by Kayle Wolf
Well, that suited Art just fine. The fewer people there, the fewer people were likely to get between him and the murderer who’d taken his whole life away from him. Not that going through a crowd would be a problem for him. Not once he’d gone Wild.
Noah would’ve hated this, he knew. He’d always been the old bear’s star pupil. From the frightened, angry young man he’d been when Noah first found him, to the icy-calm composure he’d cultivated for years… it was an incredible transformation. All of it thanks to Noah. His patience, his kindness, his unwavering belief in Art’s ability to transcend his anger, to conquer the darker part of himself and stay in the light where he belonged. In the light with his family, who loved him. It took focus, and discipline, to conquer the mind, to distance the awareness from emotion and thought, to find yourself, again and again, living only in the present. The mantra of the breath. But he was in control of himself now. Was he really willing to throw all of that away on revenge?
He dismissed the thought of Noah’s face quickly before the emotion began to build up again. Yes, he was. He was more than willing to sacrifice what he’d learned to destroy the person who’d destroyed his family. What else did he have left to lose? He knew, on the deepest level imaginable, that this was a suicide mission. He’d known that ever since he’d pulled into the driveway and seen that the porch light hadn’t been switched on. His family was gone, and he was late to join them. Just a little bit of unfinished business first.
After he was satisfactorily acquainted with the general area, Art steered the old truck down the winding road that led up to the settlement where the festival was to take place. It was already underway when he arrived, parking his truck in a field that seemed to have been put aside for the purpose—there were already a dozen cars parked there, and another one rolled up the road behind him as he locked the doors to the truck. Tugging his cap low over his eyes, he adapted his habitual hunched posture, drawing as much attention away from himself as possible. Even among shifters, who tended to run on the tall side, he knew his height would draw attention. And drawing attention would be a problem if it got him caught or apprehended before he could find out who’d killed his family.
Mossley wasn’t quite a village, but it was definitely bigger than the homestead where Art had lived. There were several big old buildings, including something that looked like a mess hall—perhaps the place had been built as a summer camp? His suspicions were confirmed by the presence of low cabins as he headed further into ‘town.’ Many of them were clearly inhabited, and long-term, too—he saw people milling about, coming in and out of the cabins. He headed off the path, west, into the trees, and almost immediately came upon a river, hidden from sight from camp by a ridge of trees. There were a few jetties jutting out into the water, where a few people were already fishing. As he looked, an enormous brown wolf emerged from the river, water streaming off its shaggy coat—Art’s eyes widened in shock as the creature shook itself, tail wagging as it frolicked with a couple of humans who ran, laughing, along the beach. Could the enormous creature be their pet? No—as he watched, one of the humans dropped to all fours in the sand, and within seconds there was a white wolf wrestling with the brown one in the water.
Art nodded to himself, moving back into the trees towards town. He was definitely in the right place. No shifter would change shape so openly if they weren’t among friends.
“Hey there, friend.”
He was halfway down the path when a voice stopped him in his tracks. It was soft and wheedling and sent a chill up his spine. When he turned, there was a man standing there, a lanyard around his neck—Art couldn’t see what it said, but he assumed this was one of the organizers of the festival.
“Pleasure to have you, sir. Have you checked in yet?”
“Just arrived. Having a look around.” He’d hardly used his voice since the fire, and it felt rusty and worn. He resisted the urge to clear his throat, not wanting to seem unsure of himself. The man nodded, his eyes fixed on Art. Strange eyes. The irises were white, almost the same color as the rest of the eye, and gave the impression that the man only had pupils and no irises. Unsettling, to say the least. As he stared, he realized the man was scrutinizing his eyes, too, and he blinked, self-conscious despite himself. He knew his eyes were the same muddy brown as his family’s. They’d been blue when he was born, but after the Wild had come upon him for the first time, they’d never changed back. And eyes, as all shifters knew, were the windows to the soul.
The man’s eyebrows lifted. “We don’t get many of your kind around here.”
He nodded, curtly. Noah had made it very clear how they were considered among other shifters. Difficult ground. “I’m tame. I’m alone.”
“All welcome, friend,” the man demurred, but there was still a quirk to his eyebrow that made Art worry. “Especially if you’ll be fighting.”
“Where do I go to register?”
“The big old house on the left as you come in is the reception. What’s your name? I’ll look out for you. I’m sure you’ll be spectacular.”
“Arthur.” Nobody knew his name—nothing to be gained by using a false one. “Arthur York.”
“I’m Jack. Good meeting you, Arthur. And if you’re interested in improving your odds…” He nodded towards a low, flat wooden platform that seemed to have been constructed outside of what Art had assumed was the dining hall. “The auctions will be taking place there in an hour or so.”
Art nodded as though he knew what that meant. It wouldn’t do to ask too many questions—he already stuck out too much by virtue of his species. But he had no idea what Jack had meant by auction, or why it would improve his chances in battle. Did they sell weapons or armor? Neither would serve him at all in combat. Even in his human shape, his tame form, he fought much better with his fists than with any weapon he could name. Or perhaps it was some kind of performance-enhancing drug they traded in? There had been something sinister about Jack’s smirk when he’d brought it up. Well, he’d have a look. If it was a place where people congregated, it was a place he needed to be. Listen in to conversations—see if anyone had any fresh scars. There was no way some shifter had taken on Noah without a couple of wounds to show for it.
He drifted over to the reception hall, compelled to get out of the bracing air for a little while, and wanting to get whatever registration he needed to do for the fights out of the way. There was a woman with bright silver eyes sitting expectantly behind a desk when he entered, and she greeted him enthusiastically.
“My, aren’t you tall! I do hope you’re joining us for the fights.”
“Yep.” He moved over to the table, trying to get a look at the list of names without alerting this woman to what he was trying to do.
“Wonderful. And you’re—“ like Jack had before her, she squinted up into his eyes, and he waited for the shock to register in her face. “Oh! Goodness me. I’ve never met a bear.”
“Not many of us about.”
“You’re awfully tame,” she said, as though it was a great compliment. He hoisted a smile onto his face, and she hummed happily, turning her eyes to her paperwork. “Now—name?”
“Art.”
“Artemis? Arthur?”
“Arthur,” he qualified, wrinkling his nose. Artemis? “Arthur York.”
“Wonderful. You’re all signed up. Preliminaries start today—but a strapping fellow like yourself won’t need to worry about those. I’ve put you through to the next round.” She tipped him a dramatic little wink, and he tried to smile again. “Prelims are to weed out the weak, anyway, and I can tell just by lookin’ that you’re not weak. Save your strength. Who knows—you might be up against King Val!” She chuckled, her silver eyes shining.
“Oh yes?”
“Yes, he’s fighting this year, can you believe it? Even after all that trouble two weeks ago…” She seemed to hesitate, an odd expression flickering across her face. “Did you know them?”
His heart started to beat faster. He calmed
it, reached deep within himself for the focus he needed. “Who?”
“King Val and a few of his boys cleared out a nest just the other day. Feral bears. You know how they get.”
His awareness focused down to a single point—his breath. In. Out. The mantra that would keep him safe, keep him awake, keep him here. Keep the Wild out. Until he needed it. All he could manage was: “Oh?”
“There were eight of them, all savage as you like. Val took them down, but the biggest one almost took his eye out. Huge scar down his face. Of course, it only makes him a more handsome dragon.” She tittered as though they were sharing a private joke. “You know what they say about scars. And he’s got a face that can pull it off. Those white eyes… gosh, striking.”
“Is that so.” Someone else was speaking—someone else must have been controlling his face. He’d never worked this hard in his life to stay human. All that held him back was Noah’s face, all those years ago, teaching him to breathe, teaching him to focus, teaching him to separate himself from his raging thoughts and the emotions that surged through him like tidal wave after tidal wave, crashing on the shore of his body and threatening to change him, again and again. Noah had taught him that that wasn’t him. He wasn’t his thoughts. He wasn’t his feelings. He wasn’t the grim determination to shift forms and tear this woman limb from limb for daring to speak about his family like they were nothing but vermin. He was just the point of awareness that watched all that happen, that breathed in, out, in, out.
“So did you know them?”
“No,” he said, and his thoughts were calm and flat as the surface of an unruffled lake. He turned, wordlessly, and walked out of the reception building, leaving the woman behind. He was signed up. He would be in the fights. He would tear through competitor after competitor like so much wet cotton wool until he came face to face with King Val, whoever that may be. And he would tear his flesh from his skeleton.
A dragon. He was going to fight a dragon. The disdain and scorn he’d felt came back to him in a rush, the very idea of dragons existing. Back when Noah had given him the talk—told him about all the kinds of shifters that were out there. They’d talked about wolves, first, and that had made sense. After all, wolves were wild animals, and so were bears. Perhaps there were jackal shifters, coyotes, lions in Africa, dingoes down in Australia… but to hear about dragons? Preposterous. He’d hardly listened to what Noah had told him about dragons, he’d been so wracked with disbelief. Dragons. No way. What kind of dragons? But what had Noah said… they lived a very long time, he knew that. Lifespans measured in centuries, not decades. So to be king, this Val must be pretty senior. What else—they were born in their dragon forms, not in their human bodies like wolves and bears were. So the human shape was an acquired skill, something they worked on throughout their lives. That was all Noah had known, more or less. That, and that family was very important to them—they tended to live in small family groups, rather than packs like wolves did. Their eyes revealed their family connections. The woman had said Val’s eyes were white… like the man he’d met earlier. Then Mossley was a dragon settlement.
“What about bears?” he’d asked Noah back then, curious despite himself. “What do we do, normally?”
“Depends,” Noah had said in that quiet way of his, considering the question as deeply as he always did. They’d been sitting on the back porch of the homestead as the sun went down over a long day, and there’d been just enough of a chill in the air that Art had been looking forward to going inside, impatient with the lesson. Now, of course, he regretted that. But what use was regret?
“Bears who never snap, they stay human. Indistinguishable, unless another shifter smells it on them. No telling how many of them there are. The ones who do snap… well, you know yourself the destruction it causes, the thrill of it. Plenty never want to come back. So they stay Wild. Depending on where they snap, they’re either shot by humans, or they find a way into the wild and never come back. From what I know, it’s a lonely life. The little cousins don’t take to us. We’re too big, we smell strange to them, like enemies. So you live alone until you die of exposure, hunger, or old age… or a hunter who wants you for a trophy. Unless you find someone else, trapped in the Wild form… but soon enough you lose what you used to be, so there’s no telling whether you’d even recognize a fellow shifter.”
Art had stared at the horizon for a long moment, losing his gaze among the trees. How many bears were out there—bears who’d once been human, like him? Bears who’d lost the battle with the Wild and stayed out there, consigned themselves to the oblivion that came with that form? He’d felt the hairs on his arms stand up, felt the magic start to stir behind his eyes like it had that day, that terrible, awful day—he’d taken a sharp breath of alarm—and then had come Noah’s hand on his shoulder, firm but gentle, and his dark brown eyes, grounding him, keeping him present.
“But you won’t, Arthur York. You’ll never lose a scrap of yourself. Not as long as you’re here with us.”
To Art’s alarm, he could feel tears starting to build in his eyes as he walked blindly through the village. That wasn’t good. That was a loss of control that he couldn’t afford. Not now. Not until he was face to face with the king. Val, his name had been. A dragon—white-eyed like the man he’d met earlier, Jack. Would the fight be in human form or their respective bestial shapes? It didn’t matter. Either way, Art intended to tear him limb from limb. Dragon or no, even the strongest creature was going to have trouble against a twelve-foot tall bear. He would let the Wild run rampant through him like a disease, like a wildfire. And if it took his mind with it—if it took him into oblivion for good—well, that was what it was. They’d kill him, of course, but that prospect brought up no fear in him. What else was left here for him?
There was a crowd in the clearing outside the dining hall he’d noticed earlier, and he gathered control of himself, taking solace in having made a plan. The fights weren’t until tomorrow. For the next little while, he’d lay low, participate in the festival just enough to avoid suspicion, and try to scope out how many white-eyed dragons there were around the place. Convenient, that their eyes gave them away like that. Of course, his did too, but it seemed that bears were a curious novelty to these people. Tame ones, anyway. Tame ones who were willing to fight for the amusement of their kind, at least. That would have made him angry if he wasn’t focusing on his breath. He could feel the emotion raging in the part of his body that he’d disassociated himself from. You are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, no matter how strong they might be. That was Noah’s lasting legacy. That would keep him sane until he could let himself go.
But despite all his focus, horror seized him by the throat when he looked up at the stage, milling about automatically with the crowd. The dragon he’d met earlier—Jack, with the strange white eyes that gave his face an unnatural look—was shouting to the crowd, his voice reaching right to the back of the area. It seemed that the auction was about to begin. He was saying something about an ancient tradition, about stoking the fires of battle in the hearts of the competitors—but Art was only half aware of that part. What he could see, in a way that was making his gut churn, was the ‘merchandise’ up for sale.
Women.
A line of women, all with their hands bound in front of them, all wearing strange metallic bands around their throats. Their expressions ranged from defiance to terror to fury, and all it took was one look at the men standing watchfully nearby to know that none of these women were here by anything resembling their own choice. His heart pounding, he moved closer to the stage, hoping against hope that he was somehow wrong about what was happening here. Perhaps it was a performance. Perhaps the dozen or so women he could see lined up like cattle to be sold were all actresses, giving the performance of their lifetimes.
God, they all looked Mel’s age. His spitfire little sister, full of rage—she’d come to them in a blaze of chaos, as was the only way she did anything. She’d snapped late, for a b
ear. Nineteen years old, she’d gone to a frat party at a college in a nearby state, where a group of guys had plied her with more drinks than her small frame could handle, waited until she was more or less unconscious, then carried her into an upstairs bedroom. What they intended to do there wasn’t hard to guess. But they hadn’t reckoned on Mel waking up as they were removing her clothes. By her account, she’d given them every opportunity to reconsider—but they were drunk on cheap beer and toxic masculine energy, and all five of them had made the decision to go ahead without her consent.
None of them had survived. It was a small bedroom, the door was locked, and a ten-foot brown bear isn’t the easiest houseguest.
She’d never expressed any guilt for the carnage she’d caused, the five lives she’d ended. He’d always found that strange—that no part of her regretted killing those five young men—not to mention injuring a dozen more on the rampage that took her out of the house and into the woods, where Noah had found her, a few days later, and (with Nell’s help) coaxed her back to human shape. But now, looking at the way the man on the stage gestured to the women behind him, a sick glint in his eye as he described in hideous detail what the successful bidders might get up to with their new toys, Art sent a silent apology to the memory of his sister. Mel had been right all along. If he could get his hands on Jack now, he’d tear him limb from limb, and he’d stay in his human shape so Jack could see how much he relished the experience.
A woman was brought forward from the line to the center of the stage, and Art felt the crowd around him appraising her with their eyes. The man beside him murmured something heinous about the woman’s figure to Art, and he moved away without looking back, sickened by the implication that he would take part in a thing like this. The woman was tall, with a regal bearing undamaged by her captive state—she looked like some kind of Mediterranean queen as she stood, her whole body burning with defiance. Art looked up at her, seeing the tension in her arms and her hands, the way she was straining discretely against the bindings around her wrists. Her eyes were searching the crowd, and there was an almost expectant look on her face. Did she expect a rescue? Would there be an objection to this barbarism, some brave soul in the audience who’d stand up and reject this whole premise?