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“I’ve been working. I’ve done more for our people than anyone else for a hundred years. You can’t say I haven’t.” The insult was room enough for punishment, and if he were anyone but my brother, I would have stripped him of his title.
“Someone needs to stand up to you and tell you that you’re going to be the downfall of us all if you don’t get right with your wolf. All the good won’t matter if you are the eventual cause of our ruin.” He stepped back, taking the submissive posture and breaking off the heated exchange.
“I have it and him under control.”
“Are you going to let the abuse you suffered dictate the rest of your life?” Az took another step back but held my gaze.
“You have no room to talk about any of what I went through.” I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You don’t know what I dealt with or what I lived through. You have no room to judge.”
He grabbed my hand. “I’m not judging. I’m trying to help you see that you have to get right with yourself so you don’t let it destroy you. I’m the only one who has the balls to stand up to you.”
I shoved him and pulled my wrist out of his grasp. “I’ve heard you, and you’re wrong. I am right with me and my wolf.”
He exhaled but didn’t follow, and I was grateful for it. No good would come of our wolves getting into it. I needed his help protecting our people, and either one of us being taken out by a fight wouldn’t aid in that.
“Are we heading back?” Vin asked. I was shocked he’d let us have our standoff without getting involved.
“Yes.” I exhaled.
* * *
“You can’t come with us,” I said when we got to my house.
Wolves would be waiting in the village to take me to the body.
“I know. I’ll come back tonight.” Vin looked like he’d reach for me but held himself back.
“Okay.” I closed my eyes, undoing every chain I’d locked the wolf with to keep him in his place. It took time, undoing the heavy binds, and he was angry.Vin didn’t linger, and I was grateful. He didn’t need to be here when I set the beast free.
My body shook, and the pain started. Muscles stretching and pulling, bones shifting, the wolf in my mind laughing as my eyes changed to black. He loved the anguish. We both did. There was a sick satisfaction in giving over control to a beast. He was gray and three to four times the normal size of a wolf. Heavier than a bear, all cold killer instincts.
His thoughts were a jumble, and I was forced into the cage I normally kept him in and had to watch while he was behind the wheel.
The wolves didn’t wait. As soon as the change began, they took off, and my wolf loved the chase. He caught up to them easily, being larger than the rest of the pack. The powers of the land tied to the alpha afforded some things. I could have outrun any of them. But the wolf fell into line. He knew where we were headed, the rotting scent already thick on the air, something that I would never have picked up in human form even with my superhuman senses. He let the younger wolves lead, happy to let them feel useful. No one was useful for this. There was death, and not a damn thing any of us could do. I knew who it was before we reached the body, too. My wolf and I shared senses, he mine and me his, regardless of our form. I couldn’t make out all of his thoughts, but I’d got the gist after many years sharing a corporeal form.
Brody’s familiar smell was tangled in the branches and on the mud. He worked as a bartender in my bar. A good kid. I dreaded telling his mother. She’d know long before I got there. A mother wolf always knew. My heart ached.
My wolf skidded to a halt a hundred yards out from the body, making a wide circle around it, nose to the ground, seeking out any clue as to the culprit. There was none. Not a footprint. Not a scent. No trail. The ground was cold and unforgiving. The body could have been dropped from the sky dead if it wasn’t for the blood pooling around it. There was no mistaking that this was the kill site.
And it wasn’t the telltale signs of vampires either. They left the stench of death in their wake. Very real prints and markings. I’d love to blame it on them and our war, but none of the evidence pointed in their direction.
I left the wolf to do his thing, knowing it was useless to try and control him. The younger wolves gave us space. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to deal with my wrath, either. The wolf gave up after a while. It was always the same. He left me to have my body back; after all, he wasn’t about to do the dirty work it required to clean up the mess. Deal with the family. It wasn’t the wolf’s way.
For hundreds of years Wolves ate their own. They were beasts. We returned bodies to bodies, leaving nothing to waste. It was ritual and tradition rooted in returning our blood magic back to our own kind. We didn’t want it to go back in to the earth to be stolen by others. So the wolves consumed the blood and flesh to preserve the magic.
But now the ritual wasn’t as barbaric as it once was. We drank from the deceased to return their blood to our blood and keep the magic in our own kind. Then we burned the body. We’d always buried the ashes and bones after the ritual. So it wasn’t that different.
A gift for the life it provided us. There was magic in death even if the energy was mostly gone, and the parklands recognized the gift. I felt it. Every time we put a body in the ground, the lands grew stronger. I grew stronger, and I hated it.
Hated that all the death I couldn’t stop was benefiting me.
If only I could alter or get rid of other such outdated rituals like the fucking quickening.
I couldn’t dwell on it or I’d live angry.
I didn’t want to spend my last year that way.
I bent down to scoop up the mangled remains. I would carry Brody the miles on foot to his mother. She deserved to smell him one last time, even if he was a mess. We would all be a mess by the end of the day. Wolves were and always would be pack animals. We all felt the loss.
