“I see you’re a pirate no longer,” he smiled at her.
“A pirate?”
“Yes, you can see through both eyes. I was in New York a good part of the day and seriously considered bringing you an eye patch.”
“Oh, you thought of me and wanted to bring me a gift?”
“Of course, it was either the patch or a parrot, I couldn’t decide.”
“And so I get neither,” she pouted.
He looked around as if noticing the darkness for the first time.
“It’s a nice evening. Sure you don’t want a little light in here?”
She shook her head.
“No. Have you ever noticed how darkness kind of forms around you like a blanket? I think that’s why people like us feel protected by it. The darkness hugs us. It lets us feel safe.”
Alwyn lowered his hand, turned and pulled a chair close to her. He sat.
“How are you feeling? You’re looking better, or maybe it’s the lack of light.”
“I am feeling better, but not good enough for your stupid jokes, so quit it.”
He smiled, “Okay. Mother told me you’ve been asking for me.”
She nodded, “I heard you went to New York. Took the helicopter.”
“I did. Had some business.”
“Did you see Andee?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“Because she loves you and because you’d be crazy about her if you gave yourself half a chance.”
“Sweet Miranda, we are not adolescents any longer. We have obligations. We don’t always get the girl.”
“I was raped.”
Alwyn opened his mouth to argue, but stopped. She’d changed topics. Did he hear her right?
“W-W-W-What?” he stammered. “What did you say?”
“I was raped. The other night. By the wolf. He raped me.”
His anger welled and he started to stand.
“No, don’t,” she pleaded. “Stay here, right next to me.”
Alwyn relaxed and stayed in the chair. He resisted the urge for violence. He silently thanked Miranda for preferring the darkness. She couldn’t see his face contorted with rage. In a tight but controlled voice, he said, “Tell me what happened.”
Tears formed, but she swallowed and looked at her Unum.
“He grabbed me, just like I said, as I was getting into my car. I should have seen him.”
She shook her head and looked to the floor.
“I should have heard him, or smelled him.”
The tears dropped.
“Miranda,” Alwyn slid the chair closer to her. He reached the distance between them and rested his hand on her feet. He didn’t hold them, just let her know he was near.
“Miranda,” he repeated, “don't keep going over what should have happened or what could have happened. Just tell me what did happen.”
She nodded and looked at him.
“I was getting in the car, and he came up behind me. He grabbed me, and right there, I knew he was extra strong. He was extra, like you. I didn’t think wolf, right off, but I could feel how strong he was.”
She looked at Alwyn for confirmation.
He nodded, “Go on.”
She frowned, “I don’t know how, but he knocked me out with something. He didn’t hit me, not then, and I don’t remember a rag over my mouth, but somehow, he knocked me out, because the next thing I knew I was in the trunk of his car. He had to have carried me, but I don’t remember that part of it. I was in the trunk, and he was driving. At least I think it was him driving. I don’t remember anyone but the two of us.”
“Do you have any idea how long you were in the trunk? Any idea as to how far you were driven?”
“I’m sorry, no. I should have...”
“Stop. Stop saying what you should have. You’re alive. Do you get that, Miranda? You’re alive, that’s what matters.”
She tried to smile. It wasn’t in her, but she tried. She nodded.
“I don’t have any idea how far he drove. I know when I was found, I was told I was in New Jersey, but I don’t know where, exactly, he took me.”
“That’s alright.”
“I didn’t try to figure how far we drove, because I didn’t know how long I’d been out. And I tried deep breathing to get whatever he drugged me with out of my lungs.”
Alwyn nodded. “That was good thinking.”
She managed a smile.
“When he stopped, he opened the trunk, and I got just a quick look around before he punched me. And that time, he punched me. He punched me in my stomach and took the wind from me. I bent over, my eyes were tearing, and he threw me over his shoulder and carried me into a small house.”
“Were you knocked out?”
She shook her head, “No, I remember being carried, and I remember lots of plants. And I remember I smelled lilacs.”
“So you weren’t in the woods?”
“No,” she said, and her eyes started to brighten, “I think it was, like, a plant nursery. A kind of greenhouse or garden. I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I remember I thought it was funny that all the plants grew in rows. I had thought we were in the woods, or a forest, but it wasn’t.”
Alwyn broadened his smile. “That’s good. You’re doing great.”
She scowled, “That was when I figured out we weren’t in a house. I thought we were when I first got out of the trunk, before he punched me, that I saw this little house. It was white and had a trellis, but it wasn’t a house. It was a shed, like a garden shed. There was a white fence, a picket fence around it, or at least in front of it. I didn’t see the back.”
She relaxed her face and looked at Alwyn.
“That was when I figured out he was a wolf. When he carried me over his shoulder, he stopped to unlock the little gate, and I smelled his marking scent. He had marked the place to keep others away.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
She shook her head. “No, not then. Later he did, but at that time he talked, but I think only to himself, and he spoke in a language I didn’t understand.”
“Any idea what it was, or did it sound like any language you know?”
“No, I’ve thought about it since I’ve been home, and I can’t place it. But whatever he was saying, he was saying to himself.”
Again, Alwyn just nodded.
“Oh,” she said, “he said the word ‘FBI’ a couple of times, but he didn’t say it like we do, you know initials. He said it like it was a word. The first couple of times, I didn’t get it, but then I did. I think he was cursing the FBI and Special Agent Trakes.”
“Then what happened?” Alwyn asked.
“When we got in the shed, I looked around, and there was a bunk, a cot with folding legs, in one corner and a small wood-burning stove.”
She closed her eyes and thought about the layout. She pointed as if she was a clock.
“The bunk was there.”
She pointed in front of her.
“The stove was there.”
She pointed to the three o’clock side.
“There was a small wooden table and a couple, two, I think… no I’m sure, two chairs there.”
Four o’clock.
“All along this side,” she swung her arm, six to ten o’clock, “were tools. All kinds of spades, picks, rakes, and benches. There were two benches, and on each were pots with plants, small plants in them.”
She opened her eyes and looked at her uncle.
“We knocked over the bunk, the table and one of those benches when we started fighting.”
Alwyn forced his hands to stop shaking. He nodded.
Miranda looked away and then back.
“When we first got in there, he threw me on the bunk, pointed at me, and said something I took to be ‘stay there.’ I don’t know for sure, but he turned his back, as if he thought I would obey him. He took a cell phone from his pocket. He started to talk into it, and my head was clear, so I tried to run. I jumped up from the bunk and tri
ed to get to the door.”
She looked at her uncle.
“He was too fast. He spun and grabbed me. He threw me back toward the bunk, and I crashed over the top of it. It fell and broke under me. He called me a ‘bitch,’ and he said that in English.”
She wiped the tears from her face.
“I was scared, but I was so mad, I jumped to my feet and attacked him.”
She smiled through the tears, “I got in a couple of good hits, but he was too strong. He kind of shrugged them off, and he threw me into one of the wooden work benches. It went over, I went over, and when I scrambled to get up, I found a pair of pruning shears next to me. I grabbed them, jumped up and when he came at me, I stabbed him with them, in the upper arm. I tried for his heart, but I missed.”
“As it turned out,” Alwyn observed, “it wouldn’t have mattered if you stabbed him or not.”
“True,” Miranda said, “but it would have felt good.”
Alwyn smiled at her, as if to say, that’s my girl.
“When he felt the shears in his arm, he stopped and looked at the wound as if he’d never been stabbed before. Then he backhanded me, and I went across the room and landed on the broken bunk. He screamed, ‘I’ll kill you, you bitch,’ and I had two thoughts at the same time.”
She sighed and then raised her head, “My first thought was ‘I believe you.’ You are going to kill me. My second thought, at the same time as the first, was, ‘you want to see a bitch, I’ll show you a bitch.’ I ripped off my shirt and started to change. I became a she-wolf. I hoped the extra strength the wolf gave me would at least give me a chance to survive.”
“And it did,” Alwyn added. “You’re here.”
She shook her head.
“I guess, in a way, but like I said, he was a wolf, so when I started to change, he did as well. Only, after we changed, instead of killing me, he decided to claim me as his, and he raped me.”
“That is old-world nonsense. That doesn’t make you his. You don’t belong to him,” Alwyn insisted.
“I know,” she nodded, “but now I’m pregnant. I’m going to have his child.”
A numbness washed over Alwyn, and he stared at his niece.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She nodded.
“And since we coupled while I was a wolf, I will give birth in a little over two months.”
Alwyn shook his head.
“You do not have to birth this child if you do not wish to.”
“Alwyn,” she took his face in her hands, “you are the Unum...”
“I know that,” he said, “but I will not force you to have this child considering the way it was conceived.”
“Alwyn,” she repeated, “you are allowing the human side of you to run loose. Cage the man, curb your male ego, and free the love your wolf heart already feels for the child, your nephew, that I carry.”
“He’s a boy?”
She nodded.
“I’ve never birthed before, but he feels like a boy and when I picture him in my mind, he is always a boy. So, yes, I will have a boy-wolf.”
Alwyn thought for several seconds, then said again, “Still, I will not force you to birth the result of a rape.”
“Alwyn Lloyd, you are my uncle and my Unum and my friend, but you will force me to do nothing. That is not within your powers. But if this was the situation another she-wolf found herself in, you would be counseling her to have the child. Wolves don’t kill innocents, and this child is innocent. As the Unum, you have the duty to protect the unprotected. If you and I don’t protect his child, who will?”
Alwyn looked at the woman and shook his head.
“Miranda,” he said, “I am ashamed before you. You are worthy of the title of Unum more than I. Please forgive my weakness.”
She laughed, a small and forgiving laugh, “Alwyn, you are the strongest man I know and certainly not weak. You are wrong. I am a woman who is about to become a mother. The changes in my body already allow me to love my child. You are absent from those changes, those feelings. My heart is already full of love for this boy, and you must find the same love in your heart. But you will, Alwyn, I know, in time, you will love this boy as much as I. You will love your namesake.”
“My namesake? You would name him after me?”
“Of course. He will be the firstborn son under the moon of a new Unum. Who else could I name him after?”
He dropped from the chair to his knees and knelt before her. He took her hands in his and bowed his head, the ultimate sign of respect a man can show a woman.
“I am humbled before you,” he said. “I am yours to command. How can I serve you?”
Reverently, Miranda loosed her hands and lifted his face so they looked into each other’s eyes.
“I only have one request, my Unum. Find the wolf who is responsible for the carnage…” she inhaled, exhaled, and inhaled again, “…and kill him.”
“Consider it done.”
Alwyn slept fitfully. Most of the hours he didn’t sleep at all. He paced his room, and then he paced the hallways of the family mansion. As the moon rose, he removed his robe, pajamas and slippers and traded them for workout shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes. He left the estate at an easy jog, and as he began to force more air into his lungs, he hoped the effort would force the never ceasing train of thoughts from his brain.
At two miles, his muscles, tendons and joints felt loose and smooth. His strides lengthened, with more glide to them. The rhythmic crunch of the gravel beneath his feet sounded his passage. The air rushing past his nostrils, into his lungs, and exiting past his teeth tasted fresh, clean and with a touch of wild to it. He smiled to himself, but the thoughts, the worrisome thoughts, still dogged him.
When he passed the six-mile mark, he had forgotten about the feel of the run. It all came natural now. He felt like water being carried along a rock-strewn path down the hillside. It was easy, without effort. It simply was. Water laughed as it travelled its path, and Alwyn wished he could laugh as well. As his body reached the point of equilibrium with the nature of movement, his thoughts remained jumbled, confused, conflicted. He increased his speed, and hoped the added effort would result in deeper breathing and force the thoughts from his mind.
Chapter 14
Lloyd was out of sorts. He sat at his office desk at the college and fought to maintain control. The semester had not yet started, so the room and building were quiet. He was glad for that. He would not have showed if he had to deal with others. He had work. He was expected to prepare class outlines, but his mind focused only on the violence he wished to visit upon the wolf. His blood-lust ran high and he forced a calm exterior.
His thoughts strayed to his mother, a presence so powerful, even in his mind, it was as if she stood in the room beside him. Always strong, ever capable, without doubts, the woman had stepped forward and became both parents when his father died. She never second-guessed the decision to raise him in the old traditions, to become the Unum of yesterday, conditioned to live the old manners. She never backed down when others told her she was wrong to raise a boy the way she was. No criticism phased her, no snarky comment seemed to penetrate her emotional armor.
He had never violated the code of the old Unums. He had never so much as tasted an apple, let alone a soda or a beer. Only once had he kissed a girl. It had been his sixteenth birthday, and truth be told, she had kissed him more than the other way around. He had not known how, never practiced. The girl, a she-wolf named Ulnae, had told him it was her gift to him, and when he didn’t know how to hold his head, his lips and their noses bumped. She had laughed at him. Now, years later, he still colored when he remembered.
Now, he was what he had been raised to become. He was who others were supposed to strive to be, and he knew he was the one no one else wanted to be.
The run the night before had not calmed him or soothed his doubts. He felt he was being hunted and he didn’t know the enemy. Could he live up to the expectations he had worked so
hard for?
He had already failed his first test. Within days, no, within hours of his oath exchange with Miranda, she had been attacked and almost killed. He had sent her into the ambush. He could not shake the guilt, and he struggled not to feel anger. She had not been cautious. Anger, guilt, second-guessing, doubt… the jumble of emotions swirled around him like leaves caught in an autumn breeze. Why couldn’t she have fought him off? Why didn’t she pay more attention? Why didn’t Andee go with her? Why had he sent his niece in the first place? He had been the Unum less than a week, and he had failed to protect one dearest to him.
“Professor Lloyd?”
The voice startled him. Miranda had not announced a visitor. Of course. Miranda wasn’t there. He looked up from his work. Andee Trakes stood in the doorway. Her collared light blue long-sleeved shirt was tucked into her grey dress pants. Her hair was pinned back, and she wore just enough makeup to accentuate her features. He noticed the muscles in her forearms were tense, as her sleeves were rolled to the elbows. She didn’t wear a jacket, and she appeared poised to attack.
He stood. “Special Agent Trakes.”
“I didn’t see Miranda at her desk, and your office door was open.”
The woman was cold, past professional, in her decorum.
He saw the tightness of her jaw and the accelerated visible thump of her carotid artery suggested she was upset. He allowed his eyes to lower to the “v” of her shirt. The top two buttons were undone and the swells of her breasts smoothed the fabric.
He felt the wolf surge inside him, and he longed to let it loose. He swallowed the tightness of his own throat.
He flushed, as if he’d peeked through a key hole, and raised his eyes to hers. His own pulse increased, his throat tightened, and he felt a heat in his lower stomach.
He cleared his throat and tried to clear his emotions.
“Of course you can come in.”
He watched her move as she crossed the room, did not offer her hand, but stood across his desk from him. Now, he could breathe her perfume, a musk, he thought and it mixed well with her personal scent. A wave of dizziness swept him.
Shadow of the Moon: A Fantasy of Love, Murder and Werewolves Page 23