Blood for Wolves (13 page)

“When I was six,” I said quietly,
“My sister Sasha gave my mother flowers she’d picked from the garden. My mom
smiled, and said she loved them.”

Wolf turned his head to look at me.

“I thought, I could give her
flowers, and I wouldn’t have to take them from mother’s garden. So I went out
and picked dandelions and put them in a cup. And when I gave them to her, she
took one look at them and said, ‘Oh no honey, these are just weeds,’ and she
threw them out.”

For a long time neither of us
spoke. I saw my mother in my mind, so casually tossing the golden dandelion
blooms out the door before going back to doing whatever she’d been doing in the
kitchen. I remembered well that crushed feeling. I couldn’t speak. All I could
do at that age was walk away.

“That’s the way it was in my home,”
I finally said. “I don’t know why. Maybe because Sasha was the first born and Brittany was the baby and I was just this person stuck in the middle. The other two
required so much attention, Sasha wild and unpredictable, and Brittany just
wanted everything all the time. I thought that maybe if I was good, if I didn’t
cry or complain or ask for anything, my parents would notice me more.”

I thought on my sisters. They were
much older now, of course, and weren’t the same, but it was too late now. Sasha
was married with a baby on the way, and Brittany had a prestigious job; I was
the odd one out, the ugly duckling who lurked in the woods, following after
wolves.

He stared at me intently now,
wondering where I was going with this.

“I tried so hard. The others would
scream and cry and I sat there quietly, waiting my turn.” I paused and stared
into the sky. “God, I was always waiting. Always.”

I went silent for a while, the only
sound in the woods a bird warbling in the trees. Finally I worked up enough
courage to speak.

“When I was little, maybe
Marianne’s age, my family went for a hike in the woods. Nothing too serious,
just a short hike up and back. My dad took us off the trail to a pretty little
glen to have lunch, and I went off to play by myself. Sasha and Brittany were
complaining of course, and so they left. And they forgot me.”

I laughed bitterly and wiped at my
eyes. “They
forgot
me. How do you forget your own child? I was so young,
I didn’t know where I was, and I was all alone in the woods, and I ran and ran,
yelling for them, but no one came. It got dark, and I got cold, and I didn’t
know what animals were out there making sounds. God, I was so scared.

“Just before it got too dark for me
to see, a female wolf found me. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe she
was a dog. A big white dog. She just walked around me for a while. And then she
came up to me and sniffed me and licked my hands. And then she laid down right
beside me, and that’s how I made it through the night.”

I sucked in a breath. I didn’t want
to remember. I didn’t want to tell. “When they found me the next morning, these
stupid, stupid people they brought together for a search party, they woke us
both up, and the female wolf—I think she wanted to protect me. Maybe she lost a
cub, I don’t know,” I choked on a sob, “but she growled at them and they
thought she was going to hurt me and I yelled at them to stop, but a man shot
her. Shot her in the head and she died.” Hot tears rolled down my face and the
pathway blurred. I stopped walking. “I was so
angry
. I yelled at them
and screamed and threw rocks and they all stood around like a bunch of idiots
and I ran up to that man and I bit his hand as hard as I could…”

For a few minutes I couldn’t speak.
I remembered the mess of brain and bone scattered over the leaves, the dark
blood matting her beautiful white fur. Sinking my teeth into the meat of the
strange man’s hand. I remembered the taste of his blood. Finally I calmed down
and continued.

“Then they took me home. And my
parents were so happy and they paid so much attention to me and I felt so
special…”

“Then why should you want to
disappear?” Wolf asked, his voice quiet. He’d stopped as well, his full
attention on me.

I laughed again, wiping my eyes and
nose. “Because it didn’t last. For three months, I was their special girl, back
from the lost woods. But then Sasha got into trouble with her antics and
Brittany wanted things, and I was alone again. I was so angry at them for
forgetting me, and then ignoring me again like nothing had ever happened. Like
I hadn’t almost died and I hadn’t seen an animal killed right in front of my
eyes when she was only trying to help. When my parents broke up, I thought that
would be my chance to be important. For them to finally see me. Because I was
one of their precious children. But I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal to
them because nothing changed with my mother, and then my father remarried and I
had a step-brother, Alex. And a boy meant a son for my dad.

“So finally I stopped trying. When
I was old enough, I stopped trying to show them I was strong or special or
smart. I mean, I kept doing good things for
me
, like getting good grades
and all. But there were times when I would just walk away to see if anyone
noticed I was gone. Just disappear, you know? Slip away when no one was
looking. I did it to everyone. I did it to friends. I’d leave parties, walk
home in the dark. Not the smartest thing to do, I know, but I did it anyway. Because
I was gone. That’s when I was important.”

I thought about my disappearing
acts, how sometimes they worked, sometimes no one ever noticed. Except one
person always asked where I’d gone if I left a place he was at. Alex. The one
person to look each and every time. At least I had him to file a report on me
back home. He wouldn’t be able to find me here.

I let out a shaky sigh. I shouldn’t
have been doing therapy with Wolf. Marianne was somewhere out there still,
being dragged away from everything she knew by some magically created phantom. I
closed my eyes. He stood close, listening to every word.

“But you.” I reached out to touch
his face. “A strange man…half-wolf. I’ve known you for a few days and yet
you’ve always come looking for me.” My voice dropped a whisper. “And you’ve
always found me.”

“I will always look for you,” Wolf
said, his eyes gold and burning, “and I will
always
find you. Because
you’re more important when you’re here.”

“I’m sorry for being so much
trouble.” I smiled faintly. “You won’t have to look for me again.”

He pulled me to him and kissed me,
slow and long. And I kissed him back. A crazy man. A crazy wolf. Whatever he
was. I kissed him anyway. When he pulled back his eyes had returned to normal. We
began walking again.

“By the way,” I said, “what did you
do with the necklace?”

“I was going to throw it in a
lake,” Wolf said. “But before I got to one, it flew away.”

A disbelieving snicker escaped me. “It
flew away?”

“Up, out of my pocket, and away
back to the town. No doubt returning to its mistress.”

I shook my head. “That necklace was
supposed to help me.” The witch had said to keep the right desire at the
forefront at all times. Oops. “Instead I fly into harpies and end up sleeping
with you.”

“Oh, we didn’t sleep, sweet
Caroline.”

“I know that,” I said, trying not
to think of his skin against mine. Then it hit me. The witch never said
anything about the necklace exclusively helping me find Marianne. I’d spilled
my guts to Wolf the next morning thanks to that necklace. Told him things I’d
never spoken aloud to anyone. Things I’d never told my parents because I knew
they would dismiss me or ignore me or go into denial about it. So I ran. I ran
away, far away from everyone to be on my own, finally finding solace in the
woods and the wolves. And what did I do in the end? Cry to a wolf about
everything, and for once I didn’t feel so alone.

I was pretty sure I was fucked up.

While I pondered my slightly broken
childhood and my response to it, Wolf frolicked ahead, swinging around trees
and occasionally jumping around me with a grin on his face. I’d never seen a
grown man leap around with such abandonment and figured in my world I probably
never would. If I did, it would have looked completely bizarre, yet here
watching Wolf, it seemed completely natural. His wolf side was happy and full
of energy. Finally he jumped behind me, wrapped his arms around me and lifted
me off the ground in a big hug. I shouted in surprise, but couldn’t help but
laugh. His spirit was contagious. Then he put me down again and let out an
excited sigh that sounded partly like a playful growl.

“I feel so alive. Don’t you my
sweet Caroline?”

“I’m fine…thanks.” I did feel good,
but I wasn’t about to start jumping around in the same way. “How far away do
you think we are from Marianne? We…
I
wasted a whole day we could have
been looking for her.”

Wolf stopped in the middle of the
path and inhaled long and deep. “Oh.” He inhaled again, his eyes wide…wild. “I
smell sheep.”

“Focus, babe.”

He grinned. “Sorry.” He took
another breath.

“God, it’s like I had sex with you
and now you’re all crazy,” I said, keeping my voice low. He glanced at me and
his eyes flashed gold-red. I still didn’t like the red.

“Oh it’s not just you my heart,” he
said, “the full moon is coming tomorrow. It’s going to be so big and bright and
beautiful in the sky…”

So that’s why he was acting so
weird. He’d gotten laid
and
the moon was on the cusp of being full. I
got the feeling that was like giving an ADD kid a bunch of Skittles.

“But the girl. The girl,” he said,
the words practically tumbling out of his mouth, “Miss Marianne, Marianne,
little Marianne, lamb fleecy white…”

Holy crap. “Wolf!”

“Yes. Sorry my succulent sweet…and
you
are
succulent,” he stared at me for a second, running his tongue
over his lower lip. A sharp tingle ran down my spine. Then he seemed to
recover. “But she’s far ahead. I’d say a day’s walk. If they stop somewhere,
perhaps we can catch them. The magic may very well need time to replenish
itself. ”

“How?”

“Either from a source or its
master.”

Suddenly Wolf froze, his nostrils
flaring. He narrowed his eyes, staring down the path in the direction we’d come
from.

“Someone is coming.”

“Someone bad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like the
scent. I didn’t catch it before because he’s upwind.”

“He?”

Wolf sniffed again and then huffed
out his nose. “He smells a little bit like you.”

“What?”

“But he’s carrying metal,” he
continued, ignoring my question. “Sharp metal. Metal that kills wolves.”

“Silver?”

“What? No. Just…” He shrugged in
exasperation like he didn’t know how to explain it any clearer. “Metal that’s
been sharpened to a point.”

“You can smell that?”

“Can’t you smell wood when it’s
being sharpened?”

I opened my mouth and then closed
it. Yes, actually, anyone could smell freshly cut wood.

“Come.” Wolf snatched up my hand. “He’s
getting close.”

We ducked off
the side of the path and hid amongst a clump of ferns. I wanted to know what
was so dangerous, but considering what I’d gotten myself into the past few
days, I trusted Wolf this time.

We waited amidst the foliage on the
ground. For several minutes we saw nothing, and I started to wonder if maybe
Wolf had made a mistake. Then a man appeared around the curve of the path. He
was dressed head to toe in black, a canvas sack slung over one shoulder and a
quiver of bolts over another. He held a crossbow in his hands. My heart
hammered in my chest. Who the hell was this guy?

He crept forward, inching back the
string and slipping a bolt into the bow. His gaze darted from the marks on the
path to places in the brush and the trees. Was he looking for something? I
tried not to breathe. Was he looking for
us?
How could that be possible?
Unless he worked for whatever sent the phantasm after Marianne. The thought
gave me pause. Hadn’t she mentioned men in black outfits? She said they were
kind of mean, but who were they?

He paused at a place on the trail. He
looked familiar, but his hat obscured his face and I couldn’t get a straight
look at him through the ferns. He stood there for much too long. Not far from
us, examining the trail. We hadn’t covered our tracks. If he was after us, he
would see them leaving the road. He crept closer.

Wolf emitted a faint growl, and
before I could stop him, he leaped off the ground and lunged at the man. The
stranger spun and fired, but he’d swung too hard and his aim was off. The bolt
sank into a tree and he crashed onto the ground, Wolf on top of him. He
wrestled Wolf off and rolled to his feet to face him. He stared, his eyes going
wide in shock and fear as he realized what he was dealing with before Wolf came
at him again, crashing into him and grabbing the collar of his jacket. But in
that moment I got a good look at his face.

I couldn’t believe it.

His back slammed into a tree. He
tried to shove Wolf off, who was trying to bite him with a mouth of sharp
fangs, his red eyes glowing.

I came to my senses and ran at
them, trying to wrestle them apart.

“Stop! Stop it!”

I pulled at Wolf’s coat, relief
flooding me when Wolf shoved him away and backed off. I held tightly to Wolf’s
jacket, gaping at the only other man who ever made any effort to find me. My
step-brother, Alex.

I couldn’t believe it. Alex was
here.
Alex
. He stood against a tree, breathing hard, dressed in some
strange getup; black pants, black vest, white dress shirt, and a long black
coat like Wyatt Earp wore in the Wild West. The black hat of similar fashion
was what really threw me off. Alex didn’t wear hats unless he was out hunting. I
hadn’t even recognized him until Wolf had him backed against the tree. He held
an intricately carved crossbow in one hand, a quiver of silvery bolts slung
around on his back.