Eyes of the Wolf

20
We trudged through the trees. Niko’s hand enveloped mine easily, surrounding my hand like a protective casing with calloused fingers. The trees were deep green, and rustled very faintly when we brushed by their branches. I noticed we followed the path that the bronze wolf had carried me through, and every so often I thought I could see a print left by a giant paw. I stuck to Niko as closely as possible without being too much of a hindrance.

We were pretty far into the forest when I finally saw a bunch of houses come into sight, and I stopped. He turned and looked to me, much as he had when I had made my reluctance apparent before we had entered the trees earlier. Again, he came and cupped my cheek.

“Are they…” I swallowed. “Are they…too?”

He nodded. I hesitated. Ironic, that the human was the one reluctant to enter the clearing of wolves, and not vice versa. Of course, if the human was smart, she wouldn’t be so close to their den, and not with one of theirs.

“You’re in no real danger,” he reiterated to me, like a mantra. I became aware that my body trembled, like a deer in headlights. With my size, it was more of a rabbit. Perfect for a bunch of hungry wolves.

“All of you?”

“What?”

“Are all of you…” I swallowed again. “…all of you…wolves?” The last word had to be forcibly shoved from my throat. Denial denied. I cared for him too much.

“Yep.” He grinned at me. It shocked me, somehow, for some reason. I suppose I wondered if it was reassurance, or bared teeth. Some inner optimist of mine decided on the former. The expression disappeared as he said softly, “We don’t eat people, Maya.”

Perhaps it was the concern in his tone that convinced me, because I found myself following him like he was the Judas goat. We reached one of the closer houses and he held the screen door open for me. I noticed he never touched the latch.

This house looked more normal than the one I had been in the night before. There was a worn couch opposite the front door, and an old TV with a silver V above it that I finally recognized as a set of antennae. There was a small table in the center of the living room, in front of the couch, but not very close to it. Yesterday’s newspaper lay strewn across its surface. To the left, linoleum began, so I assumed it was a kitchen or a bathroom. The right hall lacked illumination, and seemed to fork a few feet in. Everything I saw was a shade of brown, somehow, since the walls were wooden, the carpet tan, and the linoleum a dark yellow.

Niko sauntered in and dropped himself on the couch. His collar chimed at the abrupt movement. Slowly, I followed him and perched on the seat next to him. Upon closer inspection, the cushions seemed to use what looked like dog hair in lieu of the usual blanket or casing that others would use. Underneath all the shed fur, the couch seemed to be as scarred as the boy next to me.

“Sorry it’s so bare,” he began conversationally. He was reclining so far against the back of the couch that I had to twist my neck in an almost owlish way to even see his face. “Having lots of stuff hanging around is a bit inconvenient when you’ve got four legs with no thumbs. Tail doesn’t help much either.”

I cringed inwardly at the casual mention of the topic. I still wasn’t too sure I believed everything that was being shoved under my nose so suddenly. Looking to the sofa cushion, I saw a lot of silver intermixed with the black and the dark brown. How many dogs—people—did he have in his family?

“Paint!” A familiar voice barked the word from around the corner of the darker hallway, as if the word was a name. Feeling my forehead wrinkle into a frown, I turned to Niko as Nicole rounded the corner, looking annoyed. The expression only got worse when her blazing eyes fell on me. She looked outraged.

“Quill, have you met Maya?” Niko replied easily, even as I felt myself shrink back. Without his looking at me, he snaked his hand around me and held me to his side.

His sister looked beyond speech. Her upper lip was twitching, and her chin moved slightly forward.

“What…is she…doing…HERE?” she breathed, her voice trembling and dropping almost an octave lower than the one she had used seconds before.

“I brought her here.”

“You—” Nicole cut herself off. She shook as much as I did. Her gaze met her brother’s, and they glared at each other for what seemed like eons. The match only stopped when a young dog game galumphing into the room. Nicole made a strained noise from the back of her throat, glancing from the puppy to me, and moving defensively between me and…her, I assumed, remembering Niko’s younger sister. The association made me feel leaden again. The look Nicole was fixing me with made me even more uncomfortable, though, but I could see no way to get out of the situation. Evasive techniques probably wouldn’t work here. No cop or self-defense instructor ever told people how to get out of your wolf-boyfriend’s house without getting savaged by his just-as-canine sister.

The puppy noticed me and dropped her head, whuffing. She strode up to me, every inch of her completely confident in her own territory, and sniffed at my knee. If I hadn’t believed her to be Niko’s sister, I would have petted her, but…how would a wolf-child feel if I tried scratching behind her ears? Knowing kids and normal ear touching, I knew that if I did, there was a chance that my finger count would be in the single digits before I returned my hand to my lap.

Seeming okay with me, the wolf jumped onto the cushion next to me and sat, sniffing at my ear. I did my best to ignore her, even though my ear tingled apprehensively. Even the puppy was almost bigger than I was.

“Summer, leave her alone,” Niko told her. The pup looked at him, and then
CHANGED.

Her paws just switched to hands and feet, her tail seemed to shrink, her fur retracting into her flesh. Then there was a naked child in front of me, very definitely Summer, and she looked irritated too.

“Why? I didn’t do nothing to her,” she squealed indignantly at her brother. I became aware that my back was pressed rather tightly to Niko’s ribs, his arm across my midriff now. Nicole seemed to be growling.

“Go get dressed,” he said calmly. He met her eyes, and she growled and stomped down the hall. Nicole immediately became the thing I was most wary of, exuding some kind of aura that made my hair stand on end.

“Don’t touch her, Quill,” Niko said coldly. “She already knew.”

She turned to him, still shaking like she would explode.

“Blaze and Sparrow are just as much to blame as I am,” he said, as if replying to something. “Probably more. It was them that flung themselves in front of her last night.”

“Paint…” Her voice seemed almost male, it was so deep now, and more growled than anything. He tensed against me.

“I’m not stupid, Quill,” he snarled, and she stepped back. With a final whuff, she spun and pushed through the door, and it slammed behind her.

Silence rang through the room after the screen door smacked against its frame. I struggled to get my breathing under control, and I didn’t even bother trying to put distance between Niko and me; he seemed to be the one thing in the room that grounded me.

Summer flitted back into the room and sat on the table in front of us, now clad in a denim dress that fit her pretty loosely. The newspapers hissed across the wood table.

“Better?” she demanded. Niko nodded. She spun and strode into the kitchen like a snubbed princess, and the opening and closing of cabinet doors immediately followed her departure.

“Why…why did your sister call you paint?” I asked in a very quiet voice. I felt Niko stiffen again.

“Because that is the name the pack chose to give me,” he said in a too-level tone, as if something he deeply resented.

“The pack?”

“They give young wolves their names when they’ve lived through their
childhood,” he explained, either ignoring or plain not-noticing the other reason for my incredulous tone. “The name that you’re given is the one you’re expected to answer to for the rest of your life here. The name cannot be changed, no matter how much you hate it.”

“So why do you go by Niko?”

“It was the name I took before I had lived fifteen springs. Normally a bitch will give her children names before they reach fifteen, just so she can have something to call us. That’s why me and Nikki’s names are so similar. We’re twins, and it was easier for her to come up with.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” I felt so out of my league, it was easy for me to accept just about anything. The signs were easy to read that I was losing it a bit, since I was more overwhelmed by his calling his mother—all mothers—“bitch” than I was by the whole naming process.

“It does,” he agreed simply. “It also makes going to town much easier for us, since we have a human name to answer to already, and we don’t have to come up with something real quick when some human asks.”

“Uh-huh.” I felt lightheaded. Suddenly something occurred to me, rather belatedly, and I blurted, “Is your family gonna get mad ‘cause you’re telling me all this?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But you already knew about us,” he said simply.

I stared at him. When he turned to me with his eyebrows raised, I stood up.

“What?”

“What usually happens to humans who…who learn about all this?” I demanded. Dimly I realized that I felt exactly like Nicole had earlier, standing in front of him and being so angry and…so scared.

His eyes darkened. “You’re different,” he growled defensively at me. The words seemed to trail down my spine, leaving fear behind.

They would kill me for this.

Niko was going to get me killed by his own family.

His own PACK.

His pack.

Pack.

Wolves.

I would be shredded like a dog toy.

I spun on my heels and strode out the door, right past Roger. When I hit the trees where Niko and I had entered earlier, I started to run.

:o3

Running through the trees seemed vastly different this time, somehow. Fear pounded the back of my head with Niko’s words, but it didn’t take me over this time. I didn’t sprint blindly through the foliage, instead jogging carefully over the roots and grass and making sure that if I turned slightly left or right to pass a tree in my path, I corrected myself when I could.

Jingling followed me like a vengeful spirit, preceding heavy footfalls. My heart pounded and I spun stupidly to watch a big silver wolf gallop to me, some kind of bundle in its mouth. Upon reaching me, it dropped the bundle at my feet and stretched its nose to me. I recognized the leather collar around its neck, and looked up into his face. His tail started wagging. My head struggled to comprehend that this was Niko, not just a really big wolf. Human with fur. Almost.

Hesitantly I reached up and touched his cheek. The silver fur was smooth, but not very soft. He dropped to his stomach, putting me at eye level with his head raised. Carefully, still chanting “this is Niko” in my head, I stepped around one of his paws and petted the back of his neck. When he didn’t stop me, I worked my fingers under the fur. It was softer there. Feeling bolder, I reached up and scratched him behind the ear. He grunted and leaned his head closer, and I could see the orblike blue eye start to close. I grinned and continued there for a bit. He let me, and then he began to lean toward me so far that he looked like he would fall. No sooner had this occurred to me and I had stepped back when he toppled to the side and rolled back up until he was on his feet. Looking surprised that that had happened, he stood. He glanced at me, then spread his feet and shook, sending a few clumps of dirt and leaves flying off him, and then scooped up the bundle in his mouth and walked away.

I stared after him, confused, until human Niko came striding from the trees, wearing what seemed to be a very soggy version of his clothes. Unreasonably, I was mad at him again, though much less so than I had been when I had stormed out of his house.

“You have no idea how weird it is wearing clothes covered in your own spit,” he grumbled amiably to me. I was still debating whether or not I should be civil to him, so I had no attention to spare to be disgusted with that statement. It seemed to be the only attempt of humor he planned to make, though, because he immediately bent his knees and laid his left hand on one while his right hand went to the back of my head. He was at eye level again.

“Maya, I won’t ever let them hurt you,” he told me fiercely. “I don’t care whether or not they like you knowing or not; they’re not going to hurt you.”

My face heated. The sheer force of his tone was intimidating, but the conviction in it mixed with how close he was had a whole different effect. It seemed he wasn’t immune either, ‘cause he let out a sudden, shaky breath, as if exhaling the force that had taken him over. He leaned forward and kissed my mouth, once, briefly, then drew his head back and watched my face. Apparently seeing nothing that discouraged him, he leaned in and kissed me again, but did not stop so quickly. Fire burned through my chest and blood rushed to my face, and I leaned closer to him, until my legs were between his knees and my arms were around his body. I felt his left hand come to rest in the small of my back, his right winding itself in my hair. Our mouths separated from each other, and I rested my forehead against his brow. My eyes were closed. He was warm, from his chest to his breath on my skin.

I didn’t know what to say. Nothing seemed appropriate. He was as silent as I was.

Finally, I settled for the killer of the mood.

“I should probably get home.”

He drew in a breath, slowly, and then let it out. “You’ll call me?”

I nodded. He imitated and reluctantly stood, his hand sliding diagonally from my back to my right ribs before letting go, right before it would have brushed against anything off-limits. His right still remained in my hair before it, too, released.

“C’mon,” he said. “I’ll walk you home.”