Once Upon a Rainbow, Volume One

by Mickie B. Ashling

  “Well, Hood, I hear General Hamada was here, and you treated him with about as much respect as you’ve shown me. Nice job. That man was your only saving grace. Pissing him off wasn’t smart. I might have been able to get a small portion of the people of this city on your side through my stories—and let me tell you, you have a very loyal fan base—but the general was going to provide you with a life. All you had to do was follow through on what he wanted of you.” Amari smirked at me while pulling his laptop out and booting it up. “As it stands now, I hear the military is going to use you for experiments.

  “I have some good sources in various areas. From what I’m hearing these ‘experiments’ are not going to be pleasant. Tell me more of the Harkin Ross story and maybe, just maybe, we can see about divulging what the army has in store for you.”

  I remembered back to the first time Samir Amari had come to visit. He had damn near shit himself when I showed him a small glimpse of the wolf. Now, he was an overconfident ass.

  “I have nothing to say to you. Nothing.” I sat there, staring at him.

  “Not in your best interests, Hark.”

  “I told you. It’s Hood.”

  The light in the room began to flash.

  Once, twice, three times…and then the alarm sounded.

  “Shit,” Amari said. He grabbed his laptop and shoved it into his bag. He walked over to the door and pounded his fist. “Guards!”

  A shriek came from the other side. The tiny little window on the creaky metal door suddenly splattered with blood. A hand reached up, grasping and clawing at the window… It slid down, smearing the blood further.

  Amari turned and looked at me. His skin colour had returned to that first-visit poached-egg tone. I sneered at him.

  So, this was it.

  A deep guttural growl reverberated from the other side of the door.

  “They’re here,” I said in my best Carol Anne imitation from the movie Poltergeist.

  Amari turned and looked at me, clutching his man purse tight to his chest. “What the hell is going on, Hood?”

  “Oh, now it’s Hood?”

  “Come on, Hood. If these are your people, keep me safe. I got you better treatment in here!”

  “For a price, Amari. You did it for a price.”

  The door opened, creaking as it always did. Amari didn’t turn around. He didn’t have to, to know what was standing behind him. I didn’t think it was possible, but Amari went whiter. He did the one thing I actually had expected him to do upon our first visit.

  The front of his khaki trousers went dark, a growing puddle of his own urine soaking the front of his pants.

  Kenneth, as the glorious sandy-tan werewolf, stood behind him, breathing heavily down Amari’s neck. His fur was laced with streaks of blood, and his muzzle dripped with the red liquid.

  The stench of urine filled the air between us.

  “Hood, please.” Those were the last words he uttered.

  Kenneth’s wolf plunged his clawed hand through his back, and as the fist emerged through Amari’s rib cage, clenching his beating heart, the reporter paid the final price for his stories. Amari’s body went limp and hung ragged, held up only by the werewolf’s hand.

  Kenneth pulled his arm back through the wound, and Amari slumped to the floor.

  The werewolf sniffed the air, studying me, and then flipped his head up in a spasm. I watched, for the first time, another werewolf reverse its form, and within a minute, Kenneth stood in front of me, bloodied, breathing hard, and completely naked.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. You ready?”

  I lifted my hands as far as I could, which wasn’t very far. The chains clanked as my motion was caught short.

  “I’d be a whole lot more ready if these weren’t holding me down.”

  “Give me a sec.” Kenneth turned and bolted out the door, only to return a moment later with a large key ring full of keys. “This might take a while.”

  “It’s the small gold one,” I said, nodding when Kenneth placed his fingers on the right key I’d seen the guards use over and over.

  “Nice going, Hood. Very observant.” Kenneth had me unlocked and free within seconds, and I stood up and faced him. “I’ve missed you.” The sentiment was somewhat uncharacteristic of the tough farmhand I knew. Kenneth’s eyes were a little glassy, and if I hadn’t known any better, I might have sworn that he shed a tear.

  “Kenneth Lowell, you’re not crying, are you?” I reached over and wiped the liquid off of his cheek. Blood smeared across his face with the action.

  Kenneth grabbed me and hugged me so tight, I couldn’t breathe. He lifted me up and swung me around, all while bursting out with that raucous laughter I had heard him bellow several times in the past.

  He kissed me. His rough, chapped, been-out-in-the-sun-too-long lips eagerly pressed themselves against mine, and the wild whiskers on his face tickled my nose.

  It was a quick kiss. He pulled back and released me from his grasp.

  “Okay, quick, get naked.”

  “Kenneth, I really don’t think there’s time for that.”

  He shook his head at me, all while smirking. “No, you goof. Ditch the clothes. We need your wolf.”

  “I know that.” I rolled my eyes at him and then stripped.

  “Okay. I know you’ve spent a few full moons in here, but this time, you’ll have to pull the wolf forward on your own.”

  “Shhh, enough.”

  I drew Kenneth toward me. It was my turn. It had been months since I’d had the pleasure of feeling Kenneth’s warm furry body pressed up against mine. In part, sure, it was sexual. But mostly it was the warmth of his body, his smell, the skin contact that made me feel safe.

  All those times he had rescued me from my abusive father, and the times he had distracted the bastard while I escaped to Grandpa’s place. Kenneth had been my rescuer many, many times.

  I held him close and felt his body responding. Both of us were. It had been too long. But, knowing that we needed to flee, I pulled back from him and looked away. I was still a bit bashful around him, but I was all smiles.

  “You’re terrible.” He winked at me. “But we really need to go. Now, follow my lead, and we’ll get your wolf into battle mode.”

  “Dude, it’s okay, I know how.” All I had to do was think of the countless times I’d been struck, remember the bruises that had decorated my body.

  I could feel it, the demon, rousing and stoking the fire of anger beneath my skin. As my consciousness shifted, the world before me exploded in an onslaught of sensory overload. I heard the bloodcurdling screams that came from the various guards who were being disposed of, and the copper-laced aromas wafted through the air.

  I glanced up at Kenneth, my wolf’s eyes taking him in.

  “God, you’re good.” Kenneth snorted with a short laugh. He approved.

  Within moments, my carmine and his tawny wolf stood side by side. We looked at each other quickly, and then, following the screams and the scintillating trail of blood in the air, we scampered off and found the others.

  Corpses were everywhere.

  The prison guards had every right to have had all the precautions they did while keeping me hostage. But where one werewolf might have been subdued, thirty of us hunting as a pack were unstoppable.

  I couldn’t help but think what Amari would have written if he had had enough balls—or the heart—to witness this.

  THE ESCAPE WAS surprisingly easy—bloody, violent, and with a very high human death toll, but easy.

  But then, the guards had no idea that regular bullets had no effect on my kind. That still seems weird to say—my kind.

  Metal slugs might have penetrated some of the werewolves, but the demon inside immediately pushed out the foreign body. Then there was the healing factor. Unknown to me, we healed exceedingly fast.

  It’s true what the movies have said so many times. Silver takes the werewolf down. Well, silver and any of its derivatives. I�
��ve learned a lot since the prison break. And if the prison had taken heed of such information, my emancipation would have been much more costly and difficult.

  The pack had split up after breaking me out. Several small groups divided further into splinter cells and scattered. Kenneth, Skoll, and I had made it to a car, which Skoll had strategically placed a short distance from the prison. After shifting back into human form, the three of us, naked as the day we were born, drove off as fast as possible away from the building that had confined me for so many months, heading toward the mountains. Skoll had a cabin within the pack’s territory, and once there, we would finally be safe and far away from any humans.

  I had no remorse about fat old George or stinky Randall or Amari. As far as I was concerned, their treatment of me while I was incarcerated had warranted their brutal demise. At least their deaths had been quick. Violent, and most likely terrifying, but quick nonetheless.

  After a long hot shower and a huge meal, Skoll assured us there was “pack business” to attend to.

  “We can stay here tonight but—” He turned and glanced at Kenneth. “—your presence is required at the tribunal.”

  “What’s a tribunal?” I asked while shoving a huge forkful of meat into my face. Meat had become my favourite part of any meal, even more so than Twizzlers and chocolate bars.

  Kenneth studied me, with a long sad face. “It’s our way of ensuring rules are adhered to, and the laws of our kind are strictly followed.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Why is Kenneth on trial? I was the one that exposed everyone.”

  “True,” Skoll said as he scrunched up his mouth with disdain. “But Kenneth made you. It was his job to ensure you were taught properly. That didn’t happen.”

  “It’s not like I had a choice,” Kenneth said. “But rules are rules. I hope the Adjudicator is lenient.”

  “All right, what do you mean—you didn’t have a choice? What happened that night?” I asked.

  I didn’t care that Kenneth had changed me—he had already changed me in many other ways. So far, this upgrade from human wasn’t so bad. If there had been a choice—become like me or else you can’t be with me—there wouldn’t have been much of a choice at all. I would have done anything to be with Kenneth.

  “All right, it’s time you knew.” Kenneth poured himself a cup of coffee, put his fixings in. He sat back and gathered his thoughts. It looked as if he was having a hard time putting the words together.

  “Don’t hold back on my account. I can take it,” I said, confident.

  “I don’t doubt that, Hood. But it’s…well, regardless of what your daddy was like, he was still your father. No one should have to go through anything like this.”

  “Just tell me. It’s okay.”

  “Do you remember our last time together?” Kenneth smiled.

  We had been in the old barn. We had always thought it was safe there because Dad never went to the outbuildings. There was nothing in them worth checking.

  “Yeah, I do. I was kinda hoping we could do that again.” I smiled.

  “Your daddy saw us, Hood.” Kenneth lowered his chin. “He was so angry. He didn’t know if I had coerced you, or worse, you were ‘that way.’ I’ll give him credit, though. He waited until the next day after you’d gone to school, then he confronted me.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I can handle myself. Normally, I would have told anyone else that if they had questions about who you were, they should ask you directly. But I couldn’t do that, Hood.”

  I nodded and understood what he meant.

  “He would’ve beat the living tar out of you. And I know you. You would have told him the truth.”

  “To protect you!” I said immediately.

  Kenneth smiled at me.

  “You didn’t coerce me into anything. In fact, I think I had feelings for you before it was the other way around.”

  “I know, Hood, I know.” Kenneth reached over and took my hand in his and squeezed it. “I thought for sure your daddy was gonna try and put a beating on me. But he didn’t. He walked away. First time since I met him that I ever saw him walk away from a confrontation. But that didn’t last long.”

  Skoll sat quietly across from us. He was listening to the entire story, and it didn’t look like he was missing any detail.

  “Your daddy showed up at the guesthouse where I was, with his shotgun. He unloaded two shots into me.”

  “But that wouldn’t have stopped the wolf,” I said.

  “You’re right. It wouldn’t. But your daddy didn’t know what I was, and neither did you. Those bullets did, however, knock me out for a bit. Your father dragged me to the back fields and left me in a ditch out there. I guess he thought a dead man was gonna stay there until he could deal with me.

  “When I came to, the wolf was some pissed off, and even though I was hurting, I needed to find out where your father had gone. I needed to make sure he never got to you. I knew if he was willing to kill me, you weren’t any safer.”

  “He was such an asshole.” If it was possible, I had earned a new level of hate for my dad.

  “When I found him, he was passed out, like usual, lying on the couch. But it was also after 5:00 p.m., which meant you had already been home from school. It was also Thursday night, which meant—”

  “I had already come home, got in my car, and went to town to get Grandpa’s meds and groceries,” I said.

  “Yup. See, you’re a good man. That’s something I value in you.”

  Kenneth pointed at his coffee cup as he looked at Skoll. Skoll nodded and got up, grabbed the coffeepot, and refilled his mug. He turned and offered me some. I had never developed a taste for it, so politely refused.

  After fixing his mug, Kenneth continued, “I went back to my place, got cleaned up, and put some fresh clothes on. Walking around covered in dirt with bullet holes and bloodstains wouldn’t have been good, because I was set on going to town and finding you. But then I heard your daddy yelling and screaming in the front yard. Wolf ears hear a long ways. He was furious, and he was going to go find you—and he, too, knew exactly where you’d be going that night.”

  “Grandpa’s,” I said, frowning.

  “Yup. And he had his gun with him. There was no way I was letting you get anywhere near your granddaddy’s house. Someone was gonna get hurt bad, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let that be you. The last thing he yelled out was ‘No fag will be living under my roof.’”

  My head hung a little lower, embarrassed over my dad’s actions, even though he was already long gone.

  “So, I let your daddy go. But I came to find you. I had to find some way to prevent you from getting to your granddaddy’s house. I drove into town and found your car in the grocery store parking lot. I punctured a hole in the oil pan and made sure there was a steady drip. I hoped that would stall out the car and seize the engine. You’d never reach your granddaddy’s house.”

  “Except your sabotage wasn’t enough because I got more than halfway there.”

  “Yeah, what can I say? Half-assed plans made in the spur of the moment rarely go well. It wasn’t a good plan, but it did the job. I went to your granddaddy’s place after that. I wasn’t sure what was gonna happen, but I needed to stop your dad. But by the time I got there, they were already screaming and yelling.

  “Your dad told Granddaddy everything. You’ll be happy to know your granddaddy supported you one hundred percent. Unfortunately, that just infuriated your daddy. I don’t really want to tell you everything that happened after that. It wasn’t nice.”

  “Dad killed Grandpa, didn’t he?” I surmised. It wasn’t a hard leap. Dad’s anger at that point would have been epic.

  “Yes.” Kenneth swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Hood.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for my hateful father’s actions.”

  “I tried, Hood. I tried to save Granddaddy, but by the time I burst into the house, he was already gone. He was so frail to begin with. Your daddy, ho
wever, freaked right out when he saw what he thought was a dead man. He left, running.”

  “Coward.”

  “Well, in all fairness, I was supposed to be dead. But that presented me with a problem. I didn’t know where he was going, but if he was going home, there was a possibility you were there. So, I took off to find you. I needed to get you away from him or give you what you needed to protect yourself from whatever your daddy was gonna do to you. So, I hunted you down.”

  “I was stranded on the highway. I had called you already and got no answer, so I was waiting on the tow truck,” I said.

  “When I found you, I did the worst thing I could have ever done to you. I inflicted you with the wolf, but at that moment, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted you to have a way to protect yourself.”

  “I don’t blame you. You know, if you’d asked me in any other situation, I’d have said yes.”

  “I know that now. Still, at the time, I felt guilty.” Kenneth’s gaze dropped to his lap as he continued on. “Anyway, after the biting, and I bit you several times to make damn good and sure it took. It didn’t take long for the wolf to take over. It never does. Hollywood gets it wrong most of the time. There’s no waiting for the full moon for your first change. Once bitten, the wolf emerges and changes you. I watched. Your wolf was a gorgeous red, just like the colour of your hair. You shifted back and lay unconscious. I knew the wolf was healing the wounds I had given you. I knew you’d be okay.

  “Then I went after your daddy. Surprisingly, he gathered up enough courage and went back to your granddaddy’s place.”

  “To hide the body, that’s why,” I offered. It made sense. If I had stumbled upon Grandpa’s beaten body, it wouldn’t have taken me very long to figure out who would have done it. Only Dad had that kind of a temper.

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but yeah, that makes sense. Then unexpectedly you showed up. You couldn’t have been passed out on the side of the highway for very long, and in you walked, staggering and completely incoherent. It was the demon inside of you, it takes over for a while, battling with the human side. Any new changeling is usually a mess for a couple of days.”

  “I remember nothing from that night. Just you. I remember you hauling me out of the car and biting me.”