Blood and Wolf

by S. M. Gaither

  “Sad to be stuck here with me?” Soren asks, giving me a small, somewhat distracted smile.

  “It’s just weird to not be able to go with them. We do everything else together. But then, it’s always been this way when they shift, so... It’s whatever.” I grip my sword more tightly and attempt a shrug.

  He nods, and after walking for a bit in silence he says, “You have everything else, at least.”

  “True.” His voice is as distracted as his smile. Not guarded, in other words. I think of the mirror in my pocket, and I wonder if I could coax something real out of him if he isn’t paying complete attention. “Was there anyone you were close to back home?”

  He’s quiet, but he still doesn’t seem completely closed off, so I keep pushing.

  “What about your sister, before…you know?” I fumble a bit toward the end, immediately wishing I hadn’t mentioned his sister, and hoping that I haven’t upset him.

  He’s perfectly emotionless in his response, though: “I was young when she was taken. I essentially grew up an only child.” Those now-blue eyes glance my way for the faintest of moments before refocusing on the path ahead. “And I grew up very much alone, to answer your other question.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. There are worse things than being alone.” The lines still sound practiced, emotionless; it’s clear he doesn’t want any sympathy from me.

  But I can’t help the frown that’s etched its way onto my face. Or the sinking feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I think about him alone. About his mother and sister gone, leaving him with no one to talk to. No one to listen to his doubts about the things all the rest of the Blackwood sorcerers seem to believe in.

  And I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong to your own kind—although he’s right: at least I have Liam and Carys by my side for most of it.

  He apparently has nobody.

  I mean, assuming everything he’s told me is true.

  I absently slow my step and reach into my back pocket, running my fingers over the smooth cover of the mirror I took.

  He slows too, looking happy to stop for a minute.

  “Do you want to rest?” I ask.

  “As long as we’re still keeping the secret about my not being invincible, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind it.”

  I nod toward a fallen tree that looks like it would make a decent seat. We shrug all of the gear we’re carrying to the ground with one heavy thump after the other, and then we sit in silence for a few minutes; I try reaching out to Liam and Carys through thoughtspeech, to ask for a search report, but I don’t get an immediate response.

  I’m not too worried about it, because I know they’re both in hunting mode, and the wolf mind can turn very one-track during those moments. So I soon take to studying our own surroundings instead.

  And then, because I can’t stop thinking about it, I pull the mirror out of my pocket.

  Beside me, Soren’s arms are folded across his chest and his shoulders are slumped. His eyes are closed. And maybe it’s wrong—an invasion of privacy or something like that—but curiosity gets the better of me.

  I flip the mirror open.

  I hold it in front of us.

  And in its properly-crafted and ritual-blessed reflection, I truly see Soren Blackwood for the first time.

  I see olive-toned skin and a jagged little scar running along the side of his face, almost but not quite covered by hair blacker than the blackest coffee. High cheekbones, full lips, a nose that from this angle appears just the tiniest bit bent.

  He’s as beautiful as any of the illusions he’s put on so far, but there’s something about the way the forest shadows fall on his true face…something that makes him seem darker than he should, even in the late afternoon light.

  Something that makes me want to move away from him.

  The second I move, his eyes blink open.

  Green.

  He was telling the truth about that much, then—this is his natural color.

  But the longer I stare at him, at those eyes and the rest of the face around them, the more I wish he’d been lying. Because suddenly I realize: I recognize those eyes.

  “I’ve seen you before,” I whisper. “The real you.”

  He starts to his feet, his hand moving like he’s going to reach for me.

  I jump up and stumble backward before he can touch me.

  “I had a vision of you. An awful vision. And then you were there…. at my house that night when everything went wrong. I knew I hadn’t imagined you. And you look exactly like… like….”

  “Maric Blackwood,” he says quietly.

  I back further away. He doesn’t try to close the space between us again.

  “It’s because I’m his son.”

  Fourteen

  Beasts and Brokeness

  “Get away from me.”

  “I’m sorry Elle, I should have told you—”

  “Get away from me.”

  He takes a few steps backward, hands lifting slightly.

  It doesn’t calm me down. “Do you know what that man has done to me? Do you know how he’s tormented my parents? And not just that last time, either, when he finally managed to take me away from my home—for my entire life, it’s been him haunting me, using his power to convince everyone else that I’m a danger that needed to be eliminated.”

  “You are dangerous, that’s—”

  “Shut-up. That isn’t the point. Because would it even have mattered if I wasn’t? Your father never wanted peace, even before I came along. He comes from a long line of instigators, doesn’t he? I’m not completely ignorant of your history, you know. I know what your ancestors have done. And you. You’re Of the Blood, just like Maric is—I should have known you weren’t just a dumb prison guard who felt like rebelling. God, how could I have been so stupid?”

  ‘Of the Blood’. Everything Carys has told me about this flashes through my mind again. That’s how they refer to the descendants of Orion Blackwood. They all carry the last name Blackwood in his honor, but they aren’t all actually related to him the way Maric and Soren are. They aren’t all as powerful as him. They don’t all carry that craving for wickedness that people say went hand in hand with Orion’s incredible power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, they say, and there hasn’t been a true blood sorcerer yet that hasn’t proven that statement right.

  And now all I can think about is how Soren might prove that wickedness to me.

  How stupid I’ve been to let my guard down the way I have around him.

  “I can’t help what my ancestors have done anymore than you can help the fact that your mom gave you a curse as a welcome-to-the-world present,” he snaps.

  And I’m speechless for a moment, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so upset.

  I snap the mirror shut and shove it back into my pocket. My hand strays to my sword’s handle, but I try to keep my voice somewhat rational as I say, “How could you not tell me the truth?”

  He glares at me. “Well, you just answered that, didn’t you?”

  “I—”

  “You would never have come with me if I’d told you.”

  I bite my lip, a million harsh words hacking through my brain and trying to fight their way from my mouth. But I hold them back. Because he’s right. It doesn’t excuse his lying by omission, but he’s right.

  “And I needed you to come with me,” he says, somewhat softer now. “I still need you.”

  We study each other for a long, tense moment.

  I can’t seem to unclench my fists. Or my heart. I can’t think of anything else to say, and with every second that passes I feel a little more stupid about it all—a feeling I can’t really stand. At all. So I search for a distraction.

  I think I see a flash of white in the trees to my left.

  “I’m going to go catch up with Liam and see what he’s found.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone, just—”

  “Yes,�
�� I growl, twisting back so I can shoot him one last glare. “I absolutely should go alone. I want to be alone. Stay here and watch the bags, and maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll come back for you. Or at least for those bags.”

  “I’m sorry,” he calls to my retreating back.

  I bristle automatically at the words and his slightly-begging tone of voice, unable to bring myself to accept the apology just yet. Or to stop thinking about what this latest development means.

  Can I still trust him?

  What about that strange vision I had of him, before we’d even met?

  One thing at a time.

  I take a deep breath and focus on finding Liam.

  I’m not worried about being by myself as I track him; I have my sword—and besides, my sense of smell confirms that it was Liam I saw. And he isn’t far away. Within minutes I not only smell him, but I hear him shuffling around, muttering something to himself.

  He’s back in his human form, for some reason.

  I push through thick vines draped in moss, and I find myself in a clearing with his back to me.

  “Liam? Is everything okay?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah— I just thought I’d found something promising, but then I lost track of it.” He turns and gives me that disarming smile of his. Soren’s illusion spell seems to have faded through the transformation from human to wolf to human, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that; Liam’s actual, genuine smile is exactly what I needed to see right now.

  But the longer he studies me, the more forced that smile seems to become.

  “You’re alone?” he says.

  “I just wanted to check on you. Soren’s resting.”

  He doesn’t buy my lie. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” I say quickly, not ready to talk about any of it at the moment. “What did you think you’d found? Maybe we can pick up the trail again together.”

  Instead of agreeing, he beckons me toward him.

  I sigh, but ultimately I give in and go to his side, and I let him wrap me up in his arms. I bury my face in his chest, breathing in the comforting scent of him without even trying to speak for a moment.

  “I wish you would stay away from him,” he mutters into my hair. “At least as much as you can.”

  And I repeat the familiar, tired-out lie, because I don’t know what else to say: “We’re business partners.”

  “You’re more than business partners,” he growls.

  “I…”

  Not anymore, I think.

  I don’t know if I’ve successfully kept this last thought from Liam, but he says nothing else. After a moment, though, his hands move to the small of my back. His fingers slide beneath my jacket and trace across the silky cotton of my t-shirt. Softly at first, but the movement slowly becomes more and more possessive, his fingers clenching harder until, annoyed, I try to step back.

  He holds me tighter.

  I lean my head away from his, as far as I can get. “What are you doing?” I demand. “I’m not in the mood for games right now.”

  He opens his mouth to answer.

  But just then, the wind changes directions, and it carries the unmistakable scent of blood on it.

  “Is that…Liam, does that smell like Carys’s blood to you?”

  “She’s fine.” His voice sounds so chillingly detached that I stop sniffing the wind for a moment and turn back to meet his eyes.

  They’re…strange.

  No illusion covering them, but they’re glassy and hard and they still don’t look like his.

  “Are you sure? Shouldn’t we at least—”

  He cuts me off by slamming me against the nearest tree, pinning my arms awkwardly to my sides.

  My breath leaves me in a gasp, and for a minute I’m too stunned to even think about fighting back.

  Then he relaxes the pressure on one of my arms. Reaches and rips my sword from its sheath. Flings it away. It clangs against a nearby rock with a tinny echo that reverberates deep into my bones. My mouth falls open as I stare at his strange eyes.

  He knows better than to screw with my weapons.

  So apparently this is not one of his games.

  But then what the hell is this?

  My first racing thought is that this must be an illusion. That Soren must have followed me after our fight, and he’s given up all attempts at pretenses and he’s wicked and we’re really, truly enemies now—and this is how he’s decided to start fighting me.

  I hate that thought.

  I want it out of my head.

  But it’s the only explanation my frantic mind can think of.

  Both of Liam’s hands are suddenly on my arms again. I feel claws springing out, twisting in, blood rushing down my skin.

  I instinctively jerk my knee up into his gut. Hard. He flinches, falls back just enough that I manage to squirm out from under him.

  He tries to grab hold of my arm again, but I twist and aim a kick at the back of his knee. The blow causes his balance to buckle, and I knock it the rest of the way off with a powerful shove. While he tries to regain his footing, I bounce back and away.

  Out of the corner of my eye, my sword glints in the rising moonlight. It’s close—too close—to Liam.

  And could I really use it against him, anyway?

  His eyes are narrowed, following my every movement.

  I can’t be unarmed, I decide.

  I dart hard to my left. Sprint at least thirty feet, until I’m positive he’s following. Until he’s practically breathing down my neck. Then I bank right, spin around and race back toward my fallen weapon. I hardly slow down as I scoop it up, but the motion is clumsy and sluggish enough that Liam catches up.

  His elbow drops into my back. It feels like a knife being rammed between my shoulder blades, the way the fiery pain radiates out from the point of contact. I end up on the ground, chest heaving for breath and my hand just barely clinging to my collected weapon.

  I roll onto my back and meet his swinging fist with the broad side of my sword. The metal vibrates as he hits it, shakes my arm so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t break either blade or bone.

  It also shoves that blade unsettling close to my throat.

  I brace my arms and try to push back against his strength. Blood wells in the puncture wounds his claws left in my skin, one drip after the other splashing down against my chest.

  “What the hell is going on?” I demand through clenched teeth.

  He doesn’t answer. He just pushes harder. My strength in my weaker arm—my left one—gives out, and my sword dips diagonally, stabbing through the edge of my shoulder. It catches more of my jacket than my skin, but the pain is still enough to make me cry out. And it’s enough to make me completely lose my composure.

  The skin around my marked wrist feels hotter all of sudden.

  The ground beneath me trembles.

  There’s a massive crack in the distance—like the sound of lightning striking a tree. Liam draws away, staring at my wrist like this is the first time he’s ever noticed the mark of Canath that graces it.

  I shove him the rest of the way off of me and scramble to my feet, sword drawn and heart pounding.

  “You’ve lost your mind,” I pant.

  I don’t expect him to even speak by this point. But he does. In that some detached whisper as before, he says, “You shouldn’t have that mark. Why do you have that mark?”

  I glare at him. “What the hell are you even talking about? Seriously? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  Those weird eyes seem to shift and darken for a moment. He moves as if to come toward me, but I point the tip of my sword into his chest, stopping him mid-step. My whole body is shaking. The blade remains surprisingly level.

  At least for now.

  But I don’t know what I’m going to do next.

  What I’m going to do if he tries to move.

  “Please stop this,” I whisper. “I can’t make sense of this on top of everything else, I—”r />
  He tries to sidestep around my blade.

  I’m faster than he is.

  I curl around behind him and slam my fist as hard as I can into the side of his head. He stumbles. His muscles ripple and spasm the way they do before a shift, and that telltale wolfish fierceness overtakes his expression.

  I back away. Quickly.

  I don’t know how to fight him like this, much less as an actual beast.

  So as he transforms, I run.

  The trees blur by. The scent of Carys’s blood is still overwhelmingly strong. I try to think critically—I need to find her, help her, can’t lead Liam to her—but eventually all these thoughts just become a steady stream of curse words because seriously how did everything go so completely to shit?

  I can hear paws slamming against the forest floor, and what sounds like small trees breaking and being practically uprooted as he tears straight through them.

  If we were both humans, I’d be faster than him.

  But like this?

  He’s going to catch me.

  I push that thought out of my head. Leap across a small creek and land hard on the muddy bank, sliding a bit before I find my footing and tear forward—directly into a thick wall of thorn-covered vines. They carve up my arms and face as I hack my way through. One of them catches directly in a claw mark on my arm, and the pain that rips through is blinding. The woods spin with it. I keep hacking and clawing until the brambles and vines finally spit me out on the other side, into relatively clear forest—and into Soren, who is standing with his arm raised and his eyes narrowed in the direction I just sprinted from.

  He offers no explanation, just throws me behind him without breaking his gaze. An instant later there’s a little pop, and the briar bushes I just fought my way through start to shift in color and size, waving a bit like distant things do on sweltering summer days. Soon it no longer resembles vegetation, but a steep bank of rock and dirt that stretches as far as I can see in both directions.

  He turns to me like he’s just noticed me, and he heaves a deep breath. “Gods, you’re hard to catch up with,” he says.

  “Not for a wolf,” I say, eyes darting anxiously toward the sound of Liam coming closer and closer.