Fade (30 page)

I made my way down a hill and into the woods beyond. The bare branches allowed light to trickle down, and just as before, I found the golden hue beneath the trees soothing. I belonged outside. I felt normal in the middle of the woods. Everything slowed inside the trees. There was no rush to sort out all the thoughts continually pecking at me. They kind of fell away and let me be quiet for a little while. I kind of figured I owed that to who I’d been for so long. I’d been like Dace, and nature had been my home, too.

As I walked, I felt like maybe that was still true. I might have lost the ability to shift somewhere along the way, but as I’d been shown, that part of me still existed somewhere inside. I might never take wolf form again, but some part of my soul, at least, remembered what it meant to be wolf. The animal might have been buried deep, but she was still there.

That knowledge made me feel better, lighter. I might never be who I was meant to be, but maybe the person I’d become instead wasn’t as weak as I thought. I only had to figure out exactly who that person was, and what she wanted most.

I neared the crumbling wall where I first spoke to Dace, and realized I wasn’t alone. I don’t know what alerted me to her presence, but I knew when I came to the wall, I’d find Buka waiting for me there. The feeling wasn’t the same as with Dace. I didn’t feel Buka getting closer, but a subtle scent of something familiar wafted through the air. Buka’s scent.

I rounded a curve in the trail, and the crumbling wall came into sight. Buka stood on the ledge much as I had when I’d first come across it what felt like lifetimes ago. Though she balanced on all fours, she tilted her head back, her eyes closed. A smile spread across my face as I walked toward her, unafraid.

She turned her head and popped one eye open. The look she gave me was so comical, I couldn’t help but laugh. She arched a wolfy brow as if she knew what occurred between Dace and me that first day and found it amusing.

She jumped from the wall as I giggled, then padded toward me. When she reached me, she butted my thigh. I couldn’t get over how easily she accepted me.

I squatted down until we were eye level to scratch her ears. When her eyes rolled in her head and she rumbled in pleasure, I laughed again.

”It’s good to see you, too,” I said, pulling off the headphones and laying them on the ground beside me.

She sat and tilted her head to the side, her ears perking up as if listening to the strains of music still floating through the headphones. She inched closer to them and dropped low to the ground, her head still cocked to the side.

”Would you like to listen?” I asked, amused by her behavior. Did wolves know music? That was one question I would make Dace answer for me. I truly wanted to know.

Buka dipped her head low to the ground in a less serious version of the nod Kalei had given Dace. I smiled at her, fishing in my coat pocket for the iPod.

She sat still, watching me.

I pulled the headphones loose and turned up the volume before scrolling through and selecting
Tears of an Angel
. The song was one of my all-time favorites and had one of the most haunting melodies I’d ever heard. Beautiful through and through. I figured Buka would appreciate the song.

The music floated through the tiny built-in speakers on the iPod, and she sat up a little straighter, her ears twitching as she leaned toward the source of the sound. The song truly began then, words pouring out and causing chills to rise along my arms as they always did. Buka moved her head closer to the iPod, her eyes alight with curiosity.

I smiled and sat it on the ground in front of her. She looked at me for a moment and then dropped to her belly, her head directly over the little speaker. She thumped her tail on the ground like a tame dog would, and I couldn’t help but giggle at her. Watching a wild wolf listening to music, and seemingly enjoying it, was strange.

Buka snapped her head in my direction, clearly disgruntled as my laughter sounded over the music. I clasped a hand over my mouth, not wanting to ruin this for her. She didn’t look at all frightening, hunkered down over an iPod. In fact, she reminded me of myself in a way.

I wasn’t easily excitable, but when something made me happy, Mom had always said I got this look on my face like I’d only just discovered something. She used to surprise me with things I liked so she could see that wide-eyed expression of wonder. Buka had it now, and I suddenly understood why Mom loved seeing the look on me. It was great.

We sat in companionable quiet as the song swelled around us and then faded away. Buka stared down at the iPod for a long minute and then growled at it.

“The song is over, Buka.”

She huffed, and then pushed the iPod toward me with her nose.

“I’ll play it for you later,” I said, scooping up the iPod and putting it in my pocket. I pulled myself to my feet. “Will you do me a favor?”

She sat back on her haunches and made that nodding motion with her furry head.

“I want to go to the pond where I met you,” I said, looping the headphones around my neck. “Will you take me?”

She tilted her head to the side, looking at me as if to ask why.

“I liked it there. Will you take me?”

She made the same nodding gesture and rose to all fours, looking at me over her shoulder. I curled my hand into her fur, letting her lead the way.

Trooping through the woods in daylight took less time than it did in the dark of night. But something felt off this time. The woods felt wrong. They were too quiet, too still. The dust motes that floated like fairies in the air before seemed to hover uncertainly now. The shadows seemed thicker and darker. My skin felt too tight, stretched and prickling.

The closer we got to the clearing, the more leery Buka grew. She felt the ominous vibe, too, I think. She paced uncomfortably, her tail twitching and her eyes rolling. She kept going though, and I thought perhaps my imagination was running away with me, that Buka worried Dace would not approve of this little adventure.

I knew he’d filled Kalei in on everything we’d learned. She hadn’t seemed all that surprised, but she was wary. Then again, who wasn’t a little wary these days? Sköll and Hati were out there somewhere, and we didn’t know where. We weren’t even sure they were wolves.

I’d spent part of the weekend researching them and found nothing promising. They were the offspring of Fenrir and a witch, just as we’d known, but legend suggested they could shift, too, and not necessarily only into wolf or human form. Dace had seemed a little relieved by that, but I wasn’t. That fact made it that much more possible Ronan was one of the two. And if not him, virtually anyone could be one of them.

The thought scared me, but what else was new? Happy, fear-relieving thoughts were in short supply all around.

Twenty minutes after we started for the pond, Buka led me around the fallen log at the outer edge. Within seconds, the still water loomed up ahead just as suddenly as it had when Dace brought me to meet Buka and Kalei. I lifted my foot to step forward, eager to get my first look at the place in daylight, but Buka stopped me. She sniffed the air and whined, her hackles rising.

Stupidly, I started forward anyway, but she leapt in front of me, refusing to let me pass. A pleading whimper escaped her throat. She rolled her eyes and then focused briefly on something near the pond before looking back to me.

I followed the path her eyes took and finally noticed what she’d already seen. A large gray wolf, so like the one that tried to eat me, lay crumbled at the edge of the pond. A dark pool of liquid spread across the ground beneath him.

A cry of horror escaped my throat. Pieces snapped into place, understanding of what I’d felt for the last half hour dawning. One of the wolves had been attacked, and viciously.

I pushed around Buka and raced toward the wolf, my own safety not even registering in my mind. It did for Buka. She raced after me, outdistancing me in mere seconds. She stopped short of the bleeding animal and swung on me, growling.

“Stop it, Buka,” I admonished, my eyes still focused on the wolf. The poor thing was still alive, but barely. Blood covered the ground around him. One deep gash split his head; another ripped open his stomach, exposing organs.

I tried to step around Buka, but she leapt in front of me again and snarled. I knew even as I felt Dace and his wolf roar to attention in my mind that they would be too late. Everyone would. Nothing could save the wolf now.

Alarm and fury poured into me from Dace as soon as he caught the shape of my thoughts. The wolf side of him snarled. The enraged sound sent chills racing up and down my arms.

Dace raced toward us without a word.

Buka stood over the dying wolf, refusing to let me near.

“He’s dying, Buka,” I said as her fierce eyes met mine.

She whimpered, her mouth still pulled up in a snarl. Right then and there, I decided to risk her wrath, trusting that she wouldn’t try to eat me if I ignored her warning. She might have snapped at me to keep me back, but I felt confident that she wouldn’t hurt me.

She growled, sounding a lot like Dace when he did that, but she didn’t snap at me as I stepped around her. She didn’t let me approach alone either. She kept pace with me, not wavering once or straying a single inch.

“Tell him I’m a friend, Buka,” I said as we crossed the few feet separating us and drew up beside her wounded pack mate.

His eyes rolled wildly in pain and fear. He was too weak to lift his head or make a sound though.

Buka glanced at me, and I took that to mean she’d done what I asked. I dropped to my knees in front of the animal, lifting my hand. I expected him to growl and snap at me, but he didn’t. He didn’t have the strength to try. He made a strange clicking sound in his throat, but no other sound escaped.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, tears leaking from my eyes. He looked worse up close. The pool of blood surrounding him kept growing. His fur was matted with blood and other fluids I didn’t want to examine too closely. He’d literally been ripped open.

Who would do this? Who could do this?

Dace snarled, and I knew the answer to both of those questions. Sköll and Hati had done this.

I laid my hand gently atop the dying, bloodied wolf, heartbroken I could do nothing for him. The wolf shivered beneath my hand, and tears leaked from my eyes a little faster. I dropped onto my butt, not thinking about my actions, and scooted closer to him. Buka whined sadly, and Dace growled a warning. I ignored them both, shutting them out as best I could, to tend to their fallen friend.

I put my arms around the wolf and pulled his considerable weight as far onto my lap as I could get him, praying he was too far-gone to feel any more pain. I ignored the blood soaking into my clothing.

His eyes rolled again, less wildly and less afraid this time. I crooned to him as I stroked my finger down his nose and back up, careful not to touch that fatal, ragged gash right above his eyes, or to spend much time considering the tissue protruding from it. Holding him wasn’t enough, but I had nothing else to offer. I couldn’t save him, and I wasn’t strong enough to avenge him. All I could do was hold him on my lap and whisper to him as his breathing grew slower and slower, and, with another strange clicking sound in his throat and another shiver, stopped altogether.

The soothing words died in my throat. The part of me that had been wolf for millennia cried out. Everything seemed to fall silent for one long heartbeat, and then Buka lifted her muzzle to the sky and let loose a heartbreaking howl. Her grief and sorrow pierced my heart like blades. The wolves, one by one wherever they were around town, took up the mournful dirge until it seemed as if the entire countryside mourned their brother’s passing.

Dace’s wolf howled in my head too, mourning the loss of a brother right alongside his wild friends. I wanted to join in and howl with them, but I couldn’t. That made me feel worse.

I held the poor animal I didn’t know but loved anyway because Dace and Buka loved him. Tears streamed down my face as Buka, Dace, and the pack answered the question I pondered not even half an hour earlier.

Wolves knew music.

They knew music more haunting and beautiful than any human melody would ever be.

Chapter Twenty-One

W
hen Dace finally arrived, I still held the dead wolf on my lap. I stroked my fingers down the animal’s muzzle, tears pouring down my face. Buka sat beside me, more subdued than I’d ever seen her. She stopped howling at some point, but I knew if wolves could cry tears, she’d be weeping right alongside me.

Dace murmured something I couldn’t hear, and Buka rose to her feet. He shifted into the empty spot in a second, lifting my burden from my lap and placing him upon the ground with gentle hands. I wanted to protest, but couldn’t. My entire body was so cold and numb; I couldn’t find the ability to say anything.

Dace dropped to the ground and dragged me into his arms, burying my head against his neck. I shuddered, a pathetic wail bursting from my lips.

“Oh, love,” he whispered into my hair.

I fell apart completely; great, gasping sounds of anguish tore from my throat.