto the valley below. "There," I nodded.
Then the thunder reached my ears and I swore again.
Leaping down from the outcropping, I started my rapid descent back to the cabin, just as the fat raindrops found me. I heard them hit the leaves first, and I pulled up my hood, obscuring my peripheral vision. I moved through the forest like I was in a tunnel, my hood only allowing me to see what was exactly in front of me. But that did not matter, because my feet knew the way home. If I could just get back to Gabby before the rain got too bad.
I plunged through the trees, knowing that I should steer clear of the exposed, rocky areas when there was lightning. It would have been quicker to stay above the treeline until I needed to descend, and I could have seen my way better, but it was too dangerous in a storm. The trees offered me a measure of protection.
As I rushed on, the fat drops hitting my head deafened me, and my hood blinded me. This is taking too long, I should be there by now, I thought. Had I taken a wrong turn?
I stopped and pulled off my hood. Instantly my hair was soaked through, slicked to my face. I peered back the way I came, trying to figure out where I was. Without the clear guide of the treeline, I had become confused. I decided to take my chances and head upward, hoping to get my bearings once I was out of the woods.
"Who the fuck are you?"
I stopped short, skidding on wet leaves. The gunman kept his weapon trained on me as I fell backwards onto my rear end.
"What the?"
"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded again.
I stared at the apparition, dumbfounded. "I'm, not anyone."
"Bullshit," he spat, his face twisted in rage. He had a cap pulled down low over his eyes, but I could see his thin lips twisted up in a snarl under his scraggly mustache. I saw more shapes moving in the trees, and then another gunman joined the first.
"Where the hell did she come from?" his friend asked.
"Fuck if I know, she just showed up. What're you doin' out here, girlie?"
I caught the sob of terror before it could escape my throat. Behind them I saw a ramshackle structure haphazardly thrown up around a twisted mess of bottles and tubes. There was a heavy, chemical smell in the air that the whipping wind couldn't dissipate.
Meth.
I had gotten turned around and wandered right into a clandestine meth production lab..
"I was just hiking," I told them, clenching my fists. "I can go, right now. I won't bother you."
"Bullshit," the first man snarled again. "Nobody comes up this high, there ain't no trails around here."
"Thought Marrok said we'd be alone up here," the second man grumbled.
"Shut up, asshole," he turned to me, lifting his rifle to his shoulder. "So what do you say, girlie? You wanna try and come up with a better story?"
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it with a pop. If I told them about the cabin, then they would go there. And then they would find Gabby. They would find my sister.
"I got lost," I told them instead, and the sob of fear that tore free from my throat lent some truth to my lie. "I wanted to go to the overlook, and," I thought quickly, "my friends didn't. They'll be looking for me."
The first gunman lowered his gun slightly, but the second one raised his, taking a clear bead on my head. "Now girlie, why you gotta lie like that?" he drawled, impervious to the rain that battered us and the thunder that rolled overhead. "We got us a guy, checks the trailhead every day. Ain't nobody in these woods today. So whyn't you tell us where in the fuck you came from?"
I opened my mouth, readying my next lie, when he cocked his gun and stepped forward. "Wait a tic. Hey Dwayne, I think I just figured it out." He smiled widely, revealing a gap toothed, broken smile full of rotted teeth.
"The fuck you say my name for, Mitchell?" the first gunman hissed.
Mitchell stepped forward. I felt the cold bite of steel as he tilted my chin upward with his rifle. "Don't think it matters too much. This little bitch won't be saying our names to anyone. She's not gonna be around much lo
nger anyway."
"No...." I whispered.
"I know, and I'm sorry about it, because you are a pretty little thing. But see we can't be having pretty girls just dropping in on us like this, nice as it is. Our boss don't like too many people knowing his business."
"I don't know anything!" I sobbed. "Just let me leave."
"Why, so you can go back to your cabin with your granny?"
I froze.
Mitchell let out a guffaw. "Ah, knew I had you sussed. We've been watching you, girlie. Sorry about your granny."
"Fuck off."
"Now now. You had best keep a civil tongue in your head. I'm sure your sister would only have kind words to say to us."
Ice water ran in my veins. It was all lost then. They knew about the cabin and they knew about my sister. There was nothing more for me to do, they were going to kill me right here, in the mud, in the rain.
But instead of sorrow, instead of fear, a hot little bud of anger bloomed in my chest. How dare these lowlife drug addicts confront me, me! If they had been watching me, then they should know who I was. I was Noelle Palmer. My grandfather colonized this peak and this land was in my blood.
I closed my fist tightly, sinking it into the muddy earth, squeezing it through my fingers. A pulse beat at my temples, slow and angry, building on itself.
Mitchell watched me rise to my feet and his snide smile slackened. The steady drumbeat of my pulse made my heart feel too large inside of my chest. Everything seemed too large inside of me. My skin could no longer contain my insides. Something bigger was trying to get out.
The crawling, clawing sensation was driving me mad. I buried my face in my hands, feeling heat rising off of my skin, burning so hot that steam was rising from my face. A low vibration sounded in the air, building up and up, thrumming so loudly that Mitchell and Dwayne looked around wildly.
Whatever was inside of me was about to burst out. I was confused, panicked and terribly angry. That anger rose in my throat like a bubble, until I was forced to open my mouth and give voice to my rage.