“My apologies, Alpha-Majka,” I said, lowering my head and staring at her bare toes instead of her face. Crimson drops stained the wood of the porch beneath Majka’s feet, drawn to the surface of her skin by her alpha silver. “I’ve been struggling with my duties lately.”
“Your duties?” she asked, her laughter harsh and loud in the quiet clearing. If she was speaking aloud like this, it was because she wanted everyone to hear—whether werewolf or not. I could smell Faith’s scent from here, hadn’t done anything to try to hide it. Obviously Majka knew my friend was inside the house as well, but did she know how sick she was? “You’re letting yourself be distracted by a human girl. If she was foolish enough to couple with a Seelie fae, then let her go. You have more important things to worry about.”
I just stared at my grandmother and kept my mouth shut. It wouldn’t do to argue with her. All that would accomplish was a verbal disagreement that I couldn’t afford, one that could very well escalate into a full-blown grudge. And once Majka had a grudge, she held onto it with her claws and never let go.
‘You’re going to take the cauldron?’ she asked, switching to wolfspeak as I lifted my head and tried to ignore the sudden burning in Whitney’s tattoo. I wasn’t doing anything she’d forbade in her contract. No, that was just guilt eating at me. ‘Your mother’s been with the Forest Spirit,’ she explained, pride clear in her voice. Maybe she hoped my mother would carry another demigod, bring even more power back to Pack Ebon Red?
‘That’s my plan, Alpha-Majka,’ I said, keeping my head lowered slightly. It was the best I could do, the most deference I could show when I was so worried about Faith Cassidy, the only human friend I had. Hell, not counting my mates, she was the only friend I had, period.
‘You know that the edges of pack land are protected by wards, old magic that we haven’t been able to revive or refresh since my mother was the Alpha-Red?’ Even in wolfspeak, I picked up on the slight strain in Majka’s tone. It’d been years since I’d seen her this stressed. Last time was right around the death of my father—not my biological one, obviously, but the man who’d raised me. To see her like this right now was unsettling.
‘Yes, Majka,’ I said, wetting my lower lip and trying not to feel overwhelmed by her words. Even one more item on my plate might just tip the scale and drive me slowly into madness.
‘The Three—and most particularly the Crone—are honing in on the weak spots in our wards. It won’t be long until they break through. Once they do, that creature,” Majka spat the word before continuing, ‘will be free to scour our lands with magic until she finds the cauldron. Your mother will challenge her, but more than likely, she’ll die. Zara Wolf, I don’t know if I can stress this enough, but if you don’t hurry, this war you’ve been evading will catch up to you. You’ll have no choice in the matter. Make a decision and decide when and where this all comes to a head. Do you understand me?’ I nodded, feeling a tightness form in the pit of my stomach.
It felt like I was being told to choose between my best friend … and my pack.
Between my boys and my people as a whole.
‘You have other priorities to take care of,’ she continued, standing up from the rocking chair and moving over to the edge of the porch, her lips crinkled so tightly that wrinkles drew lines from the side of her mouth all the way to the edge of her jaw. ‘But it wouldn’t do to leave you without a lesson.’ She poured the rest of her tea over the porch railing and gave me a look that very clearly said teach your males to prepare proper tea.
Majka moved down the top step until we were standing on the same one. I towered over her, but it was hard to think about her like that, as being short or small or old. No, she was all-powerful, and I still looked up to her the same way I had as a child.
‘I left you a book. Rearrange your priorities and use your males wisely.’ She continued down the last two steps and then shifted into wolf form, her beautiful red-brown coat glistening in the early sunshine. Majka left her dress behind as she took off in the direction of the Hall. I sighed and walked over to pick it up. I didn’t need to really; there was an entire crew assigned to find and retrieve clothing on pack property.
I took the old dress up the stairs toward the front door anyway, pausing to grab the new book that Majka had left me on her chair. This one was just as old as the one written in Seraphim, maybe older. The language was yet another I didn’t speak, but I at least recognized this one: it was an old ‘were’ dialect, one that’d been universal once upon a time, meant to mimic the sounds of wolfspeak. Centuries ago, our people had given up on that language to adopt the human tongue of wherever it was they happened to live. We still had wolfspeak to communicate with one another, so it wasn’t deemed particularly important.
Hopefully, Anubis would know what it said.
I headed in the front door, letting the screen swing shut behind me, and felt my nostrils flare as I took in the strong reek of sweat and desire. Faith was definitely deteriorating. As soon as I smelled that, I knew we really were running out of time. I’d been gone all of an hour, maybe less, and Faith was now thrashing and wailing, making these awful keening sounds under her breath.
As I stood there in the archway between the den and living room, it hit me.
Even if I grabbed the cauldron and we left for Faerie right now, I wouldn’t make it. Even if I took my boys into a dangerous realm and risked everything, I couldn’t save her.
Both the dress and the book fell to the floor next to me, drawing the attention of all my mates over to me.
“We need a new plan,” Montgomery said, wiping sweat from Faith’s forehead with a white washrag. Her eyes were open, the pupils so wide and dilated that they looked like solid black pits. I moved over to the bed without hesitation, lying down beside her and stroking her hair back from her sweaty face.
“I want to try our magic,” I said, feeling the power in the mark on my wrist. “Either that or we leave pack property and hope the Seelie Prince shows up again,” I said, glancing over at Anubis as he bent down and picked up Majka’s book from the floor. “If we take Faith with us, she might draw Malak our way. He didn’t just sleep with her and taunt us only to leave her to die; something else is going on.”
“Zara, where did you get this?” Anubis asked, flipping open the cover of the book, his crimson eyes following the lines of ancient text as easily as I read English. “Do you know what this is?” He lifted his face to look at me as a dozen possible solutions ran through my mind. Did I ask Harlem for her blood, try to turn Faith into a vampire before the toxins took over? The chances of that working were slim to none, especially with the rate of Faith’s decline.
That’s when I knew I was mentally scrambling.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up and knowing that Anubis would only interrupt this moment for something truly important. He lifted his crimson gaze to me, his navy blue hair so disheveled and out of place, a reflection of the chaos swirling around inside my heart.
“This is a book … on how to turn a human into a werewolf.”
My heart pounded so hard that I couldn’t sit anymore. I stood up, my hands shaking with adrenaline as I stared at Anubis, dressed in a long yellow tank with a … banana slug on the front? It was a University of California Santa Cruz top, featuring the school’s infamously non-offensive mascot.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nic asked, wearing nothing but a pair of what I was pretty sure were my pajama pants, these dark green sweats with the U of O logo on the bottom. Guess we were all about university merch today. “That’s not going to help Faith, some old ass book about a ritual that’s never been confirmed. As far as we all know, it’s all rumors. We have to do something to help her now.”
“Majka wouldn’t give me that book without a reason,” I said, feeling hope spread its wings wide inside my chest. The thing with feathers and all that, right? But it was more personal than that, almost like my owl was encouraging me to try the book, mu
ch like my wolf encouraged me to kill or mate or run. “You know that, Nic.”
“Zara, we need to take Faith in the SUV and drive off pack property, see if the prince will show up.” He flicked his dark eyes over to Anubis who was frantically thumbing through the pages.
‘If Malak wanted us to notice him, he’d just hover on the edge of pack property and wait for us to come to him—just like Aeron and Whitney.’ Jax was sitting on the floor in wolf form, his white fur speckled with black, his blue eyes piercing as he looked from me to Faith, and then over at Nic. ‘He’s not coming. I don’t know what his point was in seeking out this girl, but he’s not planning on showing back up; I can guarantee that.’
“We can’t risk Faith’s life on a whim, Zara,” Nic said, and the sound of pain in his voice broke my heart. If Nic was that worried … I glanced down at my friend, sitting hard on the edge of the bed and squeezing Faith’s clammy hand in mine.
“This is … really not all that difficult,” Anubis said, pursing his lips as he continued thumbing through the pages, skimming the words with such a careful intensity that I felt this overwhelming burst of love for him. He would do everything he could for my friend; they all would.
Tidus stepped up behind me and began to massage my shoulders, just like he had earlier that morning. It helped; the touch of another wolf always did. Our people were meant to be touched.
“Explain not all that difficult,” Che said, standing next to Silas on the right side of the room. They made a hot pair together, their arms just an inch or so from touching. It made me wonder what it’d be like to see them kiss. I banished that thought though; now was most definitely not the time for that. “Because from what I’ve seen of Eternity Chasers, changing a human into a Numinous is kind of a harrowing experience.”
“But wolves are immune to Seelie toxins,” Anubis said, exhaling and lifting his head from the back as he slammed the cover closed. “And according to this text, the change starts almost immediately—beginning with the powers of rapid healing. The shifting doesn’t come until the next full moon.” He tucked the book under his arm and glanced over to me, biting his lower lip. When our eyes met, a spark chased through me, warming me from my head to my toes. “The spell is supposed to be cast on a new moon, but I wonder if we might be able to tweak it some?”
“That seems a little counterproductive, waiting until our powers are weakest.” Che pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. I guessed he was pulling up a calendar because he pursed his lips slightly. “The new moon is two days from now.”
“Yes, but we’re close enough,” Anubis said, exhaling slowly and lifting up the mark on his wrist. “And we have magic that hasn’t been seen in generations. It’s worth a try. We don’t exactly have a lot of other options. Zara, if you want, we can start preparations now? It won’t take us long.”
“Let’s do it,” I said, trusting my intuition. Majka had come over here and left that book on purpose, all the while scolding me aloud about having a human on the property, almost like she was trying to make up for what she was about to do: create a turned werewolf. If ‘were’ history was correct, it’d been almost three centuries since a human had been turned. “Otherwise,” I continued, staring down at Faith’s face, usually a red-brown but now so pale and pallid that I hardly recognized her, “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
I stayed at Faith’s side while Anubis went over the ritual. We had everything we needed onsite: the blood of an alpha, our own innate magic, a bit of crushed buttercup, and some silver. The only catch to the ritual was that once I turned a human, I would never be able to do it again. Faith and I would be linked as pack; I’d always feel a connection to her.
Listening to Anubis describe what the ritual entailed made certain this art bad been buried for a reason: the turned werewolf essentially shared the power of the alpha who’d created them. I couldn’t imagine a single alpha who’d be willing to take that risk. Wolves were always looking for more power. What if the new werewolf decided they wanted to challenge the alpha?
It’d be like facing down a doppelganger.
“Are you sure you should be the one to do this?” Nic said, standing on the opposite side of the bed as Montgomery crushed up some fresh buttercup that Tidus had picked from outside. It was everywhere around here, a werewolf’s best friend when it came to birth control. Monty ground it up and added it to some warm water, helping me lift Faith so we could dribble some of the liquid into her mouth.
It was still daylight, and the moon wasn’t tonight or tomorrow, but the day after. Three days off, really. But Faith didn’t have days; she had hours. As I looked at her, I was starting to wonder if she’d even make it that long.
I couldn’t let myself think about what I’d do if she died; there was no describing the grief that swept over and stirred up a storm inside of me. In the back of my mind, I wondered if the Forest Spirit might save my friend, too? But I had no way of contacting him, simply had to wait for him to show. And beyond that, what I knew of his motivations told me he most likely would not save her life. Werewolves were rare, underpopulated, and responsible for regulating the earth’s natural supply of magic. Humans were overpopulated and destructive, tearing apart the environment and raping Mother Earth for their own enjoyment.
No, I didn’t think the Forest Spirit would do anything at all for Faith, not even if her death would break me.
As I sat there and thought on Nic’s question, I realized in the back of my mind that if this worked, if Faith were turned, I’d be losing the only connection I had left to my humanity. Faith would have to relearn the way the world worked, and then … then I’d finally be forced to tell her what’d happened to Diya, to Notch and Mila. I’d have to admit that I’d lied, that I’d failed both her and her mother.
“It has to be me,” I said as Nic shook his head. Technically, everyone in this room except for Nic was of alpha blood; they could all save Faith. But I didn’t want it to be one of them; I wanted it to be me.
“The power of all the packs is going to be channeled through you,” Jax said, his voice even and low, almost emotionless. I had no idea what he was thinking. “Do you really think that’s the right choice, Alpha?”
“Let me do it,” Tidus said, letting go of my shoulders and coming around to stand in front of me. “I’m pretty sure I’m the weakest male here. I know you and I are bonded, but as far as I can tell based on what Anubis said, Faith would still only have access to my magic.” He exhaled and bent low in front of me, taking a knee like a faithful knight. The gesture made me smile as Tidus curled his fingers through mine. “Let me do this for you.”
“No matter how much you trust someone, they can always betray you,” Silas said, exhaling and mussing up his espresso brown hair with his hand. I knew he was thinking about his father, his mother, and all the things that’d gone wrong in his relatively short life.
“I agree with Silas, Nic, and Tidus,” Montgomery said, looking me straight in the face. When he next spoke to me, it was with wolfspeak, and I could tell his words were for me and me alone. ‘Remember, you don’t have to do this by yourself. We’re here for you. Take our advice, trust us.’
Was I being selfish by trying to do this for Faith? Foolish? Or was I just trying to take the full burden on my shoulders like I always did?
“Okay,” I told Tidus, nostrils flaring as I fought back a small surge of panic. It wasn’t easy for me to give up control. Other than that moment when I thought I’d truly lost Nic, it was one of the most difficult moments I’d ever experienced. Faith was sick; my people were in danger. And now I had to sit back and let someone else do some of the heavy lifting.
That was the true beginning of my trust with the boys, the first time I ever really let myself go.
Standing up, I let Tidus take my place on the edge of the bed, handing over Montgomery’s silver knife, the one meant to fight off other werewolves. At this point, we’d gotten lucky. As far as I coul
d tell, Allister’s participation in the Coven Triad/Ironbound mess was limited to him. As far as we’d seen thus far, there were no other packs involved.
Although at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were.
“This is the most dangerous part of the ritual,” Anubis said, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, the book lying on his lap. “You’ll need to slit your throat just deep enough to bleed profusely, but not enough that it actually causes you harm.” He licked his lower lip and gestured at Faith. “We need to get her to drink as much of the blood as we can, and then we need to find a way for you to push your magic into Faith.”
As I stood there and tried not to freak at the idea of Tidus slitting his throat—I’d just been through that and I wasn’t keen on the idea of him having to suffer through it, too—something occurred to me. Those crushed red and black petals in the bed … Those were similar to the ones that’d appeared when Aeron was reading the white stag’s entrails, the ones that had shown up just as we were given the map to find the lost wolves. All the other vines and flowers from the magic had turned to ash and disappeared, but not those last ones, the ones between me and Tidus.
It felt like a sign or a premonition, one that I couldn’t ignore.
“We’ll have sex,” I told him, swallowing hard and wondering if I’d even be able to get into it with this level of stress. “And then instead of transferring the magic into one of you, we’ll put it into Faith—or at least we’ll try. Remember those petals Nic picked out of the sheets? Mix those into the buttercup and give Faith another sip.”
I grabbed Tidus’ hand and pulled him into the bathroom before I could second-guess what I was doing.
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