Blood and Wolf

by S. M. Gaither

  Liam and Carys’s seats are half-a-plane back. And in between us there’s a crying baby and a lady loudly complaining about it—the latter of which is way more annoying than the poor kiddo—along with a dozen conversations.

  I still lower my voice just in case.

  “I’m going to send them home,” I tell Soren, who’s been awake since we touched down for that bumpy landing—though just barely.

  He looks almost as bad as Carys, but manages to lift his head away from the window and look at me. So a slightly more animated corpse, essentially. “What do you mean?” he asks, yawning.

  “I’m going to suggest that they go back and see their parents, that Carys gets her mom to check on her more thoroughly—my Aunt Katie is a nurse—and I’ll tell them we’ll meet them somewhere like we did before. No man’s land, neutral territory. Someplace they’ll be relatively safe going to.”

  “…But then you won’t be there to meet them.”

  A lump forms in my throat.

  After several failed attempts to swallow it, I simply nod instead.

  “Do you think they’ll try to follow you further?” he asks. “They have a vague idea of where the last key is, same as us.”

  “A couple of weeks ago they would have, no question. But now…”

  “You think we might have turned them off of adventuring for good?” he asks with a tired, wry grin.

  “I really hope so.”

  It feels painfully strange to hope that my best friends will have given up on sticking by my side.

  But I honestly hope they have.

  The more I think about it, the more selfish and guilty I feel for not trying harder to talk them into staying home in the first place.

  “What about you?” Soren asks. “Are you planning to go back at all?”

  I should have a ready answer to give him, because I’ve been thinking about this pretty much the entire plane ride back. Thinking that I want to see my parents again. That I should see them again, because talking on the phone is one thing, but I know they’re still worried and convinced that I’m not really in one piece. Really, it’s almost cruel not to go see them, if only briefly.

  But it’s not that simple.

  “I’m…afraid,” I say, voice even lower than before as I stare at the dog-eared pages of the airline magazine tucked into the seat in front of me. “I’m scared of what they’ll say if I come back with things still unfinished. They might try to talk me out of going on, or worse—they might just insist on locking me up while they deal with it. They’ve basically been doing that my whole life, you know? Telling me to stay out of the way, to stay where it’s safe, to not come out until they and the council say it’s okay. And it hasn’t solved anything, so…”

  “So that’s a no, then?”

  I shrug. “I volunteered to leave home so I could protect that home and my pack. I’m not done securing that protection. Going back just drags things out, and it could potentially complicate things, if some of of your sorcerer friends show up there, looking for me. Or if they find out I’ve been there and my parents kept it from the rest of the council, all of whom consider me a wanted fugitive.”

  “All good points,” he admits.

  “Yup. So it’s better if you and I just hurry up and get this over with ourselves. We managed to break out of jail with just each other for company, right?”

  He nods, slowly agreeing. “They’ve been helpful, but it will be less work for me, magically, if I don’t have to try and hide four people. So there’s that to consider as well.”

  I feel like he’s saying that at least partly to make me feel more confident, more justified, in my decision to leave them behind.

  “If you’re sure, then…” he begins, with the slightest hint of an uncertain frown.

  I’m not.

  But the flight attendants have just thanked us for flying with them. The doors are open, and people are filing out, and I’m rehearsing lies in my head as I go with them.

  North of the mountainous city of Asheville is one of my favorite places in the world: a place known as Craggy Gardens. A winding road, and a short hike through tunnels of flowers and blueberry patches, and you’ll find yourself on the bald top of the mountain with sweeping views of the Appalachians in every direction.

  Twenty years ago, my parents had a private wedding ceremony on top of this mountain; there’s a picture of it hanging in the hall outside my room, my mom’s white dress flowing dramatically in the wind, and my dad with eyes only for her, completely oblivious to the gorgeous sunset behind them.

  It feels almost like seeing them again, coming here. Plus, it’s a relatively remote spot, and it’s also neutral territory among shifter kind, though it’s only about forty-five minutes from our house if you’re running full speed.

  So this is where I bring the other three.

  This is where I tell Liam and Carys I plan to wait; I tell them to go see their parents, and to tell mine that I’ll be here for as long as I can safely stay, if they want to see me.

  It takes several attempts to convince them, but ultimately the homesickness in Carys’s exhausted voice wins Liam over, and he agrees.

  And once I’m sure the two of them are miles away from me, Soren and I turn and run as fast as we can in the other direction.

  Later that night, in a hotel somewhere near Savannah, Georgia, I’m trying my hardest to keep it together.

  I feel like the world’s worst daughter.

  The world’s worst friend.

  I keep picturing my parents racing to the top of that mountain that means so much to them—the one that we’ve hiked and picnicked on as a family so many times—and expecting another moment of joy. A reunion.

  And then not getting it.

  I grab a pillow that smells strongly of bleach and bury the lower half of my face in it, muffling the sniffs and whimpers trying to escape me. I don’t cry often, as a rule. It doesn’t seem to accomplish much, and I usually feel worse after doing it.

  But I can’t keep the tears from welling up in my eyes this time. Everything about my existence suddenly feels unbearably heavy in a way that seems to be pulling those tears out, rolling them one, big, fat drop at a time down my cheek.

  Soren is out ‘securing the perimeters’ as he called it—which basically means he’s setting up illusionary charms around this hotel to cover our tracks and otherwise convince anyone pursuing us that there’s nothing worth finding in here.

  So I’m alone in this room with nothing but uninspired, mass-produced artwork on the walls and a TV that’s blaring Family Feud reruns.

  So I bury the rest of my face in that awful-smelling pillow, and I allow myself a couple of body-rocking sobs. Which then become more sobs, of course, because once you let one out, the rest always take advantage of that, don’t they? Like a crack in a dam that expands rapidly once the first trickles of water press through. The tears pour out faster and faster, until the pillowcase is so wet I feel like I could die in it and be ruled a drowning victim by the coroner.

  I hear the door knob rattling.

  I jump up and run to the bathroom, emerging a minute later with hastily normalized breathing, a face that’s been washed clean, and a smile that I’m hoping will make up for the fact that my eyes are still swollen and puffy.

  But Soren only meets that smile with a frown, and he cants his head back toward the door and asks, “You want to go for a walk?”

  “Is it safe?” I fold my arms across my chest, feeling vulnerable at the state he’s found me in. Which seems stupid, considering he’s seen me look much worse at this point. But still.

  “Seemed like it while I was making my rounds. No one and nothing suspicious, and I’ve pulled a few tricks to divert any suspicious characters who might show up. Also? I’ve found something I want to show you. So come on, let me distract you with a moonlight stroll.”

  “Moonlight stroll?” I sniff away the last of my sob-fest, and my smile turns a little more genuine. “Kind of sounds like you�
��re asking me on a date.”

  His eyes—hidden by a deep shade of blue, now—widen just the tiniest bit.

  I only notice it because the wolfish, predator side of my brain is wired to notice things like that. Nervousness, fear, uncertainty—anything that might give me the advantage if I ended up needing to overpower or escape someone.

  If I were a regular girl, and he were a regular boy, I would have noticed nothing except how bright those eyes suddenly look, and how confidently he smiles and says, “Maybe I am.”

  I exhale a long breath, trying to breathe out all the lingering negative energy in my body with it. And then I grab my coat and follow him out the door.

  Eighteen

  Stars and Apologies

  Our hotel is relatively secluded. Off this particular exit of I-95, there’s nothing except that hotel, a gas station, and a diner that looks questionably grubby (I swear the sanitation grade hanging on the wall looks like it’s been forged). We’re so hungry that in the end we decide we don’t care about the grubbiness, and Soren grabs some to-go food while I keep watch outside the diner. Then we trek, greasy white bags in hand, down a road with a sand and shell-littered shoulder.

  “Where exactly are we headed?”

  “We’re closer to the ocean than I realized,” he says.

  “I know. I can smell it,” I say. Actually, I could smell the salty, slightly fishy smell all the way back at our hotel. As we walk farther, individual scents become clearer—everything from the sand and the critters crawling through it to the many lovely hints of seagull poop.

  “Well there’s an inlet up ahead,” he explains, “just off this road. And there are all these massive pine trees there.”

  “Pine trees? You’re taking me on a date to pine trees?”

  “The tallest I’ve ever seen,” he says, stretching an arm high for emphasis. He sounds like a kid who just discovered candy exists or something. It’s kind of cute, and I can’t help but laugh softly to myself.

  I continue to humor him, shuffling along beside him, trying to appear just as enthusiastic about pine trees and indifferent to the way my heart forgets to beat every time I accidentally think of home.

  We pass no one—no cars, no people—for at least a mile. The last streetlights lighting our way are long gone, but it’s a clear night with a nearly full moon, and between that and my inhuman eyesight I can see fine. As we walk, Soren makes more light for us by picking up stones and running his fingers across them until they glow with a soft silvery hue.

  “So you seem to have recovered some more strength,” I comment.

  “Still a bit sore,” he says, his hand gingerly touching his chest. “But magic-wise, yes. The interesting thing about being…Well, what I am, you know…”

  “A blood sorcerer?”

  “Right. That.” He eyes me warily for a moment, as if expecting me to start shouting at him like I did before.

  “I’m over it,” I say dryly. “You remember what I myself am, right?” I hold up my arm and pull back the sleeve of my jacket to reveal my mark. “A walking curse?”

  “That’s being a little harsh on yourself, isn’t it?”

  It’s hard to agree with him when I can feel that curse all the time now, as long as I’m anywhere near those two keys we’ve collected. They’re currently in that bag we stole from the second guardian. Under a neutralizing spell, secured to Soren’s belt, and hidden beneath his jacket alongside a dagger similar to the one he gave me.

  I can’t see them.

  They have no real scent, oddly enough.

  But I can definitely still sense them as an occasional wave of power that threatens to pull me off my feet if I’m not constantly fighting against it.

  I shrug. “Point is, it takes a lot of scary supernaturalness to shake me up for very long. So go on. Tell me what’s interesting about your kind.”

  “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Literally. Kind of like how people claim that a bone that’s broken will grow back stronger? Well, that’s not actually true for humans, but it sort of is for blood sorcerers of all the different lineages.”

  “Exactly how many of these blood lineages are there?”

  “Three that I know of. Orion Blackwood is the most ancient. Then you have the Graylock family tree, and the Ravenmar. None of us associate with each other anymore; it’s not like shifter packs, where you usually have at least some alliances and cooperation. We usually don’t cooperate with anyone outside of those associated with our namesake. But, of course, in the case of the Council of Supernatural Cooperatives, my father saw an opportunity to use you for his gain. So he showed up at your parent’s door…”

  His fist clenches, covering up the glowing rock’s light. He suddenly seems a long way from the kid who was excited about pine trees. And I want to get back to that kid, but I also can’t stop my burning curiosity—I do, however, have enough sense to not let the conversation dwell on his father.

  “And all these other lineages,” I begin, “All the descendants like you…they all have this ability to grow their power through basically getting beat up in battle or whatever?”

  He nods. “Something like that. That’s part of why the ones ‘Of the Blood’ are said to crave violence and pain. Because spilling blood in the name of battle— if we survive that battle— almost always leads to our magic getting stronger. It’s also another reason why the name blood sorcerer is appropriate.”

  “That’s pretty hardcore.”

  He snorts out a laugh at my choice of words. “That’s one way to describe it I guess.”

  “And then, I assume, once you’ve been through enough battles and spilled some blood but still survived, then….”

  “Then you eventually become like my parents. Like my older sister. Practically invincible. Until the day you’re not.”

  I try again to redirect the conversation, this time away from memories that I’m sure are too painful for me to imagine. “You’re not exactly weak yourself,” I point out.

  “I’m incredibly weak for one Of the Blood, actually,” he says, matter-of-factly.

  “Oh. Well, I couldn’t tell.”

  “It won’t matter soon, though.”

  “Won’t matter?”

  “It won’t matter that I was too weak to save my mother and sister,” he says quietly, staring straight ahead and walking with steps that suddenly seem full of ruthless determination. “Because I am going to fix it.”

  I jog a bit to catch up with him. And without really thinking about it, I slip my hand into his.

  He slows his pace, muscles tensing a bit.

  “We are going to fix it,” I correct. “Now, hurry up and show me these trees. And they better be as amazing as you claim, because we really should be saving the world right now, you know.”

  For a moment I think he’s going to pull away from me. But then he slips his fingers into the spaces between mine instead, and that’s how we walk the rest of the way down that dark and sand-dusted road.

  It’s how we remain, too, even several moments after we’ve stopped at the edge of the grove of trees.

  He was right: they’re massive. Dizzying to look at. They sway and creak a bit in the gentle ocean breeze, and when the branches part just right we catch glimpses of the almost-full moon reflected on a dark ocean. The whole scene is mesmerizing, even after the countless mesmerizing things we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks.

  “Wow,” I say softly.

  “Sometimes I see places like this, and it makes me want to be able to practice stronger magic just so that I can recreate it exactly in the future.”

  “Sort of like an artist painting a place from memory?”

  “I suppose, yes.”

  “You should take your magic power from that inspiration instead of from spilling blood,” I muse. “Much less messy.”

  He smiles, but for some reason, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

  I guess because it’s impossible, maybe, to rewire the way his magic works. Tha
t he would even smile at the thought reminds me of how much of an outcast he is among his own kind, same as me. He’s a pacifist among monsters, basically.

  So what will happen to him when the rest of his kind find out what he’s done?

  I think of the way that, back when this all started, he casually suggested that his father would likely kill him for teaming up with me. And I realize now: He hasn’t mentioned it ever since.

  I have a feeling he hasn’t given that nearly enough thought. That he’s already made up his mind to do what’s right, regardless of what it costs him, and now he’s holding as tightly to that plan as he is to my hand.

  And that’s when I realize I might be falling a little bit in love with him.

  And I’m really glad he isn’t capable of hearing my thoughts.

  I hastily slip out of his grip, masking the motion by putting my suddenly-free hand on the bag of food I’m carrying. “I’m still starving,” I say. “Picnic time?”

  “Sure.”

  We search out a spot that’s relatively free of pinecones and raised roots, and we eat our way through greasy fries and burgers and some sort of meat pie thing that I think contains like nine-hundred percent of the suggested daily amount of fat based on a two-thousand calorie diet.

  But it’s delicious, so whatever.

  Pretty sure I’ve burned enough calories lately, what with all the globetrotting and slaying monsters and almost dying. And I’m not done yet.

  At least not with those first two things.

  But I do think my stomach might explode if I don’t stretch it out or something. So I lean back in the sparse, spiny grass, and I focus on the stars twinkling above me.

  There are some random, slow-moving clouds moving across the otherwise clear sky, interrupting my stargazing a bit. At least until Soren lies down next to me, lifts a hand in the air, and gives it a lazy twirl. Tiny pinpricks of light drift from his fingertips and float upwards for a bit before fixing at still points, mimicking stars against the dark clouds.

  “My own private star-filled sky,” I murmur. “Not bad.”