Sylvia POV
I 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 over my body breath, my senses.
In front of me is the gate that leads from the park to the entrance of the underground station near my apartment. It is a bright beacon, filled with the noise of humans as they hurry along their thoughtless paths, down into the artifically-lit, pungent corridors.
We don'’t break pace at all for the gate separating the park from the station entrance, clearing it in one leap.
As fast as we are, it is only just in time. We both feel the hunter’s claws slash at Fer’s hindquarters. I wince at the scrape of nails that have been kept killer-sharp. Fer transforms mid-air and I land on my feet on the other side of the gate. I put my hand to where the pink uniform only just covers my butt. It’s painful and the uniform is torn, but my skin is not. I breathe a sigh of relief. You never know what poison werewolves are dipping their claws into. I check in with Fer and she’s okay. A little shaken up.
That hunter was fast.
I hurry to where there are more people. Sometimes I like the smell of them, the sounds they make, the way they live their lives. I like that I’m here and not here. They see me and some primal part of them seems to know I’m different, but mostly they just ignore me and their instincts.
I walk home thinking. That was a Wildlands werewolf. There’s no doubt about it.
And as always happens the moment I allow myself to think of the Wildlands, another face flashes through my mind. Vuko. I try to push it away. I’ve almost managed to do it after all these years. But even if stop thinking about his face (don’t picture his nutmeg skin, or his soft full lips, or his wild curls or his broad chest, his eyes like the winter sky—don’t!), it’s his smell or his touch or ---goddess help me—his taste …
Something crashes into my shoulder and I whirl around, my lips drawn back in a snarl, the iron already at my teeth. A man stares at me in terror, his complaint dead on his lips. I compose myself and try to turn my snarl into a smile. I don’t think it works because he turns and flees.
I need to pay more attention. I bumped into that man and then terrorized him. Way to blend in, Silvia, I tell myself. Low profile, blah blah blah. I cross the road to my apartment building using my senses to look around and be careful and not think thoughts about werewolves I should not be thinking about.
I use my key to access the building’s lobby. It’s a tall, narrow building with a long narrow lobby. Each floor has just one apartment. Which doesn’t mean the apartments are big. It’s an idiosyncrasy of Loop City that all its tenements are like this. Like tall, grey blades jutting up from the pavements.
There are no new smells in the lobby. Just the same old stale ones. It’s when I see the stairs that I really start to feel the effects of that sprint. I have five floors to climb and most nights after working a full shift at the diner I have to pep talk myself all the way up. Tonight I just want to settle at the foot of the stairs and call it a night.
I make a game of it. ‘Guess what they’re doing’, I call it. As I pass each neighbour, I try to guess what they’re doing. On the first floor, there’s no prizes for guessing because I can smell the cardamom and potatoes and cheese. Mrs Choudry is dishing up for Mr Choudry who is sitting with his belly touching the table complaining that he is starving. My mouth waters for her honey mustard paneer tikka. I hurry past the second floor apartment in spite of my aching legs. If sadness has a smell it is this: damp and bitter, the bitterness made only worse by the hint of something sweet beneath it. The man who lives there has sunken cheeks and rounded shoulders and eyes that seem like they’ve lost something. On the third floor is the boy with the comic books. If we pass on the stairs, he will stop and stare at me with wide eyes, not like I’m strange. Like I’m awesome! I don’t know why or how, but I think I may have one fan. Sometimes I try to take a look at the comic in his hands and I can just about make out figures flying through the air, speech bubbles coming from their mouths. He seems to be embarrassed about the comics though because he always tries to hide it behind his back if he sees me looking. On the fourth floor is the quiet couple. They are young but they act old. They exchange conversation in whispers on the stairwell. I think they may even speak like that behind closed doors.
The game works. Because there I am in front of my own door. I lean my head against the door as I turn the key in the lock. I can hear Wiley give her little chirrupy meow as she hears me. I like to think it’s because I’m home but it’s probably because I can open a can of cat food for her.
The apartment is a single room that fits all functions: kitchen, bedroom, living room. It’s like the saddest packhouse for a pack of one. There is a very small bathroom behind a thin wood door. At night me and Wiley listen to the rats scurrying about in there. Wiley might sigh or raise her head but she doesn’t think they’re her problem. They go back into the cracks in the walls if I put on the light so I don’t make them my problem either.
My stomach growls and suddenly both my and Fer’s appetites come rushing at me at once. I stumble to the fridge telling Fer to get a hold of herself but I can feel that she is almost nauseous with hunger. I have raw steaks in the fridge.
Sometime later I’m dozing on my sofa. I’ve washed the blood from my hands and Fer is sleeping or she’s just gone away wherever she goes when she’s full of raw steak. Wiley is purring contentedly beside me because Fer made sure I gave her some too.
I sleep fitfully, full of dreams of werewolves sitting in diners and ordering burgers and hunters without faces running beside me no matter how hard I run.
I wake when the full moon reaches its zenith in the night sky and the moon goddess's call will no longer be denied.
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
Silvia POVThe wolf looms in the alleyway, his fur almost blue-black. The streetlights behind him tip his dark fur with a glow like fire. He looks like he's just escaped from hell. He stalks closer, his lips drawn back from his mouth in a drooling, growling snarl.Silvia Ironwolf, the hunter mindlinks, You have been avoiding me.That's all the invitation Fer needs. I feel her push at me and I know this is her time. I glance at Luka--all of his attention is on the dark wolf--before the sweet-pain of my shift takes over and then I am Fer, standing with my tail and head held high, my paws planted firmly on the asphalt. She is unafraid. I am unafraid.Or so I tell myself.I do not know you, says Fer and I'm so proud of how fierce and low her voice is, You have terrorized this child. Explain yourself.I have a message for you, says the wolf.They say you see the attack fir
Silvia POV We stare at the pages before us. Luka has drawn us. Me and Fulvio. I look up and see the Witch--Esme--watching me with a smile. "I like your piercings," she says. I want to fall into bed and sleep for five years. My feet are still bleeding. I'm in a ripped and bloody pink waitress uniform. I've been attacked by the biggest wolf I've ever seen. Then rescued by another biggest wolf I've ever seen. And discovered my downstairs neighbour is a seer and his granny is a Witch. The same Witch who was at my Naming. Who is now complimenting me on my piercings. "Thanks," I say as she continues to grin at me. "I can't wait to find out how you're using your precious gift," she says. My precious gift! If my feet weren't so damned sore I'd run over there and ... I look down. My feet are still bleeding! I look behind me and see that I have left bloody foot prints in Luka's apartment. I look at his mom who has gone f
Silvia POV Fulvio changes back into his clothes after his shower and we find ourselves once again in front of Luka's apartment. I've changed into jeans and a t-shirt as well and brushed my hair out so it's more like I used to wear it. I'm not wearing any make up. In the bathroom mirror I stared at myself for a long time, wondering at this person I was seeing. It was like seeing an old friend after a long, long time. My eyes huge and dark, my hair falling in waves around my face. A little older and sadder than I once was. I try not to think about how Fulvio looked at me when I came out. He had that hungry look again and I didn't hate it. Fulvio knocks and we hear running footsteps and then the door is flung open. It's hard not to be happy yourself when someone looks that happy to see you. Luka is smiling and chatting already, telling us about the dinner his mom has made. I interrupt the flow of words to ask if he has a