Indigo Moon

by Gill McKnight

  Luc. Why had she disliked her so much? Luc’s face swam out from the dream and also the photograph stored in her camera. Ren and Luc. They both sat on a log by the forest stream, smiling over at her. Isabelle knew instinctively she had never liked Luc.

  When she thought of Ren, her heart ached like a sentimental song. She wanted to be with her. She thought she understood now—well, at least understood more than she had two days ago. Ren had been trying to protect her from the ferocious beast clawing at her from the inside out. Ren had wanted to help. She knew what awaited Isabelle. She knew there would come a moment when Isabelle would erupt in a spew of gore and blood, and run amok. Thank God her targets had been her wolven pursuers and not cattle, or tourists, or preschool picnickers.

  “Get a grip,” Isabelle scolded herself. She wasn’t sure how it worked, but she knew it didn’t work like that. Driving through the outskirts of a town, she felt panic well up in her chest and sweat prickle her scalp. She was shy around humans, cautious and careful not to draw attention. It was a good lesson. She would run a million miles away from a preschool picnic, and that was nice to know.

  Ren. She sighed heavily. She wanted Ren, as much as she ever did back in the valley. Could she go home? She called it home now, and even thought of it as den. When had that shift happened?

  And this Luc? What did she represent in her dream? She had to be related to Ren to look so alike. Sisters for sure, maybe even twins? Isabelle braked and pulled over, ignoring an angry honk from a passing car. She sat trembling at the wheel.

  Her journal. Her burned journal was talking about Luc. Luc and Ren. The yin and yang of it came sharply into focus. She could not recall everything. She still was bleary about actually meeting Ren for the first time, possibly because the discomfort of meeting Luc had overclouded her memories. But Luc had frightened her. Luc had to be the scary woman in the journal, and Ren was her rescuer. Isabelle knew that as a fact. Ren must have tried to save the journal as some sort of evidence, an insurance against Isabelle’s amnesia. An evil twin was such a cliché! No wonder she had been so upset when Patrick burned it.

  Isabelle shook her head. It was a ridiculous assumption and only went to show how far she would go to make Ren the hero and lover she wanted her to be. Luc had not locked her up in a cabin, burned her car, or hidden her documents. Ren had. Just because someone glared at you in a photograph and scared you in dreams did not mean you could place the woes of your world on their shoulders. Isabelle had run away from Ren, not the mysterious Luc.

  Her logic was gooed up with nonsensical wishes. Heartfelt longing was such a viscous thing. It clogged the arteries like cholesterol, starving the brain of oxygen-rich good, plain common sense.

  Isabelle stared at her hands on the steering wheel. She was a stupid, shallow woman. Clogged to the gills with neediness and romantic twaddle. She read so much cheap romance she was swimming in it. She was even studying it in Classic form, for God’s sake! Ren’s face swam before her, darkened by thought, and then lit by laughter as she playfully tickled Mouse.

  “I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.” She quoted from Jane Austen to underscore her point. “See how ridiculous you are?”

  Isabelle shook herself out of her reverie and reached for the gearshift. She had a friend to save, and an enemy to greet, at a shack near Lost Creek. She could not afford to wallow in what might-have-beens. Hope needed her, Patrick was out there hurting her friends, and something vicious was stomping on paralyzed people.

  And Ren…Ren was nine hundred miles away, and even in the midst of all this chaos Isabelle was stupid enough to wonder if she was thinking of her, too.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “It’s easy to hitch with crutches. Everyone wants to stop for you. They just pull over and say, ‘Where’ ya going, son?’ and I say ‘America, ma’am,’ or ‘sir,’ if it’s a man.” Joey walked on ahead, talking nonstop over his shoulder. “And then I dumped the crutches under a bush because I could walk okay, all along.” This was apparently a Joey joke, because he fell into hoots of laughter. “And then I came over the border as a Were. I just walked right into Washington one night. I had to, because I got no passport. I just stepped over into the U.S. of A.” He took an extra-long step to demonstrate. Hope swapped glances with Mouse.

  “He’s all excited. He never shuts up when he gets excited,” Mouse muttered. “Bet you wish your ears pulled off as easy as your eyes.”

  “It’s just one eye, Mouse. I don’t have two glass eyes.” Hope’s answer was buried in exhaustion. She was so tired. These kids kept a speedy pace, and she was finding it harder and harder to keep up. Her head thumped from lack of sleep, and she was hungry and felt very weak.

  Joey had babbled on for an hour solid since they’d left the shack. Telling them about the morning he found out Patrick and Mouse had gone, and how Noah tried to call Ren and tell her, except Ren’s cell phone always went to voicemail. And how Noah had ordered Joey to stay and help with the farm but Joey ran away to find Mouse all by himself. And how Noah would be mad, and maybe even Ren, too, but he had to find Mouse because she was his friend. And how he was glad he ran away even though he’d be in trouble, because he had found Mouse, and rescued her just like a hero.

  Mouse puffed in frustration at the glory Joey heaped on himself. Now that she was saved, she was much less gracious. “I was gonna get away soon enough. I just hung around to see if I could bite Patrick first.”

  “How did you find Mouse, Joey?” Hope asked.

  “Easy! Ren had a tracer put on my mobile phone so she could find me if I ever got lost. I used to get lost lots of times,” he said, a little shamefaced.

  “He’d wander off for days and days,” Mouse said, eager to highlight a weakness in her heroic rescuer. “At least with the cell phone tracker we could find his clothes, then track him down for ourselves.”

  “I wasn’t really lost,” Joey said. “It’s just when I’m a Were I forget to change back. I keep on sniffing and exploring till I’m miles and miles away and forget where I put my clothes and have to come home naked.”

  “Ren was worried because he’s so stupid,” Mouse said. “She was worried he’d be smelling so much and not looking where he was going he’d walk out in front of a loggin’ truck and get squished.”

  “So how does this tracer thing work?” Hope was intrigued.

  “It’s for parents to track their kids through their cell phones,” Mouse said.

  “And Mouse had your phone?” Hope asked Joey.

  “Nope.” Joey shook his head. “I left it sitting in Patrick’s truck. So I traced him instead!” Joey sounded very proud. Then his shoulders slumped. “It was really Jenna’s idea to use the phone tracer. I stole her phone so I could do it when I ran away.” He looked ashamed.

  “Jenna will skin your ears,” Mouse said. Joey went quiet for a moment as he contemplated this threat. Then he dismissed it and bounced back with an in-depth, nonstop tale of how he used up the fifteen free trace calls to bring him closer to Patrick until he could sniff Mouse out for himself. His plan had traces of genius, Hope decided. It had brought him close enough to effectively save them, despite Mouse’s thanklessness.

  “Time out, guys.” Hope sat down heavily on a fallen log. “I need a breather. You’re moving too fast and I’m struggling.” She had reached her limit.

  Joey and Mouse stood over her, pondering her words. Then Joey slumped down on the log beside her, sitting much too close. His hip and side were glued to hers. Mouse attached herself to the other side, resting her head on Hope’s shoulder. They sat there, sandwiching her until Hope was completely crushed and overheated, but she didn’t push them away. They were dependent on her, and lost as to what to do next.

  “We’re moving too slow, not too fast.” Mouse chewed her lip. “If we changed we could get to your friend’s place in no time.”

  Their anxiety made them lean farther into Hope until
she felt like a pressed flower. She tried to shrug her shoulders free, but it was impossible to move under their combined weight. She had let them down.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” she said. She felt inadequate and miserable. Her plan had been to try to direct them to Little Dip, the only place she knew that could offer shelter. She had no idea how soon Patrick’s cronies would find him and come after them. Mouse had a point. Hope was slowing them down because she couldn’t move at a werewolf gallop. She was endangering them all.

  “I’m going to give you directions as best I can. You need to change and run on ahead without me. Look for a road north of Lost Creek—”

  “We’re not leaving you.” Mouse was stern, and Joey nodded in aggressive agreement. They leaned in ever tighter in their mild panic, and Hope thought she would pop. “We’re a pack. We don’t leave a pack mate behind. We’ll change, and Joey will carry you. Like a piggyback ride.”

  Mouse sounded incredibly pleased with her plan. She rose and began shucking off her tatty clothes.

  “Now wait a minute,” Hope said, alarmed.

  Mouse paid no attention. Quickly, she stripped, dropping her clothes on the dirt around her feet. She knelt on all fours, and before Hope could blink, a small, dun-coated Werewolf squatted before her. Mouse stood and shook her coat vigorously. A sly wolfish grin creased her muzzle, and her eyes gleamed with amber mischief.

  “That was the quickest change I’ve ever seen.” Hope was amazed. It had to be a youth thing. Jolie and Andre were not half as fast, or quiet. In fact, they made quite a fuss about the whole thing.

  Joey had the grace to slip off behind a tree to strip down. Now he emerged as a huge red-gold beast. He, too, sported a happy smile on his leathered face. He crouched down before her, his back turned toward her.

  It was obvious what she was expected to do. In a move the likes of which she hadn’t made since childhood, Hope hopped onto his broad back, and hooked her legs along his flanks. He rose, carrying her up to dizzying heights, and strode away with an easy rolling gait, her extra weight not affecting him in the slightest.

  Hope clung to his shaggy neck and shoulders as Mouse trotted by his side. They picked up speed and were soon running through the forest at a very comfortable pace. Hope pointed over Joey’s shoulder when they needed to move in a new direction.

  It was a seamless and quick passage through the surrounding hills and woodland. Joey leapt over fallen obstacles, swerved around trees, slid down shale slopes, never once losing his stride. Mouse kept a steady pace beside him. Both were easy and confident in their Were bodies, moving ever onward to Hope’s promised place of safety.

  *

  They were a mile or more into the valley when Ren became aware of the first one. It hung back, scouting them. No doubt there were others not far away. Godfrey walked ahead of her, unaware of their silent escort. At least he was quiet for once; the sudden hush of the forest had unnerved him into a silence of his own. Ren was relieved. She had been worried his incessant chattering would drown out the telltale noises she so desperately needed to hear.

  Another mile or so and there were three tailing them. One on each flank, and another at the rear to block any retreat. They knew what they were doing. These three would shadow her into the heart of their valley, toward their compound. As soon as she drew close enough they would reveal themselves, and more would come out to face her.

  Except it didn’t quite work that way. There was a vague noise to her right, a rustle or snap of a twig that distracted her momentarily. When she looked back, all of three seconds later, Godfrey was gone. She knew he wouldn’t have run; he didn’t fear her enough to run. They had spirited him away to a place of safety, out of her reach. That did not bode well. That suggested there could be confrontation. Her heartbeat increased. If they attacked without parley she could not possibly win. She was a strong fighter, but there were too many of them around her now.

  For the first time she wondered at her plan. It had been quickly formulated, but she had no other options. Isabelle was ill and lost in the wilds of Oregon. She was being hunted, and if the transmutation did not kill her, there was a good chance her hunters would.

  As if to underscore her concern, a quiet rumble came from behind her left shoulder, close to her ear. Oh, they were good. Very good.

  They had distracted her enough to steal her companion, and while she fretted about that, they had sneaked up right behind her undetected. She felt a fool. All it took was her concentration to be fractured for a split second for them to move in on her silently.

  The low growl came again, deep, and thoroughly menacing. It was a command for attention. Slowly, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, and found herself at eye level with a huge female. It was unusual for Ren to be at eye level with anything, especially a Were. This one was a senior. She was black with sliver streaks. Her golden eyes were narrowed, and she oozed confidence and authority. Ren held her gaze, then flicked her eyes away briefly in a mark of polite respect. This was not her valley, nor her den. She was on a mission. She did not want confrontation if she could avoid it. It could not hurt to be mannerly. She stood stock-still, her face turned toward the newcomer and her eyes averted. She gave a snarl to show she understood and complied.

  Redirecting her gaze was luckily the correct thing to do. The beast’s growl rumbled on, but the threat in it lessened. As the warning faded away, the Were carefully leaned over and clamped Ren’s muzzle in her maw. Her sharp canines slid under Ren’s upper lip, enamel scraped across enamel, until her teeth pressed against Ren’s upper gum and the soft flesh of her inner cheek. Ren tensed. By acquiescing to this she had left herself open. One snap and jerk and she could lose half her face. Every muscle in her back and shoulders bunched and quivered. This was no den guard. Only the Alpha would have the right to do this, to demand this level of obedience. And as Ren was the interloper in her valley, she had to conform.

  Ren gave a low, short rumble of compliance, hoping to communicate a nonaggressive, yet not wholly submissive position. She was an Alpha in her own right, and unless she was totally unwelcome in this valley, she should be greeted with a modicum of courtesy. If she proved unwelcome she would be torn to shreds. At the moment, her risk was fifty-fifty, but what were her options? She was doing this for Isabelle. If it didn’t work she would lose her, and Ren would feel as if she were torn to shreds anyway. So she acquiesced to the Alpha and held back a yelp as the teeth on her muzzle tightened into a painful nip. It was a test, and she’d be damned if she’d yelp for a Garoul.

  Her own growl deepened into a rattle of a warning. She would only take so much…and miraculously, just as she thought she’d lost the gamble, just as her temper and tolerance hung by a thread, the Alpha let go. She snapped loose Ren’s lip and ran a huge, long tongue across the creases of Ren’s muzzle, licking along her furry cheek and up into her eye, causing her to squint.

  The Alpha panted and pressed her face close. Her snuffle of peace blew into Ren’s twitching ear. She had been accepted. Ren blinked, confused and thankful. She had come so close to losing her last chance.

  The forest around her shuddered and shook into life as about twenty Weres emerged onto the trail. They crowded around her pressing, and sniffing, and rumbling in muted, cautious growls. They herded her through the forest and around a sharp bend. Through the trees she could see the sparkle of the Silverthread, and then the compound opened up to her, an enormous pack home of maybe thirty cabins. They were scattered around a central area with a fire pit and dozens of bench tables. Farther back she could make out other cabins crouched quietly in the forest, away from the bustle of the camp. It was a small village and belonged to this one clan. Her clan. She had found her way back to the Garoul home den. A home she had once been cast out of.

  *

  She was shown a small room. The clothes she had left at her rental car were neatly folded on a chair. Ren had noticed Godfrey and the little dog being shepherded into another building. They were the center of muc
h concerned attention. She was pleased that the man and his dog were finally safe among friends. No harm would come to them here.

  She was escorted, fully dressed and in human form, to a central lodge house. It was a larger, more permanent fixture than the vacation feel of some of the other cabins. Ren assumed some of the pack lived in the valley permanently, while others came and went in the outside world.

  A tall, dark woman stood by the blazing fireplace. Her long black hair was streaked with silver, and Ren felt an unexpected gut wrench for her own mother. All she had was a black-and-white photograph, and the resemblance to the woman before her was uncanny. She also knew instinctively this was the Alpha who had caught her muzzle and tested her before allowing her to enter the valley. She was flanked by an immense bearded man who, in Were form, would be formidable and a small, intense woman who watched every move Ren made as if she could read her mind. She unnerved Ren, but she could feel the bond between the woman and the Alpha. They were mates, and the smaller woman was Were. Several other pack members filled the room. In human form their family resemblance was unmistakable, and Ren did not doubt for one moment that her own features blended right in. They all shared the same bloodline. They were Garoul.

  “Welcome.” The Alpha slowly approached. “I am Marie Garoul.” She indicated the man and woman who still flanked her every move. “This is my brother, Claude, and my partner, Connie.”

  Neither welcomed Ren. They gazed at her impassively. The big man remained wary and on guard. The other woman watched her with clever, steely eyes.

  Marie continued her introduction. “Little Dip is our home valley, and I am the Alpha here.”

  Ren nodded, unable to speak. Her heart thumped in her throat and she did not trust her voice at this important juncture. She needed this clan, but she was an outsider and unsure of their intentions. Isabelle was lost to her, out there somewhere in the wilds. This family had eyes and ears everywhere. If they would help, then it would more than halve her search time, and every hour brought Isabelle closer and closer to her first transmutation.