I twist in the seat, pulling against the straps that bind me, hissing in pain as the threads of silver sear my skin. I snarl and bare my teeth at the driver and his mate in the front of the car. They only stare forward, they show no emotion at all.
Familiars, I realise, I have been left to the care of bloodless, brainless Familiars. I fling myself against the straps, howling my rage and frustration. If only I could set my wolf free. Fer would know what to do. But the silver will kill her. My Fer, she is all I have left.
I slump back in the seat, trying to see out the darkened windows of the car. Through the windscreen I can make out the mountains of the Wildlands looming black against the gold and magenta of the Wolf Moon sky. On either side of the car, the outlines of forest pines whoosh past in blurs of bristly bark and spiky spruce needles.
No one came to say goodbye. Not one member of my family. Not one friend. My last view of my own mother was of her slender, upright back as she stood and turned her back on me. My father signed the peace treaty, stood and did the same. Every member of my pack followed. Only Didi lingered. For just a moment I saw his sweet, round face. I could still see the baby he had once been though he was now twelve years old. His eyes sought mine and I trembled at the pain I saw there. He didn’t understand. I had to speak to him. I stepped forward and the pack guardian yanked me back. Didi turned away.
Silvia Ironwolf, for your crime of murder, you will be forever banished from the Packs, Omega Rovit intoned. Another humiliation. To have my fate read out to me by the lowliest member of the Ironwolf Pack while all the others turned their backs. Rovit had loved it. He had worshipped Jedan and probably wanted to kill me slowly right there and then. He leaned forward, his face close to mine, his spit landing on my face, And if you ever return to the Wildlands, he finished, You will be torn limb from limb, your remains fed to the vultures.
If my hands had not been bound by the leather mitts, shackled together with silver, I would have ripped his sneering face from his skull and fed that to the vultures.
Shackled like an animal. Cast out like a criminal. I feel the scrape of my nails against the soft leather interior of the mitts. The packhouse guardsmen blunted many tools before giving up on removing the iron from my fingertips. It had been excruciating but I never let them see it. The iron is a part of me now.
They said that Jedan was barely recognizeable when they found him.
They said that the iron was an affliction, a curse that had been bred out of the Pack centuries ago. They said I was cursed. That it was my curse that had killed Jedan, future Alpha of Firewolf.
It was Jedan's inability to understand 'No' that killed him.
Vuko had not said goodbye either. The tears prickle my nose and sting my eyes. I won’t cry. I won’t.
Of course he didn’t come to say goodbye.
I killed his brother.
Vuko my love.
I had dreamed that at my Naming, the Moon Goddess would show him to be my mate. Usually we would have to wait until we were both twenty-one. But surely she must see how we love each other?
Another, darker thought comes then. Did she also see Jedan follow me to the forest? Did she see him give me a choice that was no choice at all? Choose me or no one will have you, he had said. That’s not a choice.
My wolf, so newly named, had not held back and I did not try.
From within the shadows of the Wildlands, comes a long, mournful howl. Vuko! I knew it with every fibre of my body, with the blood that coursed through my veins, with the beating of my heart. I open my mouth to answer him, cracking my jaw bones as the voice of the wolf within me strains toward the sound of him, the memory of his scent. Her cry joins with mine, creating a sound so intense, so pure that the Familiars turned to stare and the car swerves wildly across the roughened road.
Then Vuko is beside the car, shifting between wolf and human, pacing us even as the car speeds up. He calls to me through the window. But the words are snatched from his mouth by the slipstream. The car veers again, crashing into him. I scream as he is sent reeling from the blow, thrown like a limp doll against a pine tree. The car moves on and I twist around in the seat, the smell of burning flesh, my flesh, wolf's flesh. I can no longer tell. All I know is that I can no longer see Vuko.
I cannot see him!
My wolf and I howl our distress and there is no answering howl.
Throughout that interminable journey I replay that scene over and over in my mind, praying that I have not killed him too.
The car races on, over the mountains and into the Barren. Far, far away from the Wildlands.
Silvia POVI yawn as I lean on the the diner counter. Cook bangs down the plates in the open hatch behind me."Burgers," he says, then slams the hatch shut as soon as I pick up the plates. He's off for a smoke and a few shots of rum. After a year at this Diner I knows his habits but I don''t know his name. Nor do I care. There have been too many Cooks that I've worked for over the past four years.I grab the plates and slow-walk over to the table of teenage boys. The burgers are overcooked and stink of old grease.The boys ogle me as I bring them the plates. I hate the pink uniform. I pull it down, it rides up. Repeat over a full eight-hour shift. I look like a pornographic maid. I cut my hair short and spiked it up like a punk, pierced my nose and eyebrow and painted my nails black to compensate. But the cheap fabric clings like a second skin no matter what I do. It helps with the tips but most nights the few dollars extra I get don't se
Sylvia POVI'm thinking of the moon and how it will feel to run through the moonlight, keeping pace with the others like me--the ones they call Rogue. We never speak. We don't have to. They suffer as I do when it's full moon.The park is silent as I cross it, every leaf and blade of grass coated with the goddess's golden paint. A solitary owl hoots and I sense the tremors within brush and hedge as small creatures seek shelter.The boy takes me by surprise and he shouldn't. IHe jumps out in front of me with a yell. It's the lanky boy with the floppy black hair and pimply face from the diner. The one who acts like the others' Alpha. I sense his humans step out of the shadows. It's like the saddest pack in the world. I decide to name him Alpha-boy.I berate myself for not paying attention. Because now Fer is on high alert and ready for a full transformation. Chill, I mindlink her, This doesn't need to be a big thing. Transf
Sylvia POVI wait. The way we learned as pups. You wait, you use your senses, you make your choice. Only then do you act. You never second guess yourself.(It’s our best and worst trait. Stubborn as mules – try stubborn as werewolves).This was a trained hunter. Has Firewolf sent a hunter to avenge Jedan? Four years after his death? It makes no sense.I slow my heartbeat and still my muscles. Fer, help me, I mindlink my wolf. With her help I extend my senses into the darkness around me. My eyes, aided by Fer’s, adjust minutely to the gloom. There is no movement beyond the rustle of leaves on the trees around me. Suddenly a small creature dashes out from behind a garbage can. My heart pounds at a zillion beats a minute. But I don’t move.You know what to do, Fer whispers to me.She is right. There is only one course of action now. I crouch and I'm already running when feel her take ov
Sylvia POV There have been nearly sixty full moons since I came here. Next month will be Wolf Moon again, making it exactly five years I have been here--and my twenty-first birthday. You would think that the torment would grow familiar. It doesn't. Each time it feels new and different. It's hell. Without a pack, without the binding force of destiny, without a mate, my own body punishes me. The ache is everywhere at once even as my heart yearns for my love, my love, my Vuko. On these nights his name is the heartbeat that drives me through the night along the pathes, through the city streets, onto the highway where I run with the others like me--all of us desperate to outpace our ache, our desire, our hunger, our grief. Before the Cold Moon reaches the horizon and the dawn blushes its way toward day, we stop. My limbs are trembling and my paws leave bloodied tracks as I pad back toward my apartment. The ache is not gone, only dul
Vuko POV I'm yawning so hard my jaw cracks and then, just when I'm mid-yawn, I sneeze because of the dust from the training ground. Anahita thrusts a coffee at me and I've never loved a member of Waterwolf pack more. "Where's your Beta?" she asks, sipping at her coffee while we watch the younger pack members warm up. One of the benefits us Named claim is the right to not warm up properly and stand around drinking coffee while the young ones go through their paces. "Abir?" I say, "Beta Abir is doing whatever the hell he pleases." She looks at me and I know she wants to say more. Anahita is about ten years older than me and a different pack. She's Waterwolf to my Firewolf. But while I had a shitty older brother who would beat me to near death and call it training, she has been the older sister I dreamed of. Silvia would always take me to her first after Jedan had been at me and Silvia would bind my wounds and tell me to be patient because one day I was going to be bigger than Jedan.
Vuko POVHe's big and I haven't seen him before. I glance at Ana but she's transfixed. Her eyes are wide. I'm guessing she hasn't seen him before either.The other Alphas have begun to crowd the field. Among them is Didi's father. He steps forward."You are not Ironwolf," he says.Didi--and Silvia's--father was once an imposing sight. Tall with silver hair, he was the only one who ever stood up to my father. Since Silvia's banishment though, he has become stooped, old.At first I think he is talking to Didi. But he is addressing the giant who will be Didi's champion.Didi answers for his champion. "No, he is not Ironwolf," he says to his father and I'm relieved that there is still respect in his voice. But he is also resolute, "You need to step aside, Dad. This is a new pack. My pack. You have no jurisdiction over us."I'm aware of the murmuring of the crowd at the edge of the field. Didi has just declar
Vuko POV Beta Abir disapppears again for the rest of that afternoon. I feel like an idiot going from pack to pack asking if they've seen my Beta so I give up after a bit. Nobody had seen him but apparently my battle against the champion has gained me some fans. Ana has to rescue me from one waterwolf who is all but sitting in my lap rubbing against me. The waterwolf (Tina? Bettina? Trina?) is really pretty and sweet. I admit that I was enjoying the attention. But mostly I was embarrassed. I'm male, I'm nearly twenty-one and I've been separated from my true love for four years. Can you even imagine how hard that is? Ana has little sympathy. "Your face!" she keeps saying, then bursting into laughter till the tears are running down her face, "Mr I-defeated-a-giant-but-turn-to-jelly-with-the-girls." Not like jelly at all, I want to say, but keep that to myself. As I finish my rounds, with Ana at my side as a sort of female-attenti
"Say that again," I say to Frey, unable to believe my ears. We are standing on the edge of the training field, the sky darkening around us, a chill in the air. I think about Winter coming and Beta Abir's news that Didi is planning an attack on the stores. I shiver. That would mean the destruction of his own family's pack too. Surely not? "I have information about Silvia, where she is," says Frey again. Silvia. For the past four years no one has said her name. Let alone told me where to find her. I have spent every day of the four years tormented by how I wasn't there for her. The night that was meant to be ours. Her Naming Ceremony. We had told each other that our wolves would find each other that night. It would be an early blessing from the Goddess--a confirmation of the destiny we have always believed in. We could not believe that the Goddess would make us wait another five years. We were such fools. So when Beta Abir came to me the afternoon befor