by Jae
“God, no.” Rue grasped his arm and gave it a quick squeeze. “You’ll be just fine. I promise. How much do you remember about what happened in the subway tunnel?”
He had avoided thinking about it. The hazy memory of emotions and sensations made his head hurt whenever he tried to make sense of it. “I was sick. I think I had a fever. Just wanted to hole up somewhere, so I hid down there with Greg.” He finger-spelled the name.
“And then?” Rue asked. She took a seat next to him on the bed while Kelsey sat down on his other side.
“Then you were there.” He remembered Rue’s scent guiding him through the tunnel like a beacon. “You held me while...while...” What had happened then?
Pain. All he remembered was pain. His bones ached with the memory.
Rue nodded. “Yes. I did. What else do you remember?”
“Not much,” Danny signed. “Just that I...I think I was fighting.” He smashed his fist against his index finger in the sign for “hit.” But it didn’t feel right. That wasn’t how he had fought, was it? He tapped his teeth and frowned.
When he looked at Rue for confirmation, she nodded. “Yes, you were.” She breathed deeply. “Do you remember anything about the attackers?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Shreds of images rushed through his mind’s eye. Shadows, glowing eyes, fast movements, the scent of blood, and...fur? “I can’t remember. They weren’t...” Nervous laughter bubbled up in Danny. “They weren’t dogs, were they?”
Rue and Kelsey exchanged another glance. “No, they weren’t dogs,” Rue signed.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. But he could still feel the fur on his tongue as he bit the attacker.
“They were wolves.”
“Wolves? In the subway tunnel?” If they lived down there, why hadn’t Greg known? “How did they get there?”
“They aren’t normal wolves,” Rue signed. “They are...” She frowned as if searching for the right sign and then finger-spelled, “Shape-shifters.”
Not sure he had understood correctly, Danny repeated, “Shape-shifters?”
Rue nodded and looked down at him with a serious expression.
“Oh, come on!” They’re bullshitting me, right? But even as he protested, part of him knew it was the truth. He looked from Kelsey to Rue and back. They met his gaze without a hint of a smile that would indicate they were joking. “You mean like...like werewolves?”
“Not exactly.” Rue glanced up at Kelsey in a silent request for help.
Danny stared. He had never seen Rue ask for help.
“Being a shape-shifter, a Wrasa,” Kelsey finger-spelled it for him, “is not a sickness or a curse. It’s how we are born.”
Danny squinted at her trembling hands. “We?”
“I’m a shape-shifter,” Kelsey signed. She paused and looked at him, a soft light in her eyes. “And so are you.”
Danny’s heart tripped and then hammered twice as fast as before. That tingling itch crept up his wrists toward his elbows until it enveloped every inch of his arms. “Bullshit.” He hurled the sign in Kelsey’s direction.
“Your arms are itching, aren’t they?”
Danny froze, one hand already formed into a claw to scratch his arm. He moved his hand back to chest level. “Fleas or something. Probably caught them hanging out with the homeless guys.”
“No.” Kelsey shook her head. “It’s what happens when something scares us and triggers a transformation. Learning you’re a shape-shifter is scary.”
“You’re lying.” He turned to Rue, searching for confirmation. “She’s lying. Shape-shifters... That’s crazy. Right?”
Rue looked at him with a regretful shake of her head. “That’s what I thought too. But I saw her. I saw you.” A tiny smile crinkled the skin around her eyes. “Your wolf form is very handsome.”
What the fuck? Danny slid back, away from Rue and Kelsey, until the headboard stopped him. “Okay. Joke’s over.” He laughed shakily. “You almost had me. Very funny.”
“This isn’t a joke,” Kelsey signed and spoke at the same time. “Deep down, you know it’s true.”
Danny smashed his fist against the nightstand. “Bullshit!”
“You are different than all the other boys, and you know it.”
“Duh! I’m deaf. Of course I’m different!”
“It’s not just that.” Kelsey looked at him with a sympathetic glance that made Danny even angrier. “You don’t drink. You don’t do drugs.”
“So? I’m well-behaved.” Danny smirked, then sobered. “What do drugs and booze have to do with that crap you’re saying?”
“I bet you tried both, but drugs and alcohol made you sick as a dog.” Kelsey put special emphasis on the last sign. “Wrasa are very sensitive to psychotropic substances. We also get queasy when we eat chocolate or drink coffee.”
Danny pressed a hand to his stomach and then dropped it when he realized what he was doing. “That doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Yes, it does,” Kelsey signed. “Use your nose. It’ll tell you we’re not lying.”
My nose? He stared at Kelsey. Now she’s gone completely nuts!
Kelsey stepped closer and crouched so she was at eye level with him. “Have you ever played poker with your friends?”
Danny wanted to close his eyes and ignore this conversation. He turned toward Rue. “Rue...”
“Answer her,” Rue said, then added the sign for “please.”
“Yeah, sure. We’ve played poker a few times.”
“I bet you’re good at it,” Kelsey signed.
Danny sat up a bit straighter. “Won a bunch of mon—” He stopped midsign and peeked at Rue.
“Right now, we have worse problems than you winning money in poker games,” Rue signed.
“So why do you think you won?” Kelsey asked.
What does that have to do with that shape-shifter stuff? Danny wanted to protest, but when Kelsey directed a pleading gaze at him, he finally answered, “’Cause Tom and Justin can’t bluff to save their lives.”
“How did you know when they were bluffing?”
“I don’t know. Same way I knew I wouldn’t like this conversation.” He wanted this weird conversation over and done with.
“You smelled that we were nervous when we came in,” Kelsey signed.
He thought about it for a moment and then admitted that he had smelled it. But that didn’t mean anything. “You were sweating like pigs, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out you’re nervous.”
“Not a genius, no,” Kelsey signed. “But a human couldn’t have smelled it.”
“Maybe you can’t.” Danny stabbed his index finger in her direction. “But I have better sense of smell because I’m deaf.”
“Justin and Tom are deaf too. Can they smell when you are bluffing?”
Can they? They had never talked about it. Danny had always taken for granted that other deaf people had the same limitations and the same skills. The memory of winning against Tom’s full house with a pair of jacks came back to him. His shoulders slumped. “No. I don’t think they can.”
“Because they’re not Wrasa.” Kelsey formed the signs slowly, as if to drive home every word. She leaned closer until her scent filled his nostrils. “You can smell that I’m not lying.”
Danny sniffed the air. She smelled of clover and honeysuckle after a cleansing rain—and of Rue. He turned to Rue. “What do you smell?”
“Sweaty teenager socks,” Rue said and gently pinched one of his feet.
“No, I mean...what does Kelsey smell like?”
Judging by Rue’s blush, Kelsey smelled pretty good to her too. “I don’t know. She just smells like Kelsey.”
So Rue couldn’t smell the complex notes that made out Kelsey’s scent and didn’t see the images it evoked. “Does that mean you’re not...?”
Rue gave a wry smile. “No. I’m not a shape-shifter. I’m just a boring human.”
Oh. For some reason, that hadn’t crossed his mind. How could th
e friendly Kelsey be a wolf while his confident, extraordinary mother was human?
He didn’t want to believe that Rue was human and he wasn’t. It would be one more thing that made them different and made him not Rue’s son. If he was really a shape-shifter, would she send him away to live with others of his kind? He swallowed against the lump in his throat. Maybe it’s not true. He turned back toward Kelsey. “If you’re really a shape-shifter, show me. Show me how you shift shape.”
“I can do better than that.” Kelsey’s orange-brown eyes burned with intensity. “If you trust me.”
Do I? Danny hesitated. She seemed okay, but he barely knew her. His gaze veered to Rue, who calmly looked back and nodded. If Rue trusted Kelsey, he could do the same. He swallowed and signed, “Okay.”
Kelsey squeezed in between Danny and Rue on the edge of the bed. The scent of dewy clover and honeysuckle intensified. Her knee lightly pressed against his. Even through the fabric of her pants, her skin felt warm. Everyone else’s skin was always cooler than his own.
“I want you to picture a wolf,” Kelsey said, her signs flowing over him like rain. “Not the gray ones you see on TV. This one’s coat is pitch-black, with just a bit of white on the chest. He’s young, with long legs and paws that seem almost too big for his slender body. He tilts his head and looks at you with hazel eyes. Can you see him?”
Danny closed his eyes and imagined the wolf she had described. At first, he didn’t see a thing. Then he focused harder, and a mental image rose from deep inside of him. He saw the long limbs, the thick black coat, and the hazel eyes. He longed to reach out and discover what the coat felt like beneath his fingertips—so he did.
Coarse fur met his fingers and rippled up his arm. The image of the wolf disappeared, but now he felt the wolf inside him, barely leashed. Power pulsed through his muscles. His mind cleared, finally free of all worries and the complications of his life. Wow, what’s this?
Kelsey’s clover-and-honeysuckle smell triggered the urge to run—not from her, but with her. He could almost feel the earth beneath his paws and the wind brushing his fur as they raced through the forest. He wanted to lift his nose and howl until his pack joined him.
A touch to his shoulder made him flinch and open his eyes.
“Don’t imagine touching him,” Kelsey signed, frantically shaking her head. “Just look at him from a distance.”
Too late. The wolf rattled at the cage of his self-control, threatening to break free. Cold sweat broke out on Danny’s back. His eyes closed again. Now he couldn’t see Kelsey’s frantic signing anymore. He screamed as the pressure in his bones rose to a painful level.
Firm hands grabbed his shoulders. He felt the coolness of Rue’s skin against the heat filtering through his shirt. With effort, he opened his eyes and looked into her intense blue eyes. Her scent swept over him, chasing away the shadows of the lurking wolf. He gasped and blinked. “What was that?” His hands shook as he signed. He turned his head and looked at Kelsey, almost expecting to see a brown-and-tan wolf, but instead he looked into Kelsey’s concerned face.
“I guess I don’t need to ask if you felt it,” Kelsey signed.
“Wow.” Danny swallowed, caught between awe and fear. Finally, awe won the battle. “That was cool. How did you do that?”
“I didn’t. It all comes from inside of you.”
From me? Never in his life had he felt so strong, physically and mentally, and so out of control at the same time. How could that come from inside of him?
Kelsey grinned as if she knew exactly what he was feeling. “Voluntary shifting always starts by picturing your wolf form. You need more training to control the process, but in a few months, it’ll be easy to shift shape or to avoid shifting if you don’t want to.”
“The black wolf... That’s me?”
He felt the answer before Kelsey nodded. “That’s what was going on with you. The fever, disorientation, itching, pain... It was all because you were going through your First Change.”
First Change. Just the first of many more. The elation flowing through Danny turned into dread when he remembered the unbearable pain he had felt in the subway tunnel. He looked at Rue for reassurance. “I’ll have to go through that hell again?”
“Oh, no, don’t worry.” Kelsey patted his forearm. It felt surprisingly soothing. “It’s not so bad once you learn some control.”
So much to learn. So much to take in. His head pounded as he tried to process it all. “Why didn’t you tell me who...what I am before?” That last day on the streets of New York, he had thought he was hallucinating and going crazy. Not knowing what was going on was worse than the pain. He sent an accusing glare in Rue’s direction. “I could have handled the truth. I’m not freaking out. A heads-up would’ve been nice, you know?”
Rue shook her head. “I didn’t know. I only learned about the Wrasa after you ran away. I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”
“There’s something else,” Kelsey signed.
Danny looked at her wearily. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out more.
But Kelsey said it anyway. “I’m not just any Wrasa.”
“Don’t tell me you’re their queen or something.”
A half-smile curled Kelsey’s lips. “I’m not royalty. But I’m...” She stilled her hands and clenched them into fists. Her fingers trembled as they moved again. “I’m your aunt.”
“Oh, come on! What’s this? One of Mrs. Mangiardi’s soap operas?” He glanced from Kelsey to Rue.
Both looked back with serious expressions.
Danny gripped his temples. His head felt as if it were about to explode. “My aunt?”
“Yes,” Kelsey signed, eyes bright with joy. “My brother, Garrick, was your father.”
He had a father. Parents. An aunt and possibly grandparents. It was what he had dreamed of those first few years in foster care. But those were just stupid dreams. He was no longer that naïve boy. His parents had abandoned him, practically left him to die. They were strangers who hadn’t wanted him.
He jumped up and glared down at Kelsey. “Why are you doing this now? Show up and tell me about my so-called family. I don’t want to hear it. They didn’t want me, and now I don’t want them.”
“No, Danny. It’s not like that. Please, let me explain.” Kelsey stood too and reached out to touch him.
Danny wrenched his arm away. “Why should I listen to a word you say? You never cared enough to take me in or even visit me. And now that I’m turning into...whatever, now you suddenly show up and care?”
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Rue signed. “But please, hear her out. Kelsey saved your life and almost got killed in the process. She deserves at least that much from you. From both of us.”
When Rue patted the bed next to her, Danny sat back down and folded his arms. He would listen, but that didn’t mean he would forgive Kelsey or believe one word she said.
“Your parents didn’t give you up for adoption,” Kelsey said, speaking and signing at the same time. “They loved you very much.”
Danny snorted. “Yeah. That’s why they abandoned me on a riverbank!”
“No, Danny, no!” Kelsey’s hands shook. “That’s not what happened. They didn’t abandon you. On that night, their car crashed into a river. They didn’t make it out in time.”
So my parents are dead after all. He felt none of the grief reflected in Kelsey’s eyes. He just felt numb.
“My family and I...we never knew you were alive. We thought you had drowned along with your parents. I’m not sure how you survived.” Kelsey looked at him as if he were a miracle. “Maybe Garrick managed to get you out of the car before he died.”
“If you didn’t know about me, how come you showed up at our house?”
“Yeah,” Rue signed. “You never explained that.” Her spicy scent of pine needles and ocean intensified as she fixed her gaze on Kelsey.
Seeing her express doubts was a relief. She was still on his side and wouldn’t let
Kelsey get away without providing some answers.
“I work for a woman named Jorie Price. She’s human, but she also holds a special place in Wrasa society. She’s the only maharsi we have left.”
Danny squinted as Kelsey fingers-spelled the strange word. “Maharsi?”
“Dream seer. They see glimpses of the past and the future in their dreams.”
Man, this is getting crazier by the minute. “So your prophet told you I’m your nephew?”
“No, I only found that out later. All Jorie saw in her vision was a young wolf-shifter in trouble, and she sent me to help you.”
“And coincidentally the woman she sent turned out to be my aunt?” Danny barked out a humorless laugh. How stupid does she think I am? “Bull!”
“I don’t fully understand it myself, but it wasn’t a coincidence,” Kelsey signed. “Jorie dreamed about a human woman holding down a young wolf-shifter, choking him while he writhed in agony. She sent me to save you from that woman.”
Rue lunged to her feet. “What? Are you telling me some woman will try to kill Danny?”
“That’s what we thought, but we were wrong. The woman isn’t out to hurt him.”
“How do you know? Who is she?” Rue asked. Protectiveness rolled off her in waves, surrounding Danny like a fierce embrace.
A muscle twitched in Kelsey’s face. She met Rue’s gaze. “You.”
“Me?” Rue went pale, and then a flush of anger and hurt shot up her neck. “How can you say that? You know I would never hurt Danny!”
Danny felt a growl rumble up his chest. He glared at Kelsey. “You’re full of shit!”
Kelsey held up her hands. “Calm down, both of you. Jorie misunderstood what she saw in her dream vision. What she saw wasn’t Rue hurting you. Rue was holding you down because that’s what a mentor does when she helps a young Wrasa through his First Change.”
“I did what you told me to do to help Danny,” Rue said. Her brows drew together. “Wait. Are you telling me Jorie sent you because she saw something in her dream that you told me to do? Is this like a time-travel paradox?”
“I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “The last dream seer died when I was a child, so I don’t understand this any better than you do. Maybe everything was meant to happen exactly like it did.”