by DD Prince
They aren’t a threat.
They’re not feeling threatened.
There’s something else coming from them and I don’t understand what it is.
I hear car sounds; a car moves fast toward this intersection from the left and when I see it, I spot two men and a woman inside. They exit. Riley Savage. He gives me a nod and his eyes have a gentleness in them that I haven’t yet seen from a man and I can’t wrap understanding around it.
He holds up a fist and thumps it against his chest before he drops his chin to rest on his chest.
Another man who I know is alpha by his stance, by his scent, he stands there with eyes on me, too. He thumps his chest and drops his head, a similar facial expression.
The woman between them? She smells like… her. The one I smelled before. The one I feel an odd familiarity about. She was at that fence. I also caught her scent last time I was here.
Is she my mother?
My wolf’s eyes meet her woman ones. She has eyes like mine. Dark hair that falls to mid-back with curls. Hair like mine, but a touch of silver threads through it. She’s trim, athletic, and has little lines around her eyes but doesn’t look old. Her scent… her scent wraps around me like something warm. Something familiar. Another woman runs in my direction and I straighten to give her a warning, but I don’t need to, because she stops at the side of the woman I am now sure is my mother and puts her arm around her. This woman smells like her, but different. Family to her. This means… family to me. The second woman weeps openly, looking at me with affection before she says something to my mother and my ears would hear it if I were focused on it but I’m not. I’m taking everything in and trying to comprehend what I’m seeing. My mother takes a step forward. I make no moves. She shifts into a black and grey wolf with mostly grey over her face and moves in my direction. I lift my chin and watch her slow approach. She’s as small as a non-shifting wolf, and her wolf is stunningly beautiful. So beautiful it hurts.
A foot away, her eyes stare into mine and the pain in them grabs me by the chest and seizes that thing that beats in me. It stops beating for a moment and then returns with a tempo that spills anguish. I see in those green eyes the loss she’s experienced, the pain. I feel that sorrow. My anguish transforms to anger.
Cornelius smelled like he’d been inside her. I smelled her fear. I smelled what he took from her and brought back. He stole into this village and he took her against her will.
And before that, he took me.
Why? Why did he take me and raise me and lie to me? Why?
I miss when she moves closer until her nose strokes my muzzle and I tremble with anger when I see the sorrow and loss in her eyes from this close. I want to shred things. I want to shred him. But he’s already dead. He’s already decayed, turned to dust and earth other than some bones that are bleached white from the sun.
No, not all that’s left. He left something else. Me, like this. Filled with this emotion.
There are people surrounding me, people who look at me with what feels like respect. Most of them have moved closer. I’ve never had respect before and if what Riley Savage told me is correct, respect is what I’m due, what I would have had growing up here, being one of them, contributing to their society.
I can’t do this. I can’t bear it. If I didn’t feel so much loss, the anger would take over and send the lightning bolt through my spine.
I take a step back away from her, from them, and my eyes trace an arc across my perimeter to see all of them.
Almost all of them are now in wolf form; more have joined, around two dozen of them. Four more cars are coming to this intersection and I see others moving in on foot, too. Shifting, one after another. Men, women, older children. Several women with babies in their arms stay in person form. Every single one is in a pose of submission and respect and they watch as I stretch my neck and feel the emotions cleave through the center of me, through the man and the wolf, both.
I release a cry of undiluted grief, a lament to the sky of absolute emotion.
I turn and I run the other way, back the way I came, without looking back.
23
Ivy
It’s been quiet for a long time, and I’m hungry.
I get out of bed and find myself alone in the house, so I boil some water for tea and eat a banana. I wash down my birth control pill with tea and then I pace. I pace the cabin as I climb the walls in my mind, thinking about all the things I have going on in my life that I don’t like. And then I decide to tally up all the things I do like.
I’m excited about my new job.
Um…
That’s it. That’s all. Is it really all?
Yep.
I’m not excited about my sister’s upcoming wedding. In fact, these final weeks leading up to it will be fraught with stress because Amelia Brennan is a bridezilla of the tallest order. She doesn’t want Dad walking her down the aisle and got mad at me for trying to make her make up with him. I worried she’d regret it later if they eventually made up, but she didn’t have him at her wedding.
I fought with Amelia about breaking up with Ben and how that affected her wedding. Mom fought with me about how me and Amelia were fighting. Dad whined and complained to me about Mom and Amelia.
See, Dad cheated with his assistant and broke up with Mom and then his younger girlfriend dumped him, and he tried to sweet-talk his way back in with Mom. Thankfully, she told him to take a flying leap.
This weekend was supposed to be an escape from all of it. And boy, has it been because now I’m faced with a whole new set of things to stress about.
I’ve stewed in my anger at Tyson’s comments for long enough without it getting me anywhere, so I decide to put my pacing to good use by cleaning this grimy house. I clean up the bedroom, first, dusting the surfaces with a damp cloth and then I clean the bathroom, washing everything with dish soap as that’s the only cleaning product I can find. It does a pretty good job considering how long it’d likely been since this place saw any elbow grease.
I find a broom in the space between the fridge and counter and it looks like it’s been in there for a decade or longer. It’s coated in dirt. I have to wipe down the broom handle before I can even get started. There’s no dustpan, so I sweep the bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathroom (deciding the other room will wait as the door is closed) and push the mammoth pile of dust, dirt, dead bugs, and hair to the front door. I open the door and ceremoniously sweep it outside.
I can’t find a mop, so that’s the best I can do unless I want to get on my hands and knees and wash the floor that way, and nope, I do not.
Seeing no movement outside I keep sweeping the wide porch and several things strike me all at once.
The garage is closed, and I don’t think he’s in there. Where is he?
The other thing, the really weird thing… a strange haze hangs in the air. A dark mist, like chem trails but not in the sky, in front of me. The air has a fragrance, a musky and wood-infused aroma. I step off the porch and survey the perimeter. It’s not just in front of me, it goes all the way around the house, surrounding me like a smoky crop circle, but suspended at around my chest-level. It wraps from behind the garage over to the weeping willow, and coming around to wrap around the back of the house. A perfect circle.
I take a step off the porch and stumble in confusion as I head toward the big willow tree, eyes darting back and forth across the space. I reach the tree and the muskiness is stronger. This smells like Tyson. I feel my brows knit together in confusion. Where is he?
If he’s not here, I should go. Why, though, is his scent surrounding me? I should go to town and get a tow truck to pull my car out. Get driven home, or to the nearest bus station. I’ll call Tamara, my roommate. No. She leaves today for Jamaica with her guy. She’s probably already gone.
Or… stay here forever and forget everything else.
I shake that thought off. Hard. It’s neither practical nor responsible to think that way.
I
begin picking some pretty flowers that have bloomed around the dead-looking grass behind the house while pondering things.
I’ll find my way to town and call Mom. She’s kind of pissed at me since I ended things with Benjamin, because I can’t “play nice” like Amelia wants me to.
‘You couldn’t have hung on until after Amelia’s wedding?’
Sorry, Mom. Just because you stayed with dad twenty years longer than you’ve been happy…
I didn’t say that, of course. Amelia went off on me and I had been planning to play nice, but the way she went off, I fought back, saying that maybe her groom should pick a new usher since Ben was only in the wedding because of me. Amelia argued that Ben and Rick had bonded, and I’d just have to suck it up and play nice for the day. It’s not even like things with Ben and I are hostile. It’s more that Amelia simply lost her shit when she found up we broke up worrying more about how it’d impact her wedding day than me.
Mom is pissed that me and my sister are on the outs, but she’d drop everything to come to me if I call, even though it’s over three hours away.
I’ll get questioned and lectured all the way home because where is my car? Why didn’t I come back with Megan? Why did I spend my money on something with that much risk? Why did I go with Megan in the first place if I wasn’t one hundred per cent certain about her character? Did I trust my instinct this time and if I did, is my instinct broken? Yada yada yada.
Truthfully, I do get along with my mom, I’m just feeling salty.
I’m definitely salty. At Tyson. At my situation. Sour at myself for going to that cabin with Megan and getting myself into this mess. But I love my family and I feel guilty for my negative thoughts. That’s me. I get angry and immediately feel remorse for any thoughts associated with the anger.
Like me and Tyson. I feel bad for calling him names, even though he might have needed something harsh to give him a wake-up call. Maybe.
Ben and I weren’t compatible, but the idea that Tyson would physically harm him? That’s just… awful. And that he insists I’m staying when I tell him I need to go… that’s just bonkers. As if I’m going to stay with someone against my will!
Ben and me had a bit of a strange relationship, so I wasn’t expecting it to go anywhere serious. It wasn’t even a ‘given’ that we’d spend every weekend together. He had a busy job, lots of hobbies, and was sort of emotionally unavailable. But that was okay, because it wasn’t like I was head over heels either.
My sister took it upon herself to ask her guy, Rick, to ask him to be in the wedding without discussing it with me. She wanted nice pictures and matched up couples and because of that, she’s got a wedding party with eighteen people in it and they’re all couples. Even my little brother and his girlfriend, who he told me he’s sick of being in a long-distance relationship with. I’m fairly sure their breakup will happen after Amelia’s wedding, because Leo doesn’t wanna rock the boat and court our big sister’s ire.
Why didn’t she ask me if Ben and I were solid first? I’d have told her that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere and that, in fact, I was looking for an opening to end it and that’s what I did, after he’d been away for three weeks on business and I realized I didn’t miss him while he was gone.
Why would she want someone in her wedding pictures that she’d later struggle to remember the name of?
Amelia would pick me up, too, if I called, but I’m not about to call her because all she is about is her wedding. I think her wedding is more important to her than her actual marriage. Seriously. She’s going to be depressed when it’s over, because then what will she do with herself?
And as much as I know I need to go and get back to my life, I’m not going to be in the mood for any trivial conversations on the way back to regular life because I already know it’s going to emotionally wring me out to go back to life and contemplate this time I’ve spent here, this man I’ve spent time with.
I go back inside and tidy up a bit more, then decide I should really go. He could be back any minute.
I stand there for what feels like too long, biting my lip, pondering it all.
Finally, I grab my iPad from the kitchen counter where I’ve been charging it and stuff it into my bag with the rest of my things. I charged it so that if I get to town, I can try to hop on someone’s Wi-fi and use one of my apps to get ahold of somebody to come get me.
I have all my stuff and I’m holding the doorknob. I take in the space one more time.
Time to go. Time to go before he’s back. I know it’ll be a long walk and there’s a chance he’ll see me, but I have a half-baked plan for dealing with it.
And then images assault my mind. Images of us together, me and Tyson. Memories play on a reel in my mind of us and there are so many more that will stay with me in the span of this short time with him than there were of me and Ben after a few months.
My heart is in my throat. I feel so conflicted.
But, I have to go. That’s all there is to it.
I reach into my bag and grab my little notepad and a pink gel pen to leave him a note.
Five minutes later, I pass by his heap of clothing and shoes near the other side of the big willow tree. He’s out there somewhere as a wolf. I have no idea what the strange Tyson-scented mist is, but I’m able to walk through it with no apparent ill-effects, so that’s something.
I stumble after a few steps feeling a bit of strange vertigo and then I set off on my journey to Drowsy Hollow, which will likely take a couple hours. Maybe I should’ve eaten more than a banana. Whatever. Onwards…
I don’t let myself look back over my shoulder at that pretty little Hansel and Gretel house. I just… can’t. Because if I do, I might turn around and go right back.
24
Tyson
I’m coming up toward the top of the ridge, only now feeling the haze beginning to lift, though just minimally now that I’ve towered over his bones, shifting uncontrollably for at least ten rotations from man to wolf and back, pissing on those bones. In both forms.
I had to get away from them, all of them, and mostly from my emotions. Emotions I haven’t been able to unravel. All I know is I’m angry.
I’ll need another run so I can get it out, then I need to get back to her.
I stood over Cornelius’s remains and felt my lip curl, my fists clench, and then the world vibrated with my anger as I stared at his bones.
If only he was alive so I could kill him, if only I could take back so many moments where I provided for him, where I saved his ass. I stood and in my rage, relived many events throughout my lifetime that I hadn’t thought of before.
How weak he was, how much of an opportunist, as well as the fact that he was obsessed with my mother.
So many little things are clicking into place from things he said, actions of his, memories that flood my mind from my very early childhood. I feel so much fury, so much I don’t know what to do with it.
I need to go back to her. If this were yesterday, I’d say I need to go home and bury myself in her warmth, but I don’t know that it’s an accurate description because I’m angry at my mate, for her wanting to leave, for her words of loathing.
I see a brown wolf standing at the top of that ridge and I halt.
Riley Savage.
He shifts to man form.
I do as well.
“Not interested in talking to you.” I walk past him, ready to shift back so I can run.
“Tyson,” he says. “I’m here for you. What you just set off will summon any of us on the team.”
I stop, turn around and glare at him. “I don’t know what that means, I just know I can’t do this right now.” I move past him and hope he won’t try to follow.
Another wolf, a black and white one runs toward us and stops suddenly, and stares at me. He shifts to man. He’s large, dark-haired, and bearded. He straightens up and thumps his chest when he looks at me.
I turn back to Riley and sigh. “What is he doing?”
“That’s Lincoln. We heard your call. The others will be on their way as well. Well, all but two as they’re too far right now to hear it.”
I didn’t call for anyone. I suspect he knows I didn’t intend to do this.
“I’m guessin’ you have a lot to process,” he says, ”but that… whatever happened in that gorge down there, resulted in you summoning us, your team. When you’re ready to learn more, we’re ready. Our home is your home. Our pack is your pack. We want you there with us. Just come. Test things out. There’s a home there for you and your mate. A community for her to be part of, and so she learns our ways. The house we got ready was your father’s house, where you were born. Your mother ordered it be prepared for your return years ago when you came to the village. She told us she knew in her soul that the day would come, and that woman is never wrong. She moved into an apartment above her clinic. She lives there with Stan, a non-shifter she’s now with. He’s a good man. She…”
“Stop. I won’t do this right now.”
“Fine.” He gives me a look that is filled with wisdom. “When you’re ready, we’re waiting.”
“And if I’ll never be ready? If I want you to leave me be?”
He considers this a minute before responding.
“Your destiny was stolen from you. When you’re ready to take it back, we’re there. And just saying, Tyson, we need you. I need you.” His eyes change briefly and then he straightens. I frown. An odd emotion comes at me and it’s from him. Before I get a chance to attempt to translate it, it’s gone. “Get to know us before you decide. Our uncle that took you from us, that also took us from you…” He gives me a meaningful look. “It was wrong. The longer it goes on, the more all of us lose. That includes the rest of the team. There are aspects of their lives that are on hold.”
He waits and when I make no reply, ask no questions about what that means because my mind is just overflowing already. He shifts back to wolf, turns tail, and leaves me standing there as he heads down into the valley where Cornelius died.