He grinned. "You good folks have room at the dinner table for one more? I'm hungry as a wolf."
Jasmine gasped, her big brown eyes wide. "Victor."
CHAPTER THREE
Without taking his eyes off Victor, Aaron gestured to all of us behind him at the table. "Get in front of her."
Immediately, Seth got up, gently but swiftly pulled me from my chair, and more or less backed me into a corner of the cabin, positioning himself in front of me. Calvin, Lucas, Andrew, Cole, and Samuel flanked him, with Emily, Jasmine, and Sarah flanking them. I had to peer between Seth and Andrew's shoulders to see Aaron and Victor.
Victor grinned at Aaron, his dark, almost jet-black, eyes twinkling. "Oh, come, now. There's one of me and ten of you bear shifters. I have no man-made weapons I could potentially use in human form. You can even pat me down if you'd like. I'm here in peace. I'm here to talk."
He spoke with a British accent. Emily had told me that a few of the seven wolves that the Native American mystic had turned into shifters had been men who'd come from England to work in the peninsula's copper mines in the eighteen-fifties.
"Come, now, Aaron. I mean you and your family no harm. What could I do against all ten of you? I took a risk to my own life and safety just to come here. I only want a chat in an attempt to make peace. A few minutes of your time. That's all I'm asking. And if you don't like what I have to say, kill me."
Aaron studied Victor for several long moments, muscles in his strong jaw working, before responding. "Come in and sit. Make any sudden movements or any attempt to shift, and I will kill you without a second thought."
Victor's inky eyes twinkled. "Well, I have to admit, I've heard warmer invitations to enter a home before."
His eyes narrowing, Aaron stepped aside to let him pass. "Sit."
"Yes, sir."
Victor, somewhat of a small man, on the short side, with a slim yet muscular build, slid past Aaron's brawny bulk and took a seat at the table. "It was fried chicken and potato salad night, was it? I'm sorry I didn't arrive sooner."
Aaron's eyes narrowed even further.
"One move, Victor...one single move of aggression and I will rip your heart out right where you sit."
"Maybe I'm not too late for dessert, though?"
"And if you so much as breathe in the direction of my girlfriend, I'll torture you first."
"Oh, my. Well, consider my breaths very decidedly only directed at you and the other shifters, then."
Aaron's only response was to glower, and Victor smiled.
"Well, then. Shall we all sit? I do appreciate your hospitality, but it doesn't seem fair that I should be the only one who's comfortable."
"One move."
"Duly noted. Selective breathing as well."
"Your first move of aggression will be your last."
"Indeed it shall."
After one final dark look of warning to Victor, Aaron directed everyone to have a seat. Everyone sat down at the table, Seth pulling a chair over from a corner, since Victor had taken his. Once Victor had been flanked by Seth and Calvin, Aaron came over to me in the corner and began leading me to the table, speaking in a low voice.
"I won't let him harm a single hair on your head."
"I know you won't."
Aaron seated me at the chair I'd been seated at during dinner, and then took his own seat next to me, at the head of the table. Victor, slowly, the movement seeming to convey that he wasn't making any "sudden movements," picked up an uneaten green bean from the plate in front of him, and then, just as slowly, pretended like he was going to lob it at Aaron.
"Food fight!" He slowly set the green bean down, chuckling. "Kidding, kidding. Just a feeble attempt at humor. You're all so serious around here."
Aaron folded his arms across his chest. "I'm going to give you the opportunity to say your piece. But say what you have to say quickly. And then we will escort you from our land."
"So I'll not be staying for dessert, then?"
Aaron glared. "Get to it. Why are you here, and what do you want?"
Victor took a deep breath and scanned the faces of everyone at the table. "Well, I simply want what you all want...what you all have." He looked at me. "Well, all except you, although I'm sure you'll have it in time. But I can tell you don't have it now, because I can smell your entirely human, decidedly non-shifter, scent. And I'm sorry to address you without even knowing your name, although our benevolent host here, did skimp a little on the introductions. So in my mind, I'll just call you 'the blonde, blue eyed one.' Or maybe simply 'the loveliest one.'"
A low growl rumbled in Aaron's chest, and he glared at Victor. "Get to it. I won't tell you again."
Victor cleared his throat and turned his gaze back to Aaron. "All right, then. Keeping me on track. I like it. I would expect no less from a leader such as yourself. So back to what I want. I-"
"Wait." Seth looked at Aaron. "I'm sorry, Aaron, but before he goes any further, I think he should explain how he was able to come up on our cabin without any of us detecting his scent. Will you allow him to tell us?"
Aaron nodded once.
Seth looked at Victor. "So answer."
Victor leaned back in his chair, sighing. "Well, that's a pretty simple explanation. I think you didn't detect my shifter scent because I'm sadly not the shifter I used to be, and I imagine my scent is much weaker, or even undetectable. When you all killed my six brothers, I lost a lot of my power. I have to chant the special Native American words three times now before I can even shift. And even then, as I said, I'm not the shifter I once was. Just based on a few skirmishes with some elk, one of which I was trying to take down for my supper, on the way here, I'd guess I'm only as strong now as a regular wolf. It seems long gone are the days when I had speed and strength many times that of an average wolf and could fell a healthy male elk as easily as flicking a green bean at a bear-shifter chieftain." Victor made a slow move for a bean, but then stopped, put his hand back in his lap, and glanced at Aaron, his dark eyes twinkling. "Kidding, Aaron. I wouldn't dare."
Aaron glowered. "Why have you been weakened?"
Victor sighed. "I wish I knew. But as it happened simultaneously with the killing of my brothers, I can only imagine it has something to do with all of our strengths being connected or something similar. And I'm not exactly sure why our creator, the great Six Clouds, would have designed us all to have linked power, or why he wouldn't have told us about that, but there were a great many things he didn't tell us about our new selves, were there not? He told us just the basics...the words to say to shift, a little about our job to protect the wilds, a little about the immortality boundaries, and a little of this, that, and the other, and then, poof! He was off, wasn't he? Had to lead his tribe off to...ah, wherever the devil he led them off to. So I suppose by recent trial and error, we just figured out that the strength of a pack of shifter wolves, and also the strength of a slew of shifter bears, I'm just assuming, is interconnected. One of the group dies, those of the same animal-type remaining weaken. Nearly the entire group dies, and the one remaining is left with hardly more than the strength to flick a green bean." Once again, Victor made like he was going to propel the bean at Aaron, but then just chuckled. "You're fun to tease, Aaron. You know it."
Aaron spoke through gritted teeth. "What do you want from us, Victor?"
Victor pushed the plate in front of him away and leaned forward, arms folded on the table. "I want immortality again. As you all can probably see, I've aged in the decade or so since you drove my pack out of the wilds. I no longer look like the twenty-year-old boy I was when Six Clouds turned us into shifters. Now I look like a thirty-year-old man, and a slightly haggard one at that. The faint dark circles under my eyes and whatnot. Although I did get a bit of rejuvenation at this day spa type place in Houghton yesterday. Lovely place. They rub warm, apricot-scented oil into your cuticles while you sit back and take a nap. Heavenly stuff." Victor cleared his throat. "But anyway, I see my host is death-glaring me hard enough to
knock me right out of this chair, so I suppose I should remain on track. I want to be allowed back into the immortality boundaries of these wilds. I want to coexist with you all in peace. I want to live forever in this woodland paradise."
Aaron scowled. "And why should we let you?"
"Well, let me answer that question with a few of my own, if you wouldn't mind. Question one. The hundred-and-some-odd years that I lived among you all in these wilds, did we get along for the most part? Were we able to tolerate each other and live in peace? And please don't base your response on my entire pack, but on me alone. Did you all get along with me. Were all of you and I able to live in peace?”
Aaron didn't answer right away, but eventually, he dipped his head in the slightest of nods. "For the most part, yes. We never had any problems with you, specifically."
"All right, then. Next question. Was I, specifically, responsible for any of the rapes and murders committed in Houghton shortly before you drove my pack out of the wilds? Did Seth, at any time, ever report to you that he could ascertain via hearing my thoughts that I personally took part in those crimes?"
"No. But he did report that you didn't try to stop Alexander and your brothers, either."
"Fair enough. So long as you realize that I never perpetrated any crime myself, and I think you do. Next question. During the battle that occurred two months ago, did I inflict any more than the most superficial of wounds on any of you? Did I harm any of you in any significant way?"
Aaron snorted, his arms still folded across his chest. "No. Because you ran soon after the battle started. Like a coward."
"Was it really because I was a coward? Or was it that I simply don't have a very violent nature? Was it because I truly only want peace, and I had no desire to harm you all?"
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
Victor turned to Seth, who sat beside him. "Now please allow me to ask you a question. Since the battle, have your 'hearing' abilities been a bit off? Are you having difficulty hearing my thoughts right now? Were you, who has the best sensing abilities out of anyone in your family, even able to sense my presence as I approached?"
Seth stared at the table, stony-faced, his light hazel eyes unblinking. The room had become nearly dark in the gloom of evening, and Emily got up, flicked a switch to turn on the lamp hanging above the table, and sat back down again.
Victor smiled at Seth. "Always a man of few words. But I'll take your response, or non-response as it were, as a yes, that your abilities to hear my thoughts and sense my presence has been bit a bit off. This is, I'm sure, due to my weakened state as a shifter. Apparently, I'm such a weakened shifter these days, my thoughts can't even be picked up as wolf-shifter thoughts anymore. My presence as a shifter can't even be sensed." Victor turned his gaze to Aaron. "I'm no threat to you all if you allow me to stay here within the immortality bounds. I'm in a weakened state; I'm as weak as your average wolf."
Jasmine cleared her throat. "Well, if you're just a shadow of a shifter now, how do you even know that remaining within the immortality bounds will even allow you to live eternally, like a shifter who hasn't been weakened?"
Victor winced. "I don't. I don't, dear Jasmine; I'm just hoping. Just hoping with all my heart, because I don't want to eventually die. But my hope is based on strong faith in the honesty of one of the few things Six Clouds did tell us when he created us. He said something to the effect of, 'So long as you shifters remain within the immortality bounds of these wilds, you will have life eternal, even if it's only a single one of you who ultimately remains.' He said something very similar to that, didn't he? So I can only assume, and hope, that even though my pack has been killed and I weakened, that the immortality clause will still apply to me. I'll still remain immortal within these bounds, albeit in a weakened state. Although I'm sure that may put all of your minds at ease about me, so I suppose I welcome it. I'm glad to be weakened, if that makes you all feel more at ease. I'm glad to be a fraction of the shifter I once was. I'm glad I'll be in a weakened state for eternity."
Aaron glowered. "Nobody said you can stay."
"Of course not. Of course not, Aaron. But as you're a benevolent man, I'm just asking you to think it over. And did I say 'asking'? No, I'm begging. Begging you to spare me eventual death if you turn me away. Please just think about it? After all, what have you got to lose if you allow me to stay? With ten of you, and a very weakened me, it wouldn't behoove me to ever try to attack any of you, would it? I realize I'd surely be killed, so why would I even attempt such a thing? No, I'll be no threat to you here. I promise to coexist in peace, and if I ever break that promise, you can just kill me. Although I won't be breaking that promise. In fact...." Victor slowly reached into his shirt. "Just pulling out my pack amulet, here, not a weapon."
He pulled out a small stone-chiseled amulet shaped like a wolf, which hung from a rawhide cord around his neck. Aaron and his family had a similar amulet, shaped like a bear. Six Clouds had made them both and had given one to Alexander, the leader of the wolf pack, and one to Aaron.
Victor held the amulet aloft. "I swear on my brothers that I will coexist with you all in peace. And that vow may not mean much to you all, considering in what low regard you all held my brothers, and they all deserved that, but they weren't all always evil. At one time, they were good, hard-working, mining men. And maybe something about being wolves changed them over the years, I don't know, but whatever evil infected their hearts, it didn't affect me. And what I'm trying to say here, is that no matter what they became in recent years, I still have love and respect for my brothers. I don't make vows on them lightly. But I am swearing on them right now." Victor gripped the amulet so tightly his knuckles showed white. "I swear on my brothers that my intent is to live with you all in peace." He quickly kissed the amulet and put it back in his shirt. "Thank God that Alexander had the sense to store that in a tree hollow during the battle with you all. I may be weakened, but that right there gives me a measure of strength. The strength to go on. And not filled with malice and hate like my brothers were, but filled with the memory of them when they were good men. Yes, that's what gives me strength. The memory of my family's goodness. And it is just a memory, because of course, now, I no longer have a family. Now I only have the kindness and mercy of you and your family, Aaron, to count on. And actually, when you think about it, your family actually is my family. Somewhat, anyway. After all, we were created by the same 'father,' so to speak. After all, we spent nearly a century-and-a-half sharing these wilds together. Yes, now that I think about it, we actually are family. You're my brother, Aaron; I hope you realize that."
Aaron snorted.
Victor frowned, his dark eyes seeming to hold an expression of genuine pain. "All right, then. If you'd like us to not be brothers, then we won't be. However, if you won't afford me the compassion that perhaps you'd give a brother, I hope you'll at least give me all the compassion that a good man like yourself can possibly give to a miserable, weakened wretch like me." He took a deep breath. "So what say you, Aaron? May I stay and coexist in peace? Or will you drive me out, condemning me to death in several decades? And if that's the case, I suppose you could just pick up one of these dinner knives and stab open my chest and bite me right in the heart to kill me right now. Because I don't imagine I'll enjoy living several decades in steadily declining health, knowing that death is closing in. So I suppose I'd just rather get it over with and be dead. So what say you? Am I to remain in the wilds in peace, or am I to endure death by dinner knife? I'll respect and abide whatever decision you shall make."
Seeming to not even take a moment to think, Aaron picked up a knife. "One of you, please take Kyla out."
CHAPTER FOUR
Emily made a little gasp. Victor paled.
Aaron stared directly at him, his deep green eyes glinting. "And actually, if you all wouldn't mind leaving, I'd appreciate it. Thank you."
Everyone remained frozen. I wondered if Aaron was going to actually kill Victor. I wondered if Aaro
n knew something about Victor that the rest of us didn't. Because although there was something about Victor that I didn't trust and like, I wasn't exactly sure if he deserved to die. I wasn't sure about it at all, in fact. But I trusted Aaron. And I knew that he had good reason for doing whatever he was about to do to Victor. Even if he was going to kill him, as much as I didn't like that idea. I knew whatever Aaron was about to do to Victor, it would be to protect the people he loved.
After a long moment, Calvin stood. "Aaron's our leader, and we do as he says. Everyone out."
We all got up and began heading towards the door, a sheet-white Victor calling after us.
"Hope you all can live with yourselves! Hope you're all fine with being party to a cold-blooded murder! The murder of a shifter in such a weakened state he can't even be sensed! Please! Don't any of you have any compassion? Don't any of you have a heart?"
Emily paused, wincing, but Calvin ushered her through the door.
"Don't any of you have any human decency? I just want what you all have, eternal life in these beautiful wilds. Take pity on me! I'm weakened! I can't harm any of you! Please, oh, please! Oh, you lot of miserable, heartless-"
Seth shut the cabin door behind us all. "Aaron's our leader, and I'm sure he has good reasons for doing what he's doing. I'm waiting for him at the fire pit, and any of you who also want to wait can join me. Although if some of you think you might be bothered by any sounds we may hear, I think it might be best for you to wait in your cabins."
Seth began walking to the bonfire pit in front of all the cabins, and I followed him.
"I want to wait for Aaron out here, too. And if there are any...." I swallowed. "Any sounds, I'll just plug my ears."
Most everyone followed me and Seth, but Calvin and Emily remained near the meeting cabin door, Calvin trying to convince Emily to go back to their cabin with him, where she wouldn't have to hear any sounds, and Emily insisting that she was strong enough to stay outside with the rest of us.
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