by Morse, Jody
The only thing I knew was that it was going to be a really, really long night.
Chapter 19
When my friends finally decided to go home, I felt relieved at first, but then I remembered that we needed to do our pack initiation. I was dreading it.
Even so, I followed the rest of my pack members outside to the backyard that night, just like Akar had asked us to. I didn’t expect to see Akar outside already, but somehow, he’d managed to sneak out of the house and meet up with the members of the Shondi pack, without the rest of us even realizing he’d woken up from his nap. They were all waiting for us in the backyard, looking somewhat impatient.
We all morphed into our wolf forms and, as the orange smoke settled around us, arranged ourselves into a circle around the fire. I made myself comfortable on the ground next to Ashton, thinking about how strange it was that we were about to merge packs, even though we’d never even seen each other in our human forms yet. We were complete strangers to each other, but we were about to become family.
After a few moments, Akar spoke to the rest of us. “Thank you all for coming tonight. As long as there are no objections, we’re going to begin with the initiation ceremony now.”
When no one said anything else, he continued. “Since we are a new chapter of the Koto, we’re all going to go through initiation tonight. I’ve decided that we are going to create a new initiation process tonight. I’ve written everything that we need on a piece of paper. All the rest of you need to do is sign your name to it—in blood.”
I gulped. Somehow, the idea of signing my name to the new pack initiation guidelines in blood made it seem so much more real. I’d known for a while that we were going to merge with the Shondi, but it was actually going to happen tonight…and I still wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Not that I was going to object, either. That had gotten me nowhere, but in trouble, the first time.
“For those of you with weak stomachs,” Akar said, his golden eyes meeting mine for some reason, “this initiation might not be the easiest thing that you’ll ever need to do. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get past that, though. My hope is that, by starting this pack with something brave right away, our braveness will continue in the future.”
“I don’t need to do something brave to prove I’m brave,” Johnny chimed in. “I’m one of the bravest people you’ll ever meet, but that will speak for itself once you get to know me a little better.”
“I don’t doubt you, Johnny. That’s why I’m so willing to include you—and the rest of your pack—as members of the new Koto. I believe that each and every one of you possesses the qualities of strength and braveness.” He turned to the rest of us. “I want my own pack to be brave, too. I know that, for a while now, you’ve all looked to me as your Alpha. I just want to remind you, however, that it’s possible that could all change after tonight. One of the new members of our pack—the ones you’re not yet familiar with, or even one of yourselves—may be appointed as the new pack Alpha by fate. I want each and every one of you to respect whoever our new Alpha is.”
He took a few steps around the circle, as he continued explaining the new initiation. “Whether you wish to remain a part of the Koto or you wish to become a part of our pack, you’re going to need to embrace a part of yourself that you might not already be in touch with yet.” He paused as he reached the center of the circle again, his eyes lingering on me. “You need to go into the woods and hunt something. Once you bring it back, you must devour a piece of its flesh in front of the rest of us. Each of you will need to spit some of the creature’s blood into a container. We’ll stir the blood together, and that is the blood that you’ll sign your names to the pack initiation agreement with.”
He continued speaking, but I’d already lost focus at that point. The idea of hunting an animal and eating a part of its flesh made me feel nauseated. How could I do that? How could anyone do that? It went against everything I believed in. I was the girl who threw fish back into the water because I didn’t want them to die, and now I was expected to kill something?
Ugh. I knew that he’d come up with this initiation ritual just to test me.
“That’s freaking sick. This is the worst pack initiation ritual I’ve ever heard of!” Jade’s gray eyes were narrowed at Akar. “Are you sure we need to do this? I don’t want to…I really don’t want to.”
At least I wasn’t the only one. Still, that didn’t change the fact that it was what Akar was requiring us to do. There was a look of certainty in his eyes—a look of firmness that told me he wasn’t going to change his mind on this decision.
“I’m certain that this is what I want each of you to do if you truly wish to become a member of the Koto pack,” Akar replied, his answer not surprising me at all. “Now, if you decide that you don’t want to go through with this initiation, then you’re free to leave.”
I swallowed hard. As much as I didn’t want to do this initiation, I knew that I had to. The alternative was going back to Alaska, or going off on my own. That wasn’t what I wanted. Now that I had friends, I wanted to stay here in New Jersey. And I didn’t want to leave my old friends, either. Things might have been weird between Thane and me lately, but he was a part of me. And, as much as they annoyed me sometimes, Hunter and Chance were like the brothers I’d never had, who I couldn’t help but love ninety-nine percent of the time. Ashton and Akar might have been closed off at times, but I didn’t want to give them up, either.
Whether I liked it or not, this place was my new home and the Koto were my family. The Shondi were about to become my family, too, and I would stay here, as long as I could get through this initiation—this disgusting, sickening initiation that I didn’t want to do, but that I knew I had to do, whether I liked it or not.
“Okay, so…ready, set, go!” Akar shouted, and each of us rose to our feet. We darted into the woods, in search of a poor, little innocent critter to kill.
I ran as quickly as my four legs would carry me, trying to catch the scent of any animal that might be nearby.
I was about halfway through the forest when I smelled it: something furry, but not that small in size. I wasn’t sure what it was, but somehow, instinctively, I knew it was a little larger than a rabbit.
Sniffing my way through a pile of leaves for it, I considered what I would do when I found it. I wanted to let it go—to let it live, the way it deserved to—but before I even got the chance to decide how I wanted to proceed, someone brushed against me and then leapt onto the pile of leaves, grabbing the critter that lurked underneath.
I heard the sickening crack of bones snapping, and then Charlotte glanced over at me, an opossum hanging out of her mouth. When she met my gaze, there was a sense of pride in her eyes. It was almost as though she had somehow known that I hadn’t wanted to attack the opossum, but felt like she was better than me because she was fine with doing it.
As she turned away from me and pranced back to our meeting spot, I felt the anger build up within me. Charlotte thought that she was a stronger wolf than me—a braver wolf. She thought that she would benefit the Koto pack more than I ever could. I just knew it.
Well, not if there was anything I could do about it.
Even though I still hated the idea of killing an innocent animal, I tried to abandon those thoughts as I began my search for another animal to kill—a bigger animal than the one Charlotte had killed.
But the only thing I could smell was small animals: rabbits buried in their holes, probably with their bunnies curled up alongside of them. I wasn’t going to touch them—and not only because those bunnies were so cute, but because a tiny rabbit would do nothing to prove to Charlotte, Akar, or the rest of the pack what an asset I would be to the Koto.
Once I was a good distance away from our backyard, I smelled it; its scent was strong and distinctive.
I crept between the trees, careful not to alert my prey by crunching too hard on the leaves.
Its black legs, which looked long in comparison to the rest of i
ts body, froze in their tracks when it saw me. Even though humans would generally move with caution around a red fox, I knew I didn’t need to worry about it. I was far larger than the fox, and even if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was immortal; the fox couldn’t have killed me. Since I was a werewolf, I couldn’t catch rabies or any other disease it could infect me with if it bit me.
As horrible as it was to say, the fox didn’t stand a chance next to me.
I crept forward and, without even thinking twice about what I was doing, pounced on top of the fox, digging my teeth into its skin.
The fox made a little yelp, which almost made me stop my attack on it, but I knew that I had to if there was any way I was going to stay a part of the Koto. So, trying to ignore the whimpers, I went straight for its neck and bit down hard—the same way I’d been taught to kill a werewolf during an attack.
Within seconds, the fox’s body went limp. I’m sorry, little guy, I thought, before turning around and heading back to the fire.
So far, Charlotte and Johnny were the only ones who were already there, waiting for the rest of the pack to return. Charlotte’s eyes widened a little when she noticed my catch, and she glanced down at the opossum which she’d laid in front of her. It looked small in comparison to the fox I’d brought back.
Interestingly, Johnny hadn’t gone out of his way to find a larger animal to kill. He had a mouse lying in front of him, right next to Charlotte’s possum.
A few moments later, Chance and Hunter returned. They were each carrying a large, limp rat in their mouths.
“Blech,” Chance groaned, spitting his rat out of his mouth. He wiped at his tongue dramatically with his paw.
“Wow, Skye! I didn’t think you had it in you to kill such a big animal,” Hunter said, once he’d dropped his own rat from his mouth and collapsed on the ground next to me, crossing one front paw over the other. He sounded exhausted, and I didn’t doubt that they’d spent most of their hunting time horsing around. It had probably been a stroke of luck that they’d found anything at all.
“I don’t know why you underestimate my abilities,” I replied, trying to play it off coolly, even though I could feel Charlotte staring at me from the corner of my eye.
“Maybe because you hate hunting?” Chance asked now that his gagging fit was over.
“Not anymore,” I lied, but it must not have sounded believable at that point. Charlotte snickered from her place across the circle. I wanted to question her about it, but she turned her head away from me and started a conversation with Johnny, probably to avoid what I was going to say.
Slowly, the rest of the Koto and Shondi pack members returned. Akar came back with a large rabbit, which upset me a little. I only hoped that he hadn’t torn apart one of the bunny families I’d happened across in my own search. Oliver brought back a squirrel, and Ashton trudged over with a raccoon. Thane brought back some sort of rodent, giving me a sad look when he saw the fox lying in front of me. I knew he’d probably heard my thoughts about needing to find a bigger animal than the one Charlotte had killed, but I didn’t care. I had my reasons for wanting to outdo her.
When Jade came back, I gaped at the wings on the large owl.
“How did you manage to catch a bird?!” Chance asked, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Are you, like, a cat?” Hunter asked, chuckling. “Can you climb trees?”
Jade shot a glare in Hunter’s direction. “Actually, I didn’t need to do any tree-climbing to get this thing. It was already on the ground. Its wing was broken. I was only putting it out of its misery.”
“See? I told you she’s not a bitch. She’s hot and compassionate,” Chance hissed at Hunter.
His twin grunted. “Dude, how do you know she’s hot? You’ve never even seen what she looks like in person. Besides, I thought you liked Jenny.”
“What can I say? I’m a man of many women,” Chance snickered.
“Now that we’ve all returned, we’ll start with Thane,” Akar interrupted. “Eat some of your mole and then spit some of its blood into the container I’ve set in the center of the circle.”
“Wait, aren’t we supposed to be in our human forms when we initiate?” Ashton asked, the confusion written all over his wolf face.
“Oh, I forgot to mention that. It’s customary for us to initiate while we’re in our human forms, but I thought we would try something a little different for this initiation. We’re going to try the first part of the process in our wolf forms. Then, we’ll make the change into our human forms as each of us signs the pack initiation document,” Akar explained. “Since we’ll technically be in our human forms when we initiate, it should work. If not, we’ll just have to try again.”
So, if he was wrong and it didn’t work, we’d all just killed a poor, helpless creature for no reason? It’d better work. There was no way I wanted to go through that again tonight—and in human form, no less.
Taking a few steps around the pack circle, he glanced at the rest of the Koto and Shondi pack members. “Does anyone have any other questions?” When no one said anything, he said, “Then, let the initiation begin.”
Without any hesitation, Thane sunk his teeth into the mole that lay in front of him and then moved forward to spit some of the blood in the container at the center of the circle, next to the fire. He chewed on the leftover meat in his mouth.
It made me feel queasy. I looked away so that I wouldn’t have to watch everyone else do the same thing. When Akar called Ashton’s name, I couldn’t help but feel slightly nervous. It meant that it was going to be my turn next.
“Skye, it’s your turn,” Akar said.
Feeling a nervous wave of anxiety wash over me, I met his gaze. His light eyes seemed to stare into me, urging me to accept the challenge I’d been given. I was about to back out of the whole thing until I saw Charlotte glance over at me. The look in her eyes told me that she didn’t think I was going to go through with this, but…I had to. I had to go through with it, or else I wouldn’t become a Koto. I’d have to go back to Alaska, or go off on my own.
So, I rose to my feet and sunk my teeth into the fox’s back. The taste of animal blood filled my mouth; it was a flavor I knew many werewolves yearned for, but for me, it was absolutely repulsive.
My shaky legs carried me forward, and I coughed the blood into the container along with the rest of the crimson blood that rested on the bottom of it. I swallowed the flesh down quick, trying to get rid of the iron-like taste. It didn’t help.
I stepped back to the circle and then made the change back into my human form, the same way the other members of my pack had.
I glanced over at the Shondi members, realizing that I would get to see each of them for the first time once they got past this part of the initiation.
Johnny went next. He spit into the container and took a few steps back to his place on the right side of the circle and morphed into his human body, the bright green smoke encircling him. I found that he was exactly the way I pictured him, minus the blood that still dribbled down his chin. He stood about six foot three, and he had tan skin and dark hair. It was obvious from his arms, which were overly muscular, that he spent a lot of hours at the gym.
When he met my eyes, there was a look within them that baffled me. Even though they held a sense of warmth, I also noted a look of determination, too. He was confident and arrogant…but a part of me thought that somewhere, deep down, he had a nice side to him, too. Maybe it was fake niceness, though. Someone who had probably killed his own cousin couldn’t be nice...could he?
Oliver was the next wolf from the Shondi pack to change. The lime green smoke cleared, revealing his short, thin frame. He had curly, dark hair, fair skin dotted by freckles, and light green eyes. He seemed just as insecure about himself in his human form as he was in his wolf form.
Charlotte and Jade shifted almost simultaneously. The green smoke evaporated, revealing Jade’s dark skin and ebony hair. I recognized her, but at first, I wasn’t sure where
from.
When I saw Charlotte’s long, curly blonde hair, though, I felt my own jaw drop. I knew where I recognized them both from.
They were the girls from the lunch line who had called me a wet dog—the ones who I’d actually thought weren’t werewolves, because I hadn’t picked up on their scent. I wasn’t sure how they had been able to hide it from me, but I knew that one thing was for certain.
From the look in Charlotte’s light eyes, it was obvious that she’d known who I was all along. And, for some reason, I got the feeling that she really didn’t like me.
Chapter 20
I was still trying to figure out what Charlotte’s problem was when Akar morphed back into his human self. He grabbed the clipboard that held a piece of paper and then pulled out a pen made from a real feather.
“I bet he plucked that feather from Jade’s owl,” Hunter whispered to Chance. Turning to his brother, he said, “Speaking of Jade, what do you think now?” He glanced over at her, now that she was standing in her human form.
“I think I approve,” Chance said, winking at Jade flirtatiously.
“Let it be known that the sacrifices that were made tonight were not for nothing,” Akar said, his eyes flicking over to mine. “As the current Alpha, I’ll sign first,” Akar said as he dipped the feather into the blood and signed his name to the paper. Next, he handed the clipboard to Jade, who was standing beside him, and it began to make its way around the circle.
Charlotte barely glanced down as she signed her name to the document and then passed it to Johnny. “Here, babe. This is so exciting, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s real exciting,” Johnny muttered. I wondered why his voice lacked sincerity. For a moment, it made me think that maybe he didn’t want to be a part of the Koto pack at all, but if that was the case, why were they initiating with us tonight?