by Tina Smith
Reid was on duty now twenty-four seven – until the boy was killed or taken and he was there to stop that, and in doing so keep Cres near him because he didn’t want to lose her. Keep her loyal and loving towards him. He wasn’t sure how long they had. Reid had an impending sense of doom. Sometimes he woke in the night, in the rare times he slept, feeling as though he had just fallen. Sometimes, to damn himself even more, he thought about bloody Daniel Lovett, but he tried hard to shake it. Cold water splashed on his face in the morning usually then turned his thoughts to Cres swimming in the river, so that’s what he held to. He didn’t sleep so well these days.
Narine had visited him, he never told Cres. She would have gone wild and cold again; wouldn’t have trusted him on details, wouldn’t have let him touch her again. He didn’t care for the pack. As far as he was concerned he had no loyalty to the Cult pack, it wasn’t his territory. Narine said Paws saw it very differently - that he was now a lone wolf. But he only appeared that way on the outside. Paws extended a peace offering to him via Narine, sensing the hostility.
Reid watched them approach. One was a tall thin, muscular woman, with long wavy hair which hung down over her shoulders. He guessed that she was older. Her clear bright-blue eyes were etched with life, her shiny pale skin glowed under the full moon. She had a presence. She would have turned heads. The girl beside her was dog also, but she was short as the woman was tall, with a curvy body, wide hips, round breasts and chubby limbs, wavy dirty blonde hair, peaches and cream complexion. He noticed Paws’ smell was all over them - stronger on the lead female. She was close with the leader as his new bitch. He could see she was smart; she had flickering eyes, and a wide mouth. He knew she wasn’t here as an offering - the other girl bitch at her flank was.
“What if I don’t accept? You don’t think I could make my own pack?” he said defiant, cocking his head.
“Oh, we hope you won’t, in fact I know you’re not that silly, Reid.” The older woman’s eyes narrowed.
He shifted when she hissed his name with her soft controlled voice.
She breathed in slowly. “Any luck finding the huntress?” Following no movement from Reid she continued, “Paws owns this district, he has a very large pack - he has the support of others. He is waging a quiet war.” There was hard pride in her voice. “If you’re not with him you are against him,” she threatened coldly.
Reid stared at her unperturbed. The chubby offering at her side nodded in slow, silent agreement.
“I told you. I don’t want any part in your war.” He eyed her.
Narine laughed for a second. “You sound so much like Sky.”
He knew why she laughed, but unlike Sky, he wouldn’t bow to her. A smirk lingered on her lips. Reid’s shoulders tensed. When he had to keep Lila from going anywhere he had almost known for sure about Sky. He just about smiled but subdued it.
“What do you want me to do?” He tried to hide his happiness in a façade of distrust.
“Nothing you don’t want to do.”
“Then why bother coming to visit?” he returned in the same cool tone.
She opened her lips to answer in thought. “We offer friendship to you, Reid. Protection…” She looked almost motherly in her long dress. She glanced towards the girl “Gifts,” she purred.
He recognized the short girl then. She had been in his year - now she was a missing person. Reid’s expression of blank defiance remained. Narine pressed her lips together as though seeing she would get nowhere by talking and the softness her features had donned faded.
Abruptly she turned to leave, the younger girl followed her like a shadow, and he saw that she now had a slight limp. Narine called back clearly through the branches. “He won’t be alive much longer if you do anything to displease Paws.”
Though it sent a pang through Reid, he knew his friend was alive, he hadn’t heard for sure, but this confirmed it for him. Reid had no way of knowing this was a mostly empty threat. Narine, like Paws, had quickly realized via Sister Sam’s information, that Sky was far too precious a gift to waste. He was bait.
Reid failed to relax once the She wolf was out of earshot. Blood pulsed through his veins, his heart thumped in his ears, his arms, stiff, were readied at his sides. Reid’s hands trembled. He wanted to scream, roar his anger at her - to phase, chase her down and rip her head off. Wisely he turned and ran away and tried to forget meeting Narine in the dead of night in the bush outside Cres’s house as the crickets played. He hoped not to have to tell Cres she had come. He knew all the while she tried to dominate him that if they were too loud Cres would hear them. He knew if Cres stirred due to any unusual noise, that she’d take the boy and run. Who knew, maybe it would have been wise to let her. But he knew things had changed and the pack would find her, if Narine wanted, no matter where they hid. There was a steady determination and lack of impulse to this Cult pack that was a force to be reckoned with. Where they once exuded a fierce dominance, it was now preceded by a friendly façade of influence, underneath which lurked the threat of violence and terror, quietly menacing. They weren’t to be messed with. Damaged as the girl bitch was at Narine's side, she would have fought for her Alpha, and Paws would have had the pack tear Reid limb from limb for even attempting to attack his females. She was dangerous, calculating.
Several feelings rose and coiled inside him. Sky had quite possibly survived, Reid thought with elation. He wondered then if Cres had known all along that Sky was alive. He was angry for a moment as his thoughts about the situation settled. He understood why Cres had done it. He knew that he didn’t want to tell her about this meeting with Narine and the girl with the limp. He wouldn’t confront Cres about it, in case she ran. So with a sighed breath, he quelled the rising emotions and forgot he ever saw Narine.
40. Lesser of Two Evils
Cres and Narine had cut the original deal for the cult pack and by a miracle Cresida secured her own and Lila’s survival. But all she had really done was to allow them relative safety for the time being. Narine wasn’t going to kill them, though she wanted them to believe the worst of her Cult pack, that Paws wanted them dead - as he had done in the past. But Narine was a thinker, a strategist; if killing the hunters meant more of their kind they wouldn’t destroy them, just control them. Cresida was the key because she was half-caste, compromised – ‘in need of guidance’ Narine had told Paws.
Narine was surprised at Cresida’s readiness to kill her upon their meeting, but Sky was hostage. Cresida’s brother was identified as a target if she refused the generous deal and that was enough to stall her until she heard the plan from Paws. A plan where they could all live in a truce, provided she played fair by stunting her new protégé, Lila. And in return the Cult pack would guarantee her little brother’s safety and Sky’s. For Sky’s life alone, Cresida may not have done it, but the wolves knew the little boy was her Achilles heel, as was her wolf blood.
Cresida knew holding Lila back would be a full time job, but it could be done if she was clever. And though it betrayed her first instinct, she would have done anything to keep her little brother safe. If she accepted the deal they offered, Lila would also be safe. Cres convinced herself that one day Lila would have her chance still, as the guilt of the things she didn’t tell her student mounted, making her feel sick to the core, night after night. When she diligently lied to Lila about Sky’s death, she could barely stand herself, but anything that protected Bronson, she did gladly. It was for the best. If Lila even suspected Sky was alive, she would have caused trouble and put them all in imminent danger. Mainly though she did it for her defenceless sibling, Bronson. It would buy him some time, a childhood. She wanted him to experience what was left of it after their parents were killed, even if it meant betraying Lila.
Cresida didn’t know why Reid stayed; she assumed it was because of his family. After all, he would outlive them by hundreds of years. If he left now they would all die from human ailments and human vulnerabilities, perhaps before he returned - wolf time had a way of passing
very fast when compared to a human life-time. When you had a few hundred years to exist, what was a year or ten? But she empathized with the need for him to be with them while he could. She knew it wasn’t above suspicion for him to be a spy. Lila being lost inadvertently then put Sky’s life in jeopardy – or so Cres believed. Cresida didn’t know it, but Reid was free to do as he liked. Believing his pack members dead or disloyal, he wouldn’t go anywhere. Sam was welcome in the Cult pack and at last report she was at the Cult compound. Narine knew to let Reid find his own direction, hoping he would become a good independent ally, eventually joining the pack as a valuable member once he had realized his best friend was actually alive. She wanted willing members. In time he would forgive them. Perhaps with a peace offering or two he would warm to their goals. Paws and Narine had listened well to Sam, who had indicated he needed to be with his mother due to the death of his brother with whom he was close. Fortunately a scant eye was kept on him even in the following months after Lila’s disappearance, an oversight on Narine's part.
Cres realized why Reid had stayed. He could have visited his family, like his older brother Josh had done, coming home from the University in the city. But Reid hadn’t and he didn’t join another pack unlike any other wolf would have done. Reid stayed right where he was as though willingly tethered. And it was to watch her, not for the Cult pack, though she knew they had probably asked him to. Even so, he watched like a lovesick pup and not in the way of a guard or spy. When her eyes met his she knew it, but her own feelings surprised and betrayed her. She convinced herself it was strategic in the end, when giving in to it. To love him meant company and protection; the way he felt was real and vulnerable. If he was a spy he was also somewhat compromised and if he wasn’t, they must do their best to keep their alliance secret. But Cresida knew it was only a matter of time before they were spied as lovers. A time was coming for action. Cresida knew action was best taken by her, while they most likely still held the trump card. She could feel it coming like a storm, one way or another. There was a fight ensuing. Whether or not Reid would support her she couldn’t know. Did he love her enough to go against his own kind?
Epilogue: Narine’s Empire
While her family worried that she was brainwashed by a cult the truth was more grisly than that. She couldn’t come back. It wasn’t her mind that had been poisoned but her body. Riddled with fever. The first night at the compound when she couldn’t leave, she cried delirious screams. The venom affected her slowly and violently. Paws held her while she cried, changed and screeched. In the morning his bed was wet with sweat and she was emaciated. Dieter was leader of the pack and she was to be his new mate. But before he took her as mate as a final test he threw her to the pack of waiting wolves, once the fever had eased. After the shock subsided, colour returned to her face and life in the pack house suited her well. She was top bitch and she set about revolutionizing the pack order. This was her turn to be everything she wasn’t in life, to be respected. She appointed herself as head alpha female. In truth she was the alpha and the law of the werewolves in this territory and word spread. She wanted to dominate, to be queen. She was a big bitch in stature as she had been tall in human life. Narine saw it as a second life and she was suddenly enthused with fight, prepared to take a swipe, but preferring manipulation. Now she was strong and she could feel it. Narine and Paws wanted to improve the life of the modern day werewolf and she listened intently as he explained the underworld to her.
As the heads of the largest pack in the Southern Hemisphere, they became the superpower pack of the region and self-appointed lords. They lay down the law in their community of bloodthirsty animals-cum-humans. Narine became the dictator queen of the wolves and wielded her power with a firm hand, using every tactic at her disposal even if it meant fraternizing with the enemy and cooperating with other packs. She was the godfather and she wanted to have eyes and ears all over the country. Their determination and strength in numbers was matched by nature, though their pack was still small-scale. But the seeds of hunter grew and Narine needed a new approach to dispose of or deal with them, as killing them only seemed to double their numbers in later years. The werewolves risked dwindling numbers and even being outnumbered by hunters - a scary thought. Management came to be her specialty and with Cresida on-side, Narine's plans for the future were promising security and less competition on the ground. She aimed to disable and disarm them, keep the adversaries weak. Instead of murdering them she simply aimed to make them as ineffectual as possible. It was an astonishing plan, quietly delivered; in fact, so slowly the new young hunters would be like frogs in the pot. Like Lila. Characteristic of the way a wolf operates, she came at them from the side and in the dark with a silent force to equal a savage. The bloodline that ran down the women’s side in Tisane’s veins did not course through Narine’s, but their father’s blood kicked and coursed through hers.
Narine wasn’t psychic like her sister, but she was street smart, hardened by life and desperate for the notoriety she had lacked in human life. Cleverly she had initiated a silent war. The compromised huntress had been a gift. She was vulnerable to the wolf kind because she had their venom in her veins. Narine’s plan, only in its infancy had made bounds, making her predecessors look like common animals reacting in fear. She was a more tactical and more manipulative wolf than others of her kind. ‘Act, don’t react,’ was Narine's mantra. Narine was a new breed, hand-picked by Paws who stalked and chose her wisely after many failures from pig-headedness and bad pack management. He found her and she had proven her talent by fighting for her place. He didn’t bed her for three weeks and watched her fight and squabble amongst the pack ranks and competing bitches. He smiled. After a bad few years – decades, even - a new era had arrived. She earned her place. The passive aggressive She Wolf was the medicine they needed. He chose her to empower the pack, to be his queen and though he stood out as the leader, soon everyone knew it was she who pulled all the strings. Her mind churned and she had a fierce survival instinct. She was a more natural wolf than she was a housewife. Blood and the elixir of life flowed through her again. She seethed when angry but channelled it well. She was fair and strict as long as she was obeyed and got what she wanted. She harnessed her popular voice as leader. She was respected and feared. Paws had chosen better than he could have ever imagined. Until in a twist of irony, he almost resented how good a choice he had made.
END.
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Tina Smith is an Herbalist, dog lover, Piscean and mother with a fondness for strong female protagonist's. She works as a Health and Wellness Consultant and studies Naturopathy.
A love of the fantasy genre and the deep exploration of dark and evocative subjects inspired the Wolf Sirens series, the tale of the heroine femme fatal, on her journey in the underworld between the lands of myth and reality.
Thank you to Sally Bradshaw/Dillon for your belief in me and your patience and time. I don’t know what I would have done without you and I will be forever grateful. Thank you for your eyes, your time, your help, enthusiasm and hours of dedication. Roger Dillon, thank you for the invaluable shooting practice and weapons advice. I thank the universe for both of you, my angels. Mum, thanks for offering me unconditional support. Dad, thanks for your generosity and care. My deepest appreciation to Beverley Eikli for th
e patient and precise editing.
My gratitude to all of you for your belief in me, for working with me so hard and making it feel like a pleasure to achieve success.