Wolf's Blood

by Laura Taylor

  Turning back to her own meal, Dee bit into her chicken leg. It had been flavoured with lemon and ginger, the meat tender and delicious, and she almost felt guilty, knowing that tomorrow she would be challenging George to a fight. He was an excellent cook, an asset to the Den, and it was only when Skip had explained that he preferred to hold the bottom rank that Dee had managed to relax. Position came with responsibility, Skip said, and George preferred a quiet, peaceful life. And if the price for that was a drafty bedroom and the seat at the bottom of the table, then so be it.

  Grateful for a peaceful moment now that the ceremony was over, Dee took the time to observe the people around her. Tank was arguing with Caroline, something she’d seen him do with startling frequency. Baron was having what looked like a heated discussion with John on the lawn. John had his arms folded, head up defiantly, glaring at the alpha, but the way Baron dwarfed the smaller man was almost laughable. He probably weighed three times as much, and stood head and shoulders above him. But he looked fiercely angry, and Dee dreaded to think what John had done to warrant such an ear-bashing, as Baron continued lecturing him on whatever it was that had him so riled up.

  “Would you like a brownie?” someone said suddenly, and Dee looked up, surprised to see George standing beside her, offering her a plate.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking one. “The food is delicious.”

  That put a smile on George’s face, and it was hard to tell in the dim light, but he seemed to blush. “It’s a pleasure to prepare it. I didn’t have anyone to cook for before I came here.” There was something diffident about his manner, as if he expected to be trodden on, yet accepted that as his place in the world, and Dee could feel Faeydir growing more aggressive, sensing a weakness in the man and wanting to challenge it.

  Sit down and shut up, Dee snarled at her. He’s friendly and polite, and doing you no harm. If you paid attention instead of snarling at him, you might learn something about manners.

  Faeydir huffed in the back of her mind, relenting, though Dee suspected there might be an ongoing problem between her and George. It was a shame; she rather liked the man.

  George wandered off, taking the plate of brownies to the next cluster of hungry humans, and Dee suddenly looked down at the treat in her hand with concern. “Hey, isn’t chocolate bad for dogs?” she asked Skip, who already had a mouthful.

  “Yeah,” Skip said, not bothering to swallow first. “But you’re not a dog. And the wolves are smart enough not to eat them.” At Dee’s quizzical look, Skip rolled her eyes and finished her mouthful. “There’s very little link between what you do physically and what your wolf does. You wear clothes, but they vanish when your wolf comes out. Your wolf could go for a swim in the pond, be soaking wet, but after you shift, you, the human, will be dry. So eat the chocolate, but don’t feed it to your wolf, and everything will be fine. Have you kissed Mark yet?”

  “What?” Dee squawked, the brownie already in her mouth. She spat it out and coughed.

  Skip just laughed and took another bite of her food.

  “Where the hell did that come from?” Dee asked in a squeak. “I haven’t… I’ve just… I barely know the man!”

  Skip grinned. “Yeah. But he’s been watching you ever since we sat down, and he fought Baron for you yesterday.” She signed melodramatically. “That’s so romantic.”

  “Mark’s not… he hasn’t… I don’t…” The protests died on Dee’s lips. Mark had tried flirting with her this afternoon, after all, so she could hardly claim that he wasn’t interested. And saying that she wasn’t attracted to him in return was a lie. But the idea of anything more at this stage was still rather intimidating, even a little surreal. She glanced over at him, standing with a beer in his hand, talking to Alistair, and felt her heart speed up a little. Damn, the man was gorgeous, the light from the torches making his skin glow golden, his dark hair giving him an untamed look. Gorgeous… and complicated.

  “I don’t think we’d work together,” she said finally, needing to deny the idea one way or another.

  Skip regarded her seriously, then sighed, a more heartfelt sound this time. “That’s too bad.” She glanced over at Mark, then down at her plate. “He’s changed since you came here,” she admitted quietly, and there was something in her tone that made Dee pay attention. “Well, kind of, at least. He used to be fun. Quiet, independent, but still fun. He and Alistair and Luke… you never met Luke-”

  “Mark told me about him. Apparently he was… he was killed.”

  “Yeah,” Skip confirmed sadly. “So anyway, the three of them used to hang out. They were good friends. But then Luke died and Mark kind of stopped living for a while there. Stopped talking to people, stopped playing, just started going through the motions. I mean, we all get that, the grief and all. We’ve all lost people to the Noturatii. But he took it harder than most. But since you arrived he’s been more… I don’t know. More interested. More motivated. Just… more. So I thought maybe…” She shrugged. “Or maybe not.”

  On reflection, Dee agreed that Mark had seemed a rather solemn sort. It was interesting to know that wasn’t his normal self. But even so…

  Their conversation was interrupted suddenly by Baron’s voice, a loud string of curses that could be heard across the entire gathering. He was still standing on the lawn, glaring at Tank, who had apparently just asked him a question, and by the sounds of it was getting a right dressing down for whatever he had said.

  “Baron seems rather unhappy today,” she said, when the moment passed and the conversations started up again. John was sulking a short distance away from the alpha. From their body language, it was clear that their argument was far from over. Tank, on the other hand, merely shrugged at Baron’s outburst and headed back toward the food table.

  Skip snorted. “Yeah. He had a fight with John earlier. Not this little quibbling stuff,” she added, wiggling her fingers dismissively at the standoff on the lawn. “I mean a real fight, teeth and claws and all. I don’t think you were around at the time, but if you ever hear them yelling at each other, just duck and run for cover. Don’t even think about getting in the way.”

  Dee felt her eyebrows lift. “John doesn’t look big enough to fight with Baron.”

  Beside her, Skip sighed, a melodramatic sound that promised a story of intrigue. “Ah, good ol’ Johnny boy. There’s a tale and a half. But,” she added, lowering her voice quickly, “if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me.”

  Dee nodded her agreement. John was just a scrap of a boy, and Baron was a larger than life brute who seemed to run the Den with an iron fist. So how, and why, were they fighting?

  “First, let’s get a few things out in the open, okay?” Skip said conspiratorially. “Baron and John are sleeping together. Now, I phrase it that way on purpose. They’re not dating, they’re not in a relationship, they’re not partners. They just share a room and bump uglies on a regular basis. Capisce?”

  Dee felt her jaw drop. “I hadn’t realised Baron was gay.”

  Skip shrugged. “I’m not entirely certain he is. You don’t have to be gay to sleep with another man,” she added, to Dee’s quizzical look. “Some guys are bi. Or curious. Or, in Baron’s case, I think it’s more about dominance and reminding John who’s in charge. Hey, no one said it was a healthy relationship,” she speculated flippantly. “But John seems to accept it, and while there are plenty of us who have our doubts, none of us are game to step in and try to change anything.”

  “You think Baron’s abusing him?” That Baron would allow such a thing, never mind participate in it, was quite a shock. Sure, the man was tough, strict, forceful, but also kind and always willing to put the welfare of the Den first.

  Skip lost some of her cheerful flippancy for a moment. “John shows up with bruises now and then. He’ll never say where he got them, so who’s to know? But when you couple that with a lot of yelling in their bedroom and the way their furniture gets knocked about, and it’s an easy conclusion to come to. Hey,
we’ve all got a story,” Skip said a little more sharply, at Dee’s horrified look. She fingered her gaudy necklace. “Most of us were abused, lost, in jail or dying before we came here. So remember, you point a finger at them and there are three pointing back at you.”

  There was a sharp retort on Dee’s lips… until she remembered that, if not for Mark’s interference, she would likely have ended up murdering a room full of scientists in her own bid for freedom. She looked away, not at all liking Skip’s assessment of the situation. But what was she going to do? Fight Baron and force them to change their ways? Not likely. “So what’s the story with John?” she asked, working hard to keep her voice even.

  “John’s story?” Skip snorted. “No way. Ask him about his childhood and be prepared to die young. But after he joined the Den?” She shrugged. “When he first came here he was a load of trouble. Got into fights with everyone, couldn’t control his wolf. God knows why Caroline let him stay. She’s usually pretty quick to boot the troublemakers. But she and Baron seemed to reach this weird agreement that he was worth the trouble. He was out of control, though, and the Council got called in at various points to help them work it out. So John got to stay, but Baron decided something needed to be done to keep him under control. Took him up to his room for a ‘discussion’.” Skip held up her fingers in quote marks as she said the word. “Then the next thing you know, they’ve moved in together and they’re rocking the furniture every night.”

  “So you think Baron is using sex as a form of discipline?”

  “Who knows? And frankly, I don’t want to know. The nuts and bolts of it is that Baron’s the only one who can rein John in when he gets in one of his moods, and as long as John himself isn’t crying foul, the rest of us are willing to let it slide.”

  Okay, this was getting creepy. Time to change the subject. “What about Tank? What’s his deal?” After talking to Baron, she’d watched Tank return to Caroline and tell her something, only for her to then march over to Baron, stride long, head up, shoulders back, ready to start a small war.

  “Tank is the highest-ranking male after Baron. It’s a tough spot to be in. He gets along plenty well with Caroline – or at least, as well as anyone can given she’s a bit high strung – but he likes to play them off against each other.”

  When Caroline reached Baron, the two alphas had a short, but heated argument, which concluded with Baron looking at Tank with open amusement, and Caroline stalking off back to the patio, shoving Tank out the way as she went.

  “And before you go thinking he’s just causing trouble for the sake of it, that’s his job. He makes sure the leaders of the pack are still strong enough to lead. On the one hand, he has to detect any weakness in them and bring it into the light. But on the other hand, he’s also trying to keep them sharp, to make them practise keeping the peace with small shit, so that when the big shit happens, they know how to deal with it.”

  “And if they can’t?”

  Skip huffed. “If they can’t, then the long version is a big old shit storm starts up and everyone goes a bit nuts for a while. But the short version is that Baron gets booted, Tank becomes alpha, and the whole story starts again. And on that note,” she said, hopping up suddenly, “I’m going to go occupy myself with one of those beef bones for a bit. Don’t think I’m abandoning you, though,” she added with a grin, “cos Mark has been eyeing you for the last five minutes, and the instant I’m out of the way, he’s going to be over here like a shot.” With a wink and a crackle of electricity, Skip had shifted and was gone, true to her word, straight to the bowl of beef bones. There was another wolf at the table already, and a brief scuffle ensued, which resulted in Skip shoulder-slamming the other wolf, grabbing a bone and running away with it. A half-hearted growl followed her, then the other wolf turned back to his task – far more interesting than chasing Skip – which was digging a chicken carcass out of the bottom of the dish.

  Dee had her doubts about Skip’s prediction, and picked up her wine glass, draining the last of the liquid, preparing to go and refill it then perhaps have a chat to Heron for a while… until the seat beside her was suddenly taken again and she looked up to see Mark sitting there with a glass of beer in his hand, a half-smile on his face.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Dee felt her heart pick up its pace, feeling the nervous beginnings of what could become a serious crush. She made an effort to act calm and relaxed, even if she was feeling the complete opposite. “Much better, thank you. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  Mark nodded ruefully. “Took a few years off my life. So long as you’re okay, though.”

  “Faeydir’s feeling better. She’s been having fun tonight.”

  Mark nodded. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it there, for a while. It’s always a little tense for a new shifter – after a conversion, we never know if someone’s going to be able to merge with their wolf, and when you kept saying Faeydir was separate from you, a lot of people thought you were going to go rogue. So I’m glad you came through.”

  Dee felt her face warm, not so much from the words themselves, but from his tone, warm and just slightly husky, as if the sentiment carried too much weight for him. “What’s it like for most people?” she asked, needing some way to redirect the conversation. “The conversion, I mean?”

  “It’s a beautiful ceremony. I’m sorry you weren’t able to experience it like that. Usually we do it out in the forest. We have a machine that we use to create a field of static electricity. In the old days, of course, it had to be done in a lightning storm. Beautiful, but wet and cold and there was always the risk that someone was going to get struck by lightning,” he said with chagrin. “These days, it’s a lot more pleasant. The whole Den gathers. The chosen sire burns an offering of herbs and oil to Sirius. The alpha of the Den tells the story of Faeydir-Ul and the origin of the shifters. Then everyone is given a cup of spiced mead. The convert’s cup also has some pain relief in it. The sire and the convert both step inside the machine. They cut their wrists, put the wounds together and get zapped with a small electric charge. It’s not much more than getting an electric shock from a piece of metal, really. Then one of the senior shifters helps the convert through their first shift. We find that allowing them to shift straight away helps them accept the wolf better – and lets the wolf accept them.

  “And then, once everything’s under control, we perform the Chant of Forests. It’s a kind of pledge, really, that we’ll respect and honour the new wolf. Even if the shifter doesn’t manage to merge with it.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Dee said, remembering her earlier curiosity. “What does it mean? The Chant?”

  “Some parts of it don’t translate all that well – the language is ancient and there aren’t many people who still understand it – but the gist of it is:

  I welcome you into the world, bold and wise, ancient and new.

  I will look in your eyes and call you brother, sister, friend.

  With each new dawn I will be by your side

  And I will not sleep until you rest safely.

  If you call me, I will come. If you fall I will carry you.

  I will measure your steps each day that you run

  And when the sun sets, I will wait for you in the Hall of Sirius.”

  Mark stared into his glass, not quite able to meet her gaze, and Dee felt tears prick her eyes. So that’s what they’d been telling her. That beautiful, haunting, solemn chant had been a pledge to protect her and honour her until she died.

  Wow.

  “Is that what it was like for you?” she asked softly, envious of the ceremony he had described. It was a far cry from a cold lab and an IV line.

  But Mark surprised her when he replied, “No. Not for me.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You know I had leukaemia, right? Well, by the time they brought me here, I was pretty close to dying. Actually, I was dying. I was crashing on the floor of the foyer. So there wasn’t time for any ki
nd of ritual. They just set up the machine around me, cut my wrist and bam, suddenly I’m a shifter. I’m not complaining,” he added firmly. “At the time, just getting the job done was far more important than following the ritual. But I saw it later, when we converted some of the others. And wow… it’s just beautiful.”

  “And was Baron your sire?”

  To Dee’s surprise, Mark let out a sudden laugh. “No. Male shifters can only convert female humans, and vice versa. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t Caroline, either. Heron sired me. There are… wow, this is more history you don’t know yet. Sorry if I’m overwhelming you with details.”

  “No, I love hearing about this,” Dee insisted, lapping up the information. “Please, go on.”

  “Okay. There are four official bloodlines among the wolf shifters. The Council keeps tabs on how many of each bloodline there are, where they live, whether they’re male or female, and they dictate who’s allowed to convert new shifters on the basis of which bloodline has the most, or the least members. They try to keep everything in some kind of balance.”

  “So Heron sired you because she was from the right bloodline?”

  “Exactly. Raniesha’s of the same line, but Heron was the more senior wolf.”

  “Wow.” She hadn’t just walked into a new family. This was a whole new people, a tiny nation in its own right, complete with history, hierarchy, ritual and ceremony.

  “Why are there so few women here?” she asked next. “It’s hard to believe they don’t want to become shifters. There have always been women interested in spirituality and mythology.”

  “It’s not that we don’t want them, or that they’re not interested,” Mark said with a sigh. “It’s more a case of finding them. See, to invite a person to become a shifter means we pretty much have to already know that they’ll accept. Otherwise they become a security risk and that means there’s a very real possibility we’ll have to kill them if they don’t join us.”