A Wolf Apart

by Maria Vale

  Hearing the change in Thea’s breath, I whisper her name. She turns to me, her hand finding my chest in the cold dark.

  “I’m taking some time off. Going home.”

  “Nnng?” she says sleepily. “Not ‘the apartment’?” She gives the words a special emphasis, because of course she has noticed that I never call that stasis chamber close to work home.

  “No. My real home. It’s time for me to make it right.”

  Her hand slides along my sternum up to my collarbone.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not sure. A week? A month? God, I hope not that long.”

  She pokes her head over the blankets, looking toward the dying fire. Then she pulls the throw from the foot of the bed and crouches in front of the stove.

  “Where is it?” The door creaks as she opens it. “Home, I mean?”

  I watch her feed the fire, swift and sure. Watch the slight movements of the bones of her spine that seem so delicate under the gold skin brushed with tiny upright hairs, that paltry excuse for fur. Every detail of her reminds me that things Offland are fragile and break easily. It makes me ache to shield her.

  “Not so far away. A little south of Canada. I wish I could take you there, let you see you how special it is. Let them see how special you are, but my people… They’re very wary. They really don’t trust strangers.”

  The sheets are cold again when she crawls in.

  “Sort of like the Amish?”

  I rub her back and shoulders and pull her close to the furnace of my body.

  No, Thea Villalobos, Goddess of the City of Wolves, not Amish.

  Werewolves.

  “Yeah, just like that.”

  Chapter 29

  Wilcume, ðu londadl hǽðstapa

  Welcome, you landsick heath-wanderer

  How is it that after years of wanting nothing more than to come home, I have an unscratchable itch to leave?

  But I can’t, not until the loose ends are knit up. Like Sarah and Adam, the loosest of those loose ends. For three moons, they have stayed close to Home Pond. Thin and uncommunicative, they seem to have lost the will to hunt. Textbook lupine depression.

  Curled in the roots of an old white cedar not far from the water, Sarah licks her paw, not bothering to lift her head when Celia appears with fresh raccoon. Adam sniffs once, but he takes his cues from his mate’s lack of interest and quickly puts his head back down.

  I disagree with Celia. Feeding them is pointless. They don’t need nutrition; they need a purpose. They need to hunt again, to be a part of something. I think Adam might do it, but not without Sarah. She has to remember the way her heart beats when the warm scent of prey hits the back of her throat. She has to remember the way her lungs expand when the earth talks to her. She has to remember the tingling of her skin when she races through the cold air of the Homelands.

  Celia nudges the still-warm raccoon closer with her nose, but Sarah just keeps picking at her pads with her teeth, refusing to notice her worried mate, the offering of her echelon, the slowly quickening land.

  Me.

  Pick. Pick. Pick.

  By god, she will notice me.

  I bite her, my jaws tightening on her withers until she yelps in pain. With my jaws still clenched around the loose skin and fur, I lift. She is light and I am strong, and even if she doesn’t want to, she will stand. She wobbles uncertainly. Then I lean forward over her, my chest at her muzzle, my jaw resting on the top of her head. The snarl reverberates through my body and surrounds her.

  Stand up, Sarah. Stand the fuck up.

  A wolf may be wounded, exhausted beyond bearing, but they will still respond to the hard-wired debt of obedience that they owe their Alpha. Sarah’s legs begin to tighten. I do it again and again and again, getting fiercer each time. Harrying her until she stumbles away and moves.

  Then I start off at a steady loping pace that is both quiet and easy. Celia makes sure that Sarah is surrounded by the echelon, leaving her no choice but to keep up.

  At the frosty edges of the bog and spruce flats, I scent a bear. He’s just out of torpor, so his prints drag slightly and are not as deep as they will be later in the season when he’s eaten his fill. I parallel him, going backward, going toward where he had been. The scent grows incrementally weaker. Celia butts my head. It’s what we do when we don’t have words and means What are you doing?

  I shake her off, because I have no words to offer her, no explanation, just trust and the duty of leadership.

  But then Sarah slows down and whines at my retreating back.

  I look back along my flanks and wait. It’s up to her to decide if anything matters anymore. Does hunting matter? Does eating matter? Does living matter? If it does, she will survive. If not, then the coyotes will have her before summer.

  Sarah crouches down on her forelegs and rubs her face on something, then she runs toward me, thrusting her bear-stink head into my face.

  I stare at her. What are you going to do about it?

  What are you going to do about it?

  She hesitates, looking for Adam, but I make sure my massive body blocks her view. I don’t want her to see him, see her own sadness reflected in his eyes. I want Sarah to decide and Sarah to act.

  I lean in closer.

  What are you going to do about it?

  Then, with a leap, her thin body twists in the air and the damp crusty dirt churns, and Sarah turns around and tears after that bear.

  Any other time of year, we would have given him a pass. Our claws are no match, our strength just barely. Fang for fang, we are evenly matched, but a bear’s jaws pack twice the force. What we have is speed, agility, cunning, and teamwork. Plus our metabolisms are working on all cylinders, as opposed to the bear, who, following the winter cold, is stumbling around like a human after a huge meal of red wine and turkey.

  Sarah takes over hounding the bear from the rear along with the other subordinates. I keep the bear’s claws and jaws busy while they corral him toward the bog. Celia holds back the rest of the echelon, because too many wolves hunting in a bog is simply messy. With several wolves behind, he has no choice but to face the one in the front. Smartly, Sarah makes several swipes at his left hind leg: nothing deadly, but once he is in the bog, his weight works against him. Unable to rear up on his damaged leg, his front paws sticking in the soft mud, every move requires laborious effort that wouldn’t be a problem in summer but is hard now.

  I grab his nose in my jaws. His sharp claws slice through the back of my neck, and while it is painful, it failed to damage my organs or bones or major arteries. A flesh wound.

  The death is as good as we can make it. The echelon springs toward the carcass, though I force them back with a snarl. This is Sarah’s kill, and she has the first choice. Burrowing through the thick fur of his underside, she snaps through the ribs and digs out his liver.

  Then Sarah snaps at a subordinate wolf wheedling for a bite, and I know she will live.

  At Home Pond, we pick up two pups. Every echelon does. It’s part of the rhythm of the Iron Moon. We hunt first for food, then to teach. There’s a logic to it, because teaching the pups has its own rhythm: patient tracking—squirrel!—patient tracking—jay!—patient tracking, and so on.

  Humans say Don’t shop when you’re hungry. Same principle.

  • • •

  When the change comes back and we’ve cleaned away the remnants of fur and blood and mud and plant litter, we assemble for the Iron Moon Table at the Meeting House. This is the last time this important observance will be celebrated with stale bagels and four-day-old boxes of Munchkins. Wolves are crammed in, some standing, most on the floor.

  A pup races by, her whiskery chin completely covered with butter. A turbid mass of fur races after her.

  Then Evie stands at the front of the room and makes th
e pronouncement that marks the official start of the Iron Moon Table.

  “In our laws are we protected.”

  “And in lawlessness are we destroyed,” the Great North responds with a roar.

  I stand with the 9th, close but not too close to my two wolves, so they can feel the presence of echelon and Alpha when the announcement is made that Quicksilver Nilsdottir, a runt just recently graduated into adulthood, will be having her lying-in.

  It’s just not fair.

  When Evie announces that Silver is carrying four, the Pack goes silent. Most of the faces have the solemn look of hearing that a member of the pack has received a death sentence, as carrying four almost inevitably is. But Victor seethes. He looks toward some of the younger Alphas, who seethe likewise.

  What are you up to, Victor?

  It is the thin, red-haired wolf in front of me who breaks the silence with a loud “Anhydig hama, Seolfer!”

  Sarah yells it again, louder this time and joined by Adam and me and Evie, and by the third time, like thunder rolling down from the mountain, the Pack joins in.

  Anhydig hama.

  Stalwart birthing.

  Tiberius stands behind his mate, his arms reaching around her ribs, just under her breasts like he doesn’t want to feel her swollen belly. Doesn’t want to feel the place where his seed has taken root with such fatal consequence.

  Silver rubs her cheek along her mate’s thick arms. After John died, Evie could not bring herself to look at Tiberius, but that has passed. Now she looks at him sadly, because she suspects as I do that he will not survive the loss of his silver wolf.

  The rest of Table is taken up with reports on the rebuilding of the Great Hall and a few minor housekeeping matters. The 5th’s Alpha bites William for not refilling the ice-cube trays. Because the 11th has been leaving towels to molder on the floor of the Bathhouse, their Bathhouse privileges have been revoked. This is the second time the 8th took a car out and brought it back almost empty, so now their Alpha will have to walk to and from the gas station with a jerrican because, ultimately, the responsibility is his. Punishment will then be meted out within the privacy of the echelon, but it’s a good guess that whoever is hemorrhaging at dinner was the culprit.

  As soon as the official business is over, Tara whispers that Evie wants to see me in the back room. She then moves on to Tiberius, though she motions for Silver to stay. Celia looks at me quizzically, but all I can do is shrug.

  The back room is too small to serve as a proper office, so it houses little but the central phone for the Great North LLC and the main Wi-Fi array. Evie stands in front of the phone, waiting.

  “We got a message yesterday,” she says. Then she pushes the button.

  A mechanized voice gives out details of the date and time before being replaced by another voice, one that is even more monotone and artificial. In the background is a low, regular buzzing.

  “Hello, Great North LLC.” A long hollow breath interrupts the buzzing. “Tiberius, is it true? That your bitch conceived?” Another long, labored breath, and the chair back under Tiberius’s hands disintegrates.

  Evie raises her hand. “Listen.”

  “If so…this changes everything.” August gasps one more time and clears something from his throat. “Anhydig hama,” he says.

  Click.

  “What changes?” Tara looks at Tiberius, who stares blankly at the wooden shard in his hand and the blood dripping from his palm.

  “What. Changes?”

  “I don’t know,” Tiberius snaps. “I don’t know what he means.” Then he looks at Evie. “I shot him,” he says, beseeching Evie. “I shot him in the throat.”

  Evie waves him off. Wolves do not have time for regret and recrimination. Instead, she looks at me.

  “Elijah, the woman in your office clearly did tell him. You are to go back and find out anything you can. What her instructions were, what she told them, what the reaction was. Anything.”

  “It won’t be easy,” Tiberius says. “She will be afraid of my father.”

  “I know her, Tiberius. She’s just a spoiled child. I can handle her,” I say.

  “I don’t think you understand. Shifters are bound to my father by loyalty. But humans are bound to him by money and terror. He has a lot of secrets, and fear is what keeps them. You’re not going to get anything out of her unless you make her understand that you are more vicious—”

  “Tiberius!” Something hits the wood of the little table with a thunk.

  Evie leans forward, her seax shivering in the wood. “We are Pack. We do not aspire to human brutality. Elijah, after preparations are completed for Silver’s lying-in, you will return to New York. Find this woman. Question her, but do not forget that your Alpha will not tolerate torture.”

  Silver stops her pacing when her mate returns and lunges toward him. She stills as he whispers urgently. When he is finished, she murmurs something to the huge Shifter and pulls his bleeding hand to her mouth. He hunches still lower, curling himself against her and hiding his face in the thickness of her silver hair. A shudder runs through his massive back.

  Last fall, looking at the two of them, I would never have suspected which one needed shielding—which one was strong and which was vulnerable—but I’ve learned a lot recently about the nature of strength.

  She takes his hand and leads him out, probably to spend the last few hours alone before the beginning of the lying-in when they will have no privacy and her body will no longer be her own.

  It seems like a lifetime ago that we prepared the Meeting House for John and Evie. But now John’s gone. The Great Hall was burned and the Meeting House is occupied, so this lying-in will take place in the Boathouse.

  As they walk past me, the Shifter mutters something about “Ice…on the inside of the windows.”

  • • •

  “Because I am Alpha,” spits out Lorcan, “and you’re not. That’s why.”

  From the top of the ladder, I yell for Lorcan to treat Celia as Alpha. Extending the broom, I push at an empty wasp’s nest.

  “I’m not treating her as Alpha because she’s not an Alpha. She’s just your shielder.”

  Then, to my utter amazement, he leans over to smell if she’s receptive. Receptive? Have wolves always been this dense? Maybe it’s all my years Offland, but I can see that she’s not. I don’t have to smell her to know that if Lorcan exhales in her direction, he will inhale with one fewer lung.

  The wasp’s nest falls from the eaves, landing next to the rocking chair. Lorcan startles as it explodes into gray dust and paper and mummified pupae.

  In the moment of silence that follows, a tall, rangy female who’s busily scrubbing down the sink turns and almost imperceptibly nods. Immediately, wolves from the 12th swoop down on the nest with brushes and sponges, and before I am at the bottom of the ladder, every last mote is gone.

  For years, I have come home, changed, run with the 9th, changed again, brushed my teeth, grabbed a muffin, marked my echelon, and headed back to the hierarchy of New York. In that time, I have lost track of the power structures of the Great North.

  The 9th has been assigned to clean the Boathouse in preparation for Silver’s lying-in. Helping us is the 12th, the largest echelon in the Great North.

  It is also the most disciplined, and that is clearly not because of overfed and oversexed Lorcan. The real power of the 12th and the reason Lorcan is so snappish about position is his shielder, Varya Timursdottir. Some juvenile werewolf armed with an SAT prep book and no goddamn common sense at all dubbed her Varya the Indurate. The name stuck, though no one who prized their hide would say it within earshot.

  Her dark-brown hair is pulled back from her broad face with high cheekbones and dark, slanted eyes beneath black brows that fly up like crow’s wings. She looks exactly like what she is: the least affable wolf I’ve ever met, even given the hi
gh standard for humorlessness set by Pack.

  With one more nod of her head, Lorcan’s rocking chair joins the lamp with the faded shade and the thin red-and-white-striped carpet in a procession out so that there will be room when other echelons bring in the medical equipment and blackout curtains and soft carpets and a huge bed and a small refrigerator and food and new lights.

  And when it’s all clean and stocked, the Alphas head out to the Meeting House to retrieve Silver herself. I link elbows with Eudemos to my left. Across from me, Tristan takes my hands. Altogether twelve of us, with Evie at the head, join hands and arms, linked together in this unbreakable chain of responsibility. Silver’s slight body will be laid across our arms, and we will carry her to the Boathouse.

  Silver may be the weakest member of the Pack, but she is about to fight the hardest battle a wolf can face. Up until now, the little beings inside her have changed in response to their mother’s hormones. Soon, they will start responding to each other, and for the next month, Silver will be forced to follow the whims of the four tiny tyrants as they change from skin to wild and back again. If she doesn’t change when they do, if she gives up, her body will see them as aliens and destroy them. The pups will die, but so will Silver.

  Every Alpha, the whole Pack, owes her its support, but Victor and a small group of sullen Alphas stand back, gathering around the edges.

  Tiberius is already in the large chair, waiting anxiously when we carry Silver in and lay her down. Pillows are fluffed. Blankets are tucked. Then one by one, the Alphas bend over her. Most mark her, though some do not touch her skin. Evie does it last, of course. She squeezes Silver’s hand tightly and whispers something to her. Silver nods.

  She seems so small in the middle of the huge mattress built to handle a more viable female.

  Everyone looks expectantly at Victor standing at the foot of Silver’s bed, waiting for our Deemer to give the traditional blessing that marks the end of the ceremony and the official beginning of Silver’s lying-in. But Victor says nothing. Because he is standing in front of me, I can’t see his face, but I see the slight movement of his head as he scans the gathered Alphas. Lorcan nods slightly. So do two other younger Alphas. Not Eudemos though. The burly Alpha of the 14th steps forward, positioning himself behind Silver and Tiberius.