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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Fantasy >> ID #1574900 |   |
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[Introduction]
  Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye. Don't go around tonight, Well, it's bound to take your life, There's a bad moon on the rise. Creedence Clearwater Revival In 1693 at Benais in France a witch created the first werewolf. Do we remember her name? No. Do we care? Also no. Point is, she wasn't the last. From 1794 to 1797 another one of the stupid women decided that her predecessor had hit upon a brilliant idea.I don't know if you're familiar with the story, but they call it the Beast of Gévaudan. It killed over one hundred people and wounded at least fifty more. It ate most of its victims. This wasn't the end of course. Once one of the bitches did it, others followed in her footsteps. Check the history books, there's at least three other occurances of wolf attacks in France between 1794 and 1954. Why she created him, we don't know. It was probably for vengeance or some other stupid petty reason. Why else do people do anything? Anyway, the point is that she took this human being, took a man that loved and admired her most likely, and she turned him into this, the things that we are. She turned him into a beast. There are rules of course. There are always rules. First of all, he can't control himself, not unless he's bound to her. Only a witch can give us control over ourselves. Otherwise we're just another animal tearing at the leash. Second, we're not human anymore, and none of our children ever will be. They're going to suffer this stupid fucking curse every day for the rest of their lives, just like we are. If they're unlucky enough to have children of their own then they're going to pass it down to them too. It's never going to end. Not until we're all dead. In South Boston in the 21st century a small pack of werewolves tries to keep it together. They've been alone most of their lives, chaining themselves in the basement to try to keep from killing people. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. They are about to meet a young witch who is going to throw their lives into turmoil. Because behind her is a half-decimated, militant wolf pack that will stop at nothing to get her back, and a pair of vampires that wants all of them dead. It's about to be a fun day in Boston. And they might not survive it. the R A C E S Wolves - Considered fairly common. Weak against silver and fire. Passed down genetically. Wolves can sense Witches, but not Vampires. Heightened senses in and out of wolf form include sight, smell, hearing, speed, and strength. When not bound to a witch, they are bound by the moon's cycles and have no control over themselves during a full moon. When bound to a witch they have full control over their mind during change and are no longer bound solely to the moon's cycle. Witches - Considered fairly rare. Passed down genetically. Cannot sense Wolves or Vampires. Can cast various spells, usually require a book of magic and years of training. Spells must be spoken aloud. Can bind wolves to themselves, giving themselves influence over their actions. Very powerful witches can create new wolves. Vampires - Considered extremely rare Can sense Wolves and Witches Can only be created through a mutual exchange of blood. Weak against sunlight and having exploding buildings dropped on them. Unaffected by holy water, holy symbols, stakes, or garlic. Do not have reflections Unaffected by compassion, love, sympathy, pity, loyalty, etc. Generally driven by selfish desires and the urge to destroy, maim, and otherwise cause chaos because it would amuse them. the C H A R A C T E R S
the Wolves - the Alpha - Isaac Ellison .Wolfie.  the Beta - Lawrence van Oordt Quaddy the Omega - Tristan Ellison Wenston  the Pup - Mira Ellison the Russian - Natya Sergeyev the Bastard - Kayden McConnell the Witch - Mynt Ceridwen Kavanaugh the R U L E S  This story will be written in multiple story arcs determined by tarot cards, specifically the Major Arcana I will post when the arc is changing. They may be one round long or several rounds long, depending on how long it takes to tell each story. No Mary Sues/God modding. Your character is not perfect. Your character cannot solve every problem with a wink and a perfect smile. It is also not you. Your character does not magically know everything you as a writer does, and I expect your writing to reflect that. Please try to add within a reasonable time. (1 week.)May or may not be granting requests to join. A request does not always equal acceptance.A big thank you to Wenston for the awardicon!!! |
 .Wolfie.  00. The Fool CardRepresents a fresh start or a new beginning. Represents taking risks in unknown circumstances. Represents the protagonist of the story. In which the Wolves encounter a Witch, and the dogs nipping at her heels. He remembered watching Bugs Bunny on TV with his little sister. He had to have been seventeen at the time, which would have made her three. He was the eldest of ten, six brothers and three little sisters and he couldn’t help but hate his father a little bit for that. What kind of a bastard had ten kids, knowing the curse he was passing on to them? His mother had only said anything about it once, but she didn’t dare say it too loud because she didn’t want to cross her Alpha. Her voice had been quiet and sad and he didn’t understand it at all. “He thinks it’s the rule of seven. He thinks seven sons can set him free.” That was it. That was all she had ever said about it. His little sister squirmed next to him and he glanced at the clock. Half an hour until moonrise and by then they all had to be in the basement because his pop didn’t take chances with the little monsters he’d spawned. His eyes went back to the TV and he couldn’t help but think how weird it was that the cartoon rabbit liked to dress up like a woman so much and then he thought that there wasn’t much meat on his bones and he wouldn’t make a very good meal. Daffy Duck now… Daffy could make a decent snack at least and maybe Elmer Fudd too, if he wasn’t mostly fat. His teeth worried his bottom lip and he realized just how close the moon was now because his fingers were drumming on the arm of his chair and he was getting hungry because of a cartoon rabbit. He tensed when his father came in the room and he met the man’s eyes without meaning to. He dropped them right away, but the sharp growl came anyway. They both knew the day was coming. Isaac was the eldest son and he felt the ties that bound him to his father stretching and beginning to crack. They both knew that sometime soon there was going to be a challenge and then one of them was going to end up cast out of the pack or dead in a pool of blood. He was pretty sure it was going to be him. He was younger and faster but his father was a monster of the worst kind and Isaac figured he would be lucky if he didn’t end up dead in his father’s jaws. “Get in the basement,” his father snapped after a moment. And Isaac bit off the words that came first to his tongue and replaced them with a “Yes sir.” He didn’t know why he thought of this now, as he slowly came to on a dirty floor. Gray light was just seeping in the subway windows and he had to blink against it. Maybe because that was the last time he’d been in control, the last time that he’d been bound to his witch mother and been able to see with his own eyes instead of the half-delusional eyes of a beast. He rubbed his forehead and heard metal clanging as he did so. There were still handcuffs around his wrist and they bumped against the seat he was laying under. “Fuck…” he growled quietly and began to pull himself to his knees. He was naked, not that he was surprised at this point, and there were scratches all over his skin. His hands were flecked with blood and when he wiped at his mouth he wasn’t surprised that was red too. It wasn’t like this had never happened before. It wasn’t like they faced this danger every damn month. He wondered if he had killed anyone. He wondered how he was getting home. A snore brought his attention to the corner of the subway car, to the only other person currently occupying it. A bum lay curled up in the corner, the smell of vomit and vodka pouring off him in waves. It was almost enough to drown out all the other smells that hung heavy and rancid in the air, the smell of sweat and shit and fear and lust and all the other things that humans carried with them every day and weren’t even aware of half the time. He tried not to think too much about what he was doing as he stole the bum’s pants, but he did what he had to and there was no way he could get away with walking out of the subway stark naked. He could get a shirt out of one of the lost and found bins but pants weren’t quite as common. Shoes, he would need shoes too. He was lucky it was a Sunday, because the traffic wasn’t as bad as it should have been. He crossed his arms over his chest and bee-lined for the nearest pay phone so that he could check in on the rest of the pack. He hoped he was the only one who’d gotten out last night because the more of them that broke free of their cuffs the more damage they could have done to the city and they didn’t need that kind of attention. They were too small, too few and he wasn’t exactly the most powerful Alpha on the east coast. That was still his father. His fingers began to punch in the numbers without thinking and he had to slam down the phone before it rang. He’d almost called the wrong phone there, which meant he wasn’t paying enough attention to fucking anything right now. His hands tightened around his arms and he leaned his head against the payphone, aware that his muscles were starting to shake. He couldn’t keep doing this, not to himself, not to the pack. This was the third time this year he’d broken free and if they hadn’t heard about people being mauled or mutilated by ‘wild dogs’ it was only a matter of time. If he got out of control he knew what would happen because it happened to the last pack he’d tried to join. The Alpha had lost it, let his pack run loose, let himself run loose and the East Coast Alpha had to barge in there and execute half the pack. If Isaac hadn’t been chained up in the basement at time with two of his brothers and his sister he probably would have been dead too. He could still remember the look on the old man’s face that last day. It wasn’t sadness or fear or happiness. It was just satisfaction. The old man looked so fucking smug the day Isaac had finally laid the gauntlet down, because the bastard never could leave Tristan alone. He’d been nineteen and he’d walked in on his father laying into his ten year old brother for something stupid, something like eating the last piece of pizza. Everything had meaning, every little motion or word, it was always like walking on egg shells around Abraham, and now his brother was getting the belt for it. “Leave the room,” his father ordered. His father always ordered. And he looked him in the eye and told him “No.” He was over the table faster than he’d thought the old man could move and he had him slammed up against the wall by his neck. “What did you say to me boy?” And Isaac knew that was his out, his chance to make himself submissive to his father and take his place in the pack, maybe become the new Beta. But never the Alpha, never in charge, always just listening to what the fucking old bastard told him, so instead of looking away and instead of bowing his head and showing his neck like he should have he pushed back. “I said no,” he told him again. The old man didn’t waste any time, swinging a punch at his son and slamming him to the floor. He saw lights in his eyes, lights from inside his head and from the halogen bulbs above him. For a moment he saw his father all too clearly and there was that look on his face, just smug satisfaction, and Isaac wondered if he hated him or if he was proud of him? Then he didn’t care anymore and he was throwing himself into the old man’s chest, taking him to the ground with him. There were still scars on his neck from what happened next. The person on the other end picked up after two rings. “Where are you?” was the first thing he was asked and he had to lean back to look at the signs. There he was again, not paying enough attention to where he was or what the hell he was doing. Always thinking too much about what got him here, and not enough about where he was going. “Just got off the Orange line at Wellington.” “We’ll come get you,” was followed immediately by a click. He sighed and got to work on getting a shirt. He was still digging through the bins looking for something more acceptable than flannel that didn’t smell like urine when he got the first whiff of her. He almost hit his head he jerked up so fast, nostrils flaring and eyes daring around the subway station. She smelled like strange wolf and fear, but underneath it all, she smelled like witch. Mynt “I hear them getting closer, their howls are sending chills down my spine. And time is running out now, they're coming down the hills from behind.” --“The Howling” Within Temptation She knew the effects of her spell were wearing off the moment she stepped into the subway station. People no longer unconsciously stepped around her as if she were nothing more than part of their normal walk to work; instead they gave her disgruntled glances as she tried to slip past them. She would’ve imagined her disheveled ginger hair and the dried mud caked on her worn out jeans and hoodie were what offended them the most. Maybe. It might’ve also been how her hand was buried in the pocket of her messenger bag in, if she had been thinking about it, a most suspicious manner. But her mind barely picked up on how the people were noticing her just that they were noticing her. She didn’t have the supplies to cast another cloaking spell. She didn’t have the supplies to cast much of any kind of spell. And she didn’t have the money to buy anymore. She had left Raleigh, North Carolina with little more than a hundred dollars, her cloaking spell letting her slip unnoticed onto the Greyhound, but necessity had nearly drained all her funds. She had about twenty dollars to her name, the clothes on her back, a scrying crystal, and her book of shadows. She slid her finger over the small crystal orb she kept cradled in the palm of her hand trying to draw some comfort from the smooth, unfeeling object. There was a good chance she had reached the end of the line and she had to know how close they were. The cloaking spell would’ve bought her some time, but she really had to thank the moon for throwing them, hopefully wildly, off her trail. And she still had two nights left. Unfortunately, they could find their way back on track during the day and twelve hours was a long time to make up the distance. That thought alone was enough to pump a wave of energy into her weary limbs. She would need some place private and quiet to scry. She gave the crystal a squeeze out of habit and nearly dropped it. Her hands were beginning to get clammy and moist. She might not even be able to see anything with her nerves as they were. Sleep deprivation wasn’t helping her feel calm and she needed some semblance of peace in her mind to scry. She blinked away the burning sensation, her want for rest, and scanned for a hiding place. Right, subway station that would quickly grow more populated with each minute. There weren’t going to be many isolated places. She didn’t consider the fact that she looked like a bumbling drunk just looking for a place to pass out and few people would deign to bother with her anyway. But a woman’s restroom might provide her with enough privacy, or it would just have to do. She paused at the door and cast a quick look about. She didn’t know what she was expecting to find, a slew of onlookers maybe? She tried to shake her growing feelings of paranoia and pushed the door open. The stench of cigarette smoke and stronger things greeted her as she stepped into the ladies’ room. The heavy traffic must’ve made it nearly impossible to keep it clean. Overflowing trash bin, collections of toilet tissue, feminine hygiene product wrappers, and a myriad of other unsavory refuse was an attest to that. It smelled but it seemed pretty empty and after where she had been it didn’t matter if there were a few pieces of trash on the floor. She could’ve settled for a city landfill. She hurried to the sink and swung her old messenger bag onto the counter. It was so much lighter now that it was nearly empty. Movement out of the corner of her eye brought her attention back upward but when she realized it was just the mirror she quickly dismissed it. Until she glimpsed the person staring back at her from the grimy and water stained glass. It was a face she hardly recognized and suddenly she understood the looks she got. The small scratches and bruises on her face and neck stood out almost as much as the dark circles around her pale, bloodshot green eyes. What little make up she had on was clumped on her eyelashes and smeared in dark lines over her cheeks. The freckles speckling her face were hardly discernable from the mud flecks on her pallid skin. She never thought a person’s skin could look so translucent. She naturally looked in desperate need of a tan but now she was just ghostly. Her normally pin-straight red hair was in tangles, or there was a rat nesting on her head. Hesitantly she brushed her fingertips over a small, but awfully bloody, wound on her eyebrow. At some point something had ripped her eyebrow ring out. How had she not felt metal being torn from her skin? Adrenaline? She shuddered as her finger grazed the surprisingly sensitive gash and dropped her hand back to the counter. She hated to imagine how the rest of her must look. “What are you doing, Ceridwen?” She mumbled, the bathroom’s acoustics bouncing her voice back to her. She felt like laughing but she didn’t really. But she did laugh because it was so funny. Wasn’t it? No, she guessed it really wasn’t. Her laugh died in her throat and came out a strangled sob. What was she doing? Ceridwen didn’t have time to laugh or cry and that wasn’t what she was hiding out in the bathroom to do. She battled down her alarmingly (and increasingly) erratic emotions and let rational thinking and paranoia push away tears. She nearly fumbled the stupid crystal in her haste to get it free. Her fingers were beginning to feel dumb. Like the rest of her, they were losing out against the steadily increasing fatigue. Maybe she should’ve just hopped another bus. With a precursory glance around (thankfully still alone), Ceridwen shook her head, flinging stray tendrils of hair from her face and turned her attention down to the crystal cradled in her hands. Luckily, scrying was so much easier when she was tired. Unfortunately the kind of tired she was suffering was beyond anything she had ever experienced and was anything but peaceful. Slowly, she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Calm, serenity, tranquility… When she opened her eyes, her mind was quieter, not quite silent but quieter. Her eyelids drooped as they met with the clear quartz as her consciousness slowly drifted to the background. It wasn’t hard to slip into the vision once it started, she could only hope in the back of her mind it showed her what she really wanted to know. Chaos and greenery danced in the distorted images the crystal showed her. Ceridwen could almost smell the fresh dew, feel the cool morning air, but what she saw was most important. They were all there, what remained of her mother’s vengeance, all fifteen of them. More than half were sleeping, their bodies covered in little scratches and bare as the day they were born, but others were up, pulling on clothing or doing their business. Ceridwen couldn’t say she cared very much about how many there were, what she cared about was where they were. Trees. There were trees all along her trail and she didn’t know much about which trees grew where or even their ridiculous names. They could be anywhere. One of them growled, a feral and guttural sound. It was one she was all too familiar with and a sound she had quickly come to fear. She spun around (or the vision in the crystal did anyway) and there He was. Some part of her knew it was impossible, but she swore His eyes, hard and narrow, were fixed on her face. Her breath caught in her chest. Her trance was slipping away as her consciousness was becoming aware. Foresty smells were replaced with the rank stench of the women’s room. The edges of her vision were slowly brightening with fluorescent light and white paint. The crystal was suddenly a weight in her hands and her legs were rapidly becoming jelly beneath her. “That little bitch!” The animosity in His voice was enough to make her shiver, but the ferocity in His eyes- eyes that shouldn’t be seeing her!- froze her to the core. Something like a squeak tried to wrestle free of her painfully dry mouth but fell short on her lips. ”I’m going to kill her.” A sharp gasp broke her trance and stumbled back a few steps. The suddenly heavy orb tumbled from her hands and she barely noticed. Ceridwen felt her heart in her throat. God she had to get out of there. Boston wasn’t far enough away. What had she been thinking? It was only a seventeen-hour bus ride! But they weren’t restricted to roads and freeways; they could take their shortcuts through the trees. She tried to swallow but it was like her mouth was filled with sand. Her sneakers crunched on the shattered remains of her scrying crystal but again, she didn’t notice. She had tunnel vision. All she could think about was how badly she needed to get out of there. She snatched her bag off the counter and staggered to the door. The door refused to open no matter how hard she pushed. How could she be trapped in a bathroom? The goddamn thing worked when she came in didn’t it?! It smacked her as it swung open of its own accord. People were entering. Faceless blurs as she shoved past them. Now she could feel their eyes. Every one of them looking at her. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think anymore. Things were spiraling out of control. He was going to kill her. He would do it too. Ceridwen didn’t have the power her mother had; they only needed her for one thing and if she wasn’t any use for that then there wasn’t any use for her. She hit something or someone but she managed to stay on course. What was her course? All she knew was she had to leave. Maybe California. Better yet, maybe Hawaii. Could they follow her across the ocean? Something sturdy met with her shins and she fell, her body crashing into the hard concrete. A handful more bruises to add to her hundreds. Ceridwen didn’t think she actually possessed the strength to get up but she knew she had to. The tumble to the ground seemed to have knocked some sense back into her. Her arms shaking, she pushed herself into a sitting position. “Miss?” Her head jerked up to the person standing over her, ignoring the sudden pain throbbing in her side. Did she fall on her side? She blinked back unexpected and uncalled for tears and tried to find her voice. “Y-yeah?” “Are you all right?” “Yeah.” No. “Are you sure?” She looked at him. Actually looked at him. He didn’t look like a normal suit, or any kind of suit. He was wearing a polo shirt that was too tight with a mustard stain and pants that smelled worse than the looked and they looked awful… and a pair of flip flops. Tourist? Do tourists go to Boston? She tried to smile and was pretty sure it failed. “Yeah, low blood sugar. I’m okay.” She tried to stand up and the oddly dressed man helped steady her. “Thanks for the help,” she said calmly and gave a slight nod. He gave her a hesitant smile and walked away. She did the same. She had an idea of what she needed. She needed a phone book. Quaddy They were going to have to get stronger chains.Of course, he would much prefer to get something a little more robust than chains, since this was not the first time that their Alpha had escaped into the night. Maybe bars. But he was also unsure of whether or not the bars would ruin the structural integrity of the house above them. And then there was the question of city permits, state permits, permits to get the permits, and all sorts of raised eyebrows and awkward questions. And frankly, he just didn’t have the time for all of that to be completed within one lunar month. As such, they were going to need to get stronger chains. Lawrence hung up the phone and sighed, pushing the rims of his glasses further up his slender, if slightly ridged, nose. He didn’t need the glasses, of course—he was a werewolf, after all—but he was convinced that they made him look more, well, normal. He was, as was to be expected when one lived with a werewolf pack, wrong. The vampires knew they were there, as did any werewolf pack within a few hundred miles. And the human authorities, though Lawrence himself didn’t know it (which would have upset him, given that he desperately enjoyed knowing—and planning—for everything), were just as convinced that, while he might not be a werewolf, there was something hinky about the Beta. Of course, their thoughts turned to such sins as pedophilia, since he did keep to himself so much, but when taken in the greater context of his living conditions, most were just convinced that the basement was a sex dungeon and Lawrence (as well as the rest of the pack) were just crazy swingers who did unspeakable things to one another in bed. Which, if you thought about it, was not precisely wrong. They did tie each other up with chains every month, locking one another to the brick underbelly of their Boston house in order to prevent escape on the full moon. But, considering that they had woken up to once again find their Alpha missing, the setup just wasn’t working. So, they were just going to have to get stronger chains. Lawrence sighed and hung up the phone. “He’s just got off the Orange Line, Wellington. You two, go get him. I have clothing and food wrapped up just by the front door. Make sure to take the Tylenol with you; he’s bound to have a pounding migraine. Bring the water, too. There’s a bottle in the cabinet. Don’t grab the one in the fridge. He’ll drain it and make himself sick on the cold water. Also…” The two pack members, one a male and one a female, stood, each with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms. Law was Beta of this pack and, as such, he was in charge as long as Isaac wasn’t around, but that didn’t mean he was immune to occasional reminders of his neurotic attention to detail. Closing his mouth, Law just waved his hand, dismissing the two to their duty. No doubt they understood it well enough by now; Isaac had disappeared before. And it wasn’t as if he could spend all day ordering people around. He simply had too much to do. The bossing was Isaac’s job. Law sighed and pulled out his iPhone. It was the center of his life, the Mecca around which he walked, to which he directed his prayers. Without it, his life would be an absolute shambles, especially on the mornings like this one, when he couldn’t remember the night before. At least he’d woken up still inside the basement, the rest of the pack around him, except for the glaring hole across the room from him. That elicited another sigh. Now he had to have that fixed. Another appointment, another reminder. There were ten at least that he had on sleep, the reminders of which popped up every five seconds. But at least seven of them were things he needed Isaac for. Because he’d been the one to cause them. Stepping out of his room—being the Beta had some advantages, after all—black hair freshly washed and toweled dry, Law headed for the kitchen. He needed something, anything, to quiet the growling beast at the pit of his stomach. Passing a mirror, Law stopped for a moment and looked at himself, once again reflexively pushing the gold-rimmed glasses further up on his nose. How had he become the Beta of anything? He’d not been born into leadership. In fact, he was the youngest of his birth-pack, born to remain at the bottom for his entire life. It had taken Isaac, freshly shorn of family and pack, to recognize the leadership potential in his Beta. They were close, but it was a deceptive relationship, a friendship born out of the absolute necessity one had for the other. Lawrence had needed a chance to get out of the bottom and Isaac had needed someone to support his own climb to the top. The two did not act close, that was for sure. Law appeared the indulgent sibling, the rock steady (if boring) caretaker of the impetuous and very exciting Isaac. But it was clearly Isaac that was in control; a dark look or low growl was all it took to silence the oftentimes nagging voice of the younger man. It was, however, a deceptive thing; the two were close, closer than they cared to admit. They needed each other, after all. Law opened the fridge and smiled. Half of the meals were missing, taken by the other members of the pack living in their house. It was one of the few of Lawrence’s many ideas that the rest of the pack had taken to with enthusiasm. He had one of the others wrap up breakfasts for everyone for the morning after the full moon, when they would all be wracked with hunger and lack the energy to cook anything themselves. Individually packaged and labeled, it took the effort out of eating. His food remained. Law was one of the last to eat in the morning, despite being the first to rouse himself. He just had too much to do to eat. Half the time, Isaac had already eaten his and Law’s meals by the time Lawrence made it to the kitchen, and the whole purpose of the meals was lost to their creator. That is, Isaac took his food when he was not roaming the Boston subway. Yet another sigh escaped Lawrence. No doubt he’d suffer from a myriad of ulcers and other health problems if it were not for the constitution granted him by the curse of his kind. Sitting at the table, Law relished the solitude, broken only by the periodic jingle of his phone on the table. He’d never be free of that. Like as not, it would be the death of him. Probably an explosion caused by too much usage. What was it that he had to do that day? Well, there was the food shopping, the cleaning schedule, the requisitioning of household supplies, the repair of the bricks in the basement, the reapplication and reinforcement of various bolts and chains (as well as the possibility of looking into a building permit for bars), the repair of clothing, and the damage control from Isaac’s escape. That would have to come first, of course. And would likely take most of the day. As if by magic, the door opened and the two he’d sent out earlier walked into the kitchen, followed by the source of all of Law’s worries. Isaac, freshly clothed, dropped into a chair across the table and grabbed at Law’s food. Taking the cue, Law dismissed both of them, leaving the two wolves alone. Law pushed his food away, abandoning it to the Alpha, and walked to the fridge. He tossed Isaac’s food onto the table and then set about making something for himself. It was his contribution to the greater good, after all. Keeping the Alpha happy was one of the Beta’s primary tasks. Protect the pack, take the brunt of the abuse, and make sacrifices. On the other end was the knowledge that the Alpha relied on you to keep the pack running. And Lawrence thrived on knowledge. “Well,” Law began, breaking the silence as he sat across the table, a whole chicken in front of him. Like as not, he’d only get about half of it, but that was really all he needed. He’d planned it that way. “Good morning.” Isaac ignored him and finished his food. When he finally did speak, it was to whisper something that Lawrence had never hoped to hear. “I smelled a witch this morning, Lawrence. At the station. She doesn’t seem to be bound, either.” “Well then,” Lawrence replied, though his heart pounded with excitement. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves.” Wenston There was a fucking court jester at the end of his bed. Whenever Tristan woke up in the morning, he could usually tell what type of day it was going to be. Wake up and there’s no screaming or crying or blood, well that’s going to be a freaking great day. Wake up with your alpha, who is also your eldest brother, missing from the basement, it could go either way. Wake up to find a fucking court jester at the end of your bed – shit, might as well not even get up. Because if you’re that crazy that early in the morning, you’ve got the whole day to just get worse. He’d started the day, actually, chained up in the basement with a huge hole where his brother should have been. He’d yawned, freed himself, let Law take the wheel, and had immediately gone up to his room and back to bed. Isaac would be okay. He was always okay. And he always came back, or Law would bring him back. He trusted the two implicitly to take care of things, to bring each other back. Heaven forbid he woke up one morning after the change and both of them would be gone. Because then it would be up to him and he knew it depended on what type of day he was having whether or not he’d be able to do the job. And that fact alone was just, icing on the cake of the shitty trouble that Tristan usually had to deal with. He was the Omega. He was third in command. And he was a fucking lunatic. Not the kind of lunatic that just, goes around smashing things and ranting about world peace or saving baby seals or some shit like that, but a full on, I see things that aren’t there, sometimes I forget what reality is, I probably shouldn’t be out in the real world type of lunatic. It was the reason his father had kicked him out of the pack. Well, it had been more of a failed murder attempt, in Tristan’s mind, than a kicking out. One minute Tristan had been talking to a midget on a unicycle, the next minute his father was beating the shit out of him. He’d literally thrown him out. Right out of the house, right out of town. Tristan had been so beat up, he didn’t even remember finding Isaac. He remembered little of the next few days he spent healing in Tristan’s house. Life would be better if he didn’t know he was crazy. If he could just live in his own little world and be completely content with the messed up crap that happened in his hallucinations. But it wasn’t like that. He knew he was crazy. He knew he had hallucinations. Most of the time, he knew they weren’t real. On the really, really bad days, sometimes he needed reminding. Like the days when there was a fucking court jester at the end of his bed. Tristan let out a groan and rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. The jester cackled and Tristan could almost feel the bed dip as the clown jumped up onto it. “Go away,” he mumbled to the jester, knowing it was futile to try and make this hallucination disappear. “Go away?” the jester parroted, then burst into a fit of laughter. Tristan sighed. He fucking hated clowns. “I only just got here! Besides, I can’t go away. Your brain is malfunctioning.” Tristan growled and grabbed a fistful of pillow before slinging it towards the end of his bed. The hallucination jumped over the pillow, did a flip in the air, and then floated back down to perch on the bedpost like he was a feather. Tristan rolled his eyes. “Cute trick.” “Of course you like it! Your crazy ass thought it up!” The jester giggled, the bells attached to his dumb hat jingling as he did so. Tristan just eyed him lazily. “I think you should get out of bed.” Rolling into a sitting position, Tristan sighed, defeated, and ran his hands over his eyes, moving them up to run through his shaggy blonde hair. He stared at the jester, his eyes moving to the bottom of his bedroom door, where he could see the light break for a moment. Someone was passing by. He grit his teeth. The hallucination voice his thoughts for him. “It’s probably Kayden.” “Fuck you,” Tristan said and swung his legs out of the bed. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He pulled them on over his briefs. “He wants to be Omega,” the jester continued. “No shit, Sherlock,” Tristan countered as he turned around, angry. “You know that I know this. And I know you know that I know this, you know why? Because you’re a hallucination and you know everything I know.” “You know he’ll try again soon.” Tristan ran his hands over his face again at that. The hallucination, although still a hallucination, was right. Their pack was small. Three leadership positions, three follower positions. Tristan would often wonder why he was in the position of Omega. Natya would have been a better choice at first, he was sure of that. He couldn’t see Isaac giving him the position solely because they were brothers. But he questioned the move on a daily basis. Why, why in the world would anyone put a lunatic into the position of Omega? He kept the questioning to himself. Although he knew some of the others voiced it, they were quickly quieted by Isaac. Kayden being the most vocal in his disapproval of Tristan being in the position. He’d even been so bold as to challenge Tristan once. Almost a year ago. Kayden had attacked Tristan, intent on proving his dominance over the Omega. But Tristan had thought Kayden was a hallucination. If Isaac hadn’t been there to pull Tristan off, he might have killed the smaller man. Not that Kayden was smaller anymore. He’d spent the next year buffing and bulking up. He’d been training, training to get stronger, faster, healthier, smarter. All for one purpose – so the next time he challenged Tristan, he’d win. And Tristan knew he would. He knew that Kayden was just waiting to make his move, waiting for the opportunity. And then what? Kayden would be Omega, hell he’d probably make a good Omega. He’d be a little gruff and uncaring, but he’d get things done. A lot more than Tristan did. What was Tristan even good for? “Isaac’s back,” the hallucination broke into his thoughts. He looked up and frowned at the jester. “How do you know that? You’re only supposed to know what I know.” “We know it, because we can smell him.” Tristan sniffed the air, and narrowed his eyes. All right, so sometimes the hallucinations were quicker than he was at realizing his surroundings. Big whoop. He growled. “Get out of my way,” he demanded and shoved his arm in the direction of the jester, who laughed heartily. Trying to ignore the jingling of jester bells as he walked down the hall and into the kitchen, Tristan took stock of the room quickly. Isaac was at the table, picking at food. Well, not picking at, more like inhaling. Law was up making his own, playing with that phone of his. They both looked up at he entered. He gave them a small smile, trying to ignore the jester who was now dancing around the kitchen and singing a song. “You smell awful,” Tristan said to Isaac as he made his way to the fridge. Seeing Isaac’s food had reminded him how hungry he was. He heard Isaac snort, but if his brother was going to say something back, or yell at him for showing insubordination, Tristan wouldn’t know because the next minute the jester was beside him and banging a tambourine. “Fucking clowns!” he yelled outloud, grabbing a bag of grapes and chucking it at the jester. The hallucination immediately disappeared, the grapes bouncing along the floor and out into the hallway. Tristan growled at the empty air and then turned back to the fridge, grabbing his wrapped up meal that Law had prepared for him. He turned and paused, looking between Isaac and Law, who were both looking at him. He didn’t offer them an explanation before he pulled open his wrapped lunch and hefted himself onto the counter, sitting perched there as he ate a little. “Where’d you end up this time?” Tristan asked with his mouth full. Isaac eyed him a moment and Tristan had to look away. He hated that look. That appraising look – like how the fuck are we related, are you sane enough not to kill someone, type look. He hated it. And it did nothing for the sudden pain in his chest when the jester came back again, this time in front of Tristan’s face. “I’ll rip your goddamn clown throat out,” he growled, cutting off whatever Isaac was going to say, yet again. Tristan fucking hated clowns. .Wolfie. There was blood dripping to the tiles.His father pulled back his fist and punched Tristan one last time before releasing his grip on his arm and letting him drop to the floor. Tristan whimpered, curling up into the fetal position and trying to stop the flow of blood from his nose. He was crying, tears running down his face and falling to the ground with the blood. He crushed his eyes shut against them, trying not to let his father see because that would just make everything so much worse. Isaac watched and did nothing. He kept his eyes to the ground and seethed inside, quietly where his father couldn’t see. Abraham was still standing over his six year old brother, his fists clenched and his eyes cold and hard. “There’s no one else here,” he said. His voice was soft, but firm and dangerous. Tristan sobbed quietly against the tile and nodded his head, afraid to look up off the ground. “It’s only you and me and Isaac. There is no lady.” “Say it. Say it, Tristan.” A shaky sob escaped the boy’s throat. “There’s no one else here,” he whispered. Their father watched him for another moment. He looked like he still wanted to hit the boy but he kept his fists to himself, his gaze unreadable and dark. He glanced over at Isaac who still sat at the table, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the back of the chair and fought to keep himself where he was. He was only fifteen, he couldn’t best his father in a fight and if he tried it would just end with him bleeding out on the floor next to his brother. Tristan was shaking, coughing up blood that was trickling down his throat. “There’s no one else here.” “Tristan,” Isaac said. His brother was grinding the heels of his hand into his eyes, his whole body shaking now as he tried to ignore whatever visions were haunting him. Isaac wondered what it was this time. He wondered what nightmare visions haunted his brother, but he couldn’t get himself to ask. His shout still lingered in the air, not an unfamiliar thing to any of them. Tristan wasn’t right, hadn’t been for a long time, but most days he could keep it under control. “Tristan,” Isaac said again. “Look at me.” His brother pushed his hands through his hair and slowly opened his eyes. They flicked instantly to his left and he opened his mouth to say something but then clamped it shut against whatever words he was about to say. He closed his eyes again and then let them open, forcing them to focus on his Alpha. “It’s bad today,” Isaac said. It wasn’t a question, not exactly, but his brother nodded anyway. “Do you want to try the medication again?” It was Law that asked the question, even though they all already knew the answer. Sometimes the medication made it better, most of the time it just made it worse, and every time it had side effects. Beyond that, Tristan didn’t want the drugs, because then it meant something was really, really wrong with him and that was a weakness he couldn’t afford right now, not with Kayden gunning for his pack position. Isaac knew it, but there wasn’t much he could do. Intervening would just make Tristan look worse. His brother shook his head. “No, no drugs. It’ll pass, it’s just…don’t worry about it. What were you saying?” Isaac wanted to argue with his brother. They couldn’t afford for his hallucinations to get worse, because that was a weakness in the pack. They were all acutely aware of the consequences of a weak pack mate and it made Isaac more afraid than he wanted to admit. If Tristan really lost it, if he went all the way over the edge, it would be the Alpha’s responsibility to eliminate the weak link. He didn’t know if he could do it, but pack law and wolf nature both demanded it of him. Sometimes he wondered why his father hadn’t killed his brother when he’d had the chance, but it probably just went back to the rule of seven. Tristan was the youngest of the sons, the seventh son that his father had been waiting for, and Abraham had hated it when his son had turned out to be crazy. He was very good at expressing displeasure. “Isaac thinks he found a witch,” Lawrence said, when Isaac didn’t fill the silence. “Who found a what?” A small voice asked. Isaac glanced over at the doorway, where his little fourteen year-old sister was standing. She was yawning, stretching her arms over her shoulder as she stumbled wearily into the kitchen. She went straight to Tristan and gave him a hug, before moving on to the refrigerator. Tristan had always been Mira’s favorite, ever since they were kids. No one was quite sure why, but she stuck to him like glue, even when he had run away from their father’s pack. She had followed her brother, would probably follow him across the world, damn the consequences to herself. Tristan ruffled her dark hair, ignoring the glare she shot him. “A witch,” Lawrence said again, a small sigh escaping his lips. “Oh,” Mira said, yawning again. “Well, that’ll be cool.” Then she stumbled back out of the kitchen, a frozen hot pocket in her hand. Tristan shook his head, smiling as he bent over to the clean up the grapes he’d thrown. “Are you sure?” he asked, glancing between the two. “Is she unbound?” “That’s the theory,” Isaac said, managing a small smile. Tristan raised an eyebrow, going back to cleaning up the grapes. “So what are you two still doing here?” Isaac grinned, picking at his plate. “I was hungry. That and I smell like the hobo whose pants I stole and I’m getting a shower before I try sweet talking anybody, let alone an unbound witch.” Tristan laughed. “So is she cute?” “She’s… scared,” was all the answer he gave him. “So what’s the plan? How do we find her again?” Tristan asked, dropping the bag of grapes into the sink. A sudden shudder took his body and he bent over the sink, fingers digging into the counter. “Fuck off you fucking miserable clown,” he snarled. “No, that’s not… fuck you, fuck you, you’re not real.” They tried to ignore it. Tried to pretend Tristan wasn’t still talking to himself. It never worked. “Natya’s tailing her,” Lawrence told them. His phone jingled and he pulled it out, pushing the glasses up on his face with one finger and pushing something on his phone with his other hand. There was a reason Lawrence was beta, because he was the smart, responsible one, while Isaac had to really stop and think to keep from charging into things. “She’ll call if anything changes, otherwise we’re heading out to meet up with her as soon as Isaac’s showered.” The Alpha laughed. “Which it’s about time I did.” There was blood dripping to the tiles. He pressed his hand over his throat to try and stop the flow but he felt it pulsing out between his fingers anyway. A gargled cough dragged its way out into the air as he tried to hold himself up off the floor. His other hand slipped in the blood and his shoulder hit the ground hard. The wolf had backed down before the beast that was his father and he felt it curl back up inside him, leaving only weak human flesh in its wake. Isaac’s father stood over him, his son’s blood still dripping from his jaw. Then he stepped over him and walked out of the kitchen. Isaac coughed again, struggling to his knees and sitting there shaking. His vision was starting to swim and blacken before his eyes and he wondered if this was what dying felt like. He forced his limbs to move, shoving himself back to sit against the wall, practically strangling himself as he tried to stop the flow of blood. His brother crawled over to him. He’d forgotten Tristan was in the room, but he’d just been hiding under the table while his father and his brother fought for dominance. Two kitchen chairs were smashed into bits and it looked like at least one of the counters would need replacing. Isaac would have laughed if it didn’t mean he would probably just bleed to death choking. A chill was taking him and he closed his eyes. He could still feel his father’s teeth sinking into his throat. If he lived, he would probably remember that feeling for the rest of his life. “Isaac,” Tristan whimpered. He had a towel in his hand and he pushed it up against the wound in his brother’s throat. It helped to staunch the blood and if he could get it to stop for just a minute it would probably heal itself. Wolves healed quickly, Isaac just hoped it was quick enough. Someone was entering the room. He tipped his head back, just in time to see his mother step in front of him. She was practically glaring at him, but he didn’t know if she was mad at hi m or mad at his father. She’d warned him this would happen, tried to tell him how it would end, but as usual Isaac didn’t listen. There was a knife in her hand and he jerked in surprise as she grasped the blade in her hand and ripped it over her own skin. She tossed the blood to the ground, splattering her kitchen with even more red. “I cast your blood from mine,” she whispered, and at first Isaac thought she was casting. Then the cold feeling settled in his spine and he realized she wasn’t casting a spell, she was breaking one. “I cast your blood to the ground. You are no son of mine, you are unbound.” He gasped as he felt something rip from his chest. His blood was boiling under his skin. Then he felt it snap, and he felt the wolf rise up and choke him. There was blood dripping to the tile. He bent his head, resting it against the wall and trying to let the water rinse away all the tension and fear and other things he didn’t want the rest of the pack to smell on him later. He was afraid for Tristan, afraid of the past, afraid of what was going to happen tomorrow. He was afraid of what he might have done last night, but he couldn’t think about that too much because if he did, it would cripple him. A crippled Alpha was a dead Alpha. He was a minimalist, a survivor, and he couldn’t worry about what might have happened. He needed to worry about what the fuck he was going to say to this witch when he caught up to her and how in the world he was going to convince her that she needed them as much as their pack needed her. They couldn’t afford it if Isaac escaped again. He just didn’t want to be like his father. His mother had been a tool to him. She was as much a member of the pack as the wolves and she bent to the whims of the Alpha like the rest of them. If Isaac’s father had told her to kill one of her children, she would have done it in a second. She belonged to him, a possession more than a wife. She was a means to an end, and he wondered if either of them understood what love was. They were both beasts in their own right. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to treat people like things. That, and there’d been so much fear in her eyes when she’d run into him in the subway. He wondered what had happened to fill her with so much panic. She’d looked worse off than him, her eyes bloodshot like she hadn’t slept in weeks and her make-up a smudged mess on her face. It had stirred his protective nature. He just wanted to be back in control. They were slaves to the moon, and there were still two more nights to go. Someone was knocking at the bathroom door, and he cut his shower short, cutting off the water and grabbing a towel off the bar. “Isaac!” Lawrence called again through the door, his fist pounding on the door now. It must have been important for the Beta to interrupt him now and he cracked the door, towel around his waist. Lawrence was looking anxious, pushing the glasses up on his nose. “Natya just called. She said a strange wolf just showed up and started manhandling the girl.” “Fuck,” Isaac cursed, grabbing his jeans off the floor. “Get the car started.” “Already done,” Law said with a grin. “Good.” Isaac yanked a white tee-shirt over his head. “Then let’s go.” Mynt The wispy haze made Ceri’s eyes water and her head throb. She could almost see the pink smoke curling and twisting lazily in the dim lighting. It was like sticking her head inside a thick, potent cloud. Her nostrils had been burning when she first stepped into the shop but the more she breathed in whatever poisonous incense was hanging in the air the less she noticed. “Come on, can’t you cut me a deal?” The shopkeeper, a portly man with a crown of dark hair and an outfit that gave Merlin a run for his money, shook his head. “All prices are as marked.” Ceridwen dropped her head, ginger tendrils shadowing her face. She had taken the liberty to clean herself up a bit before walking into a magic shop and trying to haggle prices on merchandise, but she knew she still looked like a train wreck. And this idiot was like a brick wall. A poorly dressed brick wall. “You’re grossly overpricing this bloodroot, anyway! I could buy it with gold plating for this price!” He shook his head again despite the big grin that broke out on his face. “Y’know you’re really committed, I’m impressed.” She blinked. Committed? Yes, she needed these supplies to recast her cloaking spell. Who knew how much time she had wasted trying to find a magic shop in a strange city and arguing with a moron who probably couldn’t tell the difference between oregano and blessed thistle. “You should come and join our LARP group.” Ceri’s jaw dropped. “You’re supposed to be a sorceress or an elfin shaman, right?” All she could do was stare. She wanted to smack him. She wanted to wrap her hands around his throat and shake him. She wanted to yell. She wanted to cry. She didn’t know what to do, so she just stared. “Oh! I bet you’re a priestess. We could really use one of those, ours sprained her ankle.” You think this is a game!? she wanted to scream. She wanted to knock that stupid hat off his head and stomp on it. Her life was not a game! It wasn’t fiction some fanatic created on a whim. It was real and real werewolves, big, mean and furry ones, were coming to get her. Probably hot on her trail now that her tracks were no longer being mystically covered. Calmly, she put all the items she had gathered down on the countertop. Then she turned and walked out of the shop. “We meet at six on Wednesdays!” She managed to hear before the door closed behind her. Boston sunshine assaulted her already tired and burning eyes. Adrenaline was no longer fueling her actions and her body was beginning to feel the fatigue. Her muscles ached mercilessly and her thoughts were centering on sleep. She needed it. Hell, the past twenty-four hours had been the most frantic and trying of her entire life. But now what? Maybe she could take her twenty bucks, find a café and drink an overrated French coffee and wait for the end. There was nowhere for her to run. No spells she could cast to disappear into thin air. There was nothing and imminent death. She flopped down on a bus stop bench. Forget the coffee. She doubted she could take another step of her own accord. Her limbs were beginning to feel like they had gained an extra forty pounds. Sitting out in the open made her nervous, who knew how close they were? They could already be breathing the same city air as her by now. But parts of her couldn’t care less. So what if the hounds found her sleeping? Would it be any better if they found her trying to hide? Ceri jumped as others took a seat at her bench and she absently pulled her bag into her lap. The last thing she needed was for some pickpocket to walk away with her book of shadows. Then everything really would be over. Not that it wasn’t over already. Fuck. She didn’t know. “Daddy!” A little voice cried jubilantly. Ceri peeked over at the little girl perched on the edge of the bench, her little shiny black Mary Janes not quite touching the pavement. Her hair was pulled back in little pigtails with barrettes. Sunday best, Ceri’s guess. She was holding her father’s fingers, her hand far too tiny to grab onto his entire hand. “The bus issnot here yet!” “It’ll be here, don’t worry.” He flashed her a grin full of teeth and pulled her into his lap. Instantly a pang of jealousy shot through Ceridwen’s chest and she was forced to look away. Ceri had never gotten to sit in her father’s lap. He had never held her hand. He had never hugged her or comforted after a nightmare. She had never spent the day bonding with Him over ice cream. She’d never gone to Him after a boy broke her heart (not that there were boys to break it) and cried while He said how they were never good enough for her anyway. Not Damien. He had nearly broken her arm once, but that hardly counted. Her father never gave her a second thought. Whenever she was around He would curl his lip as if the sight of her disgusted Him. Maybe it did. She was half her mother’s daughter after all, and from the fights she saw, He didn’t care much for her either. She cast her glance down at her bag. Inside was the only thing her parents had left her. Her book of shadows, and that hadn’t been by choice. Damien wanted to make damn sure it never reached her hands after her mother’s passing. She ran her fingers over a loose thread on her messenger bag. Inside was the only thing her mother had ever tried to teach her about the craft and all the things she had never learned before he mother died. Ceridwen didn’t even go to her own mother’s funeral. No one stopped her. She didn’t even cry. Ceri didn’t care much for the woman that brought her into the world, but the feeling was mutual. Ceri knew she was a tool to keep her father trapped, to show Him that Evelyn could control things even if He didn’t want her to. She knew that was the only reason she was born and she hated her mother for that. She hated her for not wanting her for anything other than teaching her how to manipulate men and witchcraft. “What if mommyis mad?” The little girl piped, swinging her legs back and forth. “Oh she won’t be mad if we’re a little late. We’ll just make sure to get her a really big gift in case she is.” He winked at her earning him a giggle. Ceri had no idea what they were talking about and it was probably better that way. She had already put a short distance between them and her and was nearly out of earshot. She found some strength left in her weary bones after all. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was going to do when she got there. She could look for another phone booth and see if there was another magic shop in the area, one that didn’t cater to sleight of hands and illusions. Maybe they would take pity on the blood shot eyed girl and give her a discount she could wrap her twenty around. Maybe they wouldn’t think her life was a colossal joke (although she was beginning to suspect it herself). Or there was always the cup of coffee with her name on it. Ceri didn’t remember the last time she had eaten anything. Before the full moon had risen she guessed, when she ate that apple. She had known that day that she would run away during the confusion the moon caused. The wolves didn’t have a witch to bind them and they wouldn’t have much if any control. It was perfect with them locked away in the basement she could get away without notice and have at least a day’s head start. That was what she thought before they ripped out of their dungeon. A car horn blared. Blinking her bleary eyes she lifted her head and realized she had almost walked right off the curb into traffic. Feebly, she lifted her hand and waved an apology. The driver responded with the middle finger and sped off. She didn’t know why but it made her feel like crying. She could already feel the tears welling up. She turned away from the street. It was dangerous for her to wander around without paying attention. Maybe she should’ve just sat and dealt with the father she wished her’s was and the daughter she wished she was. She turned the first corner she saw. An alley. Perfect. No one to try and run her over. No one to make her feel guilty for not having the perfect loving family. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the nearest wall. The brick was cool against her skin and seemed to soothe an ache she didn’t remember having. Headaches were all apart of being tired and all apart of crying. She tapped her forehead against the brick. Then again. And again until she no longer felt like crying. Then once more for good measure. She was stupid for running away. Back with the pack she had food and she had shelter. Now what did she have? Her book of shadows? Her freedom? What good would those things do her if she was always being hunted? She didn’t even have any money to prepare some of the spells in the damn book. “Rough day?” Ceridwen opened her eyes and stared at the wall in her face for a moment. Was someone talking to her? She turned her face slowly to the side in time to see a blur come flying at her. Pain ignited on her cheek and she quickly found herself on the ground. Black dots danced before her eyes and her face felt like it was on fire. She lifted her head and instantly regretted it when the world shifted drastically to the right. “Hah! I fucking knew it was you, bitch!” Fear took a stranglehold on her throat and she forced herself to focus on her attacker. “Jeremiah?” She thought he grinned but she didn’t get the chance to see before he grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet. Ceri yelped in surprise and nearly fell over, her head reeling. If he hadn’t been holding her up by her arm she’d be kissing cement again. How had he caught up so fast!? She knew they would be able to close the gap by miles before noon but she didn’t really expect any of them to show up! “Alpha is looking for you and he is not very happy.” She tried to swallow and jerk her wrist free of his grasp. He tightened his grip to bruising force and she winced. “But I think coming back with you will make him very fucking happy.” His breath was on her face; fresh with the blood of whatever unlucky creature had served as his breakfast. “I’m not going back!” She cried and kicked out as his shin. Instead of letting her go, he growled and pulled her to him. “I’ve had a very bad night, little girl and an even worse morning. I wouldn’t push your fucking luck.” There was another blur, a flash of long golden hair, and Ceri found her ass on the ground again. Jeremiah howled and clutched his face. There was blood coursing down his chin. “Girl says she’s not going.” A new voice. A female with an accent Ceridwen couldn’t place. “Maybe you don’t push your luck.” Her piercing eyes were a nearly ethereal shade of blue and they were trained lethally on Jeremiah. She thought she remembered seeing her as she entered the magic shop, but she wasn’t sure. He glared over his dark hands and his voice came out in a growl. “Back off, Xena. You don’t know who you’re fucking with.” “You’re trespassing.” Wolves. Ceridwen hadn’t even thought that this new strange woman might be a wolf, but lo and behold. For the millionth time she felt like crying. Not only was she in pain, tired, sore, and hunted- no, now she had managed to steer herself onto an unfamiliar wolves territory. Wasn’t there anywhere they weren’t!? Maybe she should’ve fled to Mexico. “You should leave before I am forced to break something else.” Jeremiah growled again, a deep and guttural noise. Then he did what Ceridwen never thought she’d see, he ran. She touched her face and pain flared beneath her fingertips. She wasn’t going to cry. Crying would come when she was alone and desperate. “Are you okay?” Ceridwen frowned, the world spinning around her head. “Fuck this day.” And then everything went dark. Quaddy The pack was not used to hearing their Beta swear. So when Law ended his call with a stream of docks language that would have made a sailor proud, everyone literally jumped and stared as if little green martians had just skipped from his ears playing tambourines. “Natya managed to scare off the foreign wolf, but the girl has passed out. She is overwrought.” Pulling his glasses off, Law tucked them into a pocket and rubbed at his eyes. “But that is hardly the issue here.”Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Foreign wolves in our turf following around a witch that has no doubt just recently escaped from said foreign wolves? Worse than that, Lawrence?” Law consciously refrained from rolling his eyes at his superior, but it was a bit of a strain. “The wolf. He is no doubt ranked similarly to Natya, yes? A watchdog, for lack of a better term. Meaning that there is likely another vehicle somewhere in the vicinity of here with another Alpha, Beta, etc…” He willed Isaac to understand. “So? We just fight them. It’s an easy change with…” Understanding dawned on the Alpha’s face. “Shit. Rampaging werewolves on the full moon.” “Just so,” Lawrence replied. “I work too damn hard keeping your exploits out of the damn newspapers…The last thing we need is a foreign pack on the loose. Especially when we’re tied up, well…hopefully tied up, in our basement.” Isaac glared, but said nothing. It was the place of the Beta to question the Alpha. He would never go so far as to directly challenge Isaac—that would be beyond ridiculous—but occasional reminders of the man’s more idiotic actions never hurt anything. Tristan muttered something, which Law ignored. No doubt the Omega was fighting his own mind again. Law would defend the younger Ellison—ironically, he was freer to do so than the boy’s own brother—but if a challenge ever happened, he was worried that Isaac would be forced to expel his own brother from a leadership position. And that rat bastard Kayden was impossible to deal with. If he relished the Omega position, the man practically salivated over Beta. Yet another worry that Lawrence didn’t need. “Let’s just worry about getting the girl,” Tristan said, inner demons momentarily vanquished. “And, really…” Law nodded, pulling his phone out. A message from Natya. Apparently, the girl was awake, but not well. Natya had taken her to a nearby diner and gotten her something to eat, but she wasn’t sure how long the girl would stay. According to the Russian, the witch was only there because the temptation of coffee had glued her to her seat. “We are going to have enough to deal with as it is,” the Beta sighed out. “Natya isn’t sure if we’re even going to be able to get the Witch to sit still long enough to even talk to us. Whatever happened, those wolves really did a number on her.” Isaac continued to sit silently, staring out the window and into the depths of his own memory. Law knew enough about his Alpha to know that he was thinking of his mother, who’d been a pawn to his father’s whims. No doubt this woman had been treated rather similarly. It was no wonder Natya was having so many issues keeping her still. “I still think we need to worry about the pack itself. Ours and theirs. Are we capable of taking them on? Are we capable of taking care of a witch? Can we even convince her to bind us? And how are we to behave when asking? Do we just proposition her? Does she…” “Enough, Beta!” Isaac snapped, pulling himself out of his reverie. “You ask too many questions. We know there is danger involved. There is no need to continue bombarding us with your incessant need to figure every fucking thing out before we do it!” Law nodded and shifted slightly to show his neck, a sure sign of his own submissiveness to the pack Alpha. “Apologies, Isaac. I am merely worried.” “We all are,” Tristan whispered, attempting to mollify both men. “Isaac is just stressed, Law.” Law acknowledged the younger man’s attempts at making peace. “Still, we need a plan. We can’t just barge in there and demand that this woman come with us.” “She doesn’t really have much choice,” Isaac replied. “Because of her, we have a foreign pack on our soil. A pack that, as you have reminded me many times Law, will turn into hideous beasts this evening without any place to chain themselves up. If she’s smart, she’ll come with us. We can protect her better than anyone else.” “Sounds like you mean to use her as bait to capture these wolves.” Law rubbed his eyes again. “Not to…overstep my bounds, Alpha, but if we fail at this, don’t we have to call in the East Coast Alpha?” Isaac growled. “That is overstepping, Lawrence.” But there was no real force behind the words. Isaac knew as well as anyone that he would have to call in the regional Alpha. If he couldn’t handle this problem and the foreign wolves proved to be an issue, Isaac would have to call in his father. And Law knew very well just how badly that would go. For everyone. Wenston Tristan leaned his head against the window in the backseat. His eyes stayed focused on the outside world and he half listened to the conversation that his Alpha and Beta were having in the front seat. Isaac was driving like a maniac – well, as much of a maniac as one could be in heavy traffic. He’d made Tristan’s head bounce off the glass several times, but Tristan didn’t seem to mind. What was a few more blows to the head? He was already going fucking crazy. The jester, fortunately, had decided to stay home with the promise of picking up Tristan’s room while he was gone. Tristan knew he’d shit himself if he actually got home and his room was clean. That was the last thing he needed, for his visions to start coming true. Then what kind of a nut would he be? Well, a really freaking big nut, but he didn’t want to be a freaking big nut. He wanted to be a little nut with funny visions he could ignore. “We’re almost there,” Law announced from his place in the passenger seat. Isaac grunted in response and picked up the speed, coming around the corner and pulling onto the street that would lead them to the coffee shop. “Natya says the girl is still there, but she’s getting antsy. Isaac snorted. “Probably because she keeps texting you on that thing,” he spat, turning to glare at Law’s phone. Law held the phone away from him protectively, guarding his pride and joy. His humorous side quickly turned into a string of curses, however, as the car pulled to a stop. There was an accident up ahead that kept their line of the road at a standstill for the moment. “Dammit,” Isaac said, hitting his fist on the steering wheel. “We could get out and walk,” Law quipped. Tristan frowned, shutting out their conversation for a moment as he looked out at the street. The cars coming the opposite way of the one they were headed were coming in a steady, staggered line. Like they were letting only a few pass at a time. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. The sidewalks were pretty bare, considering the time of day it was, but his eyes were drawn to one lone figure. She wasn’t standing on a sidewalk, but stood out in the middle of the street. When a car came, she’d hop out of the way. As she turned to dodge a small sedan, he caught a glimpse of her face. It was stained with tears and bruises covered most of her freckles. Her red hair hung down by her face. She was pretty and he didn’t like the bruises on her, but she wasn’t his problem. Not until he saw the book in her hand. His eyes went wide. Latin was inscribed on the front and a gem sparkled right in the middle. Her fingers were rubbing the gem and she was whispering low and quiet. He could almost hear her. He could almost hear the spell she was casting. This was the witch! “Hey!” Tristan said before he flung his door open. “What the-” sounded from Law. “Fuck, Tristan…” came from Isaac at the same time. Tristan didn’t hear either of them as he bolted across the street, passing the lane next to his, entering the median, and passing one of the opposite flowing lanes. He stood between the two, on the dotted yellow line. “Hey!” he yelled again, this time to the girl. Her eyes rose to meet his and he paused, struck by how deep and bold her eyes were. “Tristan!” Isaac’s voice called to him and he glanced over his shoulder. His brother had come out of the car as well and was standing in the median, eyes darting between Tristan and the oncoming traffic. “You’re standing in the middle of the street, get back here!” he demanded. “We don’t fucking have time for this, Isaac!” Law was yelling out from his position still in the car. For a moment, he almost listened to his brother, to his Alpha, but then the girl was talking to him. “Please,” she said and he whipped his head back around to look at her. “Please…” she held out a hand to him and he could see the scratches, the bruises, the bite marks. He wanted to take that hand. He wanted to hold that hand. And so he stepped forward, ignoring the blaring of a car horn as he reached for the hand. Isaac hit him like a ton of bricks. His head snapped backwards as his body was shoved forward. They rolled as they hit the ground and Tristan heard the girl scream, heard her body smack into the car, even heard glass and metal break and twist around bone and flesh. He panicked. “No!” he yelled, trying to sit up. Isaac’s hands were firm on his shoulders, shoving him down and he tried to fight against his brother, without thinking for a moment. “Tristan, stop,” Isaac’s voice was calm, worried. “Get off me!” he yelled at him, forgetting his position for a moment. He had to get to her. He had to see if she was alright. “You bastard get off of me, the girl-” “There is no girl!” And for a moment, it was his father’s voice he heard and he froze, his eyes seeking out Isaac’s face hovering over his, looking into his eyes, searching it. He nearly panicked lying there on the ground with his brother on top of him because for a moment, he didn’t think it was his brother. Or maybe Isaac was an illusion. Maybe they all were and he was still at home with his father and he was going to get hurt again. He was always going to get hurt again. “Tristan,” Isaac said his name, softening his voice. “There’s no one there.” Tristan swallowed thickly, eyes focused on Isaac. “I…I saw…” And then he realized his mistake. He realized his mind had messed with him again, had made him go running around like a puppet on a fucking string. He held back a sob and tilted his head so his neck was exposed to his brother. Isaac’s face hardened and Tristan couldn’t read his expression. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, frightful that this would be the time, this would be the event that he pushed his brother too far. Law’s voice was yelling from the car. “Isaac! We have to go, now!” Isaac looked like he wanted to say something more, something important, but he just patted Tristan’s arm lightly and stood, pulling Tristan up with him. “I know you are,” he said, dusting himself off and then moving to do the same for Tristan. “We have to go.” “Okay,” Tristan relented, his eyes darting around to try and spot the girl again before he could stop himself. If Isaac caught the motion, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he grabbed Tristan’s arm and pulled him back across the road and got him into the car. Tristan sat in the backseat while Isaac climbed into the driver’s seat and moved the car along. The traffic had been moving and Tristan had missed the worried and curious stares of the onlookers. “Sorry,” he said again when they were moving. Neither Isaac or Law said anything and Tristan felt tears come to his eyes. He missed the way Isaac’s eyes came up to look at him through the rearview mirror. He laid his head back against the window and took a deep breath, closing his eyes. It didn’t take long to get to the coffee shop. By the time they parked, Tristan’s hands had stopped shaking and he’d gone silent. Law and Isaac carried on like nothing had happened, but Tristan caught his brother looking at him several times. He hated that look. He hated that he couldn’t tell the difference between reality and ridiculousness sometimes. He wanted to confront Isaac about it, about why he kept him around if he just kept doing stupid things. He thought about stepping down, letting Kayden take over. He thought about running, but Mira would be sad, and Isaac too probably. He was trapped. Throwing his car door open, he followed the other two into the coffee shop. He froze in the doorway, however, as he spotted Natya sitting with a girl. His eyes went wide as he looked the girl over. Isaac and Law moved over to the two. The girl looked up at them with wide, green eyes. Her eyes came to the doorway and Tristan sucked in a breath. His vision had followed him here! He grit his teeth, ready to chew her out. But then, his brother did something he did not expect. He reached a hand out to greet the girl. .Wolfie. “Russian witches are not like your American witches,” Natya said. They sat in the coffee shop on the corner, the Russian wolf trying not to text her Beta every two minutes. She had brought the girl here because she didn’t know what else to do after her fainting spell, but she wasn’t sure how long she could keep her distracted enough to stay here. If she ran again, she would probably have to follow her, because Isaac hadn’t told her any different, but she wasn’t going to tie the girl down and force her to stay. Even if it meant she could be free. She tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder, reaching for the cup of coffee. Across from her sat the witch, her hands shaking as she put her own cup to her lips. There was very little make up left on her face now, and her hair was still in a tangled halo about her head. Her bag sat next to her in the booth and she kept putting a hand on it reflexively, as if constantly reassuring herself that it was still there. “They are strong, powerful women.” Natya grinned as she said it, the wolf in her shining through. “In Russia, they are not slaves to wolves, wolves are slaves to them. This is part why I leave, but still, you should not be afraid of wolves. We should be afraid of you. You are witch, yes?” The girl licked her lips nervously. “Yes,” she whispered. She nodded, taking a sip from her coffee. She spoke to Ceridwen like they were old friends in the hopes that it would calm her down. She could smell the fear on the girl, even without wolf senses, and she could see the quietly raging panic in her eyes. “These wolves you run from, they hunt you, yes?” “Yes,” the girl said. Her voice had grown even quieter. Natya grinned again, leaning towards her over the table. Her teeth looked more like fangs in the coffee shop’s lights. “Then you should kill them. They threaten you, you destroy them. You are woman and you are witch. This makes you two times stronger than wolves that hunt you, because they are neither of these things.” She waved her hand dismissively, downing the rest of her coffee. The girl shook her head. “I won’t be like my mother.” “Your mother is witch?” Natya asked. “Yes,” Ceridwen said. She bit her lip, and Natya could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. She wondered what the girl was thinking and almost asked, except she was trying not to push too many buttons at once. A quiet sigh escaped the girl’s lips and then she looked back up at the werewolves face. “She wasn’t… she wasn’t very nice.” Natya nodded, toying with the saucer still sitting on the table. “My mother was also witch. I was nothing but dog to her, nothing but something to fetch her slippers and her cognac.” She snorted, making a rude gesture with her hands. “She was also not very nice. I hated her deeply and I am not sorry to have killed her. But she taught me that to be woman is to be strong, and I do not forget this lesson. I never forget this lesson.” Then she smiled. “You should not forget either.”  Isaac hated the smell of strange wolf. He’d smelled it the whole drive across the city, and it was making him edgy. He caught a whiff it on the street when he’d run after Tristan, but then he was too busy tackling his brother to notice. He was still unsteady after the episode, mostly because of how much he’d hesitated when his little brother had shown him his neck. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t understand what it meant. He couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t an admission of just how bad Tristan was getting, that maybe it would be better if Isaac did the sane thing and cut the weak link from the pack. Anyone else would have by now. Their fucking father would have done it ages ago if he hadn’t thought he would lose something powerful if he did. He had hesitated. He’d thought about it, if only for a split second. It would be quick, and mostly painless, and then Tristan wouldn’t have to sleep with one eye open or wake up to a joker sitting on his chest. Isaac wouldn’t have to worry about how weak it made him look just keeping his brother around. He knew all these things with the same distant, survivalist attitude he approached everything. Except when it came down to it, when he saw his brother’s bare neck, he just couldn’t move. Tristan was his little brother. He wasn’t just pack, he was family. The wolf in him thought he should do it, but the human would never let him. He had a hard time keeping his eyes on the road after that, because he was worried about his brother. He worried what it meant that he would offer his neck so easily. He wondered if Tristan was asking it of him, if he was tired of living with his delusions and wanted his Alpha to end it for him. He hoped not because he just couldn’t do it. His brother was stronger than the things he saw. He knew it, and didn’t know how to tell Tristan. He wouldn’t waste his breath warning him that he had to be strong, had to keep it under control because his youngest brother already knew all these things. He just wanted to reassure him that he could do it; he could stay in charge of his hallucinations. He had to, for all of them. His brother had made him forget for the moment, but he’d smelled it again as they climbed back into the car to drive the last few blocks to the coffee shop. There was at least one strange wolf in his city and he knew it, but wasn’t sure where it was. He wondered how many he would bring back with him when he returned because he didn’t believe for a second it was only one stray. He was sure there were others and he was sure they wouldn’t give up on a witch that easily. None of them could afford to. “What are you going to say when you get in there?” Law asked. He was texting someone on his phone and Isaac hoped it was Natya because if it was anything else, he just didn’t have the patience for it right now. “How are you going to approach this? You can’t just demand that she bind us, you know.” Isaac shot him a glance and he tried hard to keep all the barely leashed anger out of the look. “If you think I’d do that then you really don’t fucking know me, Lawrence.” He didn’t look up, one finger pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. His phone jingled and his fingers flew over the keys with a practiced ease. “I’m just concerned. The last thing we want it is to send her running to the hills again, and diplomacy is not exactly your strength.” “I know,” Isaac grumbled. He swerved around a taxi cab and blew threw the yellow light. “I’m just saying you should be thinking about how to bring her over to our side. Now, before we get in there and say the wrong thing and have her run screaming out of the city. I’d rather get her on our side today than have to spend the rest of the afternoon hunting down some industrial strength chains to try and keep you from going on anymore jaunts tonight.” “Jesus fucking Christ Law, I know all this, you can stop being a condescending prick now,” he snarled. Law glanced over at him, noticing how white Isaac’s knuckles were around the steering wheel. His face fell a little and he nodded, blowing air out of his lips in a heavy sigh. “Sorry Alpha. Just worried is all.” “I know. Trust me, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll try my best not to fuck it up.” The last part came out more snappish than he meant as he jammed the car into park. He smelled strange wolf again when he entered the diner, except this time it was an old smell that still lingered on the two women sitting in the corner booth. Natya’s eyes snapped to his when he entered and then she lowered them to the table with a small grin on her face. It amused her to be submissive, because the girl had a strange sense of honor and liked that here packs were controlled by the wolves. Russia had been different. It was harsher and colder and the witches owned the wolves like they were packs of hunting dogs. He couldn’t blame her for leaving. His eyes went to the girl across from her, and he realized that he was nervous. He ran a hand through his dark hair as he realized that he really didn’t have any idea what he was going to say to her. They stood up when the three of them approached the table and he heard Tristan gasp sharply behind him. The witch looked the same as she had this morning, frazzled and tired and scared. The smell of strange wolf and fear assailed his senses and he was almost startled by the strength of it. Her green eyes rose to meet his dark ones for a split second and then she swallowed hard and forced her eyes down. He smirked. She had definitely been around wolves before. “Isaac Ellison,” he said, introducing himself, “South Boston’s Alpha.” He stretched out a hand towards her and for that first moment she just stared at it like she’d never shaken hands before. Her eyes glanced towards his face again and he smiled warmly at her. Her hand slid into his and it was tiny in comparison. She shook his hand slowly. “Ceridwen Kavanaugh,” she said, and then she frowned. “Weren’t you in the subway?” He felt the red in his face and he coughed into his other hand. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, that was me.” Tristan pushed past him abruptly, hand coming out to touch the girl’s face. She leaned back, but Natya was behind her and there wasn’t anywhere for her to go. His brother studied her features, his eyes shredding her face in frantic movements. He shook his head in disbelief and then whirled to look at his brother. “Isaac,” he whispered. “Is this really happening?” He looked like he was ready to cry. Isaac put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a quick hug. The girl’s eyes had gone wide and she was looking between the two of them with confusion and near panic. Natya’s hand on her shoulder was probably the only thing keeping her in the room. “Tristan what’s going on?” he asked quietly. A quiet sob escaped his brother’s lips and his eyes were full of barely leashed panic. Isaac’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “It’s just… I can’t tell what’s real right now.” “Alright,” he said, and then glanced to his left. “Law, can you take Tristan back to the car for a minute?” Lawrence swallowed hard, his eyes dancing between the girl and his Alpha and the frazzled Omega. “Isaac,” he said quietly, pushing the glasses up on his nose again. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, maybe I should be here…” “We would be happy to wait outside, Alpha,” Natya said with a feral grin. She let her hand drop from the witch’s shoulder and put her hand around Tristan’s hip. “Of course we do not question your orders.” She shot Lawrence a wink and he looked like he wanted to argue but then her other hand rested itself on his bicep and she headed for the door with the two men in tow. She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at the witch. “Don’t forget, little witch. Be like Russian.” The door jingled as they left and Isaac turned back to the witch, his nervousness intensifying. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly. “What the Hell was that about?” she asked, shifting the bag higher on her shoulder. He felt the red in his face again and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “That was Tristan, my brother. He’s a little… odd. I’m sorry if he scared you, he’s just… it’s been a bad day.” He sighed, resting a hand on the back of the booth. “Look, I know you don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but can we talk for a minute?” She swallowed and licked her lips, and he could smell the fear coming off her in waves. Her eyes went to the door and he almost missed it. “Actually, I’d really, really like to leave now,” she said. Her hands were clutching her bag and she looked like she was trying to figure out how long it would take her to get to the door before he caught up with her. Then she glanced at his face, careful not to meet his eyes. “Or am I not allowed?” “No, nothing like that,” he said quickly. “You can leave any time. I was just hoping you’d hear me out first.” She licked her lips again, eyes locked on the door. She looked like she just wanted to bolt and never look back, and he couldn’t blame her. There were bruises on her neck and circles under her eyes. She was shaking, he wondered if she even realized it. “Hey,” he whispered. He reached out a hand, resting it lightly on her arm and her eyes shot up to his as she jumped. She dropped her gaze to his neck immediately and he could smell the fear intensify. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly. She laughed abruptly, a wavering, panicked thing. “Not even a little bit,” she told him. “Alright, come on,” He smiled, guiding her back to the booth with one hand on her back. “Sit down for a while, have some lunch with me, and tell me what happened. Maybe we can help you. We’re not all bad guys, you know.” She hesitated for a split second, looking up at his face with that same, nervous expression on her face. Then a small smile made its way onto her face. “I am pretty hungry,” she said. “Get whatever you want,” he told her, letting her slide into the booth before he took Natya’s old place across from her. He pulled a menu out of the napkin holder and passed it to her, gesturing at the counter with his other hand. “This place has a fantastic club sandwich. It comes with a pickle and everything.” “I don’t eat meat,” she said. He smiled, trying to keep his thoughts to himself. If she’d been around wolves as much as he was thinking she had, then it made sense. Extremely feral wolves weren’t picky about how cooked their meat was, and sometimes preferred it still bloody. He wanted to ask her again what had happened, but he didn’t want to scare her off. She looked terrified and exhausted enough as it was. “Fair enough,” he said. “Alright, there’s um… salad? Is salad good?” She smiled shyly, picking at a score in the table with her thumbnail. “Salad’s fine. Maybe more coffee?” He smiled at her. “No problem. I could use some myself.” The waitress came over then, a plump woman with a buck tooth and gray in her hair. She had probably been here for the last decade, because she’d worked here as long as Isaac could remember. She was a good sort, and she knew the six of them by name at this point. She flipped her notepad open as she walked over to them, and smiled when he grinned at her. “Hey Sal,” he said. “Let me guess,” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “A turkey club, pickle on the side?” “You got it,” he said, tipping back in his seat. “And another pot of coffee?” “No problem honey.” She jotted it down in quick scribbles on the little pad of paper, more for the cooks than for her. She had a memory like a steel trap. She was every good old waitress in the movies, and it was kind of nice and comforting for him in a city that sometimes felt distant and cold. The pack stood apart from most of the people here and it was an almost palpable division some days. This was one of them. “And what would your friend here like?” “Could I just get a salad, with lots of veggies and no meat or cheese?” “Okay. What kind of dressing?” “Italian?” “I’ll get that right out for you folks.” She grinned as she tucked her notepad back in her apron. She couldn’t resist reaching out and patting Isaac on the shoulder with a sly wink. “Good job. She’s cute.” He saw Ceridwen blush across the table and he felt heat rising to his own cheeks. He would have told her it was nothing like that, but she was already walking away to place their order and get them another pot of coffee. He cleared his throat and looked back at the witch. “So, Ceridwen Kavanaugh,” he said, “where are you from?” She still had a blush on her face and was staring at the table. “North Carolina.” His eyes widened and he whistled in surprise. North Caroline was a good seven hundred miles from Boston, and it put her apparent exhaustion into perspective. It worried him as well, because that meant these wolves were more determined than he thought. He wondered what he was getting into, but he didn’t say any of it. “You’re a long way from home.” She laughed, tracing the initials someone had carved into the table. “It’s not really home anymore.” She said it with a quiet sadness that made him just want to give the girl a hug. His eyes traced the bruises on her neck and he felt a familiar rage rising in her. Whoever these bastards were, they’d done a number on the girl, and he didn’t like it. It reminded him too much of his father, because he had no doubt if his mother had ever tried to leave him, he’d have done the same thing. He would hunt her to the ends of the earth. “What happened?” he asked. She was quiet for a long time, long enough for the waitress to come back and put her salad in front of her. He thanked Sal, and she went to open her mouth and say something but Isaac shook his head at her. She smirked but nodded, taking the hint. She dropped the pot of coffee down next to Isaac’s elbow and moved on to the next table. Ceridwen picked at the leafy greens for a minute and then sighed. “The pack was bound to my mother. After she died, they wanted me to take her place, so I ran. I was stupid.” She sighed, throwing her fork at the table and shaking her head. She didn’t look like she was even hungry again and she turned to stare out the window. “I never should have left,” she said quietly. “Now they’re probably just going to kill me.” “Hey,” he said, reaching out to put a hand on her arm. She glanced up at him. “I won’t let that happen. I promise.” She shook her head, staring at his face. “Why? Why are you helping me?” He smirked and sat back, running his hand through his hair. He hoped this wasn’t the part where he said the wrong thing and scared her off, but he wasn’t going to try and deceive her. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “We were kind of hoping you’d be willing to bind us. It’s tough, having no control. The best we can do is chain ourselves in the basement, and that doesn’t always work. When you saw me this morning… I got loose last night. I woke up naked on a subway train with no idea where I’d been or what I’d done.” He watched her face the whole time, waiting for a reaction of some kind. Her expression was shuttered and he couldn’t get a good read off her, because of all the foreign smells on her. He really hated the smell of strange wolf. She poured herself a cup of coffee and her hand was shaking as she did so. “So you’ll help me in return for a binding?” she finally said. “Well, yes, yes and no.” He shook his head. “I told you I’d help you, and I will, whether you bind us or not. I just hope you’ll at least consider it.” She seemed a little more at ease and started eating with more enthusiasm. She drank half her coffee in one go and then shook her head at him. “Look, I appreciate that and all, but I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to. Not that I don’t want to, but I don’t even know how to do a binding.” “Really?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Shouldn’t it be in your book of shadows?” Her hand immediately went to her bag. “What do you know about it?” He laughed. “My mother’s a witch,” he told her. “I just remember her book being her most prized possession. It’s where she got all her spells from, and what she used to bind me when I was still a kid. I just figured it would be the same. I don’t remember it being that complicated, but then I was pretty young at the time, so maybe I’m wrong. ” She raised her eyebrow, finishing up the last of her salad. He watched her chase a tomato around her plate with her fork. “If your mother is a witch, why do you need my help? Aren’t you bound to her?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “She’s my father’s witch. She unbound me a long time ago.” “I see,” she said looking back down at the table. She was chewing on her lip and it looked like she was at least thinking about. Then she glanced up at his face, as if trying to figure him out. He leaned back in the booth, waiting for some kind of answer. “You’ll really help me with or without a binding?” she asked. He smiled at her. “I promised, didn’t I?” “Why?” He laughed, shrugging off the question. “I just like getting into trouble, I guess. Besides, you look like you need help, and if we don’t help you who will? Anyway, even if you don’t stick around, even if you don’t want to bind us, they’re still trespassing on our territory, and that’s a challenge I don’t know if I can afford to ignore.” Then he leaned forward to gesture at her neck. “Also, because one of them put those bruises on your neck, and that’s not right no matter how you look at it.” “Oh,” She blushed, putting a hand to her neck. “Well, thank you.” He smiled at her. “So,” he said, “how many wolves are we looking at?” Mynt They rode in near silence. After she had come out of the diner with Isaac, the wolves had shared a little chat. Ceridwen had graciously promised not to run off. Not that she thought she could get far anyway. When she had told him how many members was in the other pack his eyes had gotten big and he had gotten a little pale. The others had similar reactions, except Natya. She seemed almost thrilled at the challenge. They had filed into the car after their chat. The other three- Law, Tristan, and Natya, had taken up the back seat and granted Ceri the front. She was grateful, not really in the mood to be stuffed in the backseat with two unfamiliar werewolves. One seemed particularly disappointed that she hadn’t agreed to bind them. She hadn’t made up her mind yet. Occasionally the weird one, Tristan, would reach up and touch her hair. Ascertaining her existence it seemed. After the first couple of times it didn’t bother her too much. He was strange, but he seemed fairly harmless for now. Only the engine’s quiet rumble and the sound of the air conditioner filled the silence. “Are you certain there are fifteen?” the one called Law asked for maybe the fifth time. “Yes,” she replied quietly. He shook his head and looked down as if calculating something in his head. He didn’t seem to like whatever answer he came too as he opened his mouth as if to speak again but stopped himself and shook his head again. Maybe he realized her answer wasn’t going to change. And then it was quiet again. She didn’t mind so much. Ceridwen was drained. She was feeling better now that she had food in her stomach, but her body was still aching and heavy. She couldn’t say that she felt safe with these people, they were strangers and more importantly, they were wolves. But they were all she had, and if nothing else, she might be able to get a shower and some sleep out of it. Her eyelids were already beginning to droop. Even the coffee she drank couldn’t combat her fatigue. She rested her head against the window. She was so tired. Tired of wolves. Tired of running. Tired of being tired. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just act like people. Why did they have to put so much stock in this pack crap? It was bullshit. They weren’t animals. They were people! People with… hell she didn’t know. An unfortunate condition? Ceri closed her eyes, giving in to the weight of her eyelids. No one seemed to have much to say, either because she was there or they had nothing to talk about. She didn’t mind. She wasn’t sure she was ready to answer too many questions about what had happened, or whether she was going to bind them or not. With a full moon lurking in the coming night, she wasn’t sure how safe she would feel in a house filled with untamed werewolves. Especially if one could escape his chains. Maybe she could try, just through the full moon. But then they might try to make her stay. A jingle from the back seat made her jump and her eyes snap. With her heart racing in her chest she looked around, almost expecting Jeremiah, or some other mutt to jump through the windshield. “Turn that off,” Natya hissed from behind her, clearly not missing Ceri’s panic attack. “Sorry,” Law mumbled and pressed a few buttons on the phone’s face. She calmed a little, and blushed. She felt silly thinking a wolf attacking might making a tinkling jingle sound. To be a woman was to be strong. She could only imagine how strong she must look. If she even had a fraction of the power he mother had she might have more confidence in her powers, maybe she could convince the other pack to leave her alone. A fraction of the power and an ounce of the cruelty, maybe. Don’t forget, little witch. Be like Russian. She didn’t think she could be, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be. But eventually she was going to run out of places to hide from the big bad wolves. And then, then she might be forced to convince them anyway. Fight or lie down and die. Tristan touched her hair again. “Stop it.” Law ordered, grabbing Tristan’s wrist. “You’re going to scare her.” “I..” Her voice caught in her throat. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m okay. It's.. It's okay. He can…” She glanced over at Isaac sitting in the driver’s seat. A tourist, yeah right. She should have known. He didn’t show any indication that she noticed her looking at him. “He can touch my hair, it’s fine.” Law let go of Tristan’s arm grudgingly, the latter looking like he might like to bite him. Ceridwen sat up a little, not wanting to get scared awake again but another harmless sound. But after the initial shock wore off, her eyes returned to feeling as if they couldn’t possibly stay open another second. She blinked. Then blinked a little longer. And then she leaned against something incredibly warm and the devil himself couldn’t wake her. Quaddy “You did what?!”Law felt like biting something. And, right now, preferably his Alpha. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this sort of outrage. Literally, the last time anything like this had happened he’d been a snarling beast, with absolutely no control over his own actions. A slave to the full moon three nights out of every month. And of those nights, he had no recollection. But here he was, ready to choke the life out of his superior in the pack, barely able to keep his rage in check. Shaking with the effort to do so. And surprisingly close to tears. Law had never been able to adequately explain just how much he loathed what he was. It was hard to imagine that any of their kind really adored it, but Law felt nothing but seething hatred for both himself and the mother that had given him this curse. He wanted nothing more than to be free of it, to never again feel his humanity draining from him, losing control of his very being to the monster within. So, when he’d heard that there was a witch, a chance at freedom dangling before his eyes, Law had grasped at it, clutching hope to his heart like a child with a favorite doll. It wasn’t something he’d admit to anyone—not even the pack—but Law had dreamed of freedom his entire life. He was the responsible one, after all, the logical one; the one who took care of everything. He was most certainly not the one given to emotional outbursts, or such childish fancies as daydreams. But Law had literally dreamed of freedom, planning for a life in which he didn’t have to take care of an entire pack for once. He’d never again need to prepare food or purchase chains, reinforcing studs in the walls lest Isaac run mad through the streets again. Their Alpha had no clue just how often Lawrence had had to save his ass, or at least cover it. And now he’d gone and fucked it up. “I agreed to help the witch, Law. She needs it more than we do.” Law growled softly, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, desperately willing away the headache building behind the brow. Of course Isaac would go and play the white knight. Of fucking course he would let his goddamn dick do the talking. “Without getting any promise in return? You agreed to help the witch—the witch who could save us all from this fucking curse—without any promise of help from her in return? Isaac, far be it from me to be insubordinate to the Alpha, but have you any idea of just how incredibly stupid that was? Fifteen wolves, Isaac. Fifteen fucking wolves against our what? Five grown wolves and a child? Not to mention the fact that your brother is fucking insane and nearly got himself killed by one of his fucking visions!” Law stood and started pacing back and forth, his hackles rising, a change desperately close. It was hard to keep control during the full moon, even for the normally calm Beta. And this was almost too much. Law could feel freedom slipping through his fingers, hope fading away to nothing, the chance of a normal life disappearing forever. Realizing that he was practically challenging Isaac, Law sighed and plopped back down in his chair, folding his head within his arms. “Isaac, I just want to be free.” He looked up at the elder Ellison brother, eyes swimming. “I’ve never experienced it. My aunt was a witch, but my Mother…she never acknowledged me. Said I was too weak, too scrawny. Only I was left unbound, a punishment for never fighting my way from the bottom. I don’t want to lose out on the only chance I’ve ever had because you feel like being gallant.” Surprisingly for the normally hot-tempered Alpha, Isaac stayed silent, arms crossed as he watched his Beta rampage across the room. On the other side of the door, no doubt the rest of the pack listened as the two men argued. Tristan had, of course, been invited to join, but he’d elected to return to his room, muttering something about hoping it was still a mess. So it was just Isaac and Law. “Feel like being gallant, Law? You really think I would jeopardize the pack for the chance to get into some girl’s pants?” A threat underscored the words, but not a heavy one. Just a subtle reminder of who was in charge. Unconsciously, Law acknowledged the fact, showing his neck yet again. It was a never-ending pattern between the two of them. “I feel like you would unknowingly jeopardize a great many things in the quest of doing a good deed, Isaac.” Law stared across the room, his eyes slightly unfocused. He’d removed his glasses once more, feeling no need to affect human defect in a meeting of pack leaders. Even his precious iPhone, which never left his side, had been muted for this conversation. “I am sympathetic to the girl’s plight, Isaac. I really am. Unfeeling bastard that I am, a devotee to the shrine of logic, even I hated to see those bruises. But, still…fifteen wolves? Even if we had gotten some promise from her, there was a good chance just fulfilling our end of the bargain would kill us all. But at least we would have had the promise of freedom dangling in front of us. A fucking carrot, man. Now…what do we do?” Isaac sighed, and that was answer enough. “We’re screwed, you know that, right?” Law gave a half grin and a slight chuckle. “Natya seems to think that the wolf she scared off was ranked pretty close to the bottom and he was pretty big. This is a powerful southern clan, dude. The logistics of it all are absolutely ridiculous…” Isaac grinned, and it was in that moment that Law realized his Alpha was just oh-so-slightly insane, and he had quite literally accepted the challenge simply for the fun of it. “But it’s got style, right? And it’s the right thing to do.” Law nodded. “You’re right. It is the right thing to do. But sometimes, Isaac, the right path is the one that causes the most pain. And I doubt this pack can survive too much of that. I just hope you’ve got a plan in that insane head of yours. Or else we’re all fucking screwed.” Wenston “BOOM! Headshot! In your face, Tristan!” Mira’s voice echoed through his bedroom and Tristan watched as the head of the soldier he’d been controlling in his video game exploded and popped into the air. The lifeless body spluttered blood and then fell to the ground. Mira’s pixilated soldier hopped over and squatted on his corpse and then hopped off. Tristan sighed. That was his fifth death in a row. He looked over at his younger sister. “You’re cheating,” he told her. Mira turned wide eyes to him, a piece of licorice hanging out of her mouth. “I am not!” she yelled around the candy. She pulled it from her mouth and glared at him. “Every time I beat you, you accuse me of cheating. I am just that awesome. So awesome, in fact, that the crowd cheers my name. Can you hear them? Mira, Mira, Mira. You’re gonna have to face that one day, Pup.” Tristan glared at the nickname because it wasn’t his – it was hers. He opened his mouth to say something about it, but the floor in the hallway creaked. They both whipped their heads towards the door and Tristan sucked in a breath as he saw the familiar redhead standing there. He waited to say anything because there was a part of him that still thought she was a hallucination. But, apparently she was really there, because Mira grinned and stood up. “Hello!” she chirped, grabbing her bag of candy and running over to Ceridwen in the doorway. “Do you want to play with us? I’m kicking Tristan’s ass.” “Don’t say ass.” Tristan called. Mira ignored him. “Here, you want some candy?” The girl held out the bag to Ceri. She looked down at it and then towards Tristan. The girl still looked somewhat nervous, but at least she looked a bit more rested. She’d basically passed out in the car and Isaac had carried her inside, taking her to his room. Tristan hadn’t even had the energy to rib him about it, because he’d been scouting the house for signs of the jester. That was an hour ago. And for an hour, they’d been jester free. He was waiting for the little fucker to pop back up any minute now. “Um,” her eyes came up to meet Tristan’s and he looked away, not sure why. She made him nervous. “No thank you,” she answered. “Oh, well then do you want to watch a movie?” Mira asked. “We can watch Snow White! That’s my favorite! Have you ever seen it?” Tristan smiled to himself. His little sister was normally quirky and odd, but she was also hopped up on sugar at the moment and she was very excited that Ceri was here. She’d practically talked Tristan’s ear off trying to get him to tell her about the witch. Ceri looked around, like she wasn’t sure what to do. But finally she shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve seen it.” “Well then we’re gonna make you watch it,” Mira said and grabbed her hand. Ceri looked a bit startled, but Mira didn’t pause or let go. She turned around to look at Tristan. “Go make popcorn.” Then she was tugging the red headed witch down the stairs and into the living room. Tristan sighed and turned off the gaming console. He gave one last look around his room, like maybe the jester was hiding somewhere, but when he didn’t spot him, he headed off after them. Natya and Kayden were in the living room. Kayden was watching something on tv and Natya was reading a book. Mira plopped down in front of the tv and started fidgeting with the remote. “Hey, I was watching that,” Kayden protested. “Not anymore!” Mira sang to him, pulling out the Snow White DVD. Kayden grumbled and sat back on the couch, looking pissed. His eyes came up to meet Tristan’s and the two stared at each other for a moment. Tristan thought the other wolf held his gaze for a little too long, before the other turned away submissively. Tristan frowned at him and kept watching the other wolf for a moment longer. Kayden was getting bolder. He was preparing, Tristan had been aware of it for weeks. He found new ways to passively challenge him every day. And Tristan let him get away with it. He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he should go over there and assert his dominance on the wolf, let him know that he was still above him in the ranks, but he couldn’t. A part of him just wanted Kayden to take over. A part of him just wanted to step down. But that wasn’t an option either. Tristan turned towards the kitchen and passed Ceri, who was standing nervously eyeing the room. He paused for a moment to reach out and touch her hair. She turned to look at him and he couldn’t stop himself. “Are you real?” He blurted. She looked a bit surprised by the question. “Uh, I think so,” she responded. Nodding, Tristan studied her face for a moment. “Do you like extra butter on your popcorn?” “Um…” she glanced towards Natya. The Russian wolf smiled at her and gave a wink. “Sure?” she said uncertainly, looking back at Tristan. He grinned at her. “Okay,” he said simply and then stepped into the kitchen. It was like a whole other atmosphere in the room. Whereas the living room had nervousness, leashed tension, and awkwardness – the kitchen was like the aftermath of a war zone. Isaac sat at the table and Law was at the counter, preparing meals for tomorrow when they woke up craving meat and food. They both turned to look at him as he entered and he froze a little in the doorway, feeling as though he was intruding on something. But the two had been quiet for a while, both just sitting there, probably stewing over whatever it was they had been fighting about. Tristan knew what they were fighting about, she was standing in the other room. “We’re going to watch a movie,” he announced to them, if only to break the silence. Then he moved quickly to the cupboard and pulled out two bags of microwaveable popcorn. He stuffed one into the microwave and willed it to pop faster than it was capable of. He could feel Isaac’s stare on his back. “What movie?” his brother asked quietly. His voice sounded strained. “Snow White.” There was silence for a moment. Law spoke next, still preparing the meals. “Maybe you should watch a different one.” Tristan sighed. “The witch won’t come after me this time,” he said quietly. “I chewed her out last time.” Law only nodded and didn’t look at him. Tristan chewed his lip, because he could tell Law and his brother had had a spat, and not just a lover’s spat, a real bitch fight. Maybe there had even been an assertion of dominance? He was suddenly glad he’d decided to go play games with Mira instead of stay in the room. He didn’t think he could handle being in the middle of their arguments today. “Tristan,” Isaac’s voice was low, calm. It made Tristan tense a little. “What happened today?” The microwave beeped and he pulled the bag out, stuffing it in a bowl before popping in the other. He quickly set it and shook his head. “Nothing happened.” It sounded like the lie it was, even to him. “Did you recognize Ceridwen?” Isaac asked. Tristan reached up a hand absently to rub at his temple. His brother was going to fucking flip. But he didn’t know what else to do. Isaac could tell whenever Tristan was lying, it drove him nuts. Well, more nuts than usual. He sighed. “She’s the girl I was chasing in the street.” “What?” Isaac and Law asked at the same time, the matching urgency and pitch in their voices was almost comedic. Tristan would have laughed and made fun of them for it, because they really were like a fucking married couple, but he was so damn shaken and confused over the whole event earlier that he just shrugged. “I dunno,” he admitted and he hated the way his voice broke and his hands started to shake. Tears stung at his eyes and he had to swallow thickly, because he was admitting things to them that he didn’t like to admit. He didn’t like to talk about the visions. And he sure as fuck didn’t like to talk about them coming real. He was still having a hard time believing it. “Had you met her previously?” Law asked. “No,” Tristan choked out. He could feel the questions practically ready to pour out of both of them, but the door to the kitchen opened and he breathed a sigh of relief. Ceridwen stepped in and glanced around, offering a small smile to Isaac, but then turned to Tristan. “Um, Mira says that you’re missing the movie and to get your ass back there with the popcorn.” Tristan blinked at Ceridwen for a moment. “I told her not to say ass,” he said and the microwave beeped. He pulled the other popcorn bag out and dumped it in a bowl. He grabbed both bowls and then headed for the living room, a little quicker than he needed to, but he wanted to get away from the questions he felt building up, ready to boil over. “Tristan…” Isaac called, demanding he stop and they discuss this. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t talk about it right now. “We’re watching a movie,” he called back. He heard Isaac growl and scoot his chair back, following him. He almost panicked as he entered the living room, because Isaac was going to make him talk about it. His heart started racing and he looked for an exit, a distraction, a reason to not talk about it, anything. It was granted to him a moment later when Kayden’s fist met his face and he fell back against the wall, the two bowls of popcorn he’d been carrying dumping onto the floor. He heard Mira yell his name and Natya’s quiet restraint of his sister, telling her not to interfere. A gasp came from behind him that he placed belonging to Ceridwen. Isaac’s low growl followed and Law’s running footsteps echoed through the kitchen, coming towards the living room. It was happening so fast that Tristan barely had time to register the second, crushing punch that connected with the side of his face. He went down to one knee from the blow, his head spinning. Fuck, was Kayden really doing this right now? Tristan wasn’t ready for a god damn pissing contest. But he knew it wasn’t just a brawl, this was a fight for position. A fight for Omega. He thought briefly about just submitting, not fighting back, letting Kayden take the position. But Mira made a noise of distress as Kayden’s fist came in for a third blow to his face and Tristan growled, deep and low and angrily. Now was not the fucking time. He caught Kayden’s fist as it flew at his face. His own hand stung from the force behind the blow, not to mention his somewhat numb and throbbing face, and he knew that Kayden wasn’t holding back. He wasn’t pulling his punches like a good packmate would. He was out for blood. He was out for position. And fuck it if Tristan was going to stand for it. He was pissed off now. Because who the fuck was Kayden to mess with him on a day when his fucking visions were coming true? Who the fuck was Kayden to do this in front of a witch who just came home with them, or even in front of his little sister. God damn prick. Tristan swung back with his own fist, aimed towards Kayden’s eye. The wolf ducked beneath it and in a surprise move, sacked Tristan in the gut. He slammed him into the wall where Tristan had the wind knocked out of him. In the next moment, Tristan was being flipped over Kayden’s shoulder and he landed with a crash into the glass coffee table. It broke beneath Tristan’s weight and he had to blink several times at the surprise and shock of it all. Man, Law was going to be pissed that they were trashing the house. That was a nice coffee table. He heard Mira cry out and saw Natya restraining his little sister. Isaac growled from the doorway and he caught a glimpse of Law and him standing in front of Ceridwen, who looked pale and frightened. God damn it, Kayden. The other wolf was standing over him, he cocked a fist back, ready to bring it down onto Tristan’s face again. Tristan had had enough. He brought his hands up and grabbed the side of Kayden’s head. Bringing Kayden closer to him, he brought his knee up and kneed the man in the ear. Kayden howled in pain and grabbed his head, backing off. Tristan took the opportunity to climb to his feet. He felt glass cut at his hands as he pushed himself up. His back felt like a few had nicked him there as well. Spinning, he leapt at the other wolf. Kayden must have been surprised that Tristan even got a blow in, because Tristan was able to get two blows to the face in before Kayden finally blocked one and gave another hit back to him, catching him in the jaw. He yelled, angrily, and leapt forward, easily slipping an arm around Kayden’s neck and pulling him into a choke hold. He punched the man several times in the ribs before Kayden’s arms suddenly flew out to the side, a sign of submission. Tristan thought about carrying on anyway, because the little fuck deserved it, really. But he took a few deep breaths, calming those irrational thoughts before he slung Kayden to the ground. The man curled and lay in submission on the ground, with Tristan over him. He must not like pain. But he had to admit, Kayden lasted longer this time than the last time he’d tried. He’d won. Kayden had submitted. The fight was over. Feeing blood trickling down his face, he reached up with the back of his hand and wiped it away, but managed to smear it across his nose and mouth. He looked to Isaac, who still looked like he wanted to jump in. He turned to look at Mira, who had tears on her cheeks but also was looking smug that her brother had won. He stepped away from Kayden and started towards her, because he hated it when Mira cried. Mira’s face was what gave it away. Her eyes darted to something behind him. Isaac yelled and there was movement around the room all at once. He heard Ceri gasp and as he whirled around to see what was happening, he didn’t quite make it all the way around before something sharp and jagged ripped into his back, inches away from his spinal chord, which would have left him paralyzed at the least, and nicked and chipped at his ribs as it entered muscle and tissue. He cried out, more out of shock than pain as he realized Kayden had just stabbed him in the back with a thick shard of glass from the smashed coffee table. That god damn little fucking prick. And then, Tristan didn’t hold back anymore. Something did snap, but it wasn’t his sanity. He went blind with rage. Even as he felt hot blood stain his back and pant leg, he whirled and threw a fist at Kayden, harder than he’d ever hit him before. Kayden went down hard and Tristan leapt atop him, fists flying at the wolf’s face. Kayden was trying to fend him off and he heard Isaac yell his name and hands were pulling at his arms. Mira was crying again. Law was somewhere in this mess and Natya was cussing in Russian. Tristan caught Kayden’s arm as it came up, he kicked out at it as someone was pulling him up and off of the wolf and he felt the bone snap beneath his foot. Kayden was screaming in pain on the ground. And all Tristan wanted to do was get back in there, finish him off. When the hands refused to let him, when they refused to release him and he started to realize that he’d actually really fucking hurt Kayden, he’d scared his sister, he’d probably traumatized the witch, Tristan went slack, his head spinning. He started sobbing uncontrollably. Because today, today a vision of his had come true. Today the lines of reality had blurred too much and at first all he wanted to do was kill someone or be killed and that terrified him. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die, he really didn’t. He just wanted to be normal. He just wanted to be normal. Somewhere in the room, somewhere he couldn’t see through the red in his eyes and the rage blinding his vision, he heard that stupid fucking jester laughing at him. .Wolfie. Kayden was a bastard.Isaac seethed as he thought those words over and over again, and it was only because his arms were already wrapped around Tristan that he didn’t fly across the room and finish the job his brother had started. His teeth ground together and he unconsciously tightened his hold on Tristan, but his brother didn’t even seem to notice. He was slipping out of his grasp to the floor, his hands coming up to hold his head as he sobbed and bled onto the carpet. His whole body was shaking now and there was blood trickling down his spine and soaking through his shirt. Isaac pulled his own shirt off, crouching at Tristan’s side and pressing it to his wound to try and stop the bleeding. Kayden had gotten him deep, and he felt the familiar stirrings of rage in his stomach. He felt the wolf just at the edges of his control and he hated this feeling, like he might lose his mind any second. “You’re okay,” he whispered, one hand running through Tristan’s hair. “It’s okay, little brother.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not.” Law was at Kayden’s side. The man was biting his lip to keep from screaming and his arm was bent at an unnatural angle. They had all heard the crack when Tristan had snapped it and there was no doubt that it was broken. He tried to think, tried to focus because they didn’t have enough time to get him to a hospital and still be back before the moon rose. He couldn’t even think about the fifteen other wolves on their way because if he did he would realize everything was going to shit in front of him. Maybe Law was right. Maybe they were screwed. “Look at me, Kayden,” Law was saying. “I’m going to have to set your arm. It’s going to hurt, okay?” The wolf was crying, and he nodded dumbly at the words. Isaac wondered if he even knew what they meant, and he wondered if he really cared. It was going to hurt like a mother fucker, and every part of him was glad of it, because it had been a fucking coward’s move. They were wolves; they fought head to head and didn’t stab each other in the back. No matter how much they disagreed sometimes, Kayden was pack. A stunt like the one he’d pulled with the shard of glass was the kind of thing that got most wolves kicked out or torn to shreds. He still had his hands on Tristan’s arms, but he was staring at Kayden’s face. He was crying, and when his eyes slid open they had the same miserable expression he’d worn the day Isaac had found him an alley. He’d been drunk and vomiting into a dumpster, wearing week old clothes that he’d stolen from a Salvation Army. He should have hated him, and the anger settling in his gut came pretty damn close to it, but he never forgot that first meeting and he couldn’t seem to find anything but pity in him. “I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” Kayden had said, right before he’d grinned and tried to punch Isaac in the face. He’d fallen flat on his face instead, and then he had cried and laughed in equal amounts into the gutter. “I don’t fucking need, anyone,” he’d said, and then he’d thrown up again. He smelled like vomit and piss and alcohol and Isaac should have walked away. He should have left him there in the gutter because that was the smart thing to do, but he couldn’t make himself turn away because it was the sort of thing his father would have done. So he’d helped him out of the gutter. Not that it changed anything. Kayden was still a bastard. He let out a sharp cry when Law snapped his bone back into place, and behind him Natya winced. She had her arms wrapped around his frame to keep him from moving too much while the Beta worked, and her eyes found Isaac’s from across the room. She glanced down at Kayden once and a snarl found its way onto her face. He knew if she had her way she would kick his ass and then kick him out, if he lived past the first part. “I’ll get some band aids,” Mira said. Isaac glanced back at her and there were tears in her eyes. Her voice was high and panicked and she was still talking to herself as she ran towards the bathroom. “And gauze and medical tape and maybe some peroxide and I guess a fucking ace bandage…” Then he heard the other voice, event though it was soft and shaky. “I gotta go.” His head whipped around just in time to see the witch heading out of the room and down the hallway. “Ceri, wait!” He said. He almost stood up then, but he felt his brother shift under him and the slick feeling of blood beneath his fingers and he stopped midway through the motion. He felt a vague panic starting to build in the back of his mind, because she couldn’t leave, not now, not just because of Kayden and his recklessness. Then his brother started laughing in his arms and shaking his head, tears still streaming down his face and there was too much happening all at once and Isaac was starting to lose control. “Natya, a little help,” Law said, jerking his head towards the door. She glanced up at him and then Ceridwen’s retreating back, her eyes widening slightly. Then she nodded, releasing Kayden none too gently and he sucked in a mouthful of air with a pained hiss. His face was going pale and white and his eyes were starting to roll back in his head as he fell back to the carpet. Isaac couldn’t find it in him to care at the moment. This time the wolf had brought it on himself and he wouldn’t feel pity or guilt or any of the usual things associated with one of his pack getting hurt. “Shut up, shut up, just shut the fuck up!” Tristan suddenly shouted, twisting and snapping at his brother’s arms. “Tristan, just calm the fuck down,” Isaac snarled. That seemed to break through his brother’s panic for the moment, because he went limp in his arms. He looked back up at Isaac and his eyes were huge and sad and frightened. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He was still crying as he tilted his head back and bared his neck to his brother. The tears trickled down his cheeks in slow streams. “Just make it quick,” he said, and his voice was a soft, broken thing. Isaac snapped. All the anger and frustration he had felt throughout the day burst through on his face in a vicious snarl. He was so tired of this bullshit, so tired of watching his brother bare his neck to him and wait for the day that Isaac finally sunk his teeth in and ended it all. He was exhausted, running on next to no sleep, and torn up from trying to convince Ceridwen to trust them and trying to convince Lawrence that she would come around. Now he had to deal with the aftermath of Kayden’s poorly conceived attempt to take Tristan’s pack position and hope that they hadn’t just scared the witch off for good. His hand curled around his brother’s arm and then he was yanking him to his feet and dragging him through the living room. Tristan didn’t fight him. He let himself be pulled along, his eyes on the ground and his head angled away from his brother. His hands were shaking still, but the tears had stopped. He looked so fucking resigned. Isaac pushed him out the back door and Law’s head jerked up when it banged open. “Isaac what…?” he started to ask. He was halfway off the carpet when his Alpha looked back at him. “Keep Mira in the house,” he said, and then slammed the door shut. He pushed Tristan none too gently into the backyard and by now Isaac was shaking too. His brother fell to his knees, not even trying to catch himself or fight back. He looked up at Isaac with wide sad eyes, but he didn’t look afraid. He looked like he had been expecting this for a long time and there was something akin to relief in his gaze. Isaac fucking hated that look. It was a look of defeat. It was a look that said things had gotten too hard and he was just giving up. His fingers curled in his brother’s shirt and he yanked him to his feet. “Do you want to die?” he asked him, his voice a low growl. Tristan looked away. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” he said softly. Isaac shoved him back to the ground, standing over him with clenched fists. “That’s not what I fucking asked, Tristan. Do you want to die? Is that what you want?” “It doesn’t matter,” he said again. His arms hung limply between his knees, his head bowed between them. Tears were starting to stream down his face again. “Do you have any idea how hard it is?” He glanced up at Isaac but apparently didn’t like whatever he saw looking back at him because he cast his eyes to the mud again. “I don’t know what’s real anymore. I saw the witch before I even met her. Do you understand what that means? Because I sure as hell don’t.” His voice was breaking now. He looked up at his brother and he looked like he was already dead. “Is any of this even real?” “Tristan,” he said softly. His fists were clenched at his side. “Answer the fucking question.” He sighed and hung his head. “I’m not sure,” he whispered. Then Isaac was grabbing him by the collar again, slamming him against the side of the house. “Just give me a fucking straight answer, Tristan! Do you want to die? Is that what you want? Is that what you’re hoping for every time you bare your neck to me?” His arms were shaking but he couldn’t stop himself now and his teeth were inches from his brother’s neck. He felt the wolf surging under his skin and he was just waiting for a word, yes or no. He was tired of playing this game with Tristan, tired of seeing him bare his neck and wait for the end. “Do you want to die?” “No,” Tristan finally burst, shoving Isaac back. The Alpha let him, watching as his brother crumpled to the ground again. His arms wrapped around his waist and he looked like they were the only thing holding him together. He was still shaking and his hands were slick with blood, both his and Kayden’s. It didn’t matter whose was whose anymore, it was all the same color. “No, I don’t want to die,” he said again quieter. “But fuck, Isaac, it’s so hard to live.” Isaac crouched next to him, all the rage gone, all the anger and panic and fear. He felt relief settle over him because he had been terrified that his brother would tell him yes. He was terrified that he would have followed through. He put an arm on his brother’s shoulder, squeezing tightly. “I know, Tristan. But you need to stop. Stop giving up, stop thinking you deserve to die, stop waiting for me to do it for you. The day I’ll kill you is the day you look me in the eye and tell me without hesitation that it’s what you want. And don’t for a second think I won’t know if you’re fucking lying to me.” Tristan clasped his hand over Isaac’s. “Thank you, I think,” he said with a wry smile. Then it fell from his face. “My visions are getting stranger, Isaac.” His brother squeezed his shoulder tightly. “I know. We’ll figure it out.” He wished he had something better to tell Tristan, but it was all he had. He didn’t understand it anymore than his brother. How could he have visions about a person he hadn’t even met? Tristan was odd, had been odd for most of his life, but this was edging into a different kind of supernatural territory. He wondered if maybe there was some truth to what his father had believed. Maybe there was something different about the seventh son. Maybe Tristan wasn’t as crazy as they had all believed. He helped his brother climb to his feet, hand still clasped in his. Tristan kept holding on for a moment after, and then he glanced at Isaac’s face. “Would you have done it?” he asked softly. He didn’t need to explain. The silence stretched on between them. His voice was soft and barely audible when he answered. “I would have if you had said yes.” Then he slapped him on the shoulder. “Go inside. Let your sister patch you up.” He watched until Tristan disappeared into the house, and then he slumped down into a sitting position against the wall. He scrubbed his face with his hands, realizing too late that his brother’s blood was still on his fingers. His hands dropped to his knees and he was shaking in his skin. He let his head hit the wall and his eyes slid closed for just a moment because his head was pounding and there was still adrenaline and fear racing through his system at a frantic pace. He’d thought everything was going to be better now. They’d caught up to the witch and even if she hadn’t promised to bind them, she was at least in the house and that gave them a chance to convince her otherwise. He tried not to think about it too much, because he hadn’t been bound in almost nine years now and he had gotten used to not thinking about it. Sure, he’d promised to take on fifteen wolves in the bargain, but everything came with a price tag. Even if this price tag was a little steeper than most, it was still a cost he was willing to pay. He heard the door slam and glanced up with bleary eyes. Law stood on the porch, his arms crossed, his glasses and his iPhone nowhere to be found. He sighed, shifting the weight on his feet and focusing on Isaac. He looked as tired as the Alpha felt and he smiled a little, before sitting down on the stairs for a moment. “I put Kayden in the basement already. His arm’s broken, but you know that. He’ll have to wait until tomorrow to go to the hospital. Mira’s taking care of your brother. She’s pretty pissed at all of you right now.” He nodded. “Fair enough. Natya or the witch back?” Law scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Not back inside yet. But they’re still on the street talking, so at least she’s not miles away already. Jesus Isaac… this is a disaster. This is like category five hurricane disaster.” He hesitated, picking at his jeans with a thumbnail before casting one eye up at Isaac. “You think we should call…?” He shook his head, cutting the thought off before it could finish. “No,” he said, harsher than he meant. He took a breath, letting himself calm down. “We’ll get through this. We’ll figure it out.” He sighed, pushing himself to his feet and brushing himself off. “We have to.” Natya caught up to her on the sidewalk outside the house. “Wait, lastochka,” she said. Her hand closed around the witches elbow. Ceridwen shook her off, not looking back as she kept walking down the street. Her bag was clutched so tightly in her hands that her knuckles were turning white. “Leave me alone,” she said. Her voice was tight and strained and Natya couldn’t tell if she had been crying or if she was just upset. She kept pace with her steps easily, but didn’t try and touch her again. “You can run, but they will still hunt you,” she said. Ceridwen stopped and whirled on her. She could see the tears brimming in the witch’s eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “What am I supposed to do? Stay here in that… madhouse? How are they supposed to help me when they can’t even help themselves? I think maybe I’m better off alone, thanks.” She threw the words down like a gauntlet and then braced herself for whatever came next. Whatever she thought Natya’s reaction would be laughing probably wasn’t it. She patted her on the cheek with a friendly smile, and then slung an arm around her shoulders. “There’s a good girl! Strong like Russian. You see? I told you this. You do not need wolves. Wolves need you. So, you will help us, yes?” She grinned, and there was something slightly manic in the expression. “You will help us, and we will destroy your wolves for you." Mynt The sun had nearly disappeared behind the horizon. She had almost immediately returned to the room she’d woken up in and closed the door. When Natya had brought her back inside nearly everyone had disappeared, leaving Isaac upstairs, sweeping up the glass and wood fragments. Someone had already cleaned the blood off the carpet, the stench of bleach weighing heavy in the air. Isaac had looked up and flashed her a tired smile. Natya excused herself after a comforting squeeze of Ceridwen’s shoulders. “Thanks for coming back. I’m sorry about…” he’d said, his voice sounding as exhausted as he looked. Maybe he was having as rough a day as Ceri was. “We’re going to the basement. Anything in the house is yours. Try to have a good night.” Then he had gone into the basement and Ceridwen had put as much distance between her and it as possible without leaving the house. She settled on the bed and pulled her sweatshirt off. So what if she was only wearing a bra under the big ugly thing, it wasn’t as if she was expecting visitors before sunrise and it felt nice to be out of it. It was filthy, not that it shouldn’t be. There was mud crusted into the pink fabric. She tossed it to the floor where it looked right at home amid the other pieces of someone else’s discarded clothing. Ceri thought about leaving her shoes on in case one of those savage beasts in the basement decided to break free and try and eat her. They had said that Isaac was particularly good at that. A shudder shot through her spine at the thought. If he broke free she was as good as eaten anyway unless she could survive jumping from a two-story window, and then she still might break her leg and he’d still be playing with her innards. She kicked off her old sneakers. Her feet felt so relieved without being cramped in shoes and she relished in the feeling of the carpet against her feet. It felt so cool and soft. Ceri never had carpet before. Evelyn said it was too difficult to clean blood out of it. A candid picture of Tristan eating a hot dog stared at her from the nightstand. She couldn’t help the smile at his frozen goofy expression or the mustard forever caught between the hotdog and his shirt. Tristan puzzled her. He was strange to say the least. It didn’t seem like he had a very strong grip on reality and teetered precariously on being very dangerous. He seemed sweet, if not a little shy. She remembered the snap of Kayden’s arm and another shiver ran through her body. Ceridwen couldn’t help but wonder how he had survived in this world. Any other alpha would probably have killed him already. She knew Damien would have without batting an eye. A small photo sat beside it of a Mira giving the victory sign and winking an eye. She also appeared to be holding the camera. Her brown curls were pulled up in pigtails and she was standing next to a couple of other girls, but Ceri didn’t recognize them. She wondered if they had been normal once. Mira was only a kid, she would be in school and making friends and meeting boys. Tristan should be in college. Hell, Isaac could probably be in college too. Had they been living normal lives until a witch like her mother came along? Isaac had said his mother was a witch. With a sigh she rose off the bed, her aches and pains more noticeable now that she was on longer running on adrenaline and panic. She carefully wiggled out of her jeans, letting the dirty and ragged things crumple to the floor in a heap. There were bruises on her freckle-dappled legs, but they had faded to the colour meaning they weren’t sticking around much longer. She imagined she must look like a giant bruise with hair. A creak caught her attention and she stared at the door, her heart thudding loudly in her chest. She knew what she expected to come bursting through the door, so after a moment of nothing she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. There was a very good chance she wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight either. Ceridwen crawled onto the bed, almost forgetting how nice it was to lie down. It felt like ages. Her short nap didn’t count. It bothered her a little that she was lying in someone else’s bed in someone else’s room (Isaac’s she guessed based on the photographs and the clothes scattered here and there) but she had plans to put her clothes back on before dawn and it wasn’t as if she had another pair of clothes. Not to mention she had neglected to ask for something before they’d gone down to the basement. She reached over the side of the bed and grabbed her messenger bag, and from it her book of shadows. It was old, the inscriptions that had once been on the front of the weathered leather barely more than faded scribbles now. The sapphire gem barely held a shine to it anymore. Ceri flipped on her back, her head on the pillow and her book propped against her legs. It was going to be a long night, and it was going to be an even longer however long before Damien caught up to her. If she was going to survive, if they were all going to survive, she had better brush up on the stupid binding spell. He still had blood on his hands. It glistened in the moon’s sliver of pale light as he turned away from the still body lying in the grass. His tongue snaked out and lapped at the blood on his lips. “A pack is only as strong as its weakest member,” he said, something dark and malicious spreading across his face. He gestured behind him with a crimson soaked hand, splattering droplets of red and thicker things in the grass. “And there is no weakness here.” She looked away, fear and nausea gripping her stomach. “Your mother taught me that, girl.” There was a bitterness in his voice. He was walking towards her; she could hear it and her body damn near screamed for her to run away. But her legs wouldn’t obey and even if they had, the strong hands gripping her wouldn’t let her get very far. Then his hand was on her face, a sticky warmth under her chin. He brought her face back up, looking into her vibrant eyes. “You’re not weak, are you, girl?” She didn’t answer, and he laughed. A soft thump made her jump and she blinked against the sudden brilliance of the room. She blinked and sat up, her book tumbling onto the bed. Daylight? It was morning already? When did that happen? Ceri didn’t even remember falling asleep. She remembered looking at the binding spell, getting bored and flipping through the pages detailing the family line and other boring stuff. “Ah, did I wake you?” She jumped at the sound of another voice, and her eyes snapped to the half naked man standing by the dresser. The sunlight made his tan skin shimmer like gold, his muscles barely moving with the effort it took to breathe. He held a shirt by the collar of on finger. And he was looking at her boobs. Ceri looked down and felt her face get warm. How could she forget she wasn’t wearing anything but her underwear? “Uh, sorry.” Isaac said immediately and put a hand over his face. “I didn’t realize you were, uh... comfortable.” Blindly he held out his shirt for her. She took it wordlessly and pulled it on over her head. It was big on her, but that just meant it covered all the places needed covering. “I’ll just be downstairs.” “Wait, I was hoping we could talk,” she said, trying to avoid talking about her near nakedness. “Just you and me.” “Sure,” he replied, cautioning a peek through his finger. She noticed he also held colour in his cheeks although she doubted it was as noticeable as her’s. “But you’re gonna start rumors.” “I’m not the one who walked in on a half naked girl.” She reminded him with a smile. It felt good to smile and mean it. He laughed. “Fair enough. What’s on your mind?” She took a breath. “I can’t- I won’t stay here another night with werewolves who could escape at a moment’s notice. I don’t have it in me. Every little sound had me going out of my mind.” Ceridwen studied Isaac. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his back against the dresser. She could see the disappointment, but it was a brief flitter across his face. She could almost see the cogs turning behind those chocolate eyes. “I could put you up in a hotel for—“ She shook her head, ginger hair curling at the nape of her neck. “So I’ll do it.” “You’ll do it?” He probably knew what she meant, but maybe he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. “I’ll bind you.” She held up her hand before he could speak again. “But only under the condition that once this whole mess is over I can still walk away.” Quaddy “She…has agreed to bind us?” Law was amazed, perplexed. He had never thought that a witch would agree to bind him. It was…well, frankly, it was beyond his wildest dreams. A chance…a chance to truly be human for the first time in his life. To control the beast, to choose, to keep his human mind even when the wolf was free.To experience everything his brothers had told him about. Not every member of his family had been cruel, poking and prodding at the monster in the basement every month for their own amusement. Mother had known about it, of course, and even condoned it, hoping that the mistreatment would bring out a bit more of the snarling beast in her youngest. Forgetting, of course, that Law couldn’t remember a damn thing. But his brothers, the two that would have been in Law’s position but for Law, were always kind to him. They’d tried to protect him during the teasing sessions, nursed him back to health every time he’d woken up the next morning. Mostly, though, they’d told him stories about what it was like to be free. Oh, Mother would occasionally remove the binding from one of her children as punishment, but she’d never have given it as a gift to Lawrence. So his brothers could tell him all about the difference between his curse and their gift. And now…now Lawrence would get to taste it for himself. Isaac nodded, arms crossed. Law had known Isaac long enough to realize that the Alpha was working very hard to keep an excited grin from tugging at his lips. Hell, Law could barely keep from laughing for the sheer joy of it. And Isaac was far more demonstrative than he. “When?” Here Isaac shrugged. “Some time today. She says that she can’t spend another night in this house with us otherwise.” The grin broke free now and Lawrence just couldn’t help himself. He laughed. And it felt awfully good. Lawrence had been about twenty when he’d last had a really good laugh. Brother Jeremy had been telling him about a time when their eldest sister had forgotten clothing after she changed and been forced to walk all the way home in the altogether. Beatriz, unfortunately for Jeremy, had walked in. Everyone knew she was big, strong, and vain. She was also pack Beta. Within moments, Law’s face was splattered with blood and brother Jeremy lay dead on the floor, jugular ripped out. That night, Lawrence had run away. The next morning, he’d purchased his first pair of glasses and worked his ass off to be the human his mother wouldn’t let him be. He was, after all, a rogue wolf living on the streets. There was a lot he needed to control to keep himself and (more importantly) others alive. “Remember when you found me, Isaac?” Law asked when he stopped laughing, using his shirt to wipe the tears from his eyes. “How pathetic I was?” “Was, Law?” Isaac sat, lounging with arms splayed against the back of the chair. “You’re still pretty pathetic. Could you at least take the glasses off now?” Law shrugged and pulled the glasses from his face, sticking them in the front pocket of his shirt. Without another word, Isaac reached over, pulled them out and split them in two. “I never liked these things. They make you look like some sort of pedophile.” “Pedophile?” Law grimaced. “Really? I always thought they made me look dignified.” “Nope. Like a pedophile.” Isaac grinned again. Things were looking good for the pack; better than they had in months. Even with Kayden in the emergency room, Natya looking after him as he had the bones in his arm reset, and Tristan recovering in his own room, last night had been their last night locked up in the basement. “Guess this means I won’t have to get stronger chains after all.” Law pulled out his iPhone and ran through his never-ending list of things-to-do. “Hell, this means I don’t have to worry about half of these things.” Isaac raised an eyebrow. “But you will anyway. Your core seems to be made up of tons of worry genes.” Law sighed, conceding the point. “So, how does this binding thing work, exactly?” “Don’t really remember getting bound. I know there’s some bloodletting and some sort of chant. She’ll have to do it for each of us individually.” The door to the kitchen opened and Natya slipped through, followed by a much-patched-up Kayden. Law reached out to rest a hand on Isaac’s shoulder, feeling rather than seeing the Alpha’s hackles rise. It was rather unfortunate for Kayden that the Omega position belonged to a blood relation of the Alpha; his rather ill conceived challenge might have been more easily forgiven in a pack without so much blood. Lawrence couldn’t pretend that he was unhappy that Tristan had finally asserted his dominance. It meant yet another thing the Beta didn’t have to worry about in the coming months. There was so little that he had to worry about anymore. “You two are back, then?” He asked, rather than allowing Isaac to speak up. Natya nodded and sauntered to the fridge. Kayden barely met Law’s eyes before grunting an affirmation and slipping from the kitchen to return to his bed. It was a wise decision. “How bad was the damage?” Law turned to the Russian. “Is going to be ok for the binding later?” Natya bared her teeth in what amounted to some sort of grinning grimace. “Kayden will be ready for binding later. His wounds are mostly in his head. Doctor say he need to go back for x-ray in three weeks, but there is not much damage beyond to pride.” Isaac growled under his breath, which Law and Natya both made a point of ignoring. An Alpha was not really supposed to show such favoritism, but what else could one expect from an elder brother? “Good. It is a suitable punishment for him, then. And you, Natya? Are you ready for the binding later today?” “It matters not whether wolf is ready. Witch must be ready for binding. So better question is is witch ready?” Wenston Tristan stood with his shirt off, his back facing the mirror as he looked over his shoulder at the long, jagged wound next to his spine. It was freshly stitched and the hospital had put a bandage over it, but Tristan had pulled it off as soon as he’d gotten home, because he hated the feeling of bandages on him. They always turned into something else. Hands or bugs or one time even a second head. He didn’t like them. He didn’t keep them on if he wasn’t still bleeding. The dark stitches were woven up the length of the scar. It had already started to heal by the time they’d made it to the hospital. Mira had patched him up the night before, cussing and swearing at him the entire time. He hadn’t had the heart or the will to reprimand her for it. He’d torn the stitches out overnight, while the wolf threatened to get out. At the hospital, they’d given some bullshit excuse to what had happened and Tristan had patiently listened to a doctor drone on about how lucky he was that the wound hadn’t nicked an artery or severed tendons or his whole freaking spinal cord. Isaac had stayed with him the whole time, sweet talking the doctor so he wouldn’t ask too many questions. Then they’d come home, because Isaac said that Kayden was going to take longer and Tristan tried not to feel guilty. The car ride was silent, except for Isaac’s small words of, “Ceri’s going to bind to us.” Tristan had answered with, “Oh, okay.” And the rest of the car ride was quiet. Isaac looked like he wanted to say something the entire time but Tristan had pretended to fall asleep against the window because he saw how happy Isaac was and he didn’t want to upset him with how downright terrified Tristan was at the thought of being bound and in control of his wolf. That would be a fucking nightmare. So he’d gone up to his bedroom and went to sleep while Isaac went to talk to Law. He’d passed Ceri in the hall and she was showered and looked better than he remembered. He’s offered her a smile and she returned it but he didn’t stop to say anything else. He didn’t miss the way she quirked her eyebrow at him or the hurt look that crossed her face when he practically closed the door to his bedroom in her face. He couldn’t look at her right now. He simply couldn’t. So he went to sleep. When he woke up, his back was hurting because his meds had worn off. But they were still downstairs and he didn’t want to go down and get them yet. So he stood and pulled off his shirt and looked at the bruised and jagged wound on his back in the mirror and sighed. Isaac’s voice greeted him inside his head, asking him if he wanted to die again and Tristan voiced his answer out loud. “No,” he said, firmly. But he thought maybe he was lying to himself because a part of him felt like he should have said yes when Isaac had him pinned to the wall outside, ready to end him then and there. A part of him felt that he should have just stepped down, bared his neck to his brother and let him do the rest. Not because he wanted to die, or even because he felt Kayden would be a better Omega anymore – even though the fucker had stabbed him in the back and that was a fucking low thing to do – no, it was because the witch had said yes. Tristan hadn’t been bound to a witch since his father had nearly beat him to death and kicked him out. The visions weren’t as strong or frequent back then and it had never been a problem, being in control of his wolf. But now. Now, he wasn’t sure it would be suck a good thing, to wolf-out at will. He wasn’t sure he wanted that because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to control it. What if he was in a crowded area and one of his visions came and he just went wolf on all of them and slaughtered a hundred innocent people that he thought were enemies because the visions told him they were? They were getting worse, and more frequent and more realistic as the days went by. Maybe he should have said yes. Reaching to grab a clean shirt from his dresser, he pauses as he looked down at his hand. His eyes widened a bit and he screwed them shut before cracking them open just the tiniest of bits to look at his hand again. It didn’t make the obvious vision go away. Tristan’s skin was melting off his bones. He turned his head to look anywhere but as his own body, but even without looking at it, he could hear his skin drip and plop to the floor with sickening gushing and squishing sounds. He reached both hands up to his face, rubbing at his eyes, his hands shaking so hard he looked as though he was seizing. When he touched his face, he could feel bits of skin coming off into his hands and he let out a cry. He was losing control of his own skin. This is what it could be like if he was bound. He had to tell Isaac no. Flinging open his bedroom door, and forgoing a shirt – because who needs a shirt when all your skin is just falling off anyway? – he took the stairs two at a time and shoved his way into the kitchen. He was somewhat surprised to find Isaac, Law and Ceridwen all sitting around the table. They were all smiling and Ceridwen had been laughing at a joke Isaac had made, but all of them turned to look at him as he entered and he stood there, awkwardly, because he didn’t want to ruin their happiness. He’d been doing that too much lately. “Tristan?” Isaac asked, rising from his seat, his eyes looking at Tristan’s bare chest for a moment before coming up to meet his eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked tentatively. Tristan whimpered doggishly and looked to the counter. He could see his pain pills sitting on the counter and he hurried over to them. But his hands were all bone and ligaments and lingering flesh hanging on by threads by the time he reached them and they were shaking so much that he wasn’t able to open the bottle on his own. Isaac was at his side before he could open the child proof cap. His brother opened the pill bottle for him and held Tristan’s hand out as he dumped a few of the pills into it. “Tristan,” Isaac tried again, his voice lowering. “What are you seeing?” His brother could always tell when Tristan wasn’t really there. “My skin is melting,” Tristan said nonchalantly as he downed the pain pills dryly. He couldn’t meet Isaac’s eyes, so he looked over at the table. Law was giving him a look and Ceri looked sickened at the morbidity of his words. “I can’t do it,” he said as he looked Ceri in the eye. She frowned at him and then he turned back to look at Isaac. “It’s not real,” Isaac said, starting in on one of his bad vision speeches again. Tristan cut him off. “No, Isaac,” he said and looked up at his brother to show that he was here, he was thinking clearly, even if his skin was still melting off his bones. “I don’t…I don’t want to bind with her.” The room remained quiet for a moment and Isaac and Tristan just stared at each other for a moment. Law was the one who broke the silence by saying, “Ceri, why don’t we go into the living room, see what Mira’s up to.” Ceri, for what it was worth, looked at Law briefly before climbing to her feet and coming over to both Tristan and Isaac. Tristan turned to look at her, not use to someone else butting in, because the others always ignored his visions and his ramblings and left Isaac to deal with him himself. She stood next to Isaac and Tristan looked between the two of them, feeling a tad bit gained up on. “Why don’t you want to bind with me?” Ceri said, not angrily or harshly, it was just a simple question and Tristan appreciated that because he could see the frustration building in Isaac’s eyes. Ceri must have been getting more comfortable with them, because she didn’t seem hesitant to question him and didn’t even look to Isaac for affirmation or permission to address Tristan’s visions. None of them were used to that. Tristan shook his head. “I just…I can’t,” he gave and he felt tears in his eyes again, though he wasn’t sure if they were really tears or his eyes were melting. He guessed tears, because Isaac reached out to grip his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Ceri said she won’t sleep in a house with unbound wolves, Tristan. That means all of us will bind,” he said. Tristan shook his head. “No, I can’t. It won’t matter,” he said to Isaac, and then looked at Ceri. “You’ll be okay if I’m not bound and the rest of them are. I don’t break out of my chains and you’ll have the rest of them to protect you. It will be okay, you don’t need to bind me,” he rambled on a little and only stopped when Isaac squeeze his shoulder again. “No,” Ceri shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s all or none of you and I’m gone.” Law growled from his place at the table. “Tristan, you’re being bound,” he said. Tristan glanced at the Beta and had to look away because he knew how happy the thought of being in control made Law. About as happy as it made Isaac and the others. He wouldn’t screw it up for them, but they had to understand. He had to make them understand. “I won’t be able to control it,” he said, shaking his head and reaching out towards his arm to peel away some flesh that was hanging from his bone. Isaac’s hand come out grab his wrist and stop him from doing it and he knew he must have started to actually scratch away his flesh. He looked up at his brother. “I’ll be more dangerous when the visions come and I can turn at will, Isaac, you know it. What if I hurt someone? I could hurt you, or Ceri, or Mira. I could kill them.” “Damn it, Tristan, if you fuck this up for us…” Law snarled from the table and pushed his chair back. Isaac glanced over at the Beta and growled, low in his throat. Law stopped in his tracks and sat back down, barely contained rage bubbling beneath the surface. Tristan couldn’t look at him. He glanced at Ceri and she was watching him, studying his face. He had to look away from her too. “Tristan,” Isaac said, drawing his brother’s gaze up to his face. “If you remain unbound and the rest of us are, you know what that means.” Tristan nodded. He did know what that meant. It meant that his position was wide open, because the others could all change and he couldn’t. They’d all be able to tear him apart easily. Natya and Mira he wasn’t worried about. Mira would never hurt him and Natya found some weird fascination with being told what to do, she didn’t want a position. But Kayden. As soon as his arm was better, he’d come after him again and he’d win because Kayden would be able to change and Tristan wouldn’t. He’d probably kill him. “I know,” Tristan said and he felt Isaac’s grip on his wrist tighten slightly. “But would you trust me to be alone with any one of them?” .Wolfie. Isaac opened his mouth to tell his brother yes. Then he shut it because he had never been a very good liar. He squeezed his brother’s wrist when he saw him smiling sadly at him but he couldn’t get himself to say any of the things he should have. A good brother would have been able to look Tristan in the eye and lie to him. He would have been able to promise him that he would never try to hurt any of them, whether he was bound or not. He still couldn’t get Tristan’s voice out of his head, whispering to him quietly that he was getting worse, that the line between reality and fiction was slipping and blurring and he felt his teeth close down over his tongue. “Tristan…” he said, and his brother looked like he was on the verge of tears. He couldn’t blame him. He felt on the verge of tears too. What was he supposed to say? Sure Tristan, put us all in danger by staying a beast three days a month, get yourself killed by Kayden next time, chase Ceri out of the house because how could he blame her for not wanting to stay here? What was the alternative? Tell Tristan to bind anyway, knowing that he was terrified and that he had every reason to be? Make him bind, and have someone get killed? Kick him out? He couldn’t do the last one. It didn’t matter how crazy his brother got or how hard things got, he could never kick Tristan out. Their father had done it, after he’d beaten him to a pulp, and Isaac would never, ever be as cruel as the old bastard. If he rejected Tristan than his brother wouldn’t have anywhere to go, and he wouldn’t last long on the streets by himself. Either he would do something stupid and get himself killed, or he would get himself found out and their father would swoop in and kill him. Either way he was fucked. Either way he was dead. “You have to,” he whispered. “You don’t have a choice this time.” He hated the look on his brother’s face as he said it. It crumpled like Isaac had just punched him in the gut. He looked like his brother had just condemned him to death, and maybe that’s how Tristan saw it. He didn’t know. His fingers tightened around his wrist as he tried to claw at his arms again and he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. Isaac could see the tears brimming at the edge of his brother’s eyes, but how could he not take this risk? How could he look Law and Mira in the eyes and tell them that Ceri was leaving because he had picked Tristan over all of them? How could he look the witch in the face and reject the one thing they’d asked from her? “Please, Isaac,” his brother said, looking up into his eyes. It wasn’t a challenge, it wasn’t a dominance game, it was his little brother looking to Isaac to make it better and he felt himself die a little inside with that look. He’d never been able to tell Tristan no when he pulled the little brother puppy dog eyes look. “Don’t make me do this,” he whispered. He looked at Ceri desperately, his nails digging at his skin. “I’ll be more dangerous bound, and I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I need to think about this, Tristan.” “Isaac…” Law started to say and then bit the words off. He still stood on the other side of the table and he saw the bleeding desperation on his face. How could he even consider dangling freedom and control in front of his Beta’s face, only to rip it away at the last moment because he couldn’t tell his little brother no, just this once? The look on Law’s face was bare and raw and terrified. Then he took a breath and let it smooth into the cool mask of control that he always kept plastered on. “Do what you need to do,” he whispered, and the words sounded like they were being ripped from his throat. He looked at the ground, but his knuckles were white around the back of the chair. “Just don’t forget about the rest of us,” he said quietly. He needed to think about how to tell him no. He needed to think about how he was going to force his brother into it when he was clearly so scared and he hated the idea of having to make him do anything. He pulled his hands away from Tristan’s wrists and held his palms to his eyes. His head felt like it was about to explode and Isaac hated this part of it all, of having to make the awful decisions that no one else wanted. “Do you think you could just give me a minute? Just… let me talk to Ceri.” He clasped hands with his brother before he cleared the room and he wanted to tell him that it was going to be okay, that he would figure this out too, but he didn’t want to lie to him and he couldn’t make that promise. He watched Law shake as he left and he imagined the Beta had to try very hard not to slam the door behind him because the last time he had left Isaac alone with Ceri he had promised to get them into a war with a pack twice their size without any kind of help in return. He didn’t know what he was going to say this time anymore than he had then, but he had to know if they had any other options. He slumped down at the kitchen table as the door swung closed behind Tristan. She leaned against the counter and she was rubbing her arms like they were cold. He tried not to stare at her and he was trying even harder not to check her out, but she wasn’t making it easy, showing up in his bed half naked like that. He was trying very hard not to picture her like that and it wasn’t working out so well for him. She looked better now that she was showered and dressed and he liked her better now that she didn’t smell like fear and strange wolf. Alright, there was still some fear there. He imagined they weren’t helping with it. “So,” he said, rubbing tiredly at his face. “Is it a deal breaker?” She hesitated, and when he looked at her again she was studying his face. Her eyes were like chips of emerald, bright and alive and not afraid of him at least, even if she still seemed nervous of anyone not Natya. He still didn’t know what the Russian had said to her, but whatever it was had changed her mind, about a lot of things it seemed. When he had asked Natya about it she had just smiled and patted his cheek and told him “girl talk.” “I don’t know,” Ceri finally said. “I’m trying not to get dead here, remember?” He smiled at her but it didn’t quite turn into a laugh because it seemed out of place. She sighed and crossed the room, sitting in the chair next to him. She stared at her hands, twisting a ring around one of her fingers and chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know if I can do it, you know? I don’t want to stay in this house if one of you is still unbound. That’s not the deal.” she hesitated and then looked up at his face. “Is he right? Could he try to kill me just because of a vision?” He wanted to lie to her to. It would be easier if he just told her no and made his brother bind with her and maybe it would work out okay in the end. Maybe Tristan could keep his grip on reality, maybe he could see the lines clearly and not try and attack her and not turn into a wolf in the middle of a park because he thought there was a jester trying to murder him. But he couldn’t lie to her and he didn’t know the answer and he couldn’t promise that Tristan wouldn’t have a really terrible attack and end up going after someone. At least if he was human, he couldn’t do as much damage. “He could,” he said quietly. He hated hearing the words on his own lips. “It is probably better if he remains unbound.” He dragged the words out because he didn’t want to speak them and he didn’t want them to come from him because it was admitting terrible things about his little brother. He ran a hand through his hair because he did it reflexively whenever he was trying to think or got stressed and he was surprised it wasn’t all falling out. “Tristan is unstable, but I love him. He’s my brother, and I can’t abandon him. It is probably safer for everyone except him if he is unbound.” She was staring at her hands again and he reached out to clasp one in his. “I promise you, I won’t let him hurt you,” he whispered. He knew he was making too many promises to this girl. The motion seemed to surprise her and she looked up at him. He felt her fingers curl in his, holding onto his hand like a lifeline and he was suddenly aware that she was very pretty and his heart was beating very fast in his chest. “I believe you,” she whispered back, and then she frowned like she was surprised by the revelation. She looked down at his hand and her other one slid over his skin, sending tiny sparks flying through his brain as she did. He was definitely making too many promises to this girl. “He can’t get free?” she asked, glancing up at his face. “No,” he told her. “Tristan can’t get free.” He was pretty sure it was the truth. His brother had never escaped before and he didn’t see it happening any time soon. Even if he somehow did, Isaac would be bound and he would be able to take on his brother if it came to that. He just hated the idea of his brother roaming the basement by himself because they had always been down there as a pack, every month. With Tristan unbound, he would be the only one down there to face the monster within alone and it broke his heart a little bit. He tried not to think about it. The point was that Tristan couldn’t get free. Telling her his doubts and his fears about it wouldn’t make it any easier for her or for him. She sighed and looked back down at their hands. His thumb moved over her skin in comforting circles and his whole hand was probably bigger than both of hers combined. “And you really think this is best?” He shook his head and he knew this is when he should lie to her, to tell her whatever it took to make her stay but he couldn’t be his father and he couldn’t let her stay without full knowledge of the situation. “I don’t know. I would rather have him bound. But… he’s right. It’s dangerous. It’s a danger I don’t want to put you in. I have to trust my brother’s judgment when it comes to his condition because I don’t know what he sees. If he tells me they’re getting worse…” He was saying too much. He bit the words off on the tip of his tongue and wished he had shut his mouth just a little bit sooner. He didn’t like talking about his brother’s visions because he hated admitting that there was something very wrong with Tristan. He would always just be his little brother to Isaac and he hated saying things like this that would make other people see him differently. He knew she wouldn’t be able to help it. He knew he was going to scare her again. His hand tightened on hers with a comforting squeeze. “It’s better for right now if he’s not. It’ll be easier in the long run.” She nodded. “Alright,” she said. “Then…then we won’t bind him.” He smiled, leaning his head down to try and catch her eyes. “So you’ll stay?” he asked her. She was staring at their hands again and her fingers were tracing old scars on his arms. He liked the feel of her fingers on his skin. He liked that she wasn’t shying away from him, and that she wasn’t afraid to look at him or talk to him. Her eyes were traveling the path of her fingers and then they stopped on his chest and he caught a small blush on her cheek. He wondered what she was thinking and he almost asked before he decided against it. “Yes. I’ll stay.” she said, letting her hand fall back to her lap and close around his hand. She smiled to herself and then she looked up at his face, meeting his eyes. Her smile lit up her whole face and he couldn’t help but return it. “I’ll stay, but you better keep your promises.” He laughed, squeezing her hand tightly. “I always do.” Mynt “From the east, I welcome Air into my circle.” Her hands were shaking when she lit the candle. Ceri had never cast a circle, and never with a handful of werewolves watching her. But this wasn’t like a normal spell, this spell she needed to create a sacred space to keep harmful energies out. It was a powerful and intimate thing and now that she had agreed to do it and was walking around the kitchen and lighting the candles she wished maybe she’d thought about it more. What was she getting herself into?“From the south, I welcome Fire into my circle.” And she touched the wick of her candle to the red representing the guardian flame. “From the west, I welcome Water into my circle.” Her hands were still shaking as she approached the final candle. She moistened her lips with her tongue and lit the wick. “From the north, I welcome Earth into my circle.” Briefly she wondered what Tristan was doing and if it was really a good idea to leave him out, but her attention was quickly brought back to the eagerly waiting pack. She took a breath. Then another. “The circle is cast,” she announced though she didn’t like the waver in her voice. For a second her eyes meet with Isaac’s but she had to look away or else be lost in chocolate warmth. “May all those who enter this sacred space do so in perfect...” She hesitated and this time glanced at Kayden, his arm wrapped in a cast and held in a sling, mild impatience written all over his face. Then to Law whom no longer had his glasses, but his fingers dancing up the bridge of his nose in what looked like habit, excitement was barely masked behind cool blue eyes. Natya, amused with her hip cocked to the side and arms crossed under her breasts (Ceri was slightly jealous of her bosom). Mira looked on with fascination. And then there was Isaac, calm with a lazy smile as he leaned against the wall. He didn’t have the anxious air of the others and Ceri thought maybe she saw a glimmer of her own hesitation reflected in his face. It made her think of the werewolf who damn near begged to be left out of the pact and she didn’t blame Isaac for being a slight reluctant. “…love and trust.” She set her candle beside the towels and bandages Lawrence had been kind enough to assemble, and picked up the athame. The doubled edged dagger glinted ominously in the candle’s dancing light and she found herself trying to swallow around a very large lump. What if she fainted after she saw the first blood trickling from the cut? What if she fainted after she saw their cuts? What if she couldn’t even do it in the first place? Ceri bit her lip and took a deep breath. She wished she had someone to ask, someone to give her confidence and courage to go through with it. But she didn’t have that. She never did. She only had herself and she wasn’t being very encouraging at the moment. She tried not to think as she stepped to the chair they had placed in the center of the circle and she looked at the wolves standing just outside where the circle’s edges would be if they’d had enough candles. She used the athame to point to each in turn and invited them into her circle. Isaac came to stand in front of her, towering over her tiny frame. Her heart sped up and pounded so loudly she would’ve been surprised if he couldn’t hear it. What if she fucked up and just ended up nicking an artery and bleeding out all over the place? She sat on the edge of the chair and he knelt before her. Ceri handed him the athame and felt her stomach grow cold when she saw him yank the blade across his golden skin without batting an eye. The cut instantly began to bleed and it took her a couple of tries to swallow the dry lump forming in her throat. She would not faint, not yet. Not on the first one. Her hands were shaking when he offered the ceremonial dagger back to her, gleaming with the fresh crimson on one side. “From mind and soul,” she started, her words quivering as she tried to touch the point of the knife to her left palm. She found the trembling of her body quite frustrating when she was trying to steel herself against the inevitable sight of her blood. And then there were hands over hers, gentle and warm. She looked up and Isaac was watching her, looking as if he might ask if she was okay. If he did it would be all over so she was grateful he only looked at her, studying her and steadying her hands. She tried a smile, but she doubted it came out as anything more than meek. He placed the blade lightly against her skin, but he let her apply the pressure that split her palm open. She gasped at the sharp pain. A shallow cut maybe but the smallest ones always hurt the worst, right? No, it hurt because she just fucking cut her hand open with a very sharp knife. “You are bound,” she continued. “Within this sacred circle round. From left and right, by day and night. I bind you with your own conscience within, your body, spirit and soul in charge again.” Their eyes met. “So in this place, in this time.” She offered her bleeding palm out to him shakily. “I bless you by adding your blood to mine. So mote it be.” Ceri had a short second to consider the cryptic words written in her book about exchange of memory and what that might mean before his fingers locked with hers and their cuts met. There was blood, so much of it soaking into the unfamiliar kitchen tiles. It burned at her nostrils and she couldn’t remember ever being able to smell it before. She could taste it, like copper on her tongue. She thought maybe it was what was making her gag, but she could feel the wet, stickiness trickling between her fingers. She looked up through dark hair to see a woman that she somehow knew was a witch, and a mother. “I cast your blood from mine,” she said and her voice was so cold. And then she was staring into familiar dark eyes. She felt tears burning at her eyes and turned away. Ceri didn’t know why she wanted to cry. But she felt that she couldn’t look at Isaac and not cry. She took a breath and tried to chase away the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. She felt a bitter relief that she wouldn’t have to experience that with all of them. Isaac was staring at her sadly and she wondered what he might have seen. And felt a bit of embarrassment coupled with a bit of anger flare up in her chest, but she kept it inside. She picked herself off the floor, out of the circle of his arms. She must’ve fallen during the vision because her shoulder ached in the same place past Isaac’s had hit the floor. Picking up the athame, she looked at anyone but Isaac, unable to face his sad eyes or try to think of him without a chunk of his neck missing. She moistened her lips again, and tried her voice. “Who’s next?” Wenston Tristan was sitting in his room, chewing on a licorice string and building a house out of a deck of cards. He was amused because it seemed he was doing better at this house of cards trick while his hands were missing all their flesh. He was a skeleton sitting in the middle of his room and for the life of him he couldn’t give a crap. It didn’t bother him and even the fact that the rest of the pack was being bound to the witch downstairs wasn’t getting to him. He was in a good mood, and it took him a little bit to understand why. He’d won. He’d waged a battle today and even though it didn’t come to blows and didn’t involve anyone but him and his brother, he’d won. He’d gotten what he’d wanted and Isaac and relented to his decision to remain unbound. And he was still in the pack, which never would have happened if he was still with his father. Hell, a part of him didn’t think that would last, because eventually Isaac would get so fed up with Tristan and his fucked up head that he would just have to kick him out. Or kill him. But not even that morbid though brought him down. He was happy. He was also aware that he shouldn’t fucking be. No part of him should be happy with this decision to stay unbound because the consequences either outweighed or came pretty damn close to the positive outcomes of this decision. For one, he’d just signed his death warrant. With Kayden bound and Tristan unbound, there was only one outcome to this scenario and it ended in Tristan’s blood on the ground and Kayden in a new pack position. He wondered what Isaac would do if Kayden killed him. He wondered if his brother would be relieved. Secondly, he had to be unbound in the basement by himself. Maybe he was a little scared of that thought. Not that he would remember anything he did during the night, but he wondered if he could convince someone to stay down there with him while he changed because that was always the scary part. He immediately pushed that thought out of his mind, though, because he didn’t want to make this anyone else’s problem but his own. He would do everything he could to make sure that no one suffered because of this decision. Mira probably wouldn’t understand. But she’d get over it. Then there was the fact that there was another wolf pack after Ceri. As Omega, it was part of his duty to protect the pack and that meant everyone, even Kayden and the witch. And he would do his damndest to keep them safe, but he didn’t know how good that would be because the rest of the pack would be wolves and he’s be running after them with what? His fists? Tristan sighed and winced as his breath nearly toppled the house of cards he was working on. He needed a gun. Or if not a gun, a sword. Yeah, that would be cool. Or a crossbow like in the old vampire movies that they weren’t allowed to watch but Tristan watched anyway because it was his one way to rebel against his Dad. Yeah, he needed a freaking crossbow. As he placed another pair of cards onto the foundation of his card house, he paused to look at his fingers and he saw the skin start to creep up his hands like worms and reform and reshape on his hands. It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time and he leaned back away from the card pile just in case any of his little skin worms tried to knock over his masterpiece. A noise sounded from downstairs and Tristan glanced at his carpet and then blocked out the world that was outside his bedroom. He didn’t want to think about the binding that was happening without him. He didn’t want to think about how disappointed his brother was in him because right now because he was still just so relieved his brother had said it was okay for him to remain unbound. Nothing was going to change his mind. His back hurt and he held back a sigh as to not destroy his card house. He’d left the painkillers downstairs and he thought that was a fucking mistake because he didn’t want to go down there until someone came up to get him. He would feel like he was intruding. That thought struck him as odd, because this was still his pack and his family and it was odd to be intruding by just being in your own house. Maybe he should run away. But that wouldn’t work either because he did care about them, every one of them, even fucking Kayden. He would die for any one of them. Maybe a little less enthusiastically for Kayden, but he’d do it just the same. And if he ran, it wouldn’t help them any. It would hurt them and he would never purposely do that. He giggled a little as he thought about Kayden’s arm snapping and he growled right after because he shouldn’t be giggling about that because he just got done thinking about how he’d never purposely hurt any of them. Maybe he’d hurt Kayden. There were always excepts in dysfunctional families, right? “They’re going to hate you.” The voice startled him and he pouted a little as he watched the card house tumble to the floor like leaves falling off a tree. He stared at them a moment before moving his eyes to the side to look at the source of the annoyance. He was actually somewhat amused at what he found. There was a bloodhound, a dog, sitting in an armchair wearing a suit and a hat and smoking a pipe. He had his legs crossed and his tail was wagging and there was slobber leaking from the corner of his mouth and Tristan wondered how his mind came up with this shit sometimes. “No they won’t,” Tristan defended lazily. The bloodhound with the pipe shrugged and shook bounced his foot. “They’ll get hurt because of you. Because you weren’t there to protect them.” Tristan snarled. “I’ll always be there.” “And what will you do? Poke the bad guys with a stick?” “Fuck you,” Tristan spat and stood up, wincing slightly as the muscles in his back pulled. It was healing quickly, but he kept pushing himself and he wouldn’t be surprised if he reopened it or tore something else around it tonight while the wolf was out. He wondered what time it was and if he should be getting ready “You need to bleed,” the bloodhound said and Tristan waved his hand dismissively at it, turning his back and heading to his dresser. He liked to wear sweats when he was changing because sometimes they didn’t rip and he could wake up decent. He wondered if they were almost done downstairs because he wanted to take some painkillers before he went into the basement. They’d been downstairs for a really long time and it had to be almost over down there, right? “You need to bleed and they’ll be free of you.” Tristan turned around to give the vision a piece of his mind. “Listen, I-” He didn’t get a chance to. The bloodhound had morphed into a wolf that stood nearly to the ceiling of the room. The wolf itself didn’t startle Tristan, but the claws that raked across his face did and he was stunned because the pain felt real. He blinked and he could feel warmth on his cheek and it was trickling down his neck and he looked at his hand and he couldn’t quite tell but maybe there was blood on his fingers and suddenly he couldn’t think straight because rationality would have told him that he’d just himself across the face with his own fingernails but he was seeing the wolf in front of him and he was seeing its dripping claws and snarling fangs and piercing eyes and it was suddenly too much because he knew that wolf. The wolf was him. “Bleed and set them free!” The wolf screamed and lunged for Tristan and he screamed back out of terror and bolted for the bedroom door. He flung it open, tripped on the carpet in the hallway and crashed into the opposite wall with a thud. But he growled because on the off chance that this wasn’t a vision, his family was downstairs. He snarled and kicked his bedroom door shut. He could almost feel the wolf on the other side of the door pounding on it and banging and Tristan shoved his shoulder into the door to keep it from opening. The wolf was howling and screaming and crying on the other side of the door and Tristan was just crying on his side. He heard a voice call up the stairs and it sounded like Isaac asking if everything was all right and Tristan had a fleeting thought that he hoped they were done with the binding because he kept just messing everything up. But Isaac sounded calm, if not a bit worried and it worked a little to calm Tristan down because if there was a wolf on the other side of the door, and it was making all that noise, Isaac wouldn’t be so fucking calm. But then Tristan thought about what was happening and his calm was washed away and replaced with a sudden panic. What time was it? It couldn’t be fucking time already, the sun was still up and it was still early in the day. But the wolf on the other side, him on the other side, he was trying to get out. The wolf was trying to escape and Tristan was trying everything in his power to keep it from doing so. Real or not he knew if the wolf got out of the door, it would be more than just in his head. “Isaac!” he screamed for his brother. .Wolfie. She was being hit across the face by a man he didn’t recognize.She crumpled to the floor and he felt blood and tears trickling down her face. A hand came up to wipe them away and then he felt the man grabbing her arm and yanking her upright and then another blow was striking her across the jaw. He felt the sob that tore its way from her throat like it as his own and she was biting down on her lip to try and hold it in because that would just make him angrier. The man’s face was a twisted mask of anger and hate. He felt all of it like he was experiencing it, only he knew it wasn’t his life he was seeing. “Worthless,” he snarled. “Worse than your bitch of a mother. At least she’s not a sniveling coward.” The man hit her one more time before releasing her arm. He stood over her, flexing his fists and there was blood on them and blood running down her chin. “You’re nothing, girl, nothing but weakness and shame.” He felt the tears running down her face but they weren’t his and the man wasn’t talking to him. He was talking to Ceri. Isaac sat on the stairs and tried to rub feeling back into his shoulder from where he had hit the ground. He heard noises from the kitchen and the living room as Law and Natya got everything cleaned up and the candles put away. He hoped they hadn’t bled too much on the carpet, though a little more wouldn’t really matter at this point. He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face and listened to Mira laugh and tease Law. “I would totally kick your ass,” she shouted, but he could hear the laughter in her voice and he smiled a little bit, hands holding his chin up. They were happy. They should be happy, they were bound and they were in control and things were finally going right. Except he couldn’t be completely happy because Tristan was upstairs somewhere and he would still have to be tied up in the basement for another night. Isaac figured he would let Ceri have his room and stay with him for the last night of the full moon and that just made him think about what he had seen from her head. He bent his head down and ran a hand through his hair because the flash of memory was stuck in his head and it hurt in a way he hadn’t expected. His own father had been a bastard, but he had never hit any of the girls, only the boys. He had tried to beat the lesson of strength into them and it had stuck. He rubbed his hand over his chin and felt stubble scraping against his fingers and then he leaned back on the stairs with a sigh. He felt the binding still settling over him and his skin was electric and alive with the magic lingering in the air. The wolf wasn’t even a whisper away. He could shift and change at his will and he wouldn’t have to wonder about what he did last night or who he might have hurt and when the wolves came he would be able to rip through them easily. He flexed the hand with the cut still healing on it and watched the scab stretch over the wound. In a few hours it would be gone and only another thin white scar would be left behind. It was a small price to pay for the calm feeling of control left behind. He was bound to Ceri and that meant his mind was his own again. She would be the human part, keeping their minds firmly on the ground when the wolf tried to take over. In return, Isaac would kill her father. He rolled the words over in his head, and they felt strange because he didn’t know if he could kill someone so easily. He thought he could, thought it with a cold blooded efficiency that scared him a little. He thought about the memory burned into his head, the one that wasn’t his, and the man who’d looked down at her with such hatred wasn’t a person. He was a beast, a monster who would hunt a girl across the country because she hadn’t bent to his will. A low growl sounded in his throat and he closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down because he hated a man he’d never met. “Hey,” she said. His eyes slid open and she was standing in the doorway, hand cradled to her chest. Her face was a little pale but she looked otherwise alright. Law had bandaged her hand with white gauze because she’d had to share blood with all five of them, though not Tristan. She leaned against the doorframe and studied him with lidded eyes, her gaze lingering on the scar on his neck. He wondered what she had seen and he rubbed a hand over the lump on his throat as he sat up. “Hey,” he said back. “How are you feeling?” She shrugged, leaning her head against the wall. “Alright,” she whispered. “A little tired.” “I can imagine,” he said, standing up and coming down the stairs. He leaned against the wall facing her, watching her face as she ignored his. Her gaze had dropped from him to the floor and she was studying her shoes like they were the most interesting thing in the world. “Thanks,” he told her quietly, running a hand through his hair. “For doing this. The binding and everything.” She smiled at him but she was still staring at her shoes. “You’re welcome,” she told him quietly. She was pretty when she smiled and he was starting to have a little bit of a crush on this girl. He studied her face and the pink flush warming her cheeks and the dark circles that still lingered under her eyes. He wondered how long she had been running and how scared she must have been and he felt a horrible hatred for the man that had done that to her. “I’m sorry,” he said the words in a rush, still watching her face. As soon as he said them he wished he could take them back. She frowned in confusion. “Sorry for what?” Isaac looked at her face and he thought about telling her to forget about it. He didn’t know her at all still, but he had felt the pain echoed through their binding and it wasn’t right and it wasn’t okay. His hand came up and his fingers were brushing over her cheek where it must have bruised and swelled after he was done with her. He remembered the blood falling to the ground and he scanned her face for scars, wondering how many she must’ve had. “That he hit you,” he said quietly. “Oh,” she whispered, and then she looked away again and he felt the awkward tension crackle between them. He wished he had kept his fool mouth shut but it was out already and he scrubbed a hand through his hair and leaned against the wall, slumping so that he wasn’t quite so much taller than her. “Anyway,” he said. “If you want to take a nap or something, you can use my room. Though if you plan on being half naked again, let me know so I can conveniently forget to knock.” She laughed and glanced up at his face. “Why Isaac, are you hitting on me?” she asked softly. He felt his face turn red and a smile creased his face. “Maybe a little. Is that bad?” She bit her lip as she smiled shyly, looking back down at the floor and her increasingly interesting shoes. He reached a hand out and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, fingers brushing her skin as he pulled his hand back. He tried not to picture her with bruises on her jaw and her cheek and he felt a dull burning anger in his stomach because what kind of bastard would hit a girl, especially this girl with the shy smile. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s not bad.” He grinned at her and stepped in closer, his hand reaching out to take hers. “I’ll remember that,” he said softly. Then he heard a thump and sharp cry from upstairs and he winced, thinking that this was pretty shitty timing but he twisted his head over his shoulder anyway. “Tristan?” he called, and he was sad when he felt her fingers slip from his and cross back over her chest. He glanced at her face and she gave him a small smile in return. He heard a crash and a bang and then he sighed, turning back to the stairs and ascending the first few steps. His hand rested on the railing and he waited quietly for his brother to answer. He heard another muffled shout and then something crashing and slamming and he wondered if his brother was having a fit or a seizure or something else. “Tristan?” he called again, when he still didn’t hear an answer. “Is everything okay?” Then he heard his brother’s strangled shout from upstairs. “Isaac!” he yelled, and he heard another crash. A curse escaped his lips and then he was hurrying up the steps. When he got upstairs he wasn’t sure at first what was happening. His brother was slumped in the hallway against the wall, bloody lines running down his face. There was blood on his fingers and dripping to the floor and he looked up at Isaac with a sad and broken gaze. “Help,” he whispered. Isaac felt soft fingers brush his arm as Ceri came up behind him, a soft hiss of breath escaping her throat as she took in the scene. “Don’t let it out,” Tristan told him, and his voice was a whimper. Then something crashed against the door again and he heard a growl from through the wooden frame. “Jesus,” he said, taking a step forward. The wolf burst from the door and was on Tristan in a heartbeat, claws raking towards his face. His brother cried out as it ripped through his skin and then Isaac’s arm shot out and he was grabbing the beast by the scruff of the neck. He shoved it brutally into the ground. It hit the floor with a thump and a cry and then its jaws were snapping back at him. He felt them close around his arm and a sharp growl escaped his throat as they dug into his skin and ripped bloody lines through his flesh. He felt the wolf at the edge of his control, his eyes burning gold in the shadows and his hands beginning to shift into claws. He manhandled the beast, slamming it back into the ground again and it let out a sharp yelp as its head cracked off the floor. He felt his teeth beginning to sharpen and he held it back because Ceri was right behind him and he didn’t want her to see him as a beast and he didn’t know why he cared except her dad had been a monster of the worst kind and he didn’t want her to see that reflected back at her in his eyes. The wolf struggled and growled under his grip and Tristan was shaking and looking between him and the beast. “I didn’t know it was real,” he whispered, and then he touched his fingers to his face. “I thought it was me.” The wolf squirmed under his grip and he slammed it back down into the ground again, ignoring the claws that raked at his side and his arms. He felt the wounds opening up under the flailing limbs and grit his teeth against them, his own growing claws curling around the beast’s throat. It whimpered and then lay still. After a moment the fur began to retreat and all that was left was a young man curled on the floor with blood trickling down his chest. “Hello there,” Isaac said, and his voice was a low growl. “Who the fuck are you?” “Jeremiah,” Ceri said quietly behind him. “His name is Jeremiah.” The man whimpered and looked up at Isaac as his claws came loose from his throat. He clamped a hand over it, trying to hold his blood in his veins and there was a thick lump on the back of his head and that was bleeding too. “I didn’t mean to change,” the kid whispered, like it meant a single fucking thing. Isaac snorted, hand curling around the kid’s arm and dragging him to his feet. “How nice for you,” he snapped and he was pissed because Tristan or Ceri could have easily gotten hurt and he hated the smell of strange wolf and there was one in his fucking house. How had he even gotten in? Then Law was bounding up the steps, Natya close on his heels and she wore a feral grin when she saw the boy that Isaac was manhandling towards the stairs. “What happened?” Law asked, gaze focusing on the Jeremiah. “Is the other pack attacking?” Isaac snorted. “That’s what we’re going to find out, aren’t we, Jeremiah?” Mynt Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are. -Daniel Defoe “Are you going to hurt him?” Ceri was surprised by the strength still remaining in her voice. She was tired and shaken but there was no falter in her words as she hesitantly took a step after Isaac and Natya. Isaac didn’t stop dragging Jeremiah down the stairs as if he hadn’t heard her. She didn’t know why she cared if they hurt Jeremiah, he had socked her pretty good the other day and had said some pretty hurtful things. But she knew him. She knew him and that meant something, didn’t it? “Probably,” Law replied. Ceri hadn’t even noticed he’d stayed. “But he didn’t mean to change or hurt anyone.” Even she could hear the lack of conviction in her words. “He probably doesn’t know anything, he’s just a scout.” Law’s cold blue eyes fixed on her and she found herself taking a step back. “Why are you here?” he snapped. “I needed help,” she answered, weakly. “And how do you expect us to help you? Kindly ask the pack you brought on us to leave us alone? To let them pass through our territory without repercussions? I don’t know what fantasy you had about how this would play out but in the real world--” Ceri gave a harsh laugh. “In the real world? You don’t know anything about the real world! People don’t handle their problems like this!” “And I suppose an outcast and a runaway would know more about the real world than I.” She didn’t care for the condescending and sarcastic way he spoke to her. She felt her ears burning, her eyes pricking with angry tears. “Yeah, I would because I’m something you’ll never be.” “And what’s that?” “Normal.” The instant the word left her lips she wished she could take it back. She wasn’t very normal at all. Hiding from wolves among wolves and casting spells that should only exist in movies and poorly funded television shows. Ceri felt her anger fade away and that familiar weary feeling settled into her bones. Carefully she massaged the palm of her hand and averted her gaze. “I… I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.” Law growled. A shadow stepped between them and she lifted her eyes to see Tristan, who she hadn’t even noticed was still standing there, standing slightly in front of her. “I think you should see how Isaac is doing,” he said, his voice quiet and almost inaudible. Law looked as if he might disagree. “Lawrence!” Isaac’s voice thundered up the stairs. And with a snort the beta spun and walked off. “Are you okay?” Ceri blinked, her attention flicking to Tristan’s startling sane green eyes. There were bags under his eyes and dried blood caked to one side of his face. She nodded slowly. He gave a short nod back before flopping to the floor, his back hitting the wall roughly. She was reminded eerily of a marionette whose strings had just been cut the way his body just rest limply with a wanton disregard for comfort. “Are you… okay?” she echoed as she settled against the wall across from him. Tristan laughed, a sound that came out more like a choked sob. “No.” She wanted to ask if it was because of his visions. She wanted to ask if it was because his grip on reality was weak and he couldn’t tell between the real and the fantasy. She wanted to ask but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. They were alone in the hallway and she remembered him saying something about flipping out and trying to kill her because of a vision. She didn’t ask. “Are they going to hurt him?” she asked again, more to the walls than to Tristan. “Isaac wants to protect us. He’ll do what it takes.” Ceri shifted her gaze back to the blonde boy sitting across from her. She realized he was there the entire time, he must’ve heard what she said and she felt the blood rise to her face. “I didn’t mean what I said, I was just upset.” Tristan shrugged and gave what might have been attempt at a smile. “I’m not normal.” She couldn’t really argue with that but she wanted to. She bit her lip and hugged her knees to her chest. “Neither am I. I just fake it really well.” He didn’t say anything, just stared almost vacantly at his hands. “Thank you for stepping in back there.” Again he shrugged. “I don’t think he would’ve hurt you. It’s just close to moonrise so we’re all a little on edge.” Moonrise meant they would be making their big transformations soon and Tristan would be going down to the basement to restrain himself. Alone. Or would they all go down there to keep him company? Ceri almost felt left out. They were family, they were a pack and they cared about each other. Even with her own “family” she didn’t belong. Tristan slowly pushed himself out of the floor and stared off down the hallway. She wanted to ask him what he saw but she didn’t want to know. Maybe she’d ask him one day when she knew him better and it wasn’t a stranger prying into his business. Or maybe she’d never get to ask because maybe she wouldn’t have to stay that long. She stood up. “I should go downstairs now,” he said almost sadly. “I’ll go with you.” Quaddy Law pounded down the steps to the basement, each footfall like a gong ringing in his all-too-sensitive werewolf ears. Ears that he could control. It still felt magical, knowing that the moon had no control over him any more. He could remain human as he wished, change as he commanded, maintain some semblance of conscious thought. Such control! Everything he had ever wanted.And yet…he could still feel the monster tingling beneath the skin, howling and yearning to be free. What the witch had done had not destroyed the beast, or even put him to sleep. No, she had given Law the conscious ability to loose him and control him. It made the thought that she could revoke the binding, return him and the pack to the ravages of the beast, all the more frightening. Lawrence could not imagine what had caused Tristan to renounce the binding. To give up the control, to remain in fear that every month the monster would destroy everything you loved? Law shuddered at the thought, even as he heard the boy and Ceri whispering at the head of the stairs. They were following. “Beta,” Isaac barked. The Alpha stood, blood spattered along his shirt and forearms, in the center of the basement, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. Behind him, unconscious and chained to the wall, was the boy from the other pack. Jeremiah. “Is there something I should know about?” Isaac’s ears were just as good as his Beta’s. And he could no doubt smell the annoyance and aggression wafting from the normally unflappable second-in-command. “The witch—“ “Ceridwen.” “Ceridwen…she was less-than-pleased to find that we might harm the boy. Had no clue what it would be like, and then proceeded to insult us because we’re going to be less-than-kind with regard to an attack on one of our own.” Lawrence did not bother to hide his annoyance. Isaac liked the witch, he knew that, but it was the Beta’s duty to keep an eye on things so the Alpha could run the pack. Isaac was, as Law had expected, not amused. “And so you yelled at the woman responsible for giving us our new-found control? Just what the hell was going through your mind?” Law rolled his eyes. “Maybe the fact that she comes to us for protection and then doesn’t let us protect! Everything we do, she fights! And especially when what we want is what makes the most sense.” Lawrence tossed his hands in the hair, frustrated that everything seemed to be falling apart around him. And how little had changed but that woman. “Just because we have a witch now does not mean we aren’t still a wolf pack.” The Alpha sighed. “No, you are right, Lawrence. We are still a wolf pack. We’re just a wolf pack with a witch now.” “What about me?” Lawrence spun to see that the witch and Tristan were just coming down the stairs. He bit his tongue against the growl that sprung into his throat. No need to show aggression in front of the Alpha—Isaac did so enjoy her presence, after all. “Nothing, Ceri. Just discussing what to do with our interloper here.” Isaac gestured toward Jeremiah, who remained asleep, his head slumped into his chest and arms chained to the wall above. That had been Lawrence’s spot; of all of them, his was the sturdiest. He’d never once escaped or even weakened the foundations. The witch didn’t say anything, but she crossed her arms. Lawrence saw uncertainty in the girl’s eyes and couldn’t help but soften toward her. He was not someone who was made to be angry with anyone except perhaps himself. “He’s not awake just yet, Ceridwen,” he whispered. Turning to Isaac, Law shrugged. “I could keep an eye on him if you wanted to let him waken naturally.” Mostly for Ceri’s benefit, he continued. “The curse won’t let him stay unconscious for long, anyway. It’s up to you, Alpha.” Isaac’s fists clenched and Lawrence had a feeling the man wanted to jerk Jeremiah awake in that instant, letting claws and fur do the dirty work. It was like that for packs; werewolves were anything but civilized, even at the best of times. Lawrence did his utmost to fight that image, but even he sometimes fell victim to the beast. “Isaac,” Lawrence whispered, pulling his glasses off and turning eyes—golden because of the upcoming moon—to his Alpha. “None of us are in any position to interrogate just yet. It’s too close to sundown for Tristan, and there’ll be nothing but harm done of he’s shifted while we’re beating the snot out of this kid.” “On the other hand,” Tristan spoke up, attempting levity, “Is there ever going to be a time when any of us are ready?” Law shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not.” He choked out a laugh. “But I just don’t want to be down here in this fucking basement for the first night after this woman freed me. It might just be a personal thing, but I could use one night just staring at the moon as a real life human being.” Staring at Ceridwen, Lawrence gave a half smile. “It’s what she freed us from, after all.” © Copyright 2009 .Wolfie., Mynt, Quaddy, Wenston, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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