Kenar already knew the answer to this. He saw it all. “The man believed that the boy was his son Rochie. He brought him up. He watched him born. He raised him.”
Rochie didn’t know what to think about that. “If he thought that then maybe his wife was attacked and assaulted by a Moonwalker, and gave birth to him.” This was the only thing that did make sense, so it was obvious to go with it.
Kenar didn’t agree with this, at least to some of it. “If that is what happened, the man didn’t see it happen. He only knew that he was his son and nothing else. His wife lost her mind after seeing what happened—watching him change. That tells me that she felt shocked by it. Her husband never saw her attacked by wolves even on that day he found the black wolf. He saw that wolf attack other normal Moonwalker before they shot him. It just does not make sense that he was born a Wanderer.” He knew of nothing else but this.
Rochie moved to the horse and leaned against the side of the animal with heaviness in his legs. He felt winded, and completely lost. “He has to be both. He must be a Wanderer and a Walker together. I do not know how that is possible, but it is the only thing that makes sense. This is why we need to question him Kenar. We have to find out what he is.” This seemed to be their only answer to any of this. They no longer had the choice. They had to go back into the trees, find him, and ask him these questions. It was the only way.
“We should, but we still have a problem. He is still a wolf. I cannot see him during the daylight. I cannot read his mind. I cannot help you if he turns and does not want us there.”
Rochie sighed heavily. “We do not have the choice. We have to do something.”
Kenar heard something moving to his left. It sounded like something or someone moving on twigs. They were moving through the underbrush towards them. He heard it as clear as day.
“Someone is coming.”
Rochie turned.
The man came out from behind a tree.
12
“Who are the two of you?” Kalima stepped to the road. He heard everything they said, and after thinking about it, he decided that he had to find out for himself. The fact was, he wanted to know what he was, and they seemed to know.
Rochie let his eyes flare blue again, and brought his power out. He trusted no one, especially a Walker.
Kenar heard openness in his voice, and he felt Rochie’s mind flare. “We are here to speak to you about something that happened a few years ago.” He reached out to his friend and took his arm into his hand. He squeezed him firmly. “We are here only to talk.” This was to both of them.
Rochie understood the message and released his eyes. He pushed his power back down.
Kalima watched him and didn’t know what to think. He had never smelled people like this before. Most Walkers smelled like decay—like death. Moonwalkers had a deep musty stench. These two smelled like lilacs in an open field. They also smelled like power, almost like lightning striking a field and leaving a charge. They had to be Wanderers. He had never seen one before, so he wasn’t sure. He had heard stories about them. He knew of their gifts. He knew of their powers. He knew that they served the king of the humans in his war against the Walkers. He knew nothing else and it made him want to know more.
“Are you both Wanderers?” He stepped to the center of the road. He sniffed them again and let their flowery scent race through his pallet. The lilac smell raced through his blood. It filled his mind.
Rochie looked to Kenar. He wasn’t sure if he should answer him so he let Kenar do it for them. No Walker would allow a Wanderer to live, not now, not ever again, not for what they did to them.
Kenar didn’t know if Rochie was right or not, but it was time to find out. If this man was going to answer their questions, it seemed only right that they do it for him. Such was life and death.
“We are Wanderers.” Now let us hope the truth is not death.
“You smell like flowers.” Kalima couldn’t get the smell out of his head. It made him feel calm. He felt no threat from them. It must be the smell. They smell like life itself.
Rochie turned to Kenar and watched him look at him too. His eyes said the same thing. He felt stunned by this. He didn’t know what to say so he said nothing at all.
“You smell the power of life in us. You smell our life force.” Kenar took a step to the man but kept it at only one. He still had to stay cautious, even though, he felt nothing from him. He didn’t fear him. He didn’t feel hostile. He still couldn’t see in him, but he just knew he wasn’t.
“Your life force.” He had never heard of any of this. “What is that?”
Kenar watched him intently. He has innocence about him. He has no idea what he is. He could hear it in his questions. “A life force is what all living things possess. You can smell them on animals. You can see them with the auras around everything that breathes. They have them because they live.”
“I see.” Kalima looked down. He didn’t know what to say about that, so he didn’t, and changed the subject to something that seemed more pressing to him. “Why have you come searching for Kalima?”
Kenar bowed his head before he began. “We had heard about a beast that supposedly attacked a village on the other side of the ridge, near the gap, and learned that a boy named Kalima was taken by the beast. We are trying to find him to make sure he is well.”
Kalima just shrugged with this. “You are not being entirely truthful.” He felt it emanating out of them like slime oozes through one’s fingers. It felt worse than this.
Kenar felt amazed by this. “You can read my thoughts?” he asked without thinking about it.
“I read no one’s mind.” Kalima truly felt shocked with this. He felt other things than that. “I can feel your heart racing. I can smell your breaths. I can feel your body’s heat. I can feel when someone lies to me. The body cannot hide it.”
Kenar heard his voice and knew that he was telling them the truth. He also feared it too. He is a Moonwalker after all, or whatever he is, so it makes sense that he can feel us like that. All wolves can.
“You are right. We are not being entirely truthful with you.” He looked back to Rochie, and then back to the young man again. He felt the time to start this. “We have a good reason to believe that this boy, Kalima, is very different than others. We believe that he may be special. We would like to speak to him about it, if we can.”
He bowed his head. “Why is that so important to you?” He had to know this first. Alana’s face burst through his thoughts hard. Sima’s face came even harder. He couldn’t help it. He had to keep them safe.
Kenar looked back to Rochie. He felt content to listen, so he turned back to the boy. He had to think of some way of getting this man to stop pretending about not being him. He knew he was. Thinking back to the man in the village, the man’s father or whatever he was and about his wife being gone, it gave him an idea. He had to tell him about her.
“We believe that Kalima should also be told that his mother has been very sick. She has taken ill since the attack in the village of Glomar.” Now, let us see where this takes us.
Kalima kept his head down, and thankfully, it was. Tears instantly flowed down his face. The thoughts of his mother banged through his head. The feeling of loss, the feelings of everything that happened that day, came back again with a resounding boom. He couldn’t help himself. He cried. He instantly started sobbing as his head fell into his hands.
Rochie saw this and instantly woke back up. Kenar was right; he was the one they were looking for after all. There was no doubt about it now. As for where this was going, he didn’t know, but watching the boy cry, a Walker or whatever he was, break down for a human, felt refreshing. He didn’t know what to think, but he did know one thing. He liked it. He liked this boy, no matter what he was.
Kenar couldn’t have agreed more. “I am sorry Kalima.” He truly felt this too. He also felt something else, and it now made him truly feel relaxed about the boy. Whatever he is, he feels. He loves. He loved a hu
man. When Devish had started his little war, he ordered all of his Walkers to kill their human spouses. Being what they were, being that they were nothing more than animals, most of them obliged with his wishes. The ones that stayed true to their human loves he destroyed them. Now, here he was seeing one still loving, still feeling something for a human, and it made him feel something else entirely different about him. It told him only one thing. He may be different, but that might actually be something good about him. I am just going to have to find out what that is and why.
Kalima looked up and wiped both of his eyes with the back of his right hand as he asked, “How are they?”
Kenar felt his eyes water over some too. He heard true anguish in the young man’s voice. “The man Gregory is half of what he was. He has taken to drink. The woman Georgia has taken ill. She lost her mind when she lost her son.” He kept to the whole truth no matter how bad it sounded to him. He truly felt for the boy not to do it.
Kalima sniffled some too. “It happened a long time ago. I have not seen them since then.”
Rochie heard this, felt saddened too, as much as Kenar was, but felt a little stronger about it too. Again, Rana’s face crossed his own. “It never feels right to lose someone who was close to you. I know, because I too lost my sister to something that should have never happened. I understand your loss.”
Kalima looked at him and gave him a thankful nod. He then looked at the obviously blind one on his right. “Now that you have found me, what do you wish to know?” It was time to start this. They were not a threat; he knew that now, so if they wanted to talk then he would talk. The only problem was he had to keep Alana and Sima from hearing any of this. He would never let that happen.
Rochie breathed.
Kenar smiled. It was time to begin.
13
They have found him, good. It is time that we do too. Devish left the body on the floor at the foot of his bed. He loved to love and feed. He enjoyed the feeling of having his food aroused when he fed off their blood. It helped getting their hearts beating. It helped the blood to flow through their veins. With males like this one, it also gave him the perfect place to get the most blood at once. Human males were so easy to get excited. Their genitals were in the best place to get what he wanted when they were. All he had to do was to imprint their greatest desires in their head and pretend to be it until he went in for the kill. This was fun for him too. Death was so much fun to watch, especially when his prey enjoyed it too.
Finished, he moved towards his bedroom door. “Elizabeth?”
She stayed outside his room and just listened to everything happening from behind the door. She enjoyed how he killed. She also enjoyed it when it was a young man. She admired youth. She admired their smell. She was also female after all. Sometimes she would play with males when she brought them to him to feed. Sometimes she would even mount them when she could. She liked it at times like this, but most times, she didn’t. What she did want the most was food. She hadn’t eaten in almost a week now and it was starting to build up inside her mind. She was also starting to get weak. No Walker could go long without replenishment. They wouldn’t die, but it would make it easier from them to be killed. It would also make them slow. There was always something greater than a natural death.
Hearing him calling her name, she opened the door.
He watched her step inside. “Could you please go out and inform my wolves that Kenar and the bastard Rochie has found my prize? I want him brought home.”
She saw only the boy’s body, naked and still dripping a little blood from all around his waist. Devish left some, and she hated him for that.
He of course heard her. “Would you like some? I was in no mood to be able to finish all of him.” This was his third today. Even with the thirst, he grew full sometimes. It didn’t happen much, but this time it did.
She looked at him with wide eyes. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. He had never offered her any before and she felt completely lost with it. She could just stare at him like a lost puppy trying to find its way home.
He laughed with this. “If it means that you will do my bidding faster, then yes, you may have what is left.” He held out his right hand to the body and to the bed.
She didn’t need to hear anything else.
With speed, she flew herself to the boy. She went straight to his groin and dug her elongated fangs deep into his flesh. The penis was gone, but the vein was still there and it made it easier to find what she wanted—what she needed. The blood tasted strong. It felt like the warmth of the sun as it flushed through her face and flowed down her throat. It tasted even better than that.
He watched her and laughed harder. She looked so young. She looked so innocent gorging like that. He loved her so much.
She found all the boy had left, which really wasn’t much, and stood back up quickly. Already she could feel the blood flowing through her chest. She could feel it flying through her organs, and out into her flesh. It felt better than any drug ever would. It felt like the greatest high the world had ever seen.
He watched her and laughed again. When he finished it, he placed both of his hands to her shoulders and squeezed her tightly. “Now can you please go and inform my wolves that I know where the boy is? I need to get to him before they can do anything else.”
She licked off any blood from her lips. Shades had rather long tongues, longer than what vampires had, so she managed to sweep the entire bottom of her face. If she had a wolf’s tongue, she could have reached almost to her eyes.
“I will my lord.” She felt the rush now inside her head.
He released her shoulders and dropped his hands back to his sides. “Good, find them at the gap, on a small farm just over a short ridge, and inform them to follow the main road through the pinelands. Tell them that the home is deep within the trees. The fields will direct them. His scent will do the rest. They will find the small farm there, and there, they will find him.”
She nodded. “Is he willing, my lord? Does he know what he is?”
“He now knows enough, or he will. Kenar is always good at flushing out one as he is.”
“Kenar is there.” She didn’t like the sounds of this.
“Of course he is. How else would I have found him without his guidance?”
“You wanted him to do it.” She felt rather amazed with this, but at the same time, she wasn’t really. He was gifted in ways she would never understand.
He wished she knew the truth of what she really was, but that was another time, and another place. “He will also be with two humans. He will protect them. He will not leave them willingly.”
This surprised her some, but in the end, she didn’t really care. “What should the wolves do with the two humans, my Master?”
He kept this to himself. Of course, he would never tell her the full truth. She wouldn’t understand it anyway. “Please inform my pets that they are to do what they must, with or without the female living or dead.”
“And of the child?”
He bowed his eyes. “Anna will know what to do.” He looked back up, but kept his head down.
“Should I inform the wolves of her part in this?” She felt the need to cover everything. She didn’t want to disappoint him. She could never do that.
He shook his head. “Of course not.” He turned to the door, but stopped just before it, and turned back to face her. “Wolves have a weak mind. The less they know of my plans the better things happen.”
“Of course my lord. I will take care of everything.” She understood him, so she nodded again thankfully, left him and headed to the door. She moved faster than she had in weeks, and it felt damn good to do it too.
He watched her leave and turned back to the boy’s body. He laughed again. “Do not ever have children my young friend.” He bent over the corpse. “They can be so inquisitive sometimes.” He stood up, went to the side of the bed and lied down. It was daytime and it was time to sleep.
14
“How long have you known that you are what you are?” Rochie stayed by the horse, and found it rather odd that it didn’t flinch once with a wolf standing there so closely next to it. Usually a proud animal would sense what he was and lose control, and run. This time, it did nothing. The animal just stood there and did whatever a horse would think to do.
“I was around thirteen when I first started having dreams. I started seeing and feeling things that I could not understand. I turned the first time the day the wolves attacked my home. I did not know what or how it happened. It just did.” Kalima stayed in the center of the road. This was as far as he would go. Any closer to the house, and she might hear them.
Kenar truly didn’t understand so he continued with his train of thoughts. “What did you feel just before you turned? What did you see?”
Rochie had no idea where this was going. “What does any of that have to do with anything Kenar?”
Kenar shrugged him off quickly. “Most Walkers are aware of what they are and can feel them in the back of their minds. It is like nothing that can be described easily to anyone. It can only be felt, as I have felt it.”
Rochie just looked back at the horse. His friend would know. After everything that happened with his mother, and seeing through her mind, only he would. Only he could.
Kalima nodded. “I saw eyes. It was like eyes were staring back at me from the back of my mind. I could see through them, and they through me. It happens every time I am forced to change.”
A Werewolf's Saga, The Beginning (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 34