by Ella Stone
“You can just do this?” I asked Victor “You can change back? And choose when to do it, as well?”
“He can,” Victor said. “Although the downside is that he can no longer hear what we are thinking. He loses the connection to the pack when he is back in human form.”
Searching my thoughts, I tried to connect with David, but Victor was right; the link to the rest of us was now gone.
“And can every one of you do this?” I extended my question to include all the original wolves.
Martha answered. “We are working on it. At first it was fleeting. We became human, then we flicked back again, like the snap of a rope stretched too far, when our bodies could sustain it no longer. But we are working on it. We are learning all the time.”
“You are.” One of the other older wolves spoke. “I have no control. My body still changes back whenever it feels like it. As soon as I realise I’m human, I’m back again.”
“You have been a wolf less than a week. It takes time,” Victor encouraged, while the other new wolves babbled excitedly amongst themselves. My mind was still working on the implications of this new piece of information.
“If you have no choice when you change, how have none of us seen you? How have none of the vampires seen you?”
“Sheer luck. Or the grace of God,” Victor replied. “Probably both.”
Then I remembered the night Rhett had come to free me, before the wolves started growling, before Rhett had even arrived…
“I heard you. That night. I heard you.”
“I know. It was a risk, but I needed to know if our voices still worked.”
“And do they?”
“From what I can tell, we’re perfectly human when we change back. Although it aches like hell.”
There was so much to take in. And processing all the information was made that much harder, knowing that they could all hear my every thought. And I had theirs in my head to compete with, too.
“So, what does this mean?” I asked. ‘This changes things, surely?”
Another thought struck me.
“The Duchess wants an army, doesn’t she? That’s why she’s done this to us, and she needs us ready for the next full moon.”
“Ready for what?”
“To fight someone, I would assume.”
This was greeted with worried whimpers.
“The next full moon…” Even Victor’s voice was uneasy.
“That’s what Rhett said.” My fur rippled, as my muscles tensed.
“Then that’s how long we have to prepare.”
9
EVE
Night after night, he came and stood with his back resting against the dungeon door. His visits were now far more frequent than they had been when I was human. I suppose he thought the risk was gone, now that the worst had happened. My heart ached.
“He could help us,” I thought, knowing that half the wolves would be listening in. “He knows the layout. Knows the doors and the locks and how to get out of here. It would be faster if we had him on our side.”
“You cannot focus your energy on him,” Victor spoke. “You need to practise your transformation. You have already made such progress, but we only have two weeks until the next full moon, and we are not ready yet.”
He was right, but there was nothing I could do, nothing any of them could do while Rhett was there, watching. So, I sat gazing up at him, wishing I could tell him I was still me inside. Wishing I could say all the things I’d never said to anyone before, when I still had a voice.
For three days, I’d achieved nothing, not even a hint of my previous form.
“Concentrate your thoughts on what it was like to be human.” David was, of course, our instructor. “Remember what it was like to feel cool air on your skin, the calluses on your hands, the softness of your lips.”
I gave it my all. I really did. Yet there was nothing.
“We’ll have no chance. We need longer.” While Frances was at least a couple of years older than me, her whine was more similar in tone to my youngest siblings. “None of us new ones have even transformed once yet. Maybe they changed the serum.”
“No,” I said. “The physician wouldn’t have risked changing anything. Not when he found one that worked perfectly well. We will change. We just need to be patient.”
Apart from desperately trying to transform, I spent the first week learning as much as I could about what I had become; about what it meant to be part of a pack. From the day I had changed, I could feel the pack’s emotions as a whole, so my next step was to work on feeling them as individuals, pinpointing my senses, seeking out those among them who were tired, or restless or fearful. Then I worked on communicating with them, one by one. Some of them I could block out quite quickly. Not all of them and not all of the time but, every day, I was growing stronger. Honing my skills.
“Don’t worry. We are all in this together,” I said to those whose minds were constantly full of fear. “We will be by your side, the whole time.”
To those who couldn’t wait to fight, I also offered assurances. “Your time will come. You just need patience.” And I would feel the change in them, as my voice calmed them.
“You’re a natural at this,” Victor said one day. You and I could have a conversation in almost entire privacy.
“About being a wolf?” I asked.
“Aspects of it.”
Mostly, we slept during the night and were awake in the day. It was not wolves’ preferred lifestyle, but our naturally nocturnal habits matched too closely with those of our captors, and there was enough human in us to still be comfortable with a diurnal existence.
As it happened, it was morning the first time I changed. Victor and I had brought the current plan to the rest of the pack.
“You think they’ll be that easily fooled?” one asked.
“They are immortal and strong but they are not geniuses,” another replied.
“But if we—”
I never heard the rest of the next complaint. A white heat seared through me, causing the air to rush from my lungs. My skin burned, as the fur on my back retracted, the pain comparable only to the cracking reconfiguration of my bones. A heart beat later and there I was, crouched on all fours, naked. And human.
The silence in my head was the first thing I noticed. The sudden emptiness. The relief of being alone with my thoughts at last. Gingerly, I got onto my feet, turning my wrists and stretching out my hips. If anything, I felt better than before. Stronger. Most likely due to the fact that we got fed substantially better as wolves than we had been as humans. A few seconds, that was what the others said they had managed at first. I wanted longer.
“Concentrate on feeling human.” I whispered David’s words of advice to myself. Closing my eyes, I recalled all I could: the taste of berries plucked ripe from a bush; the chill, dipping my toes in a cold stream; the feeling of Rhett’s fingers intertwined with mine in the moment before I changed. That last was the feeling I held in my mind, as I stood there, stark naked. The others were watching me. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel it. Seconds passed, marked by the thrumming of my heart beat. My mind raced on: the sting of numb ears on a winter’s day; the scent of lavender. I searched for more strong memories to focus on. Only when the cold grew too much for me and I wished for the warmth of a covering, did I change back into a wolf.
The first thing I heard when the pain subsided was Victor’s voice in my head.
“I told you. You were made for this,” he said.
After that, it was simply a case of practice. Within two days, I had mastered the change back from human to wolf form, but still did not have any say in when the original transformation happened.
“If I can’t manage that, then I am not in full control,” I complained, frustrated after a full day of trying. I collapsed onto the floor and rested my head on my paws. “If we are to defeat them, we must have total control.”
“You are asking too much of yourself,” Victor said. “You
are fighting for perfection in an imperfect world. We will have done as much as we can, and that is all we can ask for.”
“If we are not perfect, then we will lose people.”
I had grown so used to the privacy that Victor and I often shared, that I had forgotten that other wolves were listening in, until I felt their fear multiply.
“Right now, we are all destined for a fate worse than we could ever have imagined,” Victor said, raising his tone, as he spoke to every member of the pack. “If my sacrifice means that one of us is saved, then I will be at peace with that, as I’m sure we all would.”
Mummers of agreement came through, some more genuine than others. I fought the urge to reply. Whatever happened, when the day finally arrived, I wouldn’t let them down.
The plan was straight forward. Just before dawn on the chosen day, we would all change back to human form and lie, as if dead, on the floors of our cages.
“We will make a commotion first, so that they come down to investigate,” Victor instructed. “Daylight hours or not, they will open our doors for certain. They will think they have failed, or that the serum has a flaw. The moment our cages are unlocked, we transform again and destroy them. Timing is everything. We must all be in a human form again to get out of here. Some of us will need hands to unlock and open the doors but we will also still need to be able to communicate with each other. If half are wolves and half are men, it just won’t work. You must change back immediately, on my order.”
“And what about those of us who are still struggling to transform at will.” It was Frances who spoke. She was barely able to fully achieve human form and certainly had no say in when she did so.
“You will have to be able to, otherwise we can’t take you,” I replied.
My voice was clear and sonorous, with more authority than I thought I possessed. No one had directly used the word Beta, but some things didn’t need to be said. Still, a howl of dissent rose from the pack, some angered by my abruptness. However, more than half agreed with me. Frances spent her free hours sleeping or else complaining, rather than practising, like the rest of us were. If she were left behind for the good of the pack then that would be her own fault.
“There is still one week left to practise. Others have learned in this time.”
“When?” asked Martha. “When do we do it? When do we escape?”
This had been my decision. One that I had come to after much thought.
“We must choose the day before a feast day. That way they will be hungry and, hopefully, less strong.”
“They are feasting right now,” someone observed.
We muttered our agreement. Our wolf senses could easily pick up the smell of fresh human blood on a vampire’s fangs, as he threw chunks of meat into our cages. Not to mention hear the screams coming from the other side of the castle.
“And they feast once a week.”
“I know,” I said. “That means we will strike six days from today. So, we need to get practising.”
That night, Rhett came. Without a word, he sat down in front of my cage, crossed his legs and started speaking to me. He had been doing this more and more frequently, although his words came through as nothing more than muffled moans.
“Let me tell him.” I spoke to Victor alone. “He will be able to help us. All those locks, all those keys, you really think we will be able to manage it, on our own?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“We do. We can trust him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
A silence fell between us.
“Smell him,” Victor said, at last.
I hesitated. In the pit of my stomach I knew what he was going to say, even without the connection between us.
“What?” I said, as innocently as I could.
“You know what I am talking about. Tonight is a feast night. Don’t tell me you can’t smell it on him. Fresh. Warm. You have the same senses I have. You could smell it the moment he walked through the door. Before, even. Whatever you may think you know about him, whatever feelings the pair of you think you have for each other, he is a vampire and he drinks blood. Any relationship you’ve formed, has been with metal bars between you. Take away that barrier, and how long would he manage to resist?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“I don’t mean to be cruel,” he continued. “But, despite what they have done to us, human blood still runs through our veins and I won’t put my pack at risk.”
I turned my head away and took one last, mournful look at Rhett. No matter what I believed, as long a Victor was the Alpha, I would have no choice but to obey. As long as Victor was the Alpha.
10
EVE
As the day of reckoning grew closer, the rest of the wolves became more and more agitated. Even the vampires sensed something wasn’t right. They spent as little time in the dungeon as possible, barely even opening the cages to throw in the meat for our meals. I was, perhaps, the only one who was enjoying this little spectacle.
“It’s good. They’re scared of us,” I pointed out. “That will give us an advantage when we attack. We are ready for this. We are prepared.”
The chatter among the pack was endless. Most were anxious to get it over and done with, regardless of what the outcome was.
“Anything is better than this,” Martha said. “No animal should be caged. This is not a life. I would rather die fighting for my freedom, than live in captivity.” Others growled in agreement. Some did not.
“I need more time.” Unsurprisingly, Frances was one of the few voices against the plan. “What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t turn?”
“Then you will have to remain a wolf,” Victor replied. “You can still fight for us. Guard us when we’re in human form. Be the first line against the vampires.”
From the emotions that flowed from her, she didn’t take too kindly to that option either.
“If you were that worried, you should have spent last night practising like the rest of us did, even though we have no problem,” I snapped.
“Eve.” Victor shut me down. He kept the disapproval in his voice to a minimum, although I could hear it. And later, blocking out the chatter of the others, he spoke to me privately. “You have a lot of power over the others, Eve, a lot of sway, but you need to harness the power of empathy.”
“I am empathetic to those who deserve it,” I replied, knowing full well his comment referred to my exchange with Frances.
“Do you really think she is not changing out of choice? I commanded her to practise. I, the Alpha, instructed her. She is struggling. You can lead people by a show of strength, but it can break them. A leader who is firm yet compassionate will always have the most loyal of followers.”
“I don’t want to lead them,” I responded.
“No, but one day you may have no choice.”
It felt as though a shadow was passing over me. I shuddered and attempted to shake it away.
“You are well prepared,” Victor continued. “You change as well as David now.”
“I have practised a lot, that is all.”
“No. You have a gift,” he said.
This time I did not deny it. I was now able to change at will, and felt strong enough to stay in human form for days, if not weeks, although I was limited by our feeding regime. That said, it surprised me how much comfort I found when I reverted to wolf—the ability to hear the wind, the distant gurgling of water in a stream. It was a gift. One I felt I was unlikely to relinquish fully, even when I was free.
The night before the attack, Victor gave his last instructions.
“You need your sleep tonight,” he said to the pack. “And eat all you can, drink all you can. Tomorrow is our last day in the cages, one way or another. Now rest. No changing to human. We will have plenty of time to talk with our tongues, when we are free.”
I fought against his orders. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to sleep. I did. I needed it.
But this was my last night within the same walls as Rhett. And he would come and sit with me tonight. Somehow, I knew he would. Maybe, I thought, if the others were asleep, maybe I could tell him goodbye.
“Don’t.” Victor’s voice was in my head before I had even finished forming the thought. I cursed myself. I thought I had managed to block him out. “There is no saying goodbye. It is too big a danger. And, at the risk of sounding like an old man, you are young. One day you will meet someone, a real person, who can hold you. Someone with whom you can grow old, have children if you so wish. But that will only happen if we can get out of here.”
“I know.” My voice lacked conviction. It was not so long ago that I had been a human, living a life of poverty and fear. I knew how little warmth was out there most of the time. “I will go to sleep soon. Don’t worry.”
“Please do,” he said. “I, for one, need my strength.”
As the others fell into a deep sleep, I remained awake, my eyes on the doorway. Another vampire had been on patrol and checked in on us, but that had been over an hour ago. Since then we had been alone. I started to think that perhaps I was mistaken. Maybe he wouldn’t come tonight after all. And I tried to convince myself it would be better this way.
Finally, resigning myself to the fact that Rhett wasn’t coming, I had just laid my head on my paws, when I was suddenly alert again. Something was different. There was an absence. It took just a fraction of a second to realise what it was. Someone had gone. Someone had become human. Frances.
Tension gripped me as I saw her, standing naked in the corner of her cage. Of course she would choose now to decide to practise, after Victor had commanded otherwise. Unease spread through me, and I was not the only one to feel it. Others were waking, having sensed something was wrong too, including Victor.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Frances,” I said. “She’s deliberately disobeyed you. And if she doesn’t change back soon, she’s going to get caught out.”