Eyes of the Wolf

31

Despite my original enthusiasm at the idea, I had no idea how to act around Chris now that she was suddenly interested in dating. Especially now that, at the moment, I really wasn’t. I really didn’t want to be the stormy dating-is-a-waste-of-time bitch, but I wondered if my guilt at pouring water on her proverbial fire always caught up with me in time. She didn’t seem to notice, though—she was the bubbliest I had ever seen her. That, and I had never seen her blush so often during a conversation as she did when we were talking about Drake.

I remembered that with a twinge of ironic thought as I trudged unenthusiastically to the trees across the street, determined that I would finally talk to Niko today. I told myself that the discussion about my being human had been the last straw. I had already sat on my bed and argued about it, and now I was going to do it. I was halfway across the street. No turning back now; they had seen me, I was positive of it.

Niko trotted out and greeted me in his silvery form just beyond the trees, but within the fence. He looked abnormally happy, but that was probably because he had that almost goofy look that all dogs had when they were panting hard in the heat. I smiled grimly, and his ears flattened—he could sense I was agitated. His tail hung low between his hind legs, and he slinked around my side and finally walked alongside me on my left. He seemed to be instinctively trying to be smaller than me, but when he was that huge of a dog and I was significantly…not huge, it was a task that would have stumped better guys—wolves—whatever—than him. I noticed, though, that when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, his tail wagged.

He thinks I’ve come to a decision, I realized. He thinks I’m going to tell the three of them whether I want to be one of them or not.

“Can I talk to you alone, Niko?” I whispered to him. He nodded, and herded me eastward, then laid down with a solid whumph. I sighed. “Human, please.”

You know you’re way too accustomed to this kind of thing when you can casually ask somebody to be human, and expect it to happen. And it happened, behind a tree, and then Niko walked out, clad in the usual gym shorts, a moistness to his skin that could undoubtedly be attributed to the hot weather, especially since he had been wandering around in so much fur just seconds ago.

“So wha’d’you think?” he asked anxiously and almost immediately. I bit my lip—what was I thinking? I was still so attracted to him. How could I want to break up with somebody like him, who still liked me so much, and wanted to do anything for me?

Including taking my humanity, I reminded myself. That’s a decision that I should never be asked to make.

“Niko,” I began, my voice trailing off. His gaze never left mine, and I was the one to break eye contact. “Niko, I don’t think we should go out anymore.”

:o3

I sat in my room, shellshocked, dejectedly staring at my floor.

Niko hadn’t made it easy for me. He had been so quiet, so taken by surprise. When I had finally looked at him again, he had still been looking at me with that same reverence, but with so much hurt…

I shoved my head in my pillow, clutching Puppy to my chest. I was such a bitch. Such a bitch. My shoulders shuddered, and I stifled a sob, knowing that even so, I was getting my pillow wet, but really not caring. It didn’t matter. I felt so guilty, so awful, and my throat’s hurting and my chest tearing itself apart was all karma for my being so horrible.

It wasn’t his fault that there were wolves after me. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to me—he wanted me for his mate, of all things. Who could blame him for wanting his mate to be of his species? I certainly couldn’t. But it wasn’t what I wanted. As much as he may have loved me, I didn’t love him enough to change who I was. Was that wrong?

And he hadn’t been so careful with me, anyway. He just wanted me to keep up with him—wasn’t willing to wait for me. He was so impatient—wanted things when he wanted them. I had met his family much earlier than I had been comfortable with, had even been introduced to his world way too soon. Before I was ready to handle it. My life was put on the line for it when all those circumstances had been brought about, and Niko’s whole reaction to everything seemed to be “Well, you’ve survived this much…”

And now my life was on the line again, and now that he was really serious about protecting me, his way of going about it was “Hey, let’s make you give up everything you have so you can be with us, and be mine, too…”

So why did I still like him?

He cared. He loved me, didn’t really want me hurt. He was fascinating, attractive, funny, I could talk to him…

But we weren’t meant to be.

:o3

I stomped out of my room a couple hours after I walked in, pulling on my tennis shoes. A good run would clear my head. It always made me feel better. My hand grasped the handle, and then froze. He was out there. I wasn’t ready to see him again. My other hand clenched, and I released the door, then sat on the mat. Damn it all.

Somebody knocked.

I stared dumbly at the wood in front of me until another knock was answered by my father’s footsteps in the hall. I scrambled to my feet and peered through the peephole. Roger.

“It’s for me, Dad,” I called, feeling my throat close. Why was he here?

I took a breath and opened the door. Roger glanced at me with his bright blue eyes—the same as Niko’s—and ducked his head, looking unhappy that he had done so.

“Roger,” I greeted awkwardly.

“I would like to talk to you,” he told me, his eyes wandering to the potted strawberry plants my father had hung from a hook by the door.

“Okay,” I said. “You, uh, you wanna come inside?”

“Um.” He glanced to the street.

“Or we could walk, if you like,” I amended lamely. And my shoes are already on and everything…

He nodded, and I told my father before following him out.

“Listen,” he said, about an eighth of a mile away from my house. “I know this is not my place to say, but…I don’t think you should just go off of what Paint tells you.”

“Okay,” I answered, not really sure what he was getting at. It had been a long day.

“Before you even think about going through the Change, I think you should hear this.”

“Oh, I’m—”

“It’s important,” he insisted. I closed my mouth over my protest that I didn’t plan on undergoing any Change. Listening wouldn’t hurt, I guessed. I had wanted to go around the neighborhood anyway.

He took a breath. “I don’t know if Niko actually told you or not, but I wasn’t born a wolf. I was…I was a human once. Like you. But I’d never even thought that any of this stuff was out there. I was normal. I had a girlfriend, my parents, my friends, my family…I was going to college in the fall, so I was staying with my parents. Crystal lived with me, so she came with. We came to see the park.” I assumed he meant the one with the wolves as he gathered himself to continue with his story.

“Well, my dad and I separated from the girls—they wanted to see the falls, and we were betting on whether or not we could find a bear if we looked. Really stupid, yeah,” he admitted, though I hadn’t been thinking anything of the sort.

“Anyway, we were tramping all over the place—we weren’t sticking to the paths anymore, what bear goes to the paths? We saw something big against a tree. Had brown fur and was all hunkered down, so I wanted to check it out. Dad said it was stupid, but I wanted to see the bear. I think he was following a…a couple yards behind me. That…that bear, though…” He took another deep breath. “Probably don’t have to tell you it wasn’t a bear. This thing whips around, all teeth and claws, and takes a jump at me. Was on top of me, ‘til Dad came in, all fists. I think he had a knife or something sharp—maybe a stick or something—‘cause it was bleeding when it finally got off me. I dunno—all I can remember was that I was definitely seeing my blood and my guts when I tried sitting up.”

I know I looked at him askance then. Had I seen him shirtless? I didn’t remember him having big nasty scars. He didn’t seem to notice that I was looking at him any differently.

“He and my dad fought a bit, but it wasn’t much of a fight. It can’t have been—I saw the brute later, after it all. Dad was dead. I woke up next to his…his body. What was left of it. I still don’t know why it left me alive—maybe something scared it off or something. I dunno.” He looked at me now. “The Change isn’t a painless process. I can’t tell you how long I was waiting, in ribbons, for me to die. I passed out after awhile. When I woke up, I remember I was still in pain, but not nearly as much as I had been in. I couldn’t remember much of anything, actually—everything was kinda distant at that point. I don’t even remember it even registering that I didn’t have hands anymore.” He glanced at me, and I thought that it looked like he was deciding how much he should actually tell me. Then he got a resigned look. “I smelled meat close.” He stopped again, letting me take that in. It took me aback for a second, but then some sanity-keeping mechanism in my head let me tell myself that it wasn’t that big of a surprise—pain equals hunger, and instinct would prod him forth to sate it on whatever was at hand. I nodded to him. He nodded back.

“I’ve been told it’s a constant thing, that a bitten wolf needs others like him to be a human again. It took a long time for them to find me. I remember I found out that people weren’t friendly anymore, so I avoided them, and I hunted animals. I remember I wanted companions—I wanted a pack. Real wolves don’t take to us too easily, even if we are thinking on the same frequency. I don’t know how long it actually took before I was found by this pack—but it was late summer when I Changed, and I joined the pack on April seventeenth.

“I haven’t spoken to anybody from my old life since before the attack. They can’t find out about us. Your life becomes your pack, and everything that has to do with it. If you don’t want the pack, then you go out on your own, and nothing is worse than being without Pack.”

He paused again. I watched him, wondering if he still had more to say.

“The survival rate isn’t too high, either,” he finally said, almost like an afterthought. “There aren’t that many bitten wolves in the pack, and there aren’t many running around loose, either. They usually give themselves away pretty quickly. Rogue wolves’ll try and make their own packs with bitten wolves, but you can imagine how easily that’ll go wrong. A small percent chance that you’ll actually get a wolf, and a person goes missing every time you try. It’s a bit of a risky venture. The nearest pack’ll usually take ’em out when somebody tries too much. It’s hard to pick out somebody who has what it takes to survive it.”

“Is there a way to tell?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything. He gave me a hard look, and I could tell there was a theory he had, but also that he was not going to tell me. I shrugged.

We walked in silence for about another quarter of a mile before his whole body tensed, his head turning sharply north and his nostrils flaring. His pupils visibly dilated.

“Roger?”

“You need to stay here!” he told me, running back the way we had come. I bolted after him after only a moment of deliberation, easily catching up since he was only on two legs.

“Where are you going?” He glanced at me and grunted.

“Your house.”

Fear squeezed my chest like a too-tight set of ribs. “The other way’s faster.”