Introduction to Werewolves Part II
Our basement, like many others, was just another room of the house. In the summer when the dry heat made the upstairs insufferable, my sister and I would sleep on the couch and loveseat down there or play video games where it was not so dreadful. I wasn’t sure if other places were like this… but it was nearly twenty degrees cooler in the basement than in the rest of the house. For parents who did not want their children to whine incessantly about heat, this playroom down here had been a Godsend.
And in the basement was our alpha, sitting in the recliner by the TV, rather comfortable in the idea that his presence had made the room his.
Alphas are the type of people that even humans respect. By that I mean they walk into the room and there is a presence to them that draws the respect, love and fear that any president or dictator would kill to have. It’s charisma that shows that they are a natural leader and ruler of men and beasts. Our alpha, Dimitre Knight, was the true epitome of that. He was watching me with his strange, mismatched eyes when I descended the last stair to the room and I felt uncomfortable immediately, resisting the urge to meet his gaze.
“You know that girl,” he said.
I nodded.
A soft laugh escaped him. “You know what we normally do under these circumstances, do you not?” He stood and I thought he was going to approach me. Instead, he just focused his gaze on one of the paintings on the wall. It was “Mount Corcoran” by Bierstadt. My mom loved that painting because it reminded her of the Sawtooth Mountains. My dad had brought her that little piece of home since the Grand Tetons just don’t compare. That painting held Dimitre’s attention for some time, the silence drawn out.
I did know what he would do to her. Or, rather, what he would tell my father to do. Alphas never had to do the dirty work.
“But I am not going to,” he said. “Your parents will not be around forever and so I think it would be prudent to prepare for your future. She is a rather pretty girl, after all.”
“Excuse me?”
“Crowe, I want you to find this rogue and kill him. You are going to change this moonturn- I sense that. Therefore, since she is within your age range and she may survive the fever, I suggest that you avenge the infection that wolf has presented her with.”
Dimitre never suggested anything. He gave demands, he told and he requested but this was not a suggestion.
“I trust you will have this done before the next run, Crowe. Finals are in a few weeks… you may want to finish this task so that you do not disappoint us in your human life as well.”
I let out the breath I was holding in and when he dismissed me with a flippant gesture of his hand, I made my way upstairs, letting out my fear through rage when I was well out of earshot.
I ended up in the kitchen, realizing how hungry I was. But food wasn’t the most immediate thing I had to think on. It was that I was going to have to hunt a full grown werewolf by myself so I could impress a girl I wasn’t sure I cared that much about and probably die in the process. I was fuming. I had been hyped about changing since the time I knew exactly what it meant and now my coming of age was suicide. That had to be it. I had somehow disappointed my parents and my pack and they wanted me to die. They were only expecting my sister to live. That had to be it.
A hand landed upon my shoulder and I whipped around, baring my teeth and growling low in my throat.
My dad was looking down at me. I wished he were looking at me as dismissively as Dimitre was because even if I felt the pain of familial betrayal, it would have fueled my rage. Instead, I felt like the puppy I knew I still was.
Instead of giving me some parting words, he just hugged me. I whimpered, holding onto him as if I could borrow some of his strength.
“No wolf is taught how to find his prey, Crowe. When the time comes, you will just know.”
I jumped over the fence easily, looking back to see Lucek trailing behind. I laughed at him even if he was helping me. He was thirteen years old and even though he might come into his change soon, nobody thought he would. He was a lithe boy with a pasty complexion and dark hair and eyes. Romanian wolves were never as hardy or muscled as my people were- the natural lycanthropes of the Blackfoot tribe.
He was helping me measure my strengths and my weaknesses. So far, even with a bit of added strength, I could not even compare to a full-grown wolf. That was why we were trying to bait this rogue.
Speed and dexterity were my strengths at this point and so, as a pair and behind the alpha’s back, we had planned a strategy together. I could smell the rogue’s rank scent on the air sometimes, faint and hungry, but he didn’t venture too close. He was testing the boundaries, wondering when the stronger wolves would jump in to protect their pups.
It wasn’t lending to our advantage.
As we entered the field several blocks from my house, dusk had already begun to fall and my body was restless, my joints aching. As we walked through cool, blue green grass, I had to rub my arms to try to make the pain lessen.
“Is it coming?”
“I would have told you if he was close,” I said.
Lucek pushed at my shoulder. “Not the wolf, you idiot. Your change. Dude, you’re gonna explode out of your skin tonight, aren’t you? Oh my God it’s going to be awesome!” He said and made a wide gesture with his hands. Somehow, watching my friend reenactment my change as if my body was a grenade was making me less than enthused.
“I don’t know, Lucek, for the last goddamned time. Geez.”
I knelt in the grass and Lucek gave me a strange look. The moon was close and soon we would have to take Cleo over to Stanley for her first change. They were hoping I could help her with that. I wouldn’t be able to kill the rogue without having at least that on my side.
“We need to give the rogue some sort of opening. If he doesn’t see we’re relaxed, then he’s never going to attack us.”
“Didn’t he attack Cleo in broad daylight?”
“Yeah, about that. Human foster child versus soon to be changing son of the beta wolves of a werewolf pack. Something tells me he is just smart enough not to try that while I am at track practice.”
“It is a rogue.”
He didn’t get to finish that thought because an ear-piercing howl split through the air like lightning. We had memorized the harmonies of our pack members since we were babies and this wasn’t one of them.
“Get cover,” I said to him, pushing him off in the direction I wanted him to go. “Call out if he chases you instead.”
One would think that if he had wanted to piss off part of the pack, he would have gone after Lucek, being adopted by Dimitre’s mate and all. But no, he clearly saw that I was considered more valuable at the moment and his hulking wolf form bounded over the untamed grass in long strides.
Werewolves changed to wolves with an equal size and weight to their human form and maybe it was because I was scared but he was huge. I took off like a shot through the grass.
I could hear him panting, more distant at first, and I had a good head start. But a hundred yards became fifty quickly as his pace was twice mine. In the field, he had the advantage, but I was leading him into a small, dense wooded area that Lucek and I had gone over in the past few days and memorized completely. This should have been more difficult for me but even though I was a more slender werewolf, I was agile and so I had found track to be the most appropriate way to expend my excess energy in school.
It wasn’t particularly hard for me to vault over the fallen logs. It was only unsettling to feel my balance shift when my sneakers slipped on the wet leaves on the other side of the fallen trunk. I had to brush my hands together and shake them, getting feeling back. The bark was cold and hard, having dug into my fingers.
The thicker the woods were, the darker it became and I knew that I was not going to make it. The obstacles were far too easy for him. He wasn’t just an animal- he was one that was able to solve problems and make tactical decisions as he hunted me. I had known this was going to happen even if I had hoped that it wouldn’t. I was going to have to force my change.
I had been preparing since the discomfort had begun but it was always still with my father leading. I didn’t have him and I didn’t have the still, meditative silence to console me. Instead, I had this rogue wolf who wanted to rip me to ribbons at my heels.
I did the only sensible thing.
I began to shrug off my outer shirt clumsily, throwing it behind me. I pulled my undershirt from my pants and started to pull at it, finding the task more difficult than I had thought it would be. I paused in my efforts and looked behind me. The wolf was even closer. Not good.
I panted heavily as the burning in my legs began. I was a distance runner but running from a wolf, even on the rush of adrenaline I could not keep this up for much longer. Remembering what had happened to Cleo and knowing that my future was going to be far more grim than just a bite, I sucked my fear in and took another shot at removing my shirt as I felt the first rippling beneath my skin.
Oh god. It was really going to happen.
The shirt finally freed itself from my head just as I was rewarded with my vision spinning. My sneakers were slipping on the wet leaves and before I knew it, I was flat on my back and I was sliding down, down, down…
My hands tried to dig into the freezing dirt as I came down the steep hill, mud caking into my nails, rocks and sharp twigs nicking and painfully scratching up my arms and hands. It wouldn’t have been too terrible if my insides weren’t on fire and my body wasn’t trying to rearrange to its other self.
Oh god, I thought. I was curled in the fetal position, my hands strained as they grasped against the hot skin of my stomach. I heard the wolf growling at me at the top. But when my neck snapped back and I could see him there, he just stood. He was just smart enough not to try attacking a changing werewolf, especially one who might be changing for the first time.
The wolf ripped through me, turning me inside out, the phase being fueled by my fear and my need to hurt him. Unfortunately, when he slid down the hill on all fours and looked at me, he wasn’t scared. Just like every clever predator, the rogue had me just where he wanted.
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