Awaken: Book One: London

by Limelan Z

  That sounded more than “sensitive”. I was glad he was staying in London. ‘Is he really Wolfe’s brother?’

  He almost laughed as he stood up with one of the magazines. ‘You’ve seen them stood next to each other, right?’

  ‘There’s a resemblance, but “Zosimos” and “Patrick”? Interesting naming convention if they’re from the same millennia.’

  I watched Vince grab some haribo and followed him to the till. ‘I think his real name is like Ptolemy or something. Psammy? Puh-something. You’d have to ask him. I guess, you kind of stick out with a name like that.’ And Zosimos hadn’t? I shrugged. If Puh-something had found it easier to become Patrick, then all power to him. ‘Which makes me wonder where the hell Cerima came from.’ He tucked his magazine under his arm and opened the sweets. It was 7:30am so I politely declined. ‘Did you make it up? I’ve never met another Cerima.’

  We made our way back to the platform. ‘Well, I didn’t exactly know my birth name when I woke up after the Intervention. I also didn’t know a load of werewolves were going to start calling me Ariane.’

  ‘So you went with Cerima Hatherton.’

  It hadn’t been that simple. For a long time, I had been too scared to speak to anyone. I hadn’t known anything about life. For years, I’d stolen what I needed and kept away, watching people from afar. ‘I used to see this woman with her children. They would go with her to the river while she washed clothes, and when she called to them she called them “ceri”. It seemed nice. Apparently, it’s like calling someone “love”.’

  Vince’s face took on that great-grandad expression. ‘That’s sweet.’

  I shrugged. ‘Then I sort of lengthened it a bit to Cerima. I’ve kept Cerima but changed surname every fifty or so years, if needed. It’s getting a bit harder to do things now.’

  He nudged me playfully. ‘Ah, but now you have Wolfe. He could get you a whole new identity within the hour if you wanted. Easy as chips.’

  That wasn’t a saying I’d heard before but I went with it and stared ahead at Wolfe. He was wrapping up his phone call. My hearing was definitely sharper since Elvira had lifted the curtain. I could tell he was talking to Trevelyan, but I couldn’t work out what they were saying. I supposed it was like attempting to listen to any other conversation at a train station – unless the person is talking in your ear, you can’t make it out.

  When he hung up the call, we went over. He glanced at Vince’s haribo but said nothing.

  ‘Our train to Inverness leaves soon. Are you well enough to continue?’ he asked me.

  I gave a nod, trying to gauge whatever he might be thinking about me. I got nothing. I willed him to feel my sort-of regret at shouting at him the night before. I wanted us to get along again.

  ‘Then let us go.’

  He began to walk the rest of the way down the platform towards the concourse, Vince and I marching alongside. As we did, I noticed someone start to move too to one side.

  Wolfe must have sensed my sudden concern and followed my gaze. ‘He is one of ours.’ I guessed it made sense for us to not be clustered together. I rubbed my brow.

  ‘Is there time for me to get a coffee?’ I asked.

  He glanced at me. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Just a latte,’ I said, seeing a stand up ahead. He went up to the counter and began to order. ‘Oh, no – I meant, I’ll get it.’ Drop in the ocean that it was considering how much this trip probably cost. ‘Let me get it. What would you like?’

  He frowned a little but let me get him a black coffee. It felt like some kind of victory. I also bought Vince a mocha-chocco-frappe-whatever he was in the mood for. Then we boarded the next train.

  We took over an entire carriage. I didn’t know whether it was deliberate, but it was just the fifteen-or-so of us spread out across the seats. I sat on the table across from Wolfe, separated by the aisle. Today, he was every inch the CEO; laptop open, two phones on the table. I watched his fingers sweeping across the keyboard as he responded to emails. They had healed.

  I had brought one of Fi’s books with me to read. A John le Carre. Spies and intrigue. It was good but I couldn’t get my head into it. I kept watching Wolfe. It wasn’t all cocktail parties and Forbes’ interviews – he was actually doing some work. Lots of work. He was all over it. I hated to admit it but I found it sexy as hell.

  When Vince went to the bathroom, I moved to take the seat opposite him. His eyes shot to mine, fingers paused over the keys.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’

  Obviously, I was. Even so, he said: ‘No.’

  ‘How is your hand?’ I already knew it was fine.

  He seemed surprised by the question but turned his palm over for me to see. ‘Healed.’

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to hurt you.’

  ‘I know, Ceri.’

  I chewed my lip a little wondering whether or not to try to clear up the previous night. ‘What you’re doing,’ I said, ‘it’s a big deal. I mean, I know you don’t have to help me. I’m not pack, I’m not your mate…’

  I went still. He waited a while and then folded down the screen on his laptop. He looked beyond me a moment to the others, and then they began filing out of the carriage. Giving us privacy.

  ‘Why are you helping me?’

  ‘Is it not obvious? It makes me look powerful to have you under heel.’ He echoed my accusatory words back to me and I winced.

  ‘I didn’t—’ I let out a short breath. ‘I hadn’t meant—’

  ‘Of course, you did. You meant every word.’ I had. ‘I do not blame you.’ He didn’t?

  ‘I was drunk,’ I added.

  ‘You were not drunk,’ he corrected. ‘Wolves metabolise alcohol much more efficiently than humans. But you were correct in your deductions.’

  I swallowed, wondering if I was understanding him. If that meant what I thought it meant.

  ‘Not that I want you under heel,’ he let out a breath. ‘You should never be frightened of me.’

  ‘I’m not frightened of you,’ I lied.

  ‘You do not trust me. And that is my fault, not yours. I have not given you reason enough to think well of me.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘I lack Vincent’s…humanity. The older we become, the easier it is to lose it. From what you see, his heart is as full of empathy as my head is strategy.’

  I blinked. He wasn’t wrong. That just wasn’t how I had pictured this conversation going. ‘I’m sorry about last night. For shouting and for burning you. And not that it matters, but nothing’s going on between me and Vince.’ I seemed to want to get everything out on the table.

  I watched a smile tease at the corner of his lips and wanted to lean across and kiss it. ‘You were right to shout. I want you to challenge me if you think I am wrong. Even when I am right,’ he smiled more fully. Arrogant werewolf. I found I was smiling too. ‘And if I suspected anything of occurring between you and Vincent, I would have thrown him from the train.’

  And he was back to being an alpha. ‘Ugh.’ I stood up, fully intending to walk out, but he stood too and caught me.

  ‘That was a joke,’ he said, still amused as his arms wrapped around me. I let him. I liked the contact even though I wriggled.

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Not a joke, then.’ He placed a few soft kisses on my neck. They made my knees melt despite myself. Was there still some of that fake-mate bond still swimming about in our blood? ‘But I am pleased you chose to tell me.’

  He kissed me properly then and I kissed back. All the frustration of the last day was gone. Things were back to normal. Well, as normal as they had been for a while.

  When we got to Inverness, there were four range rovers waiting for us. I had been about to get in with Wolfe when my supervisor called to check-in on me and Vince. Since Wolfe was on-and-off the phone all the time, Vince and I hung back for the next car so there would be no overlap. Then we all headed off in a sort of convoy.

  Wolfe was in the second car from the front and we wer
e in the third. It was probably a good idea there was some distance between us. Since we had made up, all I’d wanted to do was jump him. Which I already had done on a public passenger service from Edinburgh to Inverness. And I regretted nothing.

  It was good to have worked a few things out. We had hardly at the time for long, detailed talks – and Wolfe really wasn’t the person for it – but he’d allayed my concerns on a number of points. He wasn’t using me like some pawn, he didn’t see me as a weapon. I was starting to believe I could really trust him. Which meant I could spend some time actually focussed on me.

  After Vince and I listened to our supervisor’s pep talk, he’d clambered into the front to sit with the driver. They were banging out some “killer tunes” on the dashboard. I nodded in agreement that the song was good, but I wasn’t feeling it as much as they were. Apparently, the driver was into weird folky-rock just like Vince.

  The road outside Inverness quickly became wild and steep and muddy. For at least an hour, we passed no other cars or houses aside from the odd stone hut somewhere off in the thickly forested landscape. I leant my head back against the headrest and thought about having a snooze.

  And then it happened.

  One minute, I was rolling my eyes as the two in the front broke into a harmonic duet, and the next the sound and heat of great explosions had us buffeted off the road.

  Chapter 23

  The car went flying. It tipped and rolled, the metal roof pressing further and further inwards. Glass shattered. Boxes slammed into me. It seemed to go on forever. I grabbed on to anything I could to brace myself until we came to a stop.

  ‘I-Is everyone okay?’ I shouted as adrenaline streamed through me. My head was ringing from the explosion. I wouldn’t have been able to hear even if anyone had answered. My arms were cut and bleeding, my face stinging, but I seemed in one piece.

  I looked in the front. There was a thick shard of glass at least a foot long pinning Vince’s shoulder to his seat. His eyes had turned emerald as his wolf prepared to surface.

  His other arm shot across and with a shout he pulled the glass clean out.

  ‘Vince – are you—’

  The sound of a howl broke through my words. I looked out and could see them. Wolves.

  Werewolves.

  There must have been at least twenty. More of them than there were of us.

  No question, no conversation, Vince kicked at his door until it fell clean off the hinges and he got out. The other two in our car did the same.

  Was that some kind of reflex that made them run to danger? Whatever it was, I didn’t have it. I watched them change and realised I could hardly sit and wait in the car. I was Ariane, after all. What was the point of me if not to protect them now?

  My door was jammed where the metal frame had buckled against it, absorbing the impact. I tried a few times to open it, then climbed through one of the other doors.

  The wolves were waiting, watching. They hadn’t charged yet but the looks on their faces left me in no doubt as to who was responsible for our cars. They were.

  I glanced across then expecting to see Wolfe and the others but I couldn’t make them out. Instead I saw cars – wreckage. Flaming bits of tyre and smashed up bumpers were a few hundred metres ahead. But where was Wolfe?

  My stomach lurched.

  ‘Wolfe?’ I called out, stumbling in the direction of the other cars. All three of them had been hit worse than ours. They were in pieces.

  I hurried into as much of a run as I could manage when I saw the front part of one of the cars. The back seats were completely missing but I could tell there was someone inside. The driver was unconscious, eyes closed, blood pouring from a wound on his head. But he was alive. The guy next to him hadn’t been so lucky; his head was a foot from the rest of him.

  The other wolves howled again, jolting me back. It hadn’t been an accident. There had been bombs. And they hadn’t been the attack, they were just the start.

  ‘Wolfe!’ I called again, more desperately this time. ‘Wolfe!’

  Some movement caught my eye. Two wolves a few hundred metres away but heading towards us. One of them was limping. Neither was Wolfe.

  Another howl. I jumped at how much closer it felt and turned. Whichever pack it was, they were ready to fight.

  Vince and the others grouped near me.

  Come on, Ariane, I willed. It was time to change. If she could take down an alpha when using my body, they she could surely take a few of these down as a wolf. And she had to – they were pack.

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus. When I had changed before, Wolfe had told me to relax, to step back. So I tried. Nothing.

  Come on!

  I shook my hands out. Was there too much adrenaline coursing through me? Bizarrely, I wasn’t scared – I was angry. I was angry that some wolves had attacked us. I was angry that Wolfe was now missing in action. I was angry that Vince was now in danger.

  And I was angry that Ariane was asleep.

  I have always been a pacifist. I hate confrontation. I hate violence and war. But in that moment, I was so angry at the world that I was ready to do damage. Me – Ceri Hatherton, postgraduate researcher.

  They howled again. And then they began to charge. Twenty against an injured five. Surely, we were doomed.

  I was ready.

  I heard a screech from above me and looked up just in time to see angels flying over.

  No – that couldn’t be right. Angels didn’t exist, did they?

  And yet there they were. Four women with beautiful faces and feathered wings spread out six foot in each direction as the soared over. Had one of them winked at me? And then—

  Lightning shot from one of their hands to where the wolves were. The others followed suit, laughing. Why were they laughing? Until a few were burned to a crisp or so badly injured they could not move, and the others had run.

  Then they swooped down, landing not far in front of us. One of them – the one who had winked at me – was walking towards me. Her ice feathered wings had folded behind her and were now drifting in to mist as if they had never been there in the first place.

  I had never seen anything like it. Her hair was white, eyes kohled back. She emanated ethereal save for the black biker leather she was clad in from head to toe. Like a creature of myth. But if she was an angel, was she saving me or marking the end of my life?

  Vince growled at her. In response, she rolled her eyes.

  ‘Oh, hush,’ she said as if amused.

  He crossed in front of me the clearer it became that I was her target. She didn’t seem to want to simply kill me, though. Surely, if she had, she could have done that from the sky. Or let those wolves tear me apart while Ariane slept on.

  I put my hand against Vince’s fur. I didn’t think she was an immediate threat and I didn’t want him to lose a limb. There was already a trail of blood running down his arm from the glass from the car.

  ‘Hello, you,’ she said at my dumbfounded expression. I closed my mouth. Her voice was like honey. Sweet, seductive, drawing me in. And playful too.

  ‘Were you looking for me?’ I asked, unable to hide the fact that I was awed by her in every respect.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Shivers spread out across my skin. ‘Who are you?’

  She smiled. ‘Come, now, I know it’s been a while but I thought you’d recognise your own sister.’

  Chapter 24

  Ossi was some kind of Valkyrie, a fae general. And apparently my sister. Go figure, right? Neither of those things made any sense to me. I didn’t know what a Valkyrie was, or a fae, and I had no experience with a sister either.

  She’d suggested we go get a drink but when I said I wasn’t leaving without my pack – or whatever they now were – she begrudgingly arranged to get us all picked up and taken to some enormous private manor house an hour away. I got the feeling she didn’t think of werewolves as equals.

  There had been fifteen of us to begin with; there were now seven. W
e had found Wolfe on the other side of a ditch. He was unconscious and pinned to the ground by a burning car. The skin across his face and down one half of his body was flayed and blistered. Huge chunks of flesh were missing from the explosion. Though his bones were present, more than one was split and splintered underneath the blood. The fire from the car had made sure that any part of him that attempted to heal hadn’t stayed that way for long.

  A few of the others had been found in similar states but they hadn’t made it.

  Cara – thankfully barely injured – had patched what she could in the kitchen. I’d help her clean and stitch flesh tightly together, reset bones and wash away the worst of the blood. When she’d pieced him together, she wrapped seemingly endless bandages around him with meticulous care. She said the rest was up to him.

  ‘Will he recover?’ I asked as we moved him to one of the beds upstairs. Unsurprisingly, the wounds were oozing under his bandages.

  ‘Yes.’ She was clinical and direct, but I could tell she was distressed seeing her alpha like this. So was I.

  ‘Is he in pain right now?’

  ‘Not now. He is in a regenerative state. Think of it like a sort of wolf coma. But he will be when he wakes up.’ I felt sick with it all. I hated that he was injured. People had died because of me.

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘I don’t know. But the sooner the better. It isn’t good for an alpha to stay in that state.’ For health reasons or for the pack? I guessed both and noticed then the edginess in the room. Presumably it wasn’t all down to the shock of the attack. ‘Your Valkyrie comes for you.’

  I glanced at the door as Ossi’s white hair and knee-high boots came into view. She grinned, clearly unphased by the scene. ‘Ready for that drink, babe?’

  I looked back at Wolfe in the bed. ‘I need to stay with—’

  ‘Go,’ said Cara. ‘I will fetch you if he wakes.’ There were other wolves in that room keeping vigil but I didn’t want to go.

  I shook my head. ‘I need to—’

  Vince moved to the doorway ahead of me. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said. He was low. They all were. It was the smell of death, the loss of life. I hadn’t known the others well but the pack was mourning them.