by D. Fischer
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jacob Trent
With a half-eaten apple in hand, Rex and I watch from one of the many cafeteria windows as Jinx, Kaya, Amelia, Cinder, Damien, and the witch stride across the grass. Light seeps in from the windows, smearing across the floor and illuminating stray crumbs missed from the nightly sweeping.
Glenda sings a Russian tune somewhere on the main floor. We had passed her on our way here, but from the sounds of it, she’s moved on from dusting the dustless pictures in the hall. It’s a beautiful song, fairytale-like and haunting. Now, standing in the warmth of the sun, it’s hard to pay attention to anything else but her voice, and Jinx’s every move.
“I agree with Jinx,” Rex murmurs. We’ve been talking in hushed voices, and though the cafeteria is empty, I wouldn’t put it past eavesdroppers to try to figure out what we’re discussing. We don’t need gossip running through the pack.
The only one outside to notice our attention is Damien. He sports a growing purple bruise on the side of his jaw and nods respectfully to us.
Everything okay? I ask Damien in mindspeech.
Peachy, he sends back, grinning from ear to ear. He turns his attention back to the group.
I huff a sigh, considering the possibility of having a mole once more. “I’d hate to think one of our own is working with the Bane Pack.”
“It’s been known to happen,” Rex says. “We don’t do coincidences. That asshole knows too much for it to be anything other than someone feeding him information from the inside. The question is, who?”
“Definitely not anyone who is close to Jinx.”
Rex chews this over and then nods. “She has a way of gaining loyalty better than most alphas can.”
I take a large bite out of my apple and swallow my words. He’s right, but it feels like a challenge to me – as though he’s saying she’d make a better alpha than me. Maybe she would.
The last thing she said to me pops back into my head. The last thing I need is for her to fear them like I did.
She had stuttered over the word. Did.
All the witches grow up with a healthy fear of us and vice versa. Of course, now I know all the prejudices are a load of shit, but I don’t like the idea that she still might fear me. Not me, I know, but my wolf. He had picked up on it too and watches her from inside me with a sense of longing to prove her wrong.
“So, what do we do?” Rex asks, looking back out the window.
“See if she improves,” I murmur distractedly then blink when I realize I was answering my own questions rather than his.
He sniffs. “Not about Jinx.” The way he said it snaps me from my fixed daze. I had lost track of the conversation, and it frustrated him. Hell, it frustrates me. I’m finding it more and more difficult to concentrate when Jinx is around.
“What do we do about the mole?”
“Set a trap.” I look back out the window. And take another bite of them.
I’ll be damned if I allow one of my wolves to put her in any more danger than she already is. I fear one more tip on the scale for the Bane, and Jinx will walk away from the possibility of building something more between us. Still, it will break my heart when I find out who the mole is. The betrayal will feel deep, especially after all we’ve been through together.
“Easily done,” Rex says, rubbing his shoulder, where an old scar remains from the Realms War, as if he, too, is thinking the same thing and the pain of that old wound throbs as a reminder. We all have our scars to bare. “Not so easy to plan. Are you just going to dangle a carrot and see who takes a bite?”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do, but I don’t know when or how yet.” I bite into the apple again, and juice drips down my chin.
He’s quiet for a good long while, studying me. “Jacob –”
“Don’t.”
“You care for her more than you’re letting on.”
I say nothing, nor do I give anything away, and when I chomp into a too-big chunk of apple, he nods.
“You actually think she’s scared of you?”
Chewing harder than necessary, I decide how much I want to tell him. Amelia keeps urging me to open up, to talk to someone other than her about the shit that’s going on in my head. I consider Rex, and before I can think twice about it, I say, “I think Jinx doesn’t know who I truly am, and it makes her hesitant to fully accept me.”
“Two fights on your front,” he says without a hint of humor. “What’s your plan there?”
I chuck the apple core into the nearest bin, and it thumps inside it. “I’m going to prove to her my wolf isn’t dangerous, feral, or out to kill her.”
“Like take her on a date?” He crosses his arms. “With the Bane Pack as the third wheel?”
I peel my eyes off Jinx and turn to him fully. “You’re such a mother hen.” Then I walk away, and as I push the door open to the compound’s backyard, he shouts at my back, a startling rise to our quiet conversation.
“If the flock wasn’t in such disarray, I wouldn’t have to be!” Flock meaning pack, and disarray meaning we have zero fucking clues what to do next.
I laugh, but I don’t feel it deep down. He’s right.
The door closes behind me, effectively silencing whatever Rex says next and Glenda’s haunting voice. Fresh air forces its way up my nose in a gusty breeze, piggybacking the scent of pine, walnuts, and the beginnings of leaf decay stretched across damp soil. I stride to my pack, who are off to the side while Kaya gives instructions to Jinx.
“What’s going on?” I ask Cinder. Nothing more than an alpha inquiring about the activities on his territory. I refuse to dive deeper into what Rex wanted to discuss. If he thinks my interest in Jinx is deepening to something other than lust, then the rest of the pack probably does too. The only difference is he’s the only one who wouldn’t be afraid to voice it to my face.
“Creature training,” Cinder says. There’s an infectious pep in his voice, and the wind has tousled his hair. It makes him appear more jovial than usual.
“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo,” Sara adds, grinning, and the group laughs. I get the notion it’s a private joke. These four – Cinderson, Amelia, Damien, and Sara – they’re forming a rock on which Jinx can firmly stand. I’m grateful for them.
I breathe deep, allowing the fresh air to soothe me. How? How could one of my wolves be betraying her? How could they seek to destroy her by feeding information to the Bane? I exhale and feel no better than I had inside the cafeteria.
“It doesn’t look like it’s working,” I point out, observing the two women with cocked heads. I tuck my hands under my arms and widen my stance.
“Well,” Amelia sighs. “We’ve figured out what triggers it and how she was able to stay conscious when the Bane came here. Now, she only has to replicate it.”
“And that trigger is?”
“Anger,” Damien mumbles, pocketing his fists and rocking back on his heels.
“Wonderful,” I grumble. She’ll be nice and angry for the date I plan to take her on tonight. At least, this time, she won’t be angry at me.
Women, I gripe, sending mindspeech to both Damien and Cinder. They bark out their laughs, leaving the women confused. The abrupt sound blows Jinx’s concentration, and before we can be chastised, Damien, Amelia, and I break from the circle and head back inside to help with the evening meal. With Jinx occupied, Glenda will be great – or pissed – about the people in her kitchen.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jinx Whitethorn
“You’re not trying hard enough,” Kaya comments quietly. Her words are accented by the chirping birds watching from the trees downhill along with my growling stomach who knows the time better than I do. The scent of Sara and Cinder’s meatballs are taunting, calling to my hunger on a level that almost resembles pain. There’s something sugary about them. Barbequey too.
This feels like the longest day of my life.
“I am trying hard enough!” I bark at her and pin my glare on the two friends ha
ving a picnic. They stop mid-chew, the picture of innocents. Damien, Jacob, and Amelia left at least an hour ago. I’d almost prefer if they had left with them. Their presence is like a ticking clock next to someone’s deathbed. Put a tag on my toe because I’d rather be wheeled away than have to continue to endure this punishment.
“Breathe, Jinx,” she instructs calmly though her cheeks flush with contained disdain for my youthful outburst.
“If I wasn’t breathing, I would have fainted by now.”
I feel like we’ve been out here for days. Sweat dribbles down my spine simply from concentration alone. My sweatshirt clings uncomfortably to it. Every breeze trails cold invisible fingers against my damp back. It chills me to my bones, furthering my frustration. I was refused a coat. Refused mittens. Refused a break.
“Again,” she barks.
Nostrils flared, I attempt to see nothing. To hear nothing. To be nothing. In seconds, I fail. “This isn’t working!”
From the side, I hear Cinder whisper, “If you ask me, anger lessons are, indeed, working.”
“Visualize the wolf,” Kaya says.
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. You have all this anger bubbled up inside you. Use it. Don’t try to contain it. Use it, and wield it, and let it free.” She clasps her hands in front of her and folds her fingers over the knuckles.
I stare at her for a moment, jaw flexing, but she doesn’t back down. Sighing, I close my eyes again, shaking my freezing hands at my sides and clearing my throat.
You can do this, Jinx. Give the woman what she wants so you can go warm your ass in front of the fire.
“Smell the forest the way a wolf does,” she continues, voice soothing and raspy. “Hear the animals brush up against fallen leaves.”
I do as she asks, using the silence to guide my imagination, the wind to whisper down my neck. I listen to it, let it wrap around me, sway me.
“Convince yourself that this isn’t the skin you wish to walk in,” she adds, her voice seemingly far away, echoey, god-like. But the skin I want to walk in is a murderer. A beast. Something I’ve only been able to control once.
“Open the gates of your anger.”
Mentally, I visualize these gates, rusted, hanging on the hinges, and riddled with cobwebs. I imagine the anger, a large blob forced to be compressed in an area too small to contain it. It rolls out from its confines and slithers through the broken gate.
I can practically taste this blob of anger, a corruption that’s bitter on my tongue. It’s wild. Untamed. A poisonous thistle.
Fearing the escaping blob of anger and what it would do if I were to set it free as suggested, I try to gather it back up in my mind and push it back behind the gates.
“Don’t,” I hear Kaya say. “Let it free.”
Just because I was able to control the skinwalking once doesn’t mean I can do it again, I want to tell her. This thing, this blob is what takes over when I blackout. It’s what killed the Bane without a second thought. But I can’t. I can’t tell her. It's like my lips are detached from my body, and the only sound that releases is a tiny whimper.
“Let it free,” she says again.
The blob pulses as I hesitate. I’m a freak. Monster. Beast.
I thought I moved past this. I was so sure I buried it. Now, trying to face what I am in the form of this mental blob, I’m discovering the grave undug. It’s near tangible in this mental state. Touchable. Living.
Shying away from the broken gate and looming blob, I nearly missed the sound. A whisper, something other than my aunt’s voice is carried in the next gust. It tickles the inside of my ear, seeps into my thoughts, and blows against the anger.
The strongest wolf is the one you feed, skinwalker, it says. Loyalty and desire. That is the food you must give it.
The breeze moves past, and I find my head angling toward it, eyes still closed and ears strained. Loyalty and desire, it whispers again from somewhere far away.
Feed it? How do I feed it?
My breaths are slow, heavy, as if they belong to the wolf I’m trying to become. The wolf from my dreams who stood before the puddle in a dark forest . . . that’s the one I want to feed.
I think of the one person who has my unquestioned loyalty and my insatiable desire: Jacob.
It takes only that thought, that one name, for the feelings to form in the image. Shimmering gold begins to sparkle inside the blob. It’s made of warmth and light and goodness, desire and loyalty that take shape. It swirls and curls until it’s the glowing wolf, bright in a dark forest with the fog curling around its mud-caked paws. The wolf who is gentle and kind and pure, everything I don’t feel about myself.
The wolf watches me. She absorbs the blob of self-hatred and anger until she’s completely whole, growing brighter and brighter and –
“Very good, Jinx,” Kaya gently coos. My fingers tingle as though all the blood is settling there.
“Holy shit, her hands are shimmering,” Cinder whispers, and it’s enough to snap me from my attempts.
I open my eyes, heavy with disuse, and peer blearily at my fingers. For a second, just a split second, I do see them shimmer, specks of yellow and white light spiraling close to each finger. I feel the wolf, too. I feel her blood in my veins, her strong senses honing my own until I can taste every kind of tree in the forest around us. But it’s fleeting, disappearing too quickly. The shimmer absorbs into my own skin as quickly as it came. When my concentration evaporates and the real world is pulled into full focus once more, the magic ends entirely as though it were nothing more than a dream.
Lifting my head, I look at Cinder and Sara and their empty dinner plates discarded in the grass behind them. I frown. They were just eating it. I just heard Cinder whisper . . . The plates were full, and now, the barbeque sauce looks . . . dried. How long was I in that trance? How long ago did Cinder comment about my hands?
Sara’s head is in Cinder’s lap, and she’s half-asleep, blinking dazedly at me. Long enough apparently.
I look back to Kaya, who tucks her lips in a sympathetic smile. “The wolf is a beauty,” my aunt whispers. “You couldn’t have picked a better spirit to skinwalk in.” The darkening sky shadows any other part of her expression, but it seems sincere from where I stand.
“A better spirit?” I ask quietly. My voice is hoarse.
She blinks her nod. “Skinwalkers are said to take the form of an animal’s spirit. You’ve chosen wisely.”
I swallow thickly. I don’t think I chose her. I think she chose me.
“I got close, didn’t I?”
She nods. “I believe so. You heard the other spirits, didn’t you? And you understood what it meant?”
“Yes.” In truth, I did. I’ve heard of the proverb about everyone having a dark wolf and a light wolf inside them. An evil wolf and a good wolf. The strongest wolf is the one you feed. If I continue to believe myself a monster, I will become one.
“How can you hear the whispers, too? How did you see the wolf’s spirit if I didn’t wear her form? I thought you said the shaman magic only falls to the male side of the family.”
She rubs her arms, her coat crinkling with the friction. Who gave her a coat? “It would seem a few traits trickle to the women, too.”
“Hmm.” I stare at her for a few minutes, then I roll my shoulders, loosening the remaining tension there. The trance I was in worked better than any meditative pose I’ve ever done. My muscles feel relaxed, but I’m still irked at my failure. I came close. So close.
I rub my fingers together. My hands are cold, and I instinctively cup them in front of my mouth and blow hot breath on them. I thought this would be easier. I thought with her help, I’d pick this up quickly, especially since I’ve come so far on my own already.
This isn’t her fault though. I can’t be stressed with Kaya. She has no idea what she’s doing. She’s shooting in the dark concerning how to help me. Before today, what I am was nothing but a legend to her. A legend she easily accepted but a
legend nonetheless.
Possibly seeing the returning anxiety on my face, Kaya reaches for me and touches the back of my arm. Under the sweatshirt, my skin is riddled with goosebumps. “I think that’s enough for today.”
“Thank God,” Sara murmurs to Cinder. He gets up first, straightens his pants, and holds his hand out to her. She takes it, and he yanks her up. I look back to Kaya while they gather their things.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” I ask.
She crosses her arms and peers at the dark forest behind me. For a moment, I wonder if she can see the wolves on patrol inside, but that’d be impossible unless they made themselves known. “You spent your whole life thinking you were–”
“A broken witch,” I fill in for her.
“A broken witch.” I watch her throat bob as she swallows whatever emotion rose. “You need to allow yourself time to adjust to who you really are now.” She snaps her brown irises back to mine. “Self-adjustments – mental adjustments, take time.”
“I’m trying,” I murmur.
“Are you?” she asks skeptically. “I think you’re punishing yourself on an unconscious level. I think you’ve been doing just that for a long, long time.”
An owl on the prowl swoops above, and to avoid my aunt’s gaze, I follow its flight until the trees swallow it and its shadow.
She continues, “You were unconsciously skinwalking to save your life, killed people while doing so, and still, you didn’t know who you were. You hide behind bitterness. If I had to guess, you force yourself on others so that someone, anyone, will love you. That must be difficult to make yourself seem bigger when you feel small.”
“I was never small,” I mumble defensively then direct my glare at her. “How did you know I killed people?”
She looks back toward the forest and slides her usual blank expression back on. She says nothing.
“Did they gossip about me?” I hiss. She did go to the cafeteria. That room is where gossip breeds.