Wolven, page 8
"Tomorrow afternoon," Clay agreed.
laws of loving
Clay
The breeze was more aggressive in the mountains than in town. I fluffed my fur against the chill, but it probably didn't help to have my forepaws buried in the stream in front of me. At least the rush of the water kept me more focused than I’d been days. Out in the forest, with no incessant chatter surrounding me, it was easy to get lost in thousands of different thought clouds and the tangents they seeded.
Eventually, I'd have to go back before the school day finished so I could drive my sister and some of the others home. I didn’t normally skip out on class, though I got bored easily listening to some of my teachers drone on. Public school was different here than it had been in the Night Towns, but at least no one had disappeared here. Yet. We had that going for us, at least.
A ripple in the stream set my reflection awhirl and sent me back into my guilt.
Jade made things incredibly complicated. Every time I thought of her, I wanted to dig myself into the ground. Why had I asked her on a date? my subconscious yelled at me. I knew it was wrong. As the Alpha's son, I had to find a real partner to help push my ring onward. Not some human who might never be able to keep up with the pack even if she knew what I was.
What I was...
As the water of the stream settled again, the face of the wolf in her drawing stared back at me: down to my paler face markings and... my nice ear shape. I blew out a puff of air that crystalized as a thin cloud of breath around my muzzle. Frustration bubbled inside me, and I dug my claws into the stream bed.
You could turn her, muttered the instinct at the back of my mind. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine Jade in wolf fur. The thought made my heart pound even harder. I couldn't make that decision for her, no matter how bad I wanted to. Being around her was a constant battle with myself, but her company felt so good. Natural, even.
But it was wrong. Spending time with her would only make it harder for me to cut her off when I really absolutely needed to. And yet... I knew the fact wasn't going to stop me from trying to get with her anyways. Not after the feelings she’d set off inside me that night under the full moon.
"Clay?"
I nearly jumped out of my fur at the sound of Coal's voice behind me. I turned to find him pressed against the tree, his ears flat and his tail between his legs. I sighed, feeling my fur prickle. Sneaky, that one.
"What's up?" I asked him, nodding my head for him to come join me. He padded up, his brown eyes uncertain.
"I saw you take off from the parking lot," Coal explained, sitting down at the bank a few feet behind me. He kept clear of the water, and even tilted his head at my paws still in the stream. I shook them off, going to sit with him on the bank. "You looked upset. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."
I blinked at him; Coal, always quiet-spoken but loyal. A packmate through and through.
"Yeah, I'm alright," I told him, looking up at a bird chirping on a branch overhead. Coal’s silence betrayed his disbelief. I met his gaze. "I feel like there are rats inside my chest scratching to get out."
Coal nodded, momentarily lost in thought.
“Let’s walk,” he suggested, stretching as he stood. He motioned for me to follow him, his tail still low. “Walking helps me when I’m feeling anxious.”
“Anxious,” I snorted, matching his pace. “You think it’s anxiety?”
“If it’s more than nerves and you find it hard to shake, I usually find it’s anxiety, yeah. Like you can’t breathe all right, and no matter how hard you focus, the world is rocking just a little bit. Nothing feels like it’s in its place.”
Instinct made my jaw wire shut, but I knew keeping quiet would only make things worse. Just having shared the thought out loud, I already felt a bit better. Besides, Coal was a trustworthy confidante.
Better than Flint, that’s for sure.
"Do you remember in the Myths, about how when you find the right mate, your instincts just know?” I started. Coal nodded, his ear twitching. “Not everyone believes in that kind of stuff, sure. I know I didn't for a long time, I mean, c’mon. Some big orb in the sky isn’t going to determine when people fall in love. But the other night..."
I struggled to find the right words without feeling foolish. My love life wasn’t something I openly shared with anyone.
"During our first run here, I got that feeling," I admitted. The muscle along my jaw twitched as I waited for Coal to say anything, but he just padded along, leading us away from the stream and up through the forest. So I continued, "It's really messed me up. It's like there's this feral part of me telling me I need to act now. But I can't. It's against the laws."
“Are we... talking about Jade?” Coal asked.
My footsteps faltered. “Is it that obvious?” I muttered.
“It’s not... not obvious,” Coal said. “She’s been popping up a lot. But I have a class with her, and she has a drawing on her binder of you and April. It’s a really good one, too.”
“I saw it,” I said. I remembered that night too well—Jag staring Jade down with that snarl of his and the way Jade shoved back against him with hardly a hint of fear. She was commanding in her own right, though we could all smell she reeked of weed. “I was sure Jag would hurt her.”
“We all heard the fear in your voice,” Coal remembered, “we thought it had been fear of Jade...”
“...I was afraid for her,” I confessed aloud. “I caught myself about to lunge at Jag just to get him away from her. How do I tell them that? How do I admit to the pack that my stupid insides have tangled themselves over a human?”
“You’re our Alpha,” Coal said. “We trust you to do what you think is right. Even if it means bending the laws of our parents once we aren’t under their orders anymore. So, you bring a little fresh blood into the pack? It’s not unheard of.”
“And what if she doesn’t want it?”
“Well... that’s a bridge to cross somewhere down the river,” Coal said. “This feels like one of those one-day-at-a-time situations.”
“We’ve been handed a lot of those so far,” I said. Coal didn’t immediately answer, his ears falling flat against his head. “How are you doing, Coal? Are you sleeping yet?”
“Sort of,” Coal answered softly. Since our last move, he’d been plagued by dreams that kept him tossing and turning through all hours of the night. A lot of us were insomniacs at this point, but Coal was another level of haunted. “Mostly cat naps during second and fifth period. Sometimes, right after dinner, too.” His breath hitched in his throat. “But I see them every time I close my eyes. Both of them in the water, floating. And Nova on the bank... all that blood.”
“Not an easy scene to come across by yourself,” I said. “Especially after everything else.”
“It was a stumble that I even found them—and what hurts more was knowing that anyone else could have been in that car. Even me. Even you.”
“But Nova survived,” I said. “We could have lost three more that night, but Nova made it out.”
Coal didn’t say anything. He looked embarrassed.
“Do you have a thing for Nova?” I asked him. It was sort of out of the blue, so I couldn’t judge the startled expression on his face. “You two have always been close. I hear the way you talk about each other.”
“I’ve always loved Nova,” Coal murmured. “But she’s in love with you, I think.” I barely caught the side-eye he gave me. “She told me the morning after you guys first...”
“There’s nothing between Nova and I,” I hurried to explain. “We were in bed together a few times, but—”
“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Coal laughed. “Nova and I aren’t the same as like... April and Flint. Or even like you and Jade. She’s just... she’s my best friend. She’s always been my best friend.”
I didn’t say it to him, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince me. Maybe if I hadn’t known him so well, or if his ears weren’t so flat against his head, it wouldn’t have struck me as so odd. But I trusted that whatever bothered him would come up when he needed it to, and so I let out a sigh and nudged his shoulder.
“We should get back to school before class gets out,” I said. “I have to drive a full car.”
Coal nodded, the tension in his muscles relaxing. The sunlight filtering faintly through the trees seemed warmer, and the pain in my chest had gone away. And yet...
“You won’t tell anyone, right?” I asked of him. “At least not yet, please. I still need to figure things out with Jade.”
"If you don't tell anyone I'm in love with Nova, I won't tell anyone you're in love with that human," Coal promised.
"I'm not in love with her," I protested, but Coal only laughed.
Jade gave me directions to a park in the middle of a neighborhood on the opposite side of town. She looked embarrassed to have been waiting alone in the early spring chill. As she climbed into the car, her nose wrinkled.
“Do you have dogs?” she asked me.
“No,” I answered, unable to help myself from laughing. “Just smelly friends.”
Her smile was radiant, and her laugh even more so as I wiggled my eyebrows at her. My stomach rolled with the wheels of my car as we took off, up and up into the mountains.
“Can I ask about your sister?” I asked Jade. “I saw her this morning and almost thought it was you.”
“What do you want to know?” Jade replied.
“Whatever you want to share.”
"That's not a particularly fun topic." She snorted, her fingers flexing in frustration over her lap. "Uh, Ivy is my twin. Mostly identical, except her eyes have more brown in them than mine do. Also she's a pain in my ass, totally up-tight. To be fair, she is the only one that takes care of the house so I can't really blame her. And... I admit, I'm not much help. My dad hardly ever moves from the living room, so Ivy and I do everything by ourselves. She worries I’m a delinquent, and she's not totally wrong." Jade pulled herself closer. “Sorry—I just kind of let loose with that.”
“It happens,” I told her with a smile. “Makes us feel better sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” Jade agreed. “Do you have siblings?”
“A younger sister, Opal,” I answered. “She’s a freshman this year. She likes rocks and the beach—she’s been struggling with the move so far inland. But we’re not all that close.”
“Ivy and I are definitely not close,” Jade muttered, her gaze out the window. “But you must be close enough with your parents, right? If Ivy ever walked in on us, her reaction would have been significantly less chill than your mom’s.”
“My parents are just fine,” I said. “They do their best.”
I pulled off onto the shoulder where the hiking trail began. She followed me down the path for a few minutes, humming a song that had just been on the radio. She faltered once to peer eagerly at a slug making its way across the path, and then stopped altogether when I took a turn off the man-made trail.
“You’re taking me into the woods?" she asked me with lifted eyebrows. “Not to murder me, I hope.”
"Nah," I said, leaning down to pick up a little black centipede to show Jade. She breathed in delight, bobbing her knees as the bug dribbled from my fingers onto her own open palm. "Common trails are full of noise. I’d rather wander away where the forest is quiet."
“Tell me about your friends, Clay. Coal and Flint, and... I don’t really remember other names. But they say that who you hang out with reveals a lot about who you are.”
“Well, let's see...” I said with a breath. “In a general sense, they're all like my family. You know Flint sorta well, who I know comes off as an idiot but is overall a great guy. Then you have Rowan, who is my second in command, and actually my cousin by blood.”
“So you're like their leader, or something?" she laughed. I nodded, hoping that it was enough to satisfy whatever curiosity lifted her chin. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt."
"Something like that," I assured the suddenly guilty look on her face. "There’s also April, who is sort of the mom friend, you know, always makes sure everyone is doing the right thing, et cetera. Jag doesn't have his head screwed on all that tight, but his intentions are good. His girlfriend, Amber, is sweet and quiet. Nova is loyal, determined, and super smart. And Coal is probably the most compassionate of all of us." I paused. "Coal is... he's one of a kind. A real friend."
Jade smiled down at her feet, lost in her thoughts. We’d gotten to the rocky ledge in the trail, and as I pulled away from her I realized for the first time that we’d been holding hands. Letting go of the warmth of her palm sucked the air from my lungs, but I had to use both my hands to get down the eight and a half feet of ledge.
I turned back for Jade when my feet hit solid ground again.
“It’s safer than it looks,” I promised her.
Jade peered over the ledge, unconvinced. She got down on her knees to try going down, but at the crumbling of her first foothold, she hauled herself back to the top.
"Nope. That's not going to happen. I'll break my neck."
"Can you jump?" I tried, holding out my arms. She considered me in silence, seemingly stuck on the length of the drop. "Jade, you can trust me. I'll catch you."
Jade set her jaw against the fear and nodded. In the split second that she was suspended in the air I heard her deep gasp, but as she landed in my arms, it turned into an amused giggle. The adrenaline coming from her brought back rampant memories of seeing her that night in the woods, and without warning I kissed her.
Maybe a bit too forcefully. It only lasted a second before she pulled away with flushed cheeks and asked me to put her down.
“Told you,” I said as I set her back on the ground.
It seemed like a small eternity that we stood there, pressed against each other. And then I couldn’t help myself but lean in close, touching my forehead gently to hers as I’d seen my parents do so many times before. The softest contact that lingered warm between us, a gesture so fundamentally right that left me reeling when she pulled away from me with a jerk.
The curse from her lips rang with enough fear to whip me around harder than I wanted. I expected to see Tristan standing there, almost, fists balled and arms swinging. Or maybe even the face of the person who’d been hunting down my packmates for the past two years, ready to strike again. But the eyes looking back at me were of the wolf kind, staring me down with a genuine mixture of amazement and bemusement.
“Another wolf,” Jade whispered beside me. “Right? It’s really there? That’s a fucking wolf?”
It was a wolf indeed, standing a few feet away among the denser thickets. And though Jade’s knees trembled against me, her adrenaline tainted with fear, I couldn’t help my irritated sigh. That was my sister standing there, after all, watching with her critical gaze as I pushed Jade behind me. Had my parents sent her? My ring?
Either way, I should have taken the warning when I could have.
wolves of the woods
Jade
If I had a clearer memory of that stumble I’d taken in the woods weeks ago, I might have been shaking less to see the wolf watching us from the shelter of the brush. And anyway, it was different one a wolf in broad daylight than under the shadows of night. Nor was I the one alone this time. Clay stepped immediately in front of me, the bulk of him blocking my view.
I peered around him despite myself. Could it be one of the wolves I’d seen that night?
"It’s really there, right?”
I tried to catch his expression. He didn't look intimidated at all—certainly not as much as I felt. He actually looked a little irritated, like he’d been intruded upon by a pest. But he didn’t move. He just stared at the thing.
“Clay, it’s a wolf,” I said.
"I know it's a wolf," he muttered. "She won't hurt us."
"How do you know that?" I whispered, feeling my heart begin to pound down into my stomach. I wanted to run, but I wouldn’t even know where to go with the ledge behind me.
Clay seemed to be locked in a staring contest with the animal sitting in the bushes. I looked up at his face: his narrowed eyes, his twitching jaw, his pressed lips. What was he doing? Challenging it? I turned my gaze to face it, but found only disinterest in its face.
"The fuck do we do?" I tried Clay again. He looked over his shoulder at me.
"We keep walking," he said. He cast one last look at the wolf before turning his back. "She'll leave us alone."
The wolf twitched an ear but made no gesture to follow. So as Clay continued down his self-made path, I hurried to follow him. The wolf watched us walked away, a living statue in the woods.
"How do you know it’s a ‘she’?" I asked him, catching up to his shoulder. I huffed just to keep up with him.
"I just do," he replied.
I peeked over my shoulder. No sight of the wolf.
"You’re not afraid of it following us?" I laughed in a gasp. I almost tripped over a tangle of dead brush, but Clay didn’t notice for me to be embarrassed. “It’s okay to be scared, you know. I mean, we’re in their habitat, so we’re kind of the assholes, if you think about it. Not that I mean wolves are assholes, I like them a lot from a distance. They don’t scare you at all?”
"No."
I stopped, both to catch my breath and also because that familiar negativity had wormed its way into our day. The Clay who had invited me out under the willow—and the Clay who replaced him wasn’t nearly as appealing. If I wanted to hang around a moody, masculine mess, I’d have stuck around Tristan.
When he finally noticed I’d fallen behind, he turned around with a startled expression. He raked the forest with his gaze before coming back to close the distance between us.
"Yeah, hi," I said, crossing my arms and taking a step back. He took the hint, gluing his feet to the roots. "What's your issue?"
"My issue?" he echoed empty-headedly.
"You were being all fine until just now," I told him. His intense gaze refused to meet mine; I looked over my shoulder to look down the path we'd come from, but there was nothing there for him to focus the rage I saw brewing in his eyes. "Was it the wolf that made you angry?"
