by Angela Foxxe
He knew all of them, of course. None of them were as old as he was, in fact, of all the wolves he was aware of, only Heidi had been there in the beginning. If he could go back... well, there was no use thinking on that now. The family he would have died to protect had been dust for a thousand years, his culture was gone, his people unrecognizable. All that he was left with were memories of a life he could never have, and the old gods that still walked the earth.
At least Loptr had made good on his favor. But at what price?
He took his time; an hour passed by under the hot water, and he needed that. By the time he shaved, put on a dash of cologne, and dressed in casual jeans and a white sweater, the smell of eggs and bacon filled the lodge.
The mirror almost hid how tired he was, but not quite. Nothing another cup of coffee, and some bacon wouldn’t fix. He hoped that they could get through breakfast without ripping out anyone’s throat.
TJ and Abbey outdid themselves. The guest table was set with the finest dishes, cloth napkins, decanters of OJ, and the best tablecloth. The lodge’s ‘dining room’ was really an event room. Now it had three long tables put side by side, enough chairs and place settings for the fifteen pack members who were there and their guests.
It was a subtle reminder that Heidi was outnumbered. It didn’t faze her, of course, Richard noted, but it could keep things civil. Everyone was seated except for her when he walked in; she was waiting by the door.
“Impressive, but we’re not here for violence,” she said in her stilted English.
“Well, now I know you’re not,” he returned with a smile.
The two wolves took their seats, Richard at the head of the table, Indigo to his right, Heidi to his left. Skye was absent, but no one seemed to notice.
The food arrived and it was heavenly. Richard had been surviving off gas station food for the better part of a week and he needed fuel that was tasty and nutritious. He nodded to Heidi as the last plate was put on the table. She smiled her coy little smile, and took a bite. Once she had eaten, everyone dug in. There were omelets with cheese, onions, ham, and diced bell peppers, along with honey cured bacon, sourdough toast, and fresh hash browns, and orange juice and milk to drink.
They ate in silence for the first few minutes. As the minutes stretched on, the silence turned uncomfortable. It needed to be broken.
“Heidi, how’s the homeland? Still full of fascists?” Indigo said with a smile.
Richard about choked on his food, Heidi let out a sharp little laugh that didn’t touch her eyes.
“The same as always; it would be simpler if the little people would let their betters rule them, instead we must find alternate ways of power. How is the New World? Still full of savages?”
“Oh, you know,” Indigo replied, “we have to remind people that there are no betters.”
The two wolves stared each other down across the table. Heidi gave way and chuckled. “Ahh it’s nice to have someone to challenge me for once, I see why he’s your second.”
“Why are you really here Heidi? This seems a bit much,” Richard said as he sipped his OJ.
Heidi politely wiped her mouth; somehow she managed to maintain her dark red lipstick without a smudge. It contrasted heavily with her platinum blond hair and skin that never seemed to have been touched by the sun. For a moment, just a moment, Richard remembered that day, so many centuries before, when all of them were in the field; one by one Fenri attacked them. Heidi had been terrified; she'd held his hand as the man beside her fell in screams and blood, never to rise again. She hadn’t wanted to do it, but they all had no choice.
If only it hadn’t been for nothing.
“The council knows about your little trip.” His eyebrow lifted slightly and she smiled. “Honestly if I told them who you went to visit they would never believe me. I didn’t think it would work though, nice to know the old man keeps his promises,” she said.
“I didn’t think he would either. Seriously, though, Heidi, this can’t be about her knowing, I think it’s fairly clear at this point she isn’t going to tell anyone. And the magic they used to try and kill her... that couldn’t have been easy to pull off, so between you and me, what is really going on?”
“Why, Richard, nothing short of the end of the world.”
*
Richard let the comment sink in. Heidi was not given to wild comments or drama. Though she enjoyed the act she put on, she wouldn’t say something like that and not mean it. He finished his breakfast in silence, pondering the events of the last few years. Something was obviously up, and it had started with the blight. What wolf would have to gain by the death of two thirds of the wolves, and the sterilization of all those who remained? Not to mention the fact that no new wolves could be turned.
He froze.
No, fuck no.
His eyes slowly moved to Heidi’s. She had been watching the mental wheels turn, and her smile, the real one, greeted his gaze.
“You put that together just as fast as I thought you would,” she said around a bite of toast. “It’s a pity the council didn’t bring you in from the beginning. I told them to, you know, but there are so few of us left, they just don’t believe anymore. To them we are superstition, a myth, they have no idea what we are capable of.”
“Why, what could you possibly gain?”
“The same thing I’ve been trying for since we turned -- power.”
She put her napkin down and excused herself from the table. Richard got up and followed her to his office. It was a large room with several chairs and a couch.
“Are you immune?”
“Of course, I created it after all. So are you, by the way.”
“What?”
“Everyone thinks it just leaves the women sterile, but no, everyone except the originals, that is.”
She was cleansing the wolves, just like she tried to do to the humans.
“Do they know?”
“Of course not, they think they’re going to rebuild the wolves into some loyal army to wage war on the European covens, something they haven’t been able to do, ever, I might add. But with all the wolves under their control they thought it might work.”
“No more wolves then, you’ve killed us all.”
“No, not all Richard, we can have children, along with the handful of others that are still around. We can chose better candidates for the wolf, no more turning drug addicts and random people who happen to be around at the wrong time. No, now we start the real cleansing, kill the Alpha council, wipe out their packs, and we rebuild our line the way it was meant to be. To rule Europe and the world, to restore our culture and our way of life, to punish them for what they did to us.”
As she spoke, Richard could see the light in her eyes, the fervor with which she spoke, the way her cheeks turned pink; she truly believed what she was saying.
“Heidi, that was a thousand years ago. Our culture, our family, they're dead and gone; all we have, all we will ever have, is right here.”
She stiffened as he spoke, he wasn’t getting through.
“I also knew that you wouldn’t go along with this, just like last time, I just had hopes... that’s unimportant.”
She stood, walked over to the window to stare out into the woods for a moment.
“Richard, it’s the decree of the Alpha council that you either turn her the moment the child is born, or kill her. Either way she dies, you get to choose how.”
“Don’t force this Heidi, you know I can’t kill her, I won’t, and I won’t bend to the will of these fools.” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but he failed.
“Oh, I know, Richard, I know. I also know that them trying to force you will likely start a war, a war in which either them, or you, will be killed; either way I win.”
***
Reign awoke when the car door opened. Richard stood there with the sunlight peaking around his broad shoulders.
“Morning, sleepy head,” he said with a smile.
“God, I
hate you people, how are you supposed to live without coffee?” she said around a yawn.
“Come on, we saved you some breakfast.”
With his help, she managed to get out of the SUV with a minimal of embarrassment. A half hour later Reign was eating her food in their breakfast nook, while Richard leaned against the wall watching her.
“God, I love you,” he said.
“You must, ‘cause I look like a walrus,” she replied with a smile. She was half starved, but the baby was doing gymnastics, every few bites she would kick and Reign had to stop eating for a moment.
“What was the Fade like for you?”
The question caught her off guard, it wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it, or that she didn’t remember, though it was faded like an old dream, it was that she didn’t want to talk about it. It felt like she had been tortured for weeks, but instead, she woke up and only a few hours had passed.
“This food is really good. I hope TJ and Abbey open a restaurant, I would eat there every day.”
“Reign, it’s important.”
She let out a sigh, pushed her leftovers away, leaned back and fruitlessly tried to get comfortable.
“It was awful; I was in a dungeon, these men, they whipped me, every day. I didn’t get to eat or sleep. When I wasn’t being whipped, I could hear other people being whipped. I know it wasn’t real, I know the test was to make me believe it was real, but Richard, I can still feel the lash on my back,” she sobbed the last word.
Richard was there, next to her, holding her, his comforting smell and touch making the world better.
“I ask because I’ve been there. You see, when we turned, we walked the Fade, and we had the task of believing. We had to believe so thoroughly that we were wolves, that when we woke, we would be one.” He had a sad sort of smile as he spoke, it made Reign’s heartache for him.
“Is that what everyone goes through?”
“No, just us. Just the original ones. The ones that Fenrir turned so that we could protect ourselves from Charlemagne,” he said.
She remembered in her dream that it seemed like a long time ago, the castle, the guards, she’d assumed the Fade had pulled it from the memory of some movie. Were they the memories from the time that Richard was born?
“You see, he warned us that magic comes with a price. We just thought it meant we wouldn’t be human anymore, but no, it was much more. Some of us, the ones who couldn’t believe, came back from the Fade as half wolf, half man, and insane. Others never came back and died of their wounds. A few of us, like myself, we came back as wolves.” He stopped for a moment to wipe his eyes. “It took a decade before I could be a man again, and by then the war was over, and we’d lost.
“Everyone who knew us was dead, my family, my wife, everyone. Those of us that remained banded together to hunt down our insane brethren. After that we just wanted a quiet place to live out our lives.”
Reign cupped his chin and kissed his cheek; after thirteen hundred years of living with this pain, what could she say?
“I tell you this because you needed to understand.” He turned to face her, tears still in his eyes. “You’ve been to the Fade, you can never be a wolf now, we went there, we found him, convinced him we believed and he came back with us, you know it's not real, that was your test, you couldn’t pass this one. I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t made up her mind one way or the other, it’s not like she could force him to turn her, even if it was what she wanted, but it was an option, just not anymore.
“What are we going to do? That was pretty much our plan B,” she said. She couldn’t hide the disappointment she felt, but she was too practical to fret about something she couldn’t control. Richard smiled, he returned her kiss and touched his forehead to hers.
“I don’t know all the details, but this isn’t about you being human, this is about our baby. They want her, but we are not going to let that happen.”
Reign suddenly felt weak, with an overwhelming desire to use the bathroom but she couldn’t move.
“Oh god, well I hope you have a plan ready.”
He looked at her quizzically. “We’ll come up with one.”
“Better hurry, my water just broke.”
*
The next few minutes was a chaotic mess. Richard ran down stairs and yelled for Skye, who came bursting out of her bedroom in her underwear. She was ready to fight, Indigo right behind her, their eyes shared the golden flecked colors of wolves ready to come out.
“Her water broke,” Richard said by way of explanation.
There was a second, then Skye said, breaking into a big grin, “Well, okay then, shit, I thought we were under attack or something.”
She turned to Indigo. “Get the stuff ready we talked about.” She turned back to Richard. “She’s fine boss, it takes a while from here, not like in the movies.”
“Skye,” Richard put on his serious face, “have you ever done a birth for a werewolf?”
She paused. “Well no, but...”
“No buts, Skye, it’s not the same, that baby is coming and coming in a hurry and it will change within minutes of being born, so you better be ready.”
She stood up a little taller. “Yes boss, I’m on it.”
Indigo gave her a funny look as she went back into the room. He had a bucket and a vacuum sealed bag of white towels. Richard pointed up stairs.
He had children, of course, a few before he turned, and a few after. After the last one died, he’d sworn off having anymore, it wasn’t fair to them, or to him. He’d only ever had one child with a human, and he had been wonderful, but he was killed in a Nazi POW camp; the whole reason Richard had gotten involved in the war was to rescue him, and that had failed.
“Boss,” Cara came running in, dripping sweat, skin flushed pink over her whole very naked body, “they are coming back.”
“Slow down. Cara, start over.”
“I followed them out, as a wolf. They got to the base of the mountain, and all of a sudden they flipped a bitch and are on their way back.” She was out of breath and heaving huge lungfuls of air. She must have charged back up the hill at full speed then transformed back to human before her body was ready. It was dangerous to change like that, she’d taken a big risk.
“Cara,” he said, pulling her into a hug, “thank you, get some water, lie down, we need you strong.”
“What’s happening?”
“The baby is coming, and they know, which means the place is bugged, good work.”
Driving as fast as they possibly could, it would take them ten or fifteen minutes to get back up the windy road, minus the five minutes it took Cara, so they didn’t have much time. Richard took a deep breath as soon as Cara was out of sight.
You can do this.
He focused inward, searching for that connection with the pack. He found it. All of them were busy in one task or another, Skye had her scrubs on and was busy washing her hands, Indigo had a few buckets of water on the stove boiling, TJ and Abbey were out for a walk, Cara was gulping down water by the quart, all of them were there. He sent out an alert, just the feeling of alarm, to be on guard.
TJ, Abbey, shift and get to the mine, I want you out there and behind them if we have to fight.
Yes, sir.
He could feel, and sense, and see them shuck their clothes, looks of grim determination masked their faces, it only took them a moment and they were wolves. Abbey’s smaller black wolf and TJ’s massive grey leaped off into the woods towards the mine.
Richard felt everyone’s preparations, the calm that they all felt, the readiness they projected, readiness to die for him, and for Reign.
Richard checked in on her with the last few minutes they had. She was in their bed, knees up, Skye was with her, and she seemed very focused.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Reign,” he said.
She looked up to him, her eyes hard from the pain. “I know, I’ve got this, you go do what you need to do.”
Not for the last time Richard smiled at her, he couldn’t have chosen a better woman; how he’d lucked upon her was beyond him.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know, now go keep us safe,” she returned with a smile. Pain gripped her face and she started breathing hard.
“Just like we practiced sweetie,” came Skye’s voice as Richard shut the door. He went down to the front porch to await his fate. He still wasn’t sure why this was so important to the Alphas, but he was going to make them pay for it. Every inch of it.