Chapter 5 – Moonrise
The moon grew full like a looming presence in the back of my mind. As the weeks passed, an impatient itch festered deep inside me where nothing could ease it.
I ate lunch with the Pack every day out in their little wooded sanctuary. They took turns teaching me how to control my shifting energy, that heat that flooded me whenever my wolf stirred, and how to integrate myself with the animal inside me. I practiced whenever I could, it eased the itch just a little bit when I burned off a little of that heat. I even figured out how to increase my night vision when I practiced at night, because lord knows I couldn’t sleep.
Whenever Fen came over to my house after school John seemed to just adore him. Fen was confidant, smart, in shape; basically everything I was not. Fen relished John’s attention too, and asked me endless questions about him at school. I stowed the bitter jealousy out of sight, stuffing it down into the dragon’s pit like everything else that hurt, while finding any excuse I could to keep the two of them separate.
Trees turned gold and the nights grew cold, and Full Moon night descended at last. I thought I would explode if I stopped moving, until I heard a knock on the door.
Finally…
I beat John to the door and yanked it open. The tension in Fen’s eyes mirrored my own.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I muttered and then shouted at my parents in the living room, “Fen’s here, I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”
“Don’t forget your coat, it’s supposed to snow tonight! Do we have Geri’s number?” Mom yelled back.
“It’s on the fridge!” I shrugged my coat on.
“Okay, have fun!” she called as I pulled the door closed, anxious to get Fen away. He led us to the High School, the air around him almost seemed to shimmer; my own skin felt hot and just a little too tight.
The light breeze promised a cold night as the last light of sunset faded from the clouds and we waited for Loki and Geri in the parking lot near the football field. A chill ran down my spine and Fen’s back stiffened. I glanced over my shoulder as the edge of the moon broke the horizon, wide and orange.
I stared, transfixed, until Loki’s voice snapped me out of it, and I turned to see Geri’s car pull up with her hanging out the window. “Hey you bums!” She grinned; a ring of topaz lined her irises.
I felt excited to see them, but terrified at the same time. I wanted to shut down and hide so I wouldn’t risk ruining this precious, tenuous hope. I wanted to save it in a box and cherish it before I could destroy it. But the rest of me craved their company, the sound of their voices, and most of all that rare and dangerous feeling of belonging that had crept into my life. And for that fix, I knew I’d risk almost anything.
Fen walked toward the athletics field, Loki and Geri followed, roughhousing, and I tagged behind.
My senses woke on their own. The heat curled in me and my wolf’s awareness bloomed within my mind. Where the night was supposed to be dark, every detail was lined with silver, almost brighter than the day. Every bird, every creaking tree called out clear as a bell. My skin tingled and my nostrils flared to siphon in all the scents I could gather; cut grass, sprinklers, and cow manure wafted through the air.
Loki and Geri veered left and split off along the perimeter of the field, while Fen led me toward the football field. “Tonight, this is our territory,” Fen said, “We patrol it, mark it, everything in it belongs to us. Just for tonight, this place is ours…”
“By ‘mark’, you don’t mean—”
“You don’t honestly think the restrooms are still open do you?” He smirked and patted my shoulder. “We just kill two birds with one kidney stone, so to speak.” Ugh! “We just need to make sure there are no interlopers before the real fun begins. Since this is your first time, just stick with me.” He led me into the shadow of the football bleachers and along the edge of a dry irrigation ditch toward the trees near our thicket. Everything around us shimmered. I glanced at the moon and my chest tightened from its power.
We followed the line of the ditch through the trees and then headed back through them toward the field. As we neared the end of the tree line, we both froze.
My heart sped up as adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. Whatever caused Fen to stop had tripped my senses as well. My nostrils twitched as I backed up and crouched in the shadow of a large pine where my dark clothes blended in. Fen advanced slowly as his eyes swept back and forth.
A snap to our right drew our attention, and I saw the shadow hurl itself at Fen out of the corner of my eye. Fen snarled as Geri tackled him from behind and sent them both grappling across the ground. Loki emerged from her hiding place and ran to help Geri, so I slipped around the tree and tackled her to the ground. Though startled for an instant, she jumped up as soon as I backed off and growled as she bared her teeth, her eyes yellow and vivid behind her eye-shadow.
The thought streaked through my mind that it wasn’t right for people to act like this at our age, but I tuned it out.
Not all the rules of my old world held true anymore.
I jumped back and crouched with my hands touching the ground. She leapt at me and I tripped her over my foot. This time I pinned her and held her down despite her snarls of protest. The silver necklace weighed heavy and wearisome around my neck like a ball and chain; but the eyes of the wolf in my mind’s eye opened regardless, and he told me what to do in his strange language of image and sensation.
I bared my teeth and snapped where Loki’s muzzle would be. His eyes blazed through mine and when I looked at her I didn’t just see a girl; I saw a feminine wolf overlying her, fair brown and gray in color. She struggled, but I refused to relent and eventually she stopped snarling and whined.
Satisfied, I looked over toward Geri and Fen. Geri was well built with a strong frame, but the lanky alpha had him subdued already. Fen watched us with deathly stillness and I realized he’d seen everything. His face was in silhouette, so I couldn’t make out his expression, but Geri seized Fen’s distraction and rolled out from under him to counterattack.
I jumped up from Loki and rushed Geri as he disengaged from Fen. I reached for him, but my fingers slipped on his slick coat, and he took off running along the tree line.
Fen and I jumped up after him, but they quickly drew ahead of me. Even though he was shorter than me, Geri was somehow a lot faster. Behind me, I heard the patter of Loki’s feet gaining as we dashed through the thickening snow. The scar on my leg burned from the strain, and I tried not to limp.
The wolf within me reveled in the chase, and as he filled me the distance between us stopped growing. I felt wholly disconnected from the ground; the balls of my feet barely touching down as the wind washed around me.
Before I knew it, we’d reached the line of the ditch, and Geri turned to face us. Fen barely slowed before he slammed into Geri like a ton of bricks.
I slipped on the wet grass and slid a few feet on my ass until Loki pounced me from behind. I rolled and threw her off me. We came up on all fours and faced each other. A grin slowly spread across our faces and we relaxed a little.
“Not bad pup.” I blushed from her comment. Her eyes had turned pure gold, and I assumed mine where the same.
“Good enough to beat you anyway.” Fen said. I had the disconcerting feeling of my ear swiveling toward the sound of his voice. “He’s barely been at this a month now, and you submitted to him.” Fen sat on top of Geri, scruffed-up and sprawled on the ground.
“So? I was stuck, he wouldn’t let go.” She sounded defensive and almost sullen.
“You’ve never submitted to me like that.” Fen’s voice was level, but something made Loki’s expression go dark. Fen looked at me. “Normally you’d be the new Beta, but I won’t allow it yet.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Yeah, care to explain?” Loki crossed her arms and Geri’s nervous eyes flicked back and forth between us.
“He’s too new.” Fen stood and Geri got up and
brushed what snow he could off. Loki didn’t look like she believed him, and pursed her lips. “That’s the only reason, Loki. I don’t think he’s strong enough to handle the position yet.”
“Not that I particularly like it, but he was strong enough to beat me.” Loki countered while they matched stares. I squirmed inside. I didn’t want to start a fight, even though it felt too much like human bureaucracy.
“Loki, it’s okay, don’t worry about it.” I tried to calm her down, and winced as something inside me with sharp pointy teeth expressed his displeasure.
She closed her eyes and sighed, her breath a plume in the cold air. “Fine.”
The snow thickened into fluffy white puffs that drifted down around us and built up on the grass and trees. Fen looked up and smiled at the diffused halo of light on the other side of the clouds. He sighed. “I’d hoped it would be nice and clear for your first Full Moon, Jimmy.”
“I like the snow.” I smiled and walked over toward them. The heat of my shifting energy surged when my wolf moved.
Geri seemed to sense my intent a moment before I leapt for him and he took off running. He wove between the thick pines that bordered the ditch, but with my wolf’s speed, he couldn’t outrun me. Geri’s fate was sealed with one wrong turn and I tackled him. We rolled over each other in a snarling ball of werewolf until we crashed into a tree, which doused us with cold slushiness.
Geri gasped at the sudden cold, and we laughed. Loki and Fen caught up and joined us.
After a moment though, they fell silent and I looked around at their gaping stares. Fen quickly hid his surprise, but I joined them when I saw the tendrils of steam that evaporated off me as my wolf’s energy pulsed within me. It was awesome, but sort of spooky. I stood up, and stared at the mist that rose from my bare hands, warm and flushed in the cold night air.
Loki seized Geri’s distraction and pounced on him. He howled with frustration as he grappled with her. I felt bad; because of me, everyone had to re-establish their place, and Geri just kept getting worked over.
Fen moved past me to watch them, and I wondered if it made him uncomfortable to see what a freak I really was.
I dashed over and shoved Loki off Geri, and then danced around on my toes until all three of them jumped up after me. I turned and ran with three werewolves in hot pursuit. My wolf still pounded through my veins, his eyes in mine as I ran a cat’s cradle through the trees until either they fell out of eyeshot or gave up.
I hid inside the overhanging branches of a big pine while I stopped to catch my breath and give my aching leg a break. I thought I felt the shadows move around me, almost as if they swallowed me, but I wrote it off to my imagination. Fen and Geri ran past my tree and disappeared into the veiling wall of snow, but Loki dragged behind breathing hard.
She waited until they were out of sight, and then looked around. When she didn’t see anyone, she closed her eyes and raised her hands to the cloudy sky and twirled in circles as the snow fell around her. My breath caught when I saw the smile on her face, stolen in a moment she thought no one else could see.
She sighed and collected herself, and then took off after Fen and Geri. I shuddered as I stepped out of the pine’s shadowy boughs, like they didn’t want to let me go. The scent of the sap lingered on my clothes as I followed their tracks and considered ambushing Geri again.
I rounded a tree, and noticed marks in the snow. I crept over to inspect them; hiking boots like Fen’s walked up, then sort of milled for a while before backtracking the way they came. I followed their line and saw the swirls in the snow where Loki had danced, like someone had watched.
My puzzlement lasted only a second before something hard rammed me in the side. I cried out and rolled through the slush, and then came up facing Fen’s feral grin.
“C’mon pup, show me what you’ve got.”
My muscles vibrated with tension, but when the attack came, it was faster than I could have imagined. I lurched back, but slipped on the wet lawn, and Fen’s swipe glanced off my shoulder with a bruising thud, barely buffered by my thick coat. His speed overwhelmed me, and I ducked under his arm only to be tackled into the snow. I took Loki and Geri, but Fen was in a class of his own, and fear bloomed in my gut.
“C’mon Jimmy, I know you can do better than that…” Fen goaded while he circled me, and knocked me over again when I tried to get up.
The wolf inside me wanted to stand and fight, wanted to meet him head-on, but something in his posture triggered memories of every bully in my past. The wolf made me faster, made me stronger, but he couldn’t make me forget my childhood. When Fen attacked again I faked right, and pushed off the ground with my hands in the opposite direction. Fen missed me, and it was the opening I needed to slip past him and run.
I heard his steps right behind me and somewhere behind, Loki and Geri called after us. Wolf shredded my guts, his disgust and frustration palpable in the thick metallic taste in the back of my throat, but I just wasn’t strong enough to face him. Them. In my mind Fen had become every demon I’d ever had, he was John’s every scorn, every black eye I’d carried home, every bruise and shame I’d endured. Every threat I’d ever run away from; my weakness, my fear, my uncertainty, pursued me in Fen’s shadow, and the gate opened.
Blood scalded my veins, so much hotter than shifting energy it bordered on frigid. It spilled out from the dragon’s pit like a black ichor, and rage consumed me.
Fuck running. I stopped suddenly and turned to face Fen, my eyes burning with fury. I dropped low at the last minute and tripped Fen with his own momentum. My wolf seized the moment, and cast me aside reeling as he pounced on Fen with my body. My human mind couldn’t even process the melee of biting, snapping, and clawing as I fought to regain control, until something broke.
My rage spilled into the wolf, and it ignited into a bloodlust frenzy that surged off me in a billowing cloud of power. It blinded me to pain and poured steel strength into my muscles, as the snow around us evaporated into steam.
Somehow, Fen managed to roll on top of me and tried to pin me again, all amusement gone from his face. He looked afraid. I defied his dominance and opened his cheek when I lashed out with my teeth.
The taste of blood sparked on my tongue, and the beast I’d become fought even harder. Darkness descended over me, and I knew only brief flashes of image and sensation, all connection to my body lost.
Fen…
Images of red gore, streaming blood…
No…
“No! Jimmy! Jimmy, wake up!”
Cold lifeless grey eyes, a mist of red… NO!
“Jimmy! Calm down; it’s over! It’s over now—LOOK AT ME!”
Something shook me, and my unseeing eyes locked onto Fen’s face. He straddled me and pinned my arms to my sides while his eyes bored into mine with sadness and—fear?
Something hot and wet dripped onto my face, and my gaze drifted from his worried eyes to the angry red slash on his face that bled down his jaw and dripped onto my face, the dark scent of copper lush in the air. I stared at the wound as madness gnawed at me.
I made that… I made that out of a hate he didn’t deserve; what have I done?
That wasn’t the wolf; it was… it was me!
The images and desires that had only moments ago consumed me flashed through my mind again and the world swam. I twisted out of Fen’s grasp and rolled over as I dry-heaved a few times on the snowy grass. I heard the others run toward us as Fen spoke softly.
“You’ve bottled so much rage inside you… When the wolf moves from the deep, sometimes the doors to other things are opened as well. Monsters we couldn’t destroy, so we captured and buried them in the darkness.”
“It wasn’t the wolf. It was me…” my voice was thick and raw, “It was all me… I’m so sorry Fen… So sorry…”
You don’t belong here.
I crawled over to one of the huge pine trees and curled up under the sheltering boughs while I cried and choked on shame in the spiny bed of fallen n
eedles and cones. The others caught up with Fen, and their blurry shapes moved in the veil of snow until my eyes closed
I felt so weary, tired and weary of trying to force myself to live a life I could find no worth in.
Your father didn’t want you, why should anyone else?
I drew back from the world, until I heard snow crunch underfoot and familiar scents filled the space under the tree.
“Are you done sulking?” Loki’s voice was soft, but there was an edge to it. I opened my eyes, and their blurry shapes came into focus silhouetted against the moonlit gray of the sky. “Get out of there, the night’s still young, and I’m in no mood for a pity party.”
Fen and Geri grabbed me and pulled me up partway onto my feet as they dragged me out; but when they touched me, their energy poured into me and stirred the wolf. I held onto Geri’s arm and gasped as a sharp pain blossomed in my leg. My back spasmed and arched as my knees gave out and I fell to the ground while my mouth gaped in a soundless scream.
My nerves caught fire and my body twisted and turned, like it was trying to split its seams and remake itself. The wolf inside me fought for freedom, but his frustration turned to anger as he hit an invisible wall.
Cool soft hands touched my feverish forehead and anchored me, and I looked up into Loki’s eyes. “Shh, it’ll fade in a moment; you just have too much shifting energy right now, we’ll help you.” She closed her eyes and breathed out; as she did a calm current settled beneath the chaos and pushed it out. Fen and Geri touched Loki’s arms and the air around us vibrated.
Loki pulled her hands away and shook them like they were numb, while Geri bounced from foot to foot. “Holy shit, you’re powerful,” she said, “but you’ve got a lot of gunk you need to work out of your system. And we all have a lot to learn…” She shot Fen a dark look, and then shrugged, “So, I’m afraid you’re stuck with us whether you like it or not.”
“After everything I’ve done, you still want me?”
Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) Page 6