Thorne Bay

by Jeanine Croft

  I could very well guess the rest. “So a lonely kid ran away to find his mother?”

  “Yeah, and bit the only person who loved him, hoping that she’d change too. By that time, he’d learnt enough to know that a werewolf could be created if bitten. After all, he’d been labelled a mutt himself. That’s the long and short of it, he was too young to understand that he had killed her with that bite.”

  “What happened to Linda?”

  “She lasted longer than most would have, probably because she shared some DNA with her son.”

  “The first change?” Was that what killed her? I almost didn’t want to know.

  “No, she didn’t survive the fever.” Lydia stood from the bed, preparing to leave me. “But you have, so there’s every hope you’ll also survive your first change.”

  “But I might turn…rabid.”

  “Then we’ll keep you in a cage every full moon, but if you think Tristan will allow anyone to hurt you then—”

  “I don’t need his pity or for him to stay with me out of guilt!”

  She seemed momentarily taken aback by my bitterness. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “About what?”

  “It wasn’t pity that had him tearing Nicole’s room apart. It wasn’t pity that nearly caused him to come to blows with his brother when he wouldn’t calm down. And it certainly wasn’t pity that made him almost unrecognizable to us. The Athabaskans own thousands of acres of land! He had no idea where Nicole took you, but he left to look for you anyway. I’d bet my canines he wasn’t human even once during the whole time he was out there on his own. He never stopped looking; and I know he hardly slept. He was already in Red Devil when he finally checked in with his brother. But Dean wouldn’t tell him where and when to find you, not till the last minute. Aidan had made him promise to keep Tristan ‘to heel’ till Gus brought you to them. She was protecting her sister as much as you.” She eyed me pointedly. “Evan, Tristan even asked his father for help, that should tell you how desperate he was to find you.”

  “I bet I can guess what answer his father gave.” I wasn’t up to speed on the werewolf politics, but I’d bet my humanity that Max had said hell no. It was in his best interest to see me dead rather than pollute his legacy with my ‘muttiness’.

  “Yeah, well, Dean and Tristan have enough powerful friends without needing to rely on their father’s help.”

  “Why is Dean helping me at all?” I gripped my pounding head and leaned back against my pillows, wincing.

  “He’s not helping you, he’s supporting his brother. He loves Tristan.”

  “They don’t exactly act loving.”

  “Well, it isn’t natural for a wolf that’s as dominant as its brother to heel and obey. Tristan tries his best to be what he isn’t, but he’s had to move into his own place for the sake of making this dynamic work effectively.”

  “But Dean disapproves of me.”

  “It’s more that Dean lives with the fact that he killed his own mother. A fact his father never lets him forget. Interspecies mating is dangerous, Evan. Dean wanted to protect his brother from that.” She offered a sympathetic smile. “But he knows it was the right thing to do, helping Tristan find you. Tristan feels responsible for what Nicole did to you, and, as alpha, that responsibility now lies with Dean too.” Then she shrugged. “Anyway, from a political standpoint, it’s in the best interest of Dean’s pack to ally themselves with the Yukon heir. The future alpha of the strongest pack in North America.”

  So I had been ‘dating’ royalty. “Why wasn’t Dean put down like the Athabaskans tried to do to me? For biting his mother.”

  “His youth saved him. Not to mention being the son of Maxwell Thorn, even an unloved one, comes with certain benefits. He would have been the heir presumptive if something had ever happened to Tristan. But after biting Linda, it was decided he’d be stripped of all those rights. Disowned. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, that’s what it means to be rogue: a nobody without a family. Some of us choose to leave our packs and some of us have no choice. He was sent away to live here, motherless, under the stern eye of Frank Thorn. Old Frank’s only job was to stay vigilant and make sure Dean didn’t screw up again. One more false move and they’d have killed him.”

  “Frank Thorn?” I tapped my bottom lip. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

  “Thorne Bay’s an old logging town that took its name from Frank Manley Thorn in the eighties—it was his family that settled here first. Their name was misspelled on a map once, and it’s never been rectified.” She lifted one shoulder nonchalantly. “Frank pretended to be a proponent of logging when in actual fact he was working to minimize the destruction of his woodland home. His father was originally Manley Thorstensen back when they moved down from the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. Truth is, there were werewolves here even before Manley came. There were indigenous wolves among the Tlingit and Haida tribes long before our ancestors came here from Greenland and Iceland.

  “What ever happened to Frank?”

  “We have long lifespans, Evan, and we age differently. There’s only so long a werewolf can live in a human community without the general public becoming suspicious of us. By being reclusive we can prolong that time by a few years, but eventually we have to leave. That’s why a lot of us live in pack townships, away from humans where we can live our entire lives in one place. Like the wolves of Red Devil.

  “Anyway, Frank moved back to Canada after Dean was fully grown. By then, Tristan had moved down here to join his brother, and Thorn Aviation was already a fledgling company. Dean’s not feral, he never required a watchdog for very long, and Max knows that. Everything you see here is what he created from nothing—a pack of unwanted misfits like him, and a thriving business he and his brother conceived with a small investment he got from Frank. In the end, I think uncle Frank, as gruff as he can be, grew a little fond of Dean.”

  “So why did Tristan leave his pack?”

  “He’s always loved his brother. Though they take the piss out of each other more often than not, don't let it fool you, those two are inseparable. He came here to join Dean because he doesn’t believe that he should be the heir apparent to the Yukon Territory. He believes that’s Dean’s right, but Dean doesn’t want it either, so Max is shit out of heirs.” Lydia moved silently to the door, but before withdrawing from the room she had one final thing to say. “Tristan’s loyal to a fault. And when he loves someone, it’s forever, never out of pity or guilt. When a werewolf picks a mate, that’s forever too. He’s picked you, Evan, anyone can see that. You smelled of him from the first day, we all noticed it.”

  “What?”

  “When I first met you in Thorne Bay Market you reeked of werewolf musk.”

  Eww.

  “Almost from your first night in Thorne Bay, he was playing guard dog around Bear Lodge.”

  Those strange prints I’d found outside my apartment finally made sense now!

  “His brother gave him so much hell for that.” She gave an amused little grunt. “It doesn’t mean much to you because you weren’t born into this life and you don’t appreciate what it is to be one of us. Not yet. But that’s something special—finding your mate. We’re not all so fortunate.” A low cloud swept into her gaze just then. “Anyway, it’s why Nicole probably hated you the first moment she clapped eyes on you. She’d have smelled him on you too; she’d have understood what it meant. He’d never shown any interest in her. He chose you.”

  When I only continued to stare desolately at the ceiling, Lydia slipped from the room with a heavy sigh. The door closed softly behind her as my tears rushed pitifully over my cold cheeks. Finally, with a frustrated growl, I rolled out of bed. “How much goddamn wood needs to be chopped?” I muttered, padding over to the window to investigate that incessant dull thudding.

  However, there was no one at the chopping block when I reached the windowsill, just the abandoned ax still embedded in the scarred stump, seemingly waiting for it
s master’s return. I didn’t have to wait long. A dark-haired giant soon materialized out of the adjacent woodshed. Tristan. He stalked from the outbuilding, his golden skin smeared with dirt and sweat, oblivious to the cold fog that clung to the ground, a grim set to his jaw as he ripped the blade free of the stump. As I watched, eyes avidly devouring his features, he positioned a new victim on the block and began splitting logs with gusto. When his pile was gone, he left his post for the woodshed again, but this time he paused at the door he’d left ajar, staring fixedly into the shed with unseeing eyes. He gave no warning before he suddenly threw his fist into the sturdy door with enough fury to splinter iron. The force of the blow snapped it from it’s hinges and rent it in two so that it lay against the frame, doubled over and useless. No easy feat since it was rather a new shed and a very solid hardwood door. Not something a human could have done with such ease. My shock must have been palpable, must have touched him somehow, because he whipped his head around and caught me staring from the window.

  Without thinking, I instantly ducked to the side and sank down the wall like a coward. Why was I so afraid of that penetrative gaze? The starkness of his eyes had struck me even from this distance—they were glowing amber with lupine wrath. After a silence the ax began to fall again, each blow somehow like a death knell, more brutal than the last.

  A knock fell against my door for the second time today, but I was too lost in thought to answer. When Dean entered, I felt like upbraiding him, but what right did I have? This was his home, and I was under his roof. What was more, even if he’d caught me in my birthday suit it wouldn’t have impressed him in the least. I’d already learned that werewolves were about as bothered by nakedness (seemingly delicate human sensibilities) as normal wolves were.

  He strode in and joined me where I sat below the window, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he gazed out to see who it was I was so obviously hiding from. His scowl grew foul as he shook his head, presumably noticing the damage to his shed. He turned away with a muttered oath and then paused to consider the untouched food on the tray nearby. “You haven’t eaten since you got here,” he said, schooling his features. “To survive the change you need to fuel your body.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “No, that’s exactly the point! I’m gonna die anyway.”

  “Perfect, that’ll make my life a lot easier.”

  I set my teeth and glared at him.

  “Question is,” he went on, “do you really want to make it that easy for Nicole? Dying without a fight, I mean. Maybe you’d consider living just to spite her.” He allowed the silence to rest heavily on my shoulders. “Think about your mother if not yourself.” Coming from him, the words seemed far more poignant.

  My mouth twisted with resentment and guilt, but he merely met my glare with his usual apathy. Finally, I stood and headed over to the dresser to grab my food tray. “You’re as cold as Aidan.”

  “Kind of ungrateful of you to say so considering she saved your life.”

  My head snapped up from the bread I was dipping in my soup. “Augustus saved my life, not—”

  “And who gave him his instructions? Who invited Tristan and I onto her land and told us where to wait for you?”

  I set my teeth and dropped my head. He was right and I was too exhausted to fight with him.

  “Maybe she’s not the monster you take her for. Maybe none of us are.”

  “I know you’re not a monster, Dean.” And I meant it. What he’d done to his mother was not the same as what had been done to me.

  His mouth compressed grimly. “You know no such thing.” He turned his back to me. “It might very well be Tristan’s fault that you’re in this mess, indirectly, but it’s also because of who he is that you’re still alive.”

  Which begged the question: what would they have told my family if I’d been killed? No body, no crime. I’d have likely been immortalized in some dusty Alaskan cold case file, but that would’ve been about the extent of it, no doubt. And when my mother eventually passed on, in the far distant future, any memory of me would have died with her.

  “Stop sulking up here,” Dean continued, unaware of my contemplations. “What’s done is done, no use crying about it anymore. You’ve got a rough time ahead of you, girl. You need Tristan.” His face hardened as he turned back to face me. “Otherwise you’re alone. Trust me, that’s the last thing you want. A wolf can’t survive without a pack at his back.”

  I tried not to cry as he left the window with a disapproving look at me. He and Aidan seemed cut from the same cloth. Even their scowls looked identically fierce.

  At the door, he gestured down to the pilot bread and smoked salmon dip still untouched on my tray. “Eat your veggies, girl. You’re gonna need it.” After that grand pep talk, he strode from the room, leaving me once again cocooned in heavy silence. Even the somber thuds of Tristan’s ax had stopped. I was alone. Again.

  33

  The Silence And The Afterlife

  A crack of thunder ripped me from my pillow. It resounded in my skull with splintering force. I screamed, the blinding hot panic slicing sharply through my brain. Another horrific crack cleaved my bones, and I knew then that it wasn’t a storm raging outside but one fulminating within. Again, I shrieked, terror-stricken by my body’s sudden brutal self-destruction.

  Too immersed in the assault, I didn’t hear the door fly open, nearly shattering against the wall, or Tristan calling my name. Not at first. But I did finally become aware, once the pain ebbed briefly, that I was being dragged against steely warmth, arms enfolding me so that the left side of my body was pressed securely to hard flesh, my head tucked under Tristan’s chin as he held me close.

  “I’m here, Ev. Breathe for me,” he said, his voice steady in the darkness as the lightning returned, ripping through me again and again.

  “Tristan!” I gasped. “I’m d-dying!”

  “Breathe. You’re not dying.”

  My chest heaved as I struggled to fill it with air, my ribs like lethal claws clamping and puncturing the life from my lungs. I whimpered and nodded as Tristan whispered soothingly, exhorting me to focus on my breathing. He stroked my hair, making no sound of protest when my nails suddenly impaled his arms during the peak of the whelming agony. Unrelentingly, the torment continued. Tristan stayed with me long after the worst of the convulsions had passed, till dawn broke with its roseate light through my window.

  Still drenched in sweat from the long night, my hair matted to my face and my insides battered, I stayed in his arms, clutching at him whenever he made to slip away. Eventually, though, he disconnected my clammy fingers and left to get me some water. My tongue was swollen with thirst or I’d not have let him go at all. He climbed back into bed with me moments later and, after I’d downed a gallon of water, he wrapped himself protectively around me again, my cheek to his chest. We lay there quietly as my breathing returned to normal. His fingers brushed the snarls of hair softly from my face while I listened to the slow and comforting beats of his heart. When I opened my eyes and lifted my face to meet his gaze, he brought his lips gently to mine, holding them pressed there a long moment so that we could breathe one another in.

  “See,” he whispered, leaning just a fraction of an inch away, “you’re not dying. Sometimes pain is there to remind us how alive we are.”

  Not dead yet but soon. “Will it happen again?” I croaked.

  Tristan threaded our fingers together and kissed my knuckles. “Yes,” he said somberly. “Your body’s trying to do in a matter of weeks what mine took years to accomplish. It’s kind of like a growth spurt.”

  “So what you’re saying is that I get to go through puberty twice.” I winced as I readjusted myself to lie on my back, my bones and muscles protesting loudly. “Lucky me.”

  He gave my hand a squeeze. “You won’t be alone. Not ever again, I promise you that.” There was something of rage at the edge of his vow and I knew then he s
till wanted his teeth in Nicole’s jugular.

  So did I. “Tell me what happens after. If I survive the change.”

  “When—” his tone was brusque “—you get through this, it’ll take years before you can shift at will.” The mattress shifted as he also turned onto his back. “You’ll be like an adolescent at first, running—that’s what we call shifting—will be instinctive and inevitable, it’ll be forced on you.”

  “Every full moon.” That much I knew. I turned my head to the side, tracing his profile in the grey light.

  “The older we get the better we are at controlling the change. When we’re young and hormonal everything’s haywire, so the only time juvies run at all is during syzygy. Our cycles peak at the full moon.” He folded his hands over his torso and turned his head so that I was now locked in his shadowy gaze. “It’s half physics, which I won’t go into now, and half PFM.”

  “PFM?”

  “Pure Fucking Magic.”

  I released a wearied sigh. “Well, I’m not in the mood for physics anyway.”

  We lay on our backs staring at each other as the silence stretched, my eyes becoming leaden.

  Finally, Tristan broke it, his words heavy with the livid regret still left unuttered between us. “I’m so sorry, Evan. I had no idea Nicole was psychotic. This is my fault, I should have tried harder to stay away from you.”

  And if he had? Would I still be living my dishwater life, seeing the world in achromatic shades? That seemed somehow more tragic to me—existing so blandly—than the possibility of dying in less than two weeks. If I’d been given the choice, if I’d proceeded knowingly, would I still have abandoned the safety of mundanity and risked the heady thrill of paranormality? I had no answer for myself, least of all for Tristan. At first, all I offered him was enervated silence, then, after a while, I said, “At least now I know your big secret.”