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The scene was like something out of a dark fairy tale.
The fire at the center of the gathering was huge—orange and crimson flames reaching for the sky, the waves of radiant heat making the air around them shimmer.
The smoke was the color of fog, growing wispier, defusing as it rose, tracing its sinuous path into the heavens. High above them was the moon, a brilliant silvery disc, illuminating the surrounding forest. The clearing was bathed in a ghostly glow, a calming juxtaposition against the angry, sorrowful flames of the fire. It was the sort of playing of light upon the land that one only witnessed in their dreams.
Or their nightmares.
Dmitri had made her stay a safe distance from the fire, perhaps fifty yards or so. But even there she could still feel the heat of it, and she wondered again how the huge pack of wolves, their pelts silver, white, and black—or all of the above—could frolic and run so close to those dancing flames.
Standing at the four corners around that bonfire were Dmitri and Knox, and on the far side, Matthias and Ryan. Their expressions were solemn, impassive, the luminescence of the flames playing upon the contours of their faces, rendering their noses, their cheekbones, their lips, and their eyes into almost a composite, until she couldn’t tell one from the other. Until their faces seemed both one and distinct.
It was a remarkable effect, and she wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t all in her head. But regardless, it held a stark, almost wistful beauty, and watching them in the cold night air as they brought the broken, battered, rotting corpse of Caleb to the base of the bonfire… it made her throat tighten up. Tears of her own welled in her eyes, though she knew not why.
Why would someone like her shed a single tear for the creatures who’d been responsible for dismantling her life? And yet even the thought… it was absurd.
The wolves danced and cavorted, spinning, dashing in circles about the roaring flames.
Then it hit her. Those flames weren’t just a lament for the dead. They were the burning away of what she thoughtshewas, of her self-image, of the construct of her existence. In that moment, there was only that. The sensation, the emotion, the knowledge that there in that clearing, in the cold, crisp night air, the scent of burning wood, the clean, earthy loam of the forest, and the sweet, sickening note of death, in that moment… she was finallyherself.
The blanket Dimitri had given her was one of a soft and incredibly warm fur, though she was afraid to ask what animal it had come from. She pulled it tighter about her form, embarrassed that underneath it she wore nothing at all.
But Dmitri would allow her nothing else, remarking that if she were to take part in the ceremony, even to watch it, then she would be as one of them, as they all were in a natural world. Naked.
Itwasa shock, though, to see all four men disrobe at once, and she’d have been a liar if she said she hadn’t drunk in all they had to show, all that made them virile, powerful males.
So many big cocks… and yet there’s only one that I can’t stop thinking about.
Still, what should have been a lurid scene was anything but. It was natural, primal, and masculine. Painted upon all of their faces was solemnity, honor, and reverence for all that they were, an acknowledgment of where they had come from, and where some day, they would all return.
Some, like poor Caleb, would just get there a little early.
The booming deep bass of Dmitri’s voice echoed throughout the clearing, and even the frolicking and running wolves stilled, their muzzles turning toward him, the only sound in the forest the crackling and dull roar of the brilliant, searing flames.
“Wolves, friends, our family. We’ve gathered this night to say goodbye, to hand over a soul into the care and loving arms of our ancestors. Caleb has taken the journey before us, one we must all make ourselves, someday. And we trust that in the great halls of those who came before us, he waits for us, on the hunt, the wind at his face, the scent of prey in his nose, and the knowledge that all is right in the world. That the wolf has finally run free.”
The break in Dmitri’s voice was something she hadn’t at all expected, that hint of real emotion in the hard man’s words something she hadn’t been sure he was evencapableof. But it was there, nonetheless.
She didn’t know the boy, but what she did understand was how much his loss affected the pack, what his awful death meant to Dmitri in particular. And even she knew in her heart that it wasn’t rooted in worry about a potential conflict with Caleb’s clan. Rather, it was the true sorrow at a young life snuffed out much too early. A boy with his entire life ahead of him, murdered. And for what?
Nobody knew, of course, though evenshehad some ideas already.
What the hell is that supposed to mean, Stacy? You don’t know anything about these creatures!
Dmitri’s voice continued. “Tonight, in the presence of the forest, in the embrace of nature, in the universe we all belong to, I give you this soul. Tonight, we lament the dead and mourn that we cannot yet join him.
But we commit him to you in the knowledge, the certainty that someday, he’ll be reunited with everyone he ever loved. That he will run with them. That he will hunt with him. And that forevermore he will know only happiness, and honor, and joy. So, this night take this wolf, this noble, strong, vital being, and know that he hasnotbeen snuffed out. He has been transformed. Caleb now takes his seat with the ancients, in his next life to which we are honored to send him.”
Stacey almost yelped in surprise then at the combined howls of the wolves, all of them turning their heads toward the burning moon above, their warbling and piercing yips, screams, and cries saying all that needed to be said, all that needed to be felt, and so much more that she could never possibly understand.
But that profound sorrow wasreal, her heart aching with it. Though she did not understand why, tears streamed down her face, and it came to her then what that soulful, mournful sound was, the emotion that she couldn’t help but respond to.
That lament for a fallen wolf.
She bowed her head, wiping away her tears with the heel of her hand. When she looked upon the fire again, what she beheld took her breath away.
Dmitri and Knox, together, lit torches from the base of the roaring blaze. They set alight the pyre upon which Caleb lay between them. In moments, the flames consumed him, the fire turning to a white, then a raging purple, shot through with a sliver the color of stars. She stared upon it, drawn to the light, unable to turn away even at its almost painful brilliance.
Then in a piercing roar louder than a jetliner, the pyre shattered, Caleb’s body disintegrating, a mushroom cloud of fire the color of berry and blood and embers rising into the sky. As it reached the treetops soaring overhead, an impossibly bright emanation exploded forth, bathing the entire clearing in shimmering illumination like glowing mercury.
