Wolf's Choice

by Laura Taylor

  Faeydir-Ul, or Origin Wolf, had been the first wolf shifter to ever exist, according to their mythology. Debate had raged for centuries about whether Faeydir-Ul was a real wolf, or a metaphorical figure, and Dee found herself rather curious about getting an answer to that question. “Yes… oh wow,” she interrupted herself, the images coming from Faeydir detailed and vivid. “Yes, Faeydir-Ul was a real person. Fenrae was not her natural daughter.” Dee closed her eyes, then pressed her fingers to her temples, fascinated by the story that was slowly being revealed to her. “After Faeydir-Ul was converted, she was used to convert a man. One of the men in her tribe. Apparently she wasn’t happy about it – the tribe had to force her to complete the ritual. But a male shifter was created, and then he created more female shifters. So when did you…?” she said, directing her words to her wolf half the time, and to the Council the other half. She hoped they could follow her ramblings – she’d found it far easier to communicate with the wolf by voicing her side of the conversation aloud. “Oh, okay. Fenrae was converted ten years after Faeydir-Ul’s conversion. So ‘twice removed’ means Faeydir-Ul converted the man, then the man converted Fenrae.”

  “So Faeydir-Ul was a real wolf?” Eleanor said. “Fascinating… And the next part: ‘The cause of the death of her mother’s unhappy tale.’ We take that to mean that Fenrae will be the one to eradicate the shifters from the earth-”

  “What?!” Dee suddenly exclaimed, shocked and alarmed at the sudden image in her mind of her wolf grinning happily, wagging her tail. “How the fuck is that a good thing?” she demanded, aware of the Councillors sitting around her in a sudden grim silence. An image in her mind, a woman, a shifter, then the wolf half separated out, moving to stand beside the woman. More tail wagging, along with a profound sense of satisfaction. “You want to kill people?” she demanded of the wolf, aghast by the idea.

  Faeydir responded swiftly with the image of a wolf puppy, which tripped over its own feet and fell over. You’re as stupid as a new born puppy. “Sorry,” Dee apologised aloud. It wasn’t the first time Faeydir had tried to tell her something, and Dee had misinterpreted her message, or failed to understand it at all. “But I don’t understand. Please, explain that again.” The Council were silent, patiently waiting for her to tease out the meaning of her conversation with the wolf, and privately, Dee was impressed by their self restraint. After her sudden outburst, she could well imagine that they had a thousand questions to ask.

  Faeydir repeated the image – a woman, clad in buckskin, feathers in her hair. The wolf, separated, standing beside her. And then the woman collapsed to the ground, dead. A wave of satisfaction at the achievement.

  Dee pondered the image for a long moment, knowing there were details she wasn’t understanding. The image came again. A woman... one woman, Faeydir emphasised. This particular one, not all the rest.

  “Who is she?” Dee asked, and Faeydir repeated the image she’d shown her before, of the first conversion Faeydir-Ul had performed. A young woman locked in a cage, angry and screaming abuse at those around her. Three strong men, dragging her out of the cage. A man, waiting nearby. Their wrists were cut, the wounds placed together, and then the man became a wolf. And then Faeydir very deliberately took the image of the woman – the original Faeydir-Ul – and superimposed her onto the image of the woman lying dead on the ground.

  “Faeydir-Ul?” Dee asked in surprise. “You killed her?”

  Faeydir shook her head. An image of a wolf, running free in the forest.

  “You separated her?” Dee asked instead, no less shocked at the admission. “But why?”

  Faeydir paused at that. It was a long story, a complex one, she seemed to say, and she wasn’t sure if Dee wanted all the details now.

  “Tell me,” Dee said, knowing the story was too important to wait for another time. The Council would be interested, she was sure, and wouldn’t mind waiting a while for the story to be told.

  Faeydir walked her through it slowly, making sure she picked up on every important detail along the way, and as she did, Dee narrated what she saw to the people sitting around her. “Faeydir was a woman. A teenager. She lived with a tribe in ancient Europe. It looks… maybe stone age? Maybe a bit later. A shaman came to their village. He looks African. He offered the tribe magic. They accepted, and chose the girl for the ritual. She didn’t want to do it… Oh God, that’s horrible…” Dee paused, taking a deep breath as she tried to control her emotions, the images stark and confronting. “Did you actually see all of this?” she asked her wolf. Her human had, Faeydir replied, before she was converted. Fenrae the wolf hadn’t been born yet, her being coming into existence when her first human partner had been converted. But that human had been a part of the tribe, had witnessed the original ritual.

  “They trapped a wolf in the wild,” Dee went on, as Faeydir picked up the story. “Brought her to the shaman. He used his magic to join their forms, creating the first shape shifter. He’d come from very far away, and was very powerful. The woman tried to resist, but the tribe overpowered her. But she couldn’t merge with the wolf. That part of the story is true, at least,” she added for the Council’s benefit. “Faeydir-Ul lived at war with her wolf. She was a rogue. She went mad, and they put her in a cage, kept her locked up so she couldn’t hurt anyone. She had a terrible life. Okay, fast forward ten years,” she said, as Faeydir skipped over to her own creation. “Fenrae was created from a human who volunteered for the ritual. The shifters were multiplying and spreading at that time. The woman who became Fenrae-Ul was a healer. She used herbs to treat illnesses in her tribe. And after she was converted, she felt sorry for Faeydir-Ul, hated the way she was locked up, and the way the ritual had been forced upon her in the first place. So she used her abilities to remove the human from the wolf. Faeydir-Ul returned to being just a wolf, and Fenrae let her go, let her run off into the forest. It’s not entirely clear what happened after that, but Fenrae saw her again, a few years later. She was doing well, healthy, happy. So it’s likely she found a pack to join, and went back to living her life as a wild wolf.” Dee opened her eyes, meeting the fascinated gazes all around her. “So Fenrae was ‘the cause of the death of her mother’s unhappy tale.’ She killed the human, so that the wolf could live, because Faeydir-Ul was rogue. The end to a most unhappy existence.”

  “Amazing.” The four Councillors were staring at her with rapt attention. “Our myths say that Faeydir-Ul was originally a wolf – that the wolf was the instigator of the ritual to create the first shifter. You’re saying it was a human? A shaman of some sort?”

  “Or a god,” Dee said, picking up on Faeydir’s deep awe and respect for the man. “Faeydir suggests he might have been Sirius. Whether he was actually a human, or the incarnation of some spirit isn’t clear, but he could well have convinced the people of that time that he was a deity. And as he created the first wolf shifters, perhaps they took his name, and turned him into a god, through generations of story telling.”

  The Council members looked stunned. “So we’ve had this completely wrong,” Elise spoke up, after a heavy silence. “Fenrae isn’t going to cause the death of her mother’s entire people, because she’s already killed Faeydir-Ul herself.”

  “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion quite so fast,” Eleanor interrupted. “The rest of the prophecy still indicates a change in our current form: ‘And under her reign, the shyfters shalle be restor’d to the natural order.’ What’s Faeydir’s take on that? Does she see shifters as somehow unnatural?”

  Dee turned her attention inwards again, waiting for an explanation from her wolf… and was surprised to receive absolutely nothing in reply. She repeated the question, and felt a faint thread of puzzlement. “She doesn’t know anything about it,” Dee said, thoroughly confused herself. After the wealth of information Faeydir had flung at her so far, it was startling to find such a huge gap in the wolf’s knowledge. “She has no idea how that’s supposed to happen.”

  “How strange,” Eleanor mused, w
atching Dee speculatively. The woman didn’t believe her, Dee realised all of a sudden. She thought Dee was hiding something, lying to protect her wolf, perhaps. And Dee’s easygoing attitude suddenly vanished. They had her here under false pretences, she realised, and Faeydir immediately agreed. All the platitudes about curiosity and helping her control her own abilities were a ruse designed to get her to cooperate, when they had actually brought her here to assess how great a threat she was to their species.

  “Why don’t you tell me why I’m really here,” Dee said suddenly, not willing to be a pawn in the Council’s game. “Because if there’s one thing I really can’t stand, it’s being lied to.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Two Weeks Later

  Silas pulled the sedan up beside the curb, glancing at the large hall where Skip would be spending the afternoon. “You sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked, for the fifth time, as she gathered her things and got ready to get out of the car.

  “I’m fine!” Skip insisted. “I’m going to a computer seminar, not a boxing match. Public place. College campus. No big deal.”

  “I should be staying with you.”

  “And how would it look for me to be sitting in there with my bodyguard? No one would talk to me. They’d all think I was totally weird. I mean, weird even for a computer nerd,” she amended, knowing she probably came across as fairly weird anyway. “I’ll be fine,” she said again, opening the car door. “It finishes at nine, and I’ll meet you right back here. So stop worrying.”

  Silas wasn’t convinced, but there was little he could do about it at this point. “Be careful,” he called, as she shut the door, and then she was gone, disappearing inside the hall where dozens of other students were going to spend the next few hours talking jargon and generally being nerds.

  He waited a moment or two, making sure she made it inside okay, and then glanced around the area, looking for any suspicious types, men who seemed a little too watchful, jackets that could be hiding weapons. He was almost disappointed when he found nothing that he could justifiably be concerned about.

  Checking his mirrors, he pulled out onto the road again and headed back to the estate. And began counting down the hours until it would be time to pick her up again.

  Deep in the Kielder Forest in northern England, in the Grey Watch’s eastern camp, Genna heard yelling from inside the tent, and quickly slunk out of the way, heading for the edge of the clearing, finding a dark patch of scrub to hide in. Sempre was in a mood again.

  Moments later, the flap of the tent was flung open and an anxious looking male was forcefully ejected through the gap. “Get out!” Sempre snarled, appearing in the doorway, only half dressed. “If you can’t perform, then I may as well geld you.”

  The male shifted immediately and scurried away, back to the other males waiting at the edge of the camp. Genna winced, feeling sorry for them. They were treated more as slaves than as shifters, able to be called upon at any time to service the sexual desires of any of the women, and this one had clearly failed to satisfy Sempre. It was hardly a surprise. With the woman constantly berating the men and criticising their skills in bed, it was no wonder they would develop a case of performance anxiety. Some of the other women were more considerate, but none of them really treated the men as people, as equals. They were pets, there to do the women’s bidding, and nothing more.

  Sempre disappeared back inside the tent, emerging a few moments later, her clothing straightened, her face wearing a harsh scowl. Genna looked away, not wanting to attract any attention to herself… but she was too late. Sempre stalked over, eager to give the pack’s newest member another earbashing.

  “Don’t you have anything useful to do?” she snarled, seeing Genna lurking beneath the bush. She reached in and grabbed her by the scruff, dragging her out into the open. “Lying around all day like a fucking lump of dirt. You should be off catching some prey. Or doing some chores around here. The water tank’s empty again. You could get a bucket and fetch some from the creek.”

  Yes, she could, Genna agreed. But if she did, then she would be scolded for spending too much time in human form. She could prepare some food, bake a new loaf of bread perhaps, but then be told off for being gluttonous. Or she could slink off into the forest and mind her own business, and then be accused of not caring enough about her pack. It was a constant lose-lose situation with this lot, so she tried to ignore Sempre now, while at the same time trying not to look belligerent about it.

  “Human form,” Sempre ordered suddenly. “I want to talk to you.”

  Wanted to yell at her was more likely, Genna thought blackly as she shifted. And she hardly needed to be in human form when Sempre wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise. But the opportunity to be out of wolf form was welcome, even if it was only for a few minutes, so she complied, waiting meekly for Sempre to say whatever it was that was on her mind.

  “You’ve been here for more than six months now,” Sempre began, eyeing Genna suspiciously. “And that’s the time when most wolves develop their extra abilities, if they’re going to. You’ve been keeping an eye out for that, haven’t you.” It was more an accusation than a question, and Genna kept her eyes down, not willing to interrupt her angry alpha. “No odd events you’d like to tell me about? No strange urges to seek out water? To go out in a lightning storm? Restless twitching of the skin?”

  “No, ma’am,” Genna said, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. It wasn’t out of respect, or even the desire to pretend that she bowed to this woman’s rule. Rather, her display of submission was born of a sudden and stark terror, and she tried to stay calm, praying that Sempre wouldn’t see through her deception. The truth was, she had indeed developed an unusual ability. Roughly one in five shifters did, sometime within their first two years after conversion. Some could call down lightning. Some could detect prey, far off in the forest. And others could perform sacred rituals, tapping into the raw, elemental power of the shifter magic.

  Genna had discovered her own talent quite by accident, and knew two things as a result: firstly, her ability was one of the rarest of all shifter talents. For most shifters, objects like clothing or weapons that were strapped closely to the body vanished when the shifter changed forms. But Genna had the ability to make objects disappear without completing the shift, a rare and treasured skill that was also extremely dangerous. It could be used to steal things, to break into buildings, to render guns or other weapons useless by ‘deleting’ vital components of the equipment.

  But the second thing she knew was that if Sempre ever discovered her abilities, her life was effectively over. She would be enslaved to Sempre’s whims, used as a tool to complete her macabre schemes, her talents pushed beyond their limits, slowly draining her life and leaving her as a hollow shell.

  “Nothing, hmm?” Sempre asked, disdain thick in her tone. “No little sparks of promise? Nothing you could use to help your pack?”

  Genna shook her head. “No, ma’am.”

  “Fucking useless girl,” Sempre snarled, stalking off across the clearing, and Genna breathed a sigh of relief as she left. Now it was just a choice as to what to do next, and while being berated for being in her human form for too long was unappealing, she had also reached the point where staying in her wolf form for much longer was going to start becoming decidedly uncomfortable. She headed for the stream, snatching up a bucket along the way, deciding to go with Sempre’s suggestion to cart water to the tank in the centre of the camp.

  Miller gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate as he drove the SUV along a winding road. He had two men in the car with him, who had been assigned to him in the short term until he could put a new team together to continue searching for the shape shifter pack in the Lakes District.

  It was his first day back at work after his two week break, and he’d woken this morning with a feeling of dread. Despite long hours of thinking, of weighing up contingencies and teasing out details, his entire break had only served to confirm what he alr
eady knew: there was no way out of the Noturatii that wouldn’t end up costing him his life.

  And so he’d shown up this morning and done the first thing he could think of that would look like purposeful work, yet would pose the least possible threat to the shape shifters: he’d volunteered to continue the quest to find the hidden pack.

  Actually finding them, of course, would spell disaster for the group, but at this stage, he was simply buying time, counting on the fact that they still had large areas of the Lakes District to cover, and the chances of actually finding the right property in the next few weeks were slim at best.

  At first, he’d been planning to go on the scouting trip alone, as he’d been doing before the disaster in Scotland. But Jacob had pulled him up, told him that the shifters would be out for his blood, that he would be in mortal danger if they happened to catch sight of him, and so he’d been assigned the two other men. There was safety in numbers, Jacob had told him, before slapping him on the back and declaring that it was good to have him back on the team.

  And so they’d spent the day driving from property to property, asking questions, on the lookout for any suspicious activity, and now, as the day was drawing to a close, Miller was entirely relieved to note that in terms of real progress, they’d achieved absolutely nothing.

  But tomorrow was another day, and they were going to be spending the night in a hotel, the Lakes District too far from London to keep driving back and forth all the time. Sooner or later, Miller knew, they were going to run out of ground to cover, and whether through diligence or blind luck, they were going to find the shifters’ home.

  God help them all, when that day came.

  It was six-thirty when Skip stepped out of the hall and stretched. The seminar was going fantastically, new ideas being shared, lots of technical talk, with plenty of the students proving they were just as smart as the lecturer, asking questions, tossing out new ways of doing things. Skip was loving every minute of it, and couldn’t wait to get back in there for the next session.