by Krista Wolf
I enjoyed it as the two of them shuffled nervously for a bit. Rest was the very last thing I wanted. What I wanted was her. I knew she’d be wanting the same thing too, whether she realized it or not. It would happen soon if it wasn’t already. And it would be hard for her as well.
“Where exactly—”
I cut off her question the second as she began asking it.
“You in there,” I told Serena, pointing to Damien’s bedroom. “And the two of us in mine.”
14
SERENA
Sleeping during the day sucked.
I wasn’t sure if it was a ‘wolf’ thing, or a nocturnal thing, or whatever their reasoning for waiting. I actually was tired. Exhausted, to be honest. And even without Damien there this time, I was actually looking forward to his bed. He even had blackout curtains.
But damn… something was wrong.
Resting there alone, I could feel a distinct pull. A impulse to be near them again, especially Broderick. That part made no sense, because I didn’t even know him. Then again…
You didn’t know Damien last night either. And look at how that panned out.
I sighed, tossing and turning in some restless half-sleep. I’d never been addicted to anything in my life — except for caffeine — but I could imagine what I was going through would be similar to withdrawing from alcohol, or even a drug. I felt hot and itchy and sweaty. Shivering yet not cold. And I felt this yearning, too. A strange compulsion to get up, cross the kitchen, and go curl up with the two of them… over in Broderick’s bed.
It was so strong at one point I actually did get up. Or at least I dreamed that I did. In my dream I threw off the covers and wandered trance-like through the kitchen, all the way to Broderick’s room where I opened the door.
They were sleeping together in there, the two of them, their bodies rising and falling gently with the rhythm of their breathing. For several moments I watched them, just feeling the pull. Enjoying that pleasant heat in my belly — and below, in my loins — that compelled me to grow even nearer to them.
In the dream I crawled into bed with them. Crawled between them. Beneath the cool sheets their bodies were shirtless — all smooth and beautiful and warm with sleep. I needed them, physically and beyond. Broderick most of all.
You belong there…
As my body slid up alongside theirs they rolled over to spoon me, the both of them. Pressing against me from in front and behind. The feeling was rapturous, like a dream within a dream. I’d never felt so safe and protected. So warm. So loved and held and—
I woke up with a start and realized I had crossed the kitchen. One minute I was trying to sleep, and the next I was actually standing there with my hand on their doorknob.
What the—
My hand even turned it, mechanically, but found it locked. And if it hadn’t been locked…
If it hadn’t been locked…
Thwarted, I went back to lay in Damien’s bed, which still smelled like our combined sex. In fact, for some strange reason the smell was stronger than ever now. We were on the blankets, the pillows, the headboard. Yes, I could actually smell us on the headboard!
The whole thing was just really fucking weird.
In lieu of sleep I kept going over and over what they’d said. Together, the two of them had told some pretty outlandish stories. I’d laughed at first, yet everything they told me about being ‘claimed’ was almost exactly how I was feeling. The heat. The tingling. The—
Bond.
Yes, that was it. I could feel in my veins! It was beneath my skin now, running hotly through my bloodstream. And the more I fought it — the more I tried to ignore it? The more concentrated and intense it became.
I don’t remember when I finally drifted off, but I woke up with Broderick standing over me. His hair was still wet from the shower. He wore a plain white T-shirt that rode high up on his biceps, showing off his massive upper arms.
“Serena wake up,” he said loudly, in his hard Scandinavian accent. Hearing him say my name made my stomach flutter. For some reason he was still refusing to look directly at me.
I looked up at him though. I couldn’t not look at his beautiful, angular face — at his piercing blue eyes. He was gorgeous, inside and out. Cut, chiseled, strong. Confident and—
“It’s time.”
15
SERENA
It was quite a sight to see, really. A stronghold, or rather the ruins of one, in the brambled countryside just outside of Paris. Sure it was little more than crumbling mortar and moss-covered stone, but it was still beautiful in its own way. There was a a story here. A history, whispered every time the wind picked up and whistled its way through the castle’s shattered, broken teeth.
As much as I hated Europe, as an American I had to be jealous. Places like this simply didn’t exist in our world.
“What’s it called again?”
“Château de Bardenois,” Damien whispered. “And keep your voice down. Sound travels.”
The ride out of the city had been smooth and uneventful. We’d left before dusk and stopped to pick up some food on the way through — something doughy and delicious that I scarfed down before I even knew what it was. Damien lamented about not having had a good taco in way too long, and Broderick ultimately told him to shut up. But not until he’d mentioned it for the third time.
By the time we parked the truck — oddly with the keys still in it — I was ready for whatever happened next. And what happened next pretty much sucked… a two mile hike through a vine-choked forest, as the chill of darkness settled over our group.
A two mile hike that ended with Broderick suddenly instructing us to crouch down and stay utterly still.
“When do we move?” I asked again. My body was getting cold. We’d been hugging the side of a hill for the better part of an hour, and I was getting worried my ass was going to freeze to it.
“Not until it’s safe,” said Broderick.
“And when is—”
“We’ll tell you,” both men said at once, in perfect stereo.
I sighed and pulled the thick jacket Broderick had given me tighter around my shoulders. It smelled like him. I loved that part, even if I didn’t know quite what we were doing just yet.
Eventually I saw Damien’s brow crease, and he ducked down a little lower. Of the two of them, apparently, he had the better eyes.
“There. They’ve left the cathedral.”
“How many?”
“Three that I saw. Could be more.” There was a pause, and then Damien added “Not her, though.”
By her, I knew they meant Karessa. The woman who’d been an ex-lover to both of them… at the same time. The one they’d been bonded to. The one they were so strangely reluctant to mention.
Whatever history existed between the three of them, I could tell it ran deep. There was more than just the normal residual feelings left here — there was bad blood, too. The kind that hurt so badly it never fully went away, at least not at first. Not until you’d gotten on with—
“Come,” Damien said, motioning me over. “Look here.” He pulled me close and pointed slowly. Leaning in, I followed his finger. “See it? Beyond the inner bailey?”
I squinted into the darkness. Honestly, I couldn’t see shit.
“What the hell’s an inner bailey?”
“The second wall.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Those aren’t walls, my friend. They’re holes with a few stones around them.”
“Fine,” he sighed, adding a little laugh of his own. “The second broken wall.”
I looked again, and this time my eyes adjusted. Through the trees, past the broken ruins of the castle’s protective walls, I could see the smooth facade of what looked like an ancient church or citadel.
“That’s the cathedral you’re talking about?”
“Yes.”
The place looked in decent shape. Much better than the rest of the castle.
“And you lived in there?�
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“In and beneath it,” Damien replied. “Not always, though. Only during the times we’d gather as a pack. The times when we’d—”
He stopped abruptly, and I realized Broderick was staring daggers at him. They’d trusted me with a lot so far, but apparently they weren’t going to share all their secrets.
That’s okay. I wasn’t exactly sharing all of mine, either.
“Anyway, what we’re looking for is in there. Or at least it should be.”
“And what are we looking for?” I asked, not bothering to hide the impatient tone in my voice. “We’ve come all this way and you still haven’t told me yet.”
Damien didn’t bother to get approval from Broderick this time. He just said it outright.
“We’re here for our totems.”
“Totems?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly. Then, after a sigh: “It’s difficult to explain.”
I blew warmth into my hands. Damn I wish I’d brought gloves. “Try me.”
“Well, we weren’t always Lycanthropes. We weren’t born this way, we were made.”
“So… you were bitten?”
“Yes,” said Damien. He looked to Broderick. “and no.”
After Xiomara’s call, I decided to humor them. It wasn’t that I believed them — the bigger part of me actually didn’t — it was more that I’d been deceived before. When it came to the Order, it wasn’t uncommon to be sent into the field thinking one thing, and then finding out something entirely different. It could easily be I was being told to go along with something because my contacts believed it.
Truth was, they could cry wolf all they wanted. The only thing that mattered to me was completing my mission, and getting the hell out of here.
“Getting bitten isn’t at all like it is in the movies,” Damien explained. “It’s more a spiritual change than a physical one, at least initially.”
“So you don’t foam at the mouth?” I quipped. “Grow a snout? Break out of your skin, and—”
“Do you want to laugh, or do you want to listen?”
Broderick’s look was stern and parental. Under normal circumstances I might’ve flipped him off, but we were deep in the woods, about to pull a panty-raid on some ancient castle. Besides, I guess I was kind of was being an asshole.
“Alright,” I said. “Go on.”
“The initial change is different from the rest,” said Damien. “Something slips from you. Not your soul exactly, but a small part of you that makes you fully human. That energy ends up residing in a nearby physical object, usually something of importance to you.”
Broderick nodded. “This object becomes your totem,” he said. “It anchors you to the life you once lived. To the form you once were.”
“So it’s an object?” I asked. “Like… a personal item?”
“Exactly,” said Damien. “For me, it was a carved jade pendant — some stupid trinket I’d bought on the boardwalk when I was a kid. I wore it around my neck for years, while surfing. I never took it off.”
I looked at Broderick. He wasn’t speaking.
“His was more… personal,” Damien said for him.
The wind shifted again, judging by the direction of the swaying trees. Broderick noticed it immediately. He’d been watching the wind ever since we left the truck.
“And why don’t you have these things?” I asked. “Why didn’t you take them when you left?”
“Because Karessa kept them,” said Damien bitterly.
Suddenly I understood. “To lure you back,” I reasoned. “To keep you from leaving the pack for good.”
“Yes.”
As I sat there a strange wave of sensation washed over me, all thick and heavy. The best way to describe it would be a deep empathy. A perception of sadness and loss, of heartbreak and pain. And yet there was an anger there too. A seething, deep-seeded loathing buried beneath layer upon layer of conflicted memories.
Damien’s expression changed to one of concern. “Are you alright?”
I couldn’t speak. Not yet. I was too busy soaking it all in. These feelings radiated from the two of them physically, as surely as light or heat. The sorrow came from them both. But the fury… that was entirely on Broderick’s end.
I felt it all — every mournful bit of their suffering. And whatever they were experiencing, I could see it in their eyes now… they knew I was too.
Broderick took my hand. He did it tenderly, and with an empathy of his own.
“Now you know.”
He was right — I did know. I just didn’t know how.
“What have you done to me?” I asked him, rubbing my head.
He shrugged his big Scandinavian shoulders. “We already told you.”
Damien was peering over the hill again. His body language was confident and relaxed.
“Alright, I think we’ve waited long enough.”
They stood up. Keeping their heads low, they motioned for me to follow.
“What happens,” I asked with a whisper, “if you don’t get these totems back?”
They glanced at each other again, then back at me. “It breaks the last link with our past lives,” said Broderick.
“Which means?”
I’d asked the question already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
“We eventually lose the ability to remain human.”
16
DAMIEN
The wind hadn’t been right all night. It was better when we rolled out, though. Maybe the best we’d get.
“Keep moving,” Broderick said needlessly. “And stay close.”
The words were more for her than for us. Serena was keeping up just fine, but we’d walked these paths a hundred times. We knew every walkway, every loose stone. Every ancient footpath of this once magnificent place, even the ones lost to time.
She was catching on fast for an outsider, even if she didn’t believe us. Already I could sense the nearness of my totem. The proximity of it was a steady thrumming in my chest. I needed it. Almost like I needed her, but in a much different way.
I was slowly coming to realize Broderick was right. Mating Serena had been a mistake. A beautiful, amazing mistake… but a mistake nonetheless.
What’s going to happen when we’re finished here?
Already I could feel the sense of loss. The ache of separation that was destined to occur once she flew back across the ocean and left us to ourselves again. I’d screwed Broderick over, totally. He hadn’t even consummated the bond yet. He’d feel it even worse than me.
And you made it bad for her, too…
Impulsiveness had always been my thing. Young, dumb, and full of come; that personality trait hadn’t really mattered all that much to me.
Until the one time it did.
I’ll never forget the day it happened. I’d been surfing the point breaks of Zuma, the southern swell for Hurricane Maria putting up fifteen to twenty-fives by the end of the day. I was both scared and exhilarated. I’d never seen twenty-five foot waves in my life.
And at sunset? It was absolutely spectacular.
Coming out of the water I felt like a god. A surf-washed, sun-bronzed conqueror. I collapsed into my little place in the sand, exhausted and sated, and fell happily asleep before last of the orange glow went out of the sky.
I slept on the beach all the time back then. Other than the occasional police officer waking me up to move me along, I’d never really been bothered. I was a long-haired surfer who slept on his board. I nothing to steal, nothing to take.
I hadn’t been sleeping long when I was shaken awake by him. The one who took me. The one who made me into what I am now. He was long and lanky; a bleach-blonde mop top hanging down over a set of dark, soulless eyes.
I’ll always remember those eyes. Sunken beneath two heavy brows. Even now, even in my dreams, I can still see them.
I recognized him immediately as the guy I’d snaked a wave from. The hook-nosed goofy-foot I’d dropped in on twice actually, and left in the soup
on one of the best waves of the day.
In all honesty, I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d never seen him before, so he wasn’t a local. He had no style either, and I sure as hell wasn’t out there to make friends.
He seized me, and I remember knowing in that very instant I couldn’t possibly fight him. His strength was terrifying. His expression… even more so.
He’d left me there when he was finished, bleeding into the sand. Crumpled and helpless. Barely clinging to what was left of my life. I would’ve died if it hadn’t been for a group of random kids who stumbled over me, on their way through the dunes.
Being made like that was cold. Cruel. I had no idea who I was, or who I would become. Or why I’d be going through such a thing at all.
The first time the change happened I didn’t even remember it. The shift occurred at such a primal level, it wiped out any human memory. I woke up naked in Malibu’s Equestrian Park, with some woman’s horse sniffing over me. I was huddled and cold. Disheveled and covered in filth. My limbs ached like I’d just run three marathons, and my head still spun from the reverse metamorphosis.
In time, I’d learn what happened to me. I’d learn how to prepare for it, how to recover — even how to control it, thanks to Xiomara Magoro.
But for several long months? My life was a whirlwind of confusion and constant dread. A twisted, living nightmare, from which I could never fully wake up.
I shook myself back to reality as we crossed through the broken expanse of the stronghold’s inner courtyard. Nature had claimed back most of the interior, but not so much with the cobbled floor.
“How old is this place?” Serena was asking.
“Twelfth century,” Broderick replied casually. “Although the cathedral went up about two hundred years later.”
The cathedral…
It had been the center of our lives for a while. The one place we all belonged. Meeting up with Broderick, Karessa, and the rest of my breed wasn’t like just hooking up with a group of like-minded people. It was more like finally coming home.