by Renee Carr
Carefully, I hoisted myself to my feet and grabbed my phone out of the living room. I needed to talk to somebody, but I didn’t know what to say. There was no human equivalent to what we were going through, not unless I wanted to make him sound like a complete psychopath. I groaned, leaning against the doorframe, staring at the pile of shredded pants and boots on the floor. I walked over and pushed the door shut, kicking something with my shoe. Squatting down, I moved the pieces of pants out of the way and picked up Brighton’s cell phone.
He didn’t have a lock screen on it, and his background was a picture of him and his brothers. That’s when it dawned on me. They may have no idea who I was, but they were the two people that would be able to help Brighton the most. They would be able to talk to him, help him deal with the situation. I wasn’t really the girl that just randomly dialed other people’s family, but everything was going on around me and it was also falling straight on my shoulders.
I flipped through his contacts, remembering that his oldest brother’s name was Christian. I took the number from the phone and dialed it using my own cell phone. After a few rings, he finally answered. “This is Christian.”
“Hi, Christian, my name is Lily,” I told him, assuming he had no idea who I was. “I’m a friend of your brother, Brighton.”
“Hey,” he replied with an air of confusion. “How can I help you?”
I cleared my throat, walking into the living room, still holding my elbow. “I need to talk to you and your brother Eric. I’m the friend of Brighton’s who’s been helping him through the changes he’s been experiencing, if you know what I mean. The long fur, big fang kind of issue. I need to talk to you guys about what is going on. I need your help with this.”
There was a silence on the phone for a moment and I knew that Christian was being careful, unsure of exactly who I was. “I’ll text you my address. Eric’s here now. Come on over.”
“See you soon,” I replied, turning off my phone.
I tapped it against my leg for a moment, just making sure that I was comfortable with the choice that I was making. I cared so much about Brighton, and if that was what I had to do to help him, then it was time to make some new friends. The address came through my text messages almost immediately, and I grabbed my keys, locking the house behind me. The last thing I needed was for my grandmother to come over and drop something off, finding what looked like an exploded, man-sized rabbit in the entryway.
Driving my car down Christian’s long dirt driveway, I glanced around, figuring that would be the perfect place for someone like Christian or Brighton to have free rein to run. It was really beautiful out there, and very close to town as well, even though you couldn’t tell when you got down his road. When I pulled up, his two brothers were standing on the front porch, talking to each other. I could tell immediately they were all related. They shared the same eyes, the same way of walking, and the same boyish, charming smile.
I got out of the car and walked toward them but I could sense that they were wary. Christian talked first, and I could tell it was him because of the way he held himself. I didn’t have any siblings, but I had been around Tanya’s older brother a million times. The oldest child always took charge. “Thanks for coming all the way out here, Lily. We just weren’t sure what you were talking about. It’s obvious that you were worried about him so it’s something serious.”
I gave them a flash of a smile and pressed my hands together. “As much as I appreciate the protection you’re putting on for the wolves, it’s not necessary. I know that Brighton is a wolf shifter. I met him the day he was scratched and was there when he changed for the first time. He’s been at my house since then, and he changed again today.”
Eric stepped forward. “Is he all right?”
I nodded. “He’s running around the woods, after making a break from the house and knocking me on my ass. This time, though, there was a fight going on inside of him. I could see it. I know that he has to make peace with this wolf, but there’s gotta be a way to help him control that. He was completely out of hand.”
Christian rubbed his face in exhaustion. “I had a feeling it was gonna get like this for him. He was never a clear thinker. We understand that you didn’t ask for any of this. You are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The thing is, you don’t have to feel obligated to stick around. As soon as Brighton gets back, we’ll come pick him up and take care of everything. It will be safe here, we’ll be able to help him, and you won’t have to be afraid of anything.”
Lily scrunched her brow. “I’m not afraid of him. In fact, I’ve been the only one able to calm him down. Today was different; he mowed me over but I’m kind of glad that he did because I think he really needed to take his wolf and go run.”
I winced as I moved my arm and Eric narrowed his eyes. “Did you get hurt?”
“I’ll be fine. He just rushed past me really fast and it knocked me over, but I’m a fast healer,” I replied. “But I’m not interested in getting rid of him. I care about him immensely, and unless he decides he doesn’t want to be around me, I’m here. I came to you guys, though, because when he’s in his wolf form, you can help him. You can talk to him, show him how to really meld together with his wolf as one. Once that happens, I’m sure he’ll be fine. You guys were the first people I thought about.”
Eric chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’ve really been paying attention to everything he’s been saying. You sound like one of us.”
I smirked, looking around the property. “This is a really nice place. I can totally picture Brighton galloping through here as his wolf.”
Christian smiled. “I can too. I think it’ll be nice once it’s actually an option. Anyway, we don’t want to keep you. Thank you for telling us what is going on with him. When he comes back, can you ask him to come to see us? And if he’s not back by dusk, give us a call and we’ll go looking for him. Sometimes, when a person first changes, they can get tired in the middle of a run and will be unable to get back, so we’ll have to go pick him up. Either way, we’re here, and you have our numbers. Brighton’s in good…”
A flash of gold moved across Christian’s eyes as the wind blew from behind us. He looked over at Eric and around the perimeter of his property. “I just got a whiff of a wolf I’m not familiar with.”
Eric sniffed the air, but the wind had died down and he didn’t catch it. “It could have just been somebody passing by. I don’t smell anything. I’ll do a perimeter check, though.” He turned to me and nodded. “It was nice to meet you, Lily. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you.”
Christian turned back in my direction, his eyes still golden. “Sorry about that. We just have to be careful. But yes, have him give us a call or come over when he gets in. And tell him he needs to bring you to dinner one night.”
I laughed. “I will do that. Be safe, guys.”
I walked to my car and got inside, watching Christian talking to Eric with his arms out in the air and his shoulders up. Whatever scent he had caught, he no longer smelled it. I drove back down the driveway slowly, heading back into Galena. I stopped off at the grocery store, figuring I should probably get some food for the house considering my options had dwindled down. I had no intention of cooking, so I bought some really easy stuff to make, like frozen pizzas and canned soup. I wasn’t sure when Brighton would come back, but when he did, I was positive he would be starving. It was kind of obvious that going out in public was probably not such a good idea.
The entire time I was in the grocery store, I could only use one arm and I was shocked that the pain was still as strong as it was. I could see the bruise form down my arm around my elbow and I started to think that maybe I had really broken it. From what I could tell, it wasn’t a full, clean break, but between the swelling and the bruising, it was pretty bad.
I wasn’t used to being injured so I put my groceries back, grabbed some Tylenol, and headed across the street to an urgent care clinic that looked relatively new in town. I had
never broken anything before, that I knew of, and I had no idea how long it would take my body to heal it. I figured I was better safe than sorry at least getting it X-rayed. What I didn’t expect was for the doctor to take so long. The place was packed, full of sniffles and colds.
By the time the doctor was ready to see me, I stood up and grabbed my bag, stopping in my tracks and looking down. I was holding my bag with my hurt arm, which told me right then and there that it wasn’t broken, at least not anymore. The bruising was turning green and the swelling had gone down considerably. I thanked them for their trouble and headed back over to the grocery store to finish buying the groceries that I had unceremoniously put back before heading to urgent care.
As I stood staring at the ice cream in the frozen section, I wondered what Brighton was doing. Where he was. I wondered if he would be okay when he came back, or if the wolf was going to change him. They were silly things to worry about, things I really had no control over, but the thoughts just kept pressing into my mind. It was obvious that there was an attachment between us, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend months in a town brokenhearted and full of secrets. But then again… I had spent my whole life full of secrets.
14
Brighton
The faster I ran, the harder my wolf fought me. I didn’t think he wanted to be in control, but he was just as confused as I was. We were bouncing against each other instead of running in stride. Everything was difficult with him, even down to putting one paw in front of the other. I had tripped and rolled through the leaves more times than I cared to admit that day, and it was a really good thing that I healed quickly because otherwise I would be cut to hell.
Thoughts started to impede my bravery. I wondered if there had ever been a shifter that couldn’t combine with his wolf. I wondered what happened when that occurred. I couldn’t imagine that it was anything positive.
I blinked my eyes wildly, my wolf pushing against me again and my vision going foggy. I pushed my legs harder, though, trying to outrun the fear and questions in my mind. Everything that was going through my head was wild in thought, from hunting down animals to eat, to grooming myself with my own mouth. I didn’t care how strong of a bond the wolf and I had, I was not going to sit around licking my own butt, and wasting time that I could be spending in my human form. But maybe that was my problem. As much as I kept telling myself that I needed to bond with my wolf, I was turning around and talking about what I would and wouldn’t do, wishing for more time away from it. No wonder he didn’t want to have anything to do with me.
Coming up in front of us was a fallen tree and I was still getting used to my size. While I obviously wasn’t as tall, my body was bigger, stronger, and more muscled. Between my expansion of strength, the fur, and the enormity of my body, I weighed a lot more. I learned the hard way that I didn’t stop as quickly as I did in my human form. If I tried to stop abruptly, I would skate at least fifteen feet, which could be a problem when you were running through a forest full of fallen trees and thick brush.
Up ahead I could see the afternoon sun cutting through the canopy of the trees. There was a clearing ahead, but I couldn’t remember exactly where I was. I had been running for what felt like hours, just going wherever my feet took me. I stopped keeping track of where I was because there was no point. When I was ready to leave, my wolf knew how to get out, and the whole point of being out there was to run wild.
As we approached the clearing in the forest, my eyes went wide and I did everything I could to slow down my pace. “Whoa, slow down! We need to stop our momentum!”
I was yelling at my wolf, watching as a deep, cavernous overlook approached. If I were to go over the edge of that, I wasn’t sure how I would survive. Not to mention the fact that no one would find me until I was dust. It wasn’t the most widely visited area in the woods, and there weren’t any trails out there leading to it.
I could almost feel my wolf being defensive, and I focused all my energy on controlling my own body. We finally came to a stop, just inches from the edge of the overlook. I had only been out there once, as it was extremely far, especially for a kid. When I had come, our father had come with us and we were told not to come out there without him. He knew how ridiculous we were and didn’t want one of us to end up at the bottom.
I let out a long, deep breath and inched back from the edge, taking a seat. I was panting, trying to collect myself, knowing full well that my wolf wasn’t done fighting with me. At least I had a moment of reprieve, though I wasn’t sure how long it would last. My eyes shifted around the area, watching as the beautiful fall leaves shimmered in the sunlight cascading down. A breeze blew around me, whipping my fur in all directions. I could’ve laid down right there and not moved for hours. It was so beautiful and with my wavering abilities to see and hear at a magnified level, it almost took my breath away.
The silence of the woods around me, only broken from time to time by the chirping of the birds or the rustle of the leaves, was like therapy. It not only calmed my spirit, it seemed to calm my wolf’s as well. Tilting my head back, I closed my eyes and sniffed the air, taking in all the scents within miles of where I was. There were familiar ones, like the smell of nature on a clear, fresh morning, and the spicy aroma of different herbs and spices through the forest bed, and just at the end of it, a smell that I hadn’t ever taken in before, but my instincts told me exactly what it was.
The fur on my back raised and fell as the vision of other wolves danced in my head. The wolf inside of me moved around restlessly, and I could hear its whimpers in my mind. “It’s okay, boy. We’re safe. They are nowhere near us.”
For the first time since I became a shifter, my wolf seemed to listen to me. It sat down, resting quietly inside of me. It still kept a hold, one that it was afraid would slip away if it gave too much control, but I could tell it was tired just like I was. The fight was more exhausting than the run. It was as good a time as any to have a real heart-to-heart with him.
“I know you’re new to all this, and so am I,” I said to him. “But this struggle we have between us, it’s gotta stop. There’s no reason for there to be an Alpha; between the two of us, we’re more than capable of running our life dually. If we’re going to share this body, then we’ve got to communicate with each other and let each other know what we need.”
The wolf whimpered, and I could feel its lack of trust filtering through me. It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand, I didn’t really trust it either. How could I? After everything that happened, I was afraid. If I trusted my wolf too soon, it could mean the lives of other people. But if I didn’t, I was never going to find peace with what had happened to me.
Sitting there in the silence, I thought about all the things that made me trust another person. If I couldn’t see that person, and we couldn’t garner that trust from years of being around each other, one of the things that helped me was knowing that they supported me and cared about what was important to me. As for my wolf, I could tell that at that moment, all he wanted was release. He wanted to be able to run free, to be uninhibited, and that was when I realized exactly what I needed to do.
The answer was clear and simple, but I was nervous about it. While this was new for my wolf, it was also new for me. But if I ever wanted to get back to a normal life, or as normal as it could be, I had to start understanding that things weren’t always going to be easy. So, I took in a long, deep breath and stood up, stretching my arms and legs wide.
“This is the deal. I can’t ask you to trust me if I don’t show that I have some sort of trust in you.” I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. “I’m going to release my hold on my own body and hand it over to you.”
I could feel my wolf perk up. I began to pace in circles, the nerves running through me. “You have to show me that I can trust you. That you aren’t going to go running off into public areas and hurt somebody. We have a big, huge forest here, and you can go anywhere you want to in it just as long as you stay away from othe
r people. Is that a deal?”
I could feel my wolf excitedly agreeing, as if it were part human itself. I guess in a way it was. All that time I’d been picturing it like a wild animal, but in reality, my wolf was a mixture of me and the ancestral parts of me from long ago. With a slight hesitation, I stood up and pointed myself away from the gorge, and closed my eyes. I took in a deep breath and released the hold I had been struggling to keep. I could feel the relaxation move over me and the hold of my wolf took over.
He didn’t bolt right away, testing my honesty for just a moment. But after a few seconds, we began to run. I was nervous, squinting one eye and keeping the other open so I didn’t run into any trees. My body moved smoothly and carefully through the forest and I was surprised at how well my wolf handled it. The tension between us began to fade and I chuckled, finding that my wolf had more agility and control than I had even before everything happened.
I began to relax, watching all around me as he leaped and spun, picking up his speed on the straightaways. It was invigorating, and the more I released control, the more my senses heightened. My vision cleared, able to see even the smallest bugs crawling up the trees that I passed. My hearing sharpened, listening to the rustle of squirrels high above in the canopy. With each and every sound came an image in my head, letting me know exactly what I was listening to. I laughed wildly as the wind whipped around us, my wolf’s paws digging into the soil beneath us, pushing our new wolf body as hard as we could.
We must’ve run for hours, dropping all sense of fear of each other and just enjoying our time outside. We were reaching an understanding, a clarity in our relationship that would form the base of our connection for the rest of our lives. As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, reaching the late afternoon/early evening, I began to recognize the forest around us and my legs slowed to a steady jog.