Eyes of the Wolf

49

I half expected there to be a big ruckus over where Adam and I had been while we were gone, but nobody seemed to really notice that we had been absent. Was it just that, even though I was a young wolf, I was okay as long as I had a chaperone?

I didn’t like talking to my packmates for awhile—despite fighting for ascension’s being okay, I didn’t like that my control was so weak, even though I hadn’t been the first to start a fight and, apparently, hadn’t been the last. Being around my other wolves brought back my guilt.

Eagle wouldn’t talk to me anymore. The loss of her companionship hurt, but I couldn’t blame her—I had made a scene involving her and had almost killed her mate. Understanding of their relationship or not, I regretted it with my more human mentality. The other half of me was crowing that the dominance between us was settled. Spine would never challenge me again.

:o3

Went hunting. Came back. Napped. Ate people food. Napped. Ate. Slept.

So bored.

Roger sought me out halfway through the week after we had met with Chris and Drake. I was sideways on the couch arm, my feet dangling through emptiness, with my head about a foot from Adam’s thigh on the cushions. I was trying to decide if my feet were asleep yet.

“Dawn,” he said. Adam tensed next to me, and it carried to me. Apprehensively I lifted my head to look, then straightened in my seat. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” I said slowly. We went outside. Roger tilted his head a bit this way and that, and I knew he was listening for anybody close by.

“How is control of your wolf, Dawn?” he asked me quietly.

I know I stiffened. “My control is fine.”

“I didn’t see Spine do anything to provoke you to attack him.”

“He did,” I snapped, with more confidence that I felt. But a fear had settled in my stomach, that if he decided my control was less than perfect, I would get into trouble with the pack. With my Alpha. Feeling a bit guilty about my tone, though, I met his eyes and said, “It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” he agreed. “Spine won’t provoke you again. There is no fight for dominance with you two anymore, thanks to that display.”

He was scolding me. Though I knew it was deserved, I was still aggravated that I was getting this treatment. I straightened and met his eyes. We glared between us—I knew he had his eye on being Alpha, so he was dominant, but I wasn’t sure if he was more dominant than me. Tension made us wary of each other as we stared off.

“You can’t start a dominance fight with every wolf you meet,” he growled, low in his throat. I blinked and my gaze shifted away, and I cursed it. Though dropping my eyes wasn’t the same as being defeated in a fight, it still meant that I acknowledged he was the higher wolf. For now.

Seconds after the unspoken contest between us had ended, he leaned closer to me.

“Are you okay, Dawn?” he asked me, his voice much gentler. My head snapped up to look at him, though more his face than his gaze. He looked uncomfortable, but determined.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, unconsciously bringing my voice down with his, in a whisper.

“When your wolf instincts take over like that, it’s…” He hesitated. “It’s…disconcerting. I was a wreck when it first happened to me. So I was wondering if you…if you were okay.”

It was impossible for me to tell what emotions were behind those words, even hearing his heartbeat, sensing his anxiety. Empathy, yes, but what else? We hadn’t been close this whole time, and the last time we had spoken anywhere near this sort of level, he had been advising me not to Change.

As if sensing my thoughts, he shrugged jerkily with one shoulder. “The ones that seem to survive being bitten always seem to be dominant. Every one of them seems to get in fights all the time.”

Was that what he hadn’t wanted to tell me, that day I had Changed? Only the dominant ones ever seemed to survive? The ones that wanted control?

The ones with enough willpower to survive?

And he knew, I thought, surprised. That’s why he didn’t want to tell me then. He knew I would make it. If I went through the Change, I would survive to be a wolf, like him. And he thought it would be too much for me.

I nodded, and then answered him with a quiet “I’m fine.” His face looked drawn, but he nodded to me in return. And he left.

Adam was leaning against the wall of the house, watching. I hadn’t heard him come through the door.

“Hey,” I said softly.

“Hey.” He scrutinized me. It didn’t make me nervous anymore. Then he just looked up to watch Roger stalk off to another house.

“Did you hear all that?”

“No,” he replied. We stood in silence.

“He likes you, you know.”

I frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“He admires you. You’ve exhibited a lot of strength, dealing with people that scare him. Even when you were a human, you handled it better than he did.” He was quiet. “And I doubt he sees you as undesirable, either.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Adam shrugged. “Thought you might want to know. You seemed confused why he keeps talking to you. He was trying to help, wasn’t he?”

Yes.

But I didn’t like him that way.

Adam wasn’t looking at me. I smiled shakily and nudged his shoulder. “Let’s go eat. Then maybe we can visit Chris and Drake.”

:o3

That did cheer him up. He and Drake were quickly becoming friends, talking about how they had grown up. Apparently Drake had known since he was young that he was the child of wolves, but his mother had kept him away from the packs. She didn’t know how a wolf pack would take that one of their wolves had borne a “half breed pup.”

“I got sent here to avoid the packs,” Drake said simply. We were all listening to him at this point, sitting around the living room. Balto had been edging up to me, trying to figure out if I was a friend or not. I sat on the floor to make myself less intimidating. When he came up and sniffed my hand, I let him, watching his body language so that I would know if he decided that I was no longer the Maya he liked. But slowly he licked my fingers, and I petted his neck just as deliberately. He dropped down and lied across my feet, happy. “I just started Changing about a year ago, and my mom didn’t think her pack would accept a wolf like me. The pack is sympathetic to Frost—bitten wolves are low in the pack, ‘cause if they show interest in power, they’re obviously dangerous. Born wolves have to be dominant. I’m…not dominant.” He grinned sheepishly at this. “Plus, I’m half human. Therefore, I must be a danger, like one of those people you read about in books with some innate tendency toward evil and destruction.”

“You seemed to be dominant enough to hold your own against Maya,” Adam pointed out. “And it seems that neither of us are really dominant or not. Can you tell when dominance games are going on?”

“Not really,” he replied. “I’ve never really been around other wolves in a pack.”

Adam frowned.

“Have you been in a pack?” Drake prodded carefully.

“Yeah. I confuse other wolves—they can’t tell if I’m being dominant or not, so I’m low in the pack structure.”

“Huh.”

“Is it because you’re half, or is it because you haven’t been raised to know those signals?” Chris asked curiously. Adam blinked at her—apparently he hadn’t thought of that. I stood and sat on the arm of his chair since the other couch was occupied by Chris and Drake.

“So how did your first Change go?” queried Drake. Adam scratched absently at the hem of the chair arm nervously.

“I didn’t know anything about wolves. I had a stronger sense of smell, and better hearing than anybody else I knew, but I thought that was just me. Then my dad showed up at my house. I’d never seen him before, and he was there to talk to me. My mom was mad. I was pretty pissed too, ‘cause he’d never been interested enough to ever want to talk to me before. I didn’t even know my dad. Then he started asking me weird questions, and then Mom sent him out of the house. A couple days later I Changed.”

When he was finished, Adam’s jaw was set. I hadn’t known that he and James had that kind of history—how long had it been before James had come and brought him to our Pack? I let myself slide down the arm a bit so our shoulders touched, offering comfort. He didn’t ask me to stop, so I stayed.

“So your mom decided to send you here when you Changed?” Chris asked Drake.

“Not right then,” he explained. “It was awhile later when she found that I had pretty good control of my Changes, and she decided that I would be safer as a human.”

Something stirred outside the window. Apprehension shivered over my skin, and I stood and walked to look outside. I didn’t see anything, but my wolf was growling and setting me on edge.

“Maya?” Adam asked.

It’s nothing, I told myself, stepping back from the curtain. My wolf roared with anger and warning. I fought it. I’m being stupid. Adam and I are the only ones that know about Chris and Drake.

Goosebumps lifted like reanimated corpses on my arms and the back of my neck as the wolf struggled to take over.

“Maya—” In my peripheral vision, Chris was reaching for me.

“Don’t.” Adam’s voice was sharp, like a slap. Her hand receded as my blood pumped in my veins like cold syrup at high pressure. I shuddered. “Maya, what is it?”

“We need to leave,” I told him. My voice scraped at my throat. When I turned, my head was almost level with Adam’s. Not good.

“Okay,” he said soothingly to me. I struggled to stay human, but gold and red hair was lengthening on my arms, and my face was itching. A whine came from my throat, and my hips deformed themselves, forcing my forepaws to the ground. The buttons on my shirt unsnap and my shorts stretch around my belly, the drawstring snapping and leaving a welt around my waist. The smell of other, unfamiliar wolf tickles my nose.

“Maya?” Drake’s voice reaches me. Annoyance rolls in me, but not as much as it did a couple days ago.

A hand touches me between the shoulder blades. I am too exhausted from fighting my Change to lift my head.

“Dawn?” Sparrow.

I let out breath in a gust, relaxing. Chris comes to my other side, though I sense Sparrow trying to send her back. I will not hurt her. I am happy lying here, panting.

Then my instinct kicks in again.

I am on my feet in an instant and moving for the screen door.

“Wait, Dawn!” Sparrow rushes to me and pulls my shorts and shirt off. I am glad—they rubbed my fur wrong. Chris opens the door for us, and I shove my way through.

I run alone for about a mile before Sparrow catches up to me, clothes in his mouth. Though he is smaller, he is faster. He has had longer to adapt to using his forelegs. All my power and speed comes from my hind legs, and my forelegs fumble for purchase.

What is wrong?

Bad feeling, I tell him. Smelled other wolf.

He accelerates.

By the time I reach the truck, he is dressed and starting its engine. I sail into the bed, my clothes lying crumpled against the cab. I fight to shift, knowing that it will be better if I am human, but my wolf instincts want me to be big, powerful, for whatever we need to face.