Running With Wolves

“Sage?”

I couldn’t make my mouth move to form a sound or a noise or anything to tell Conan I was here. It wasn’t that seeing Lukas for a single heartbeat for the first time in years had stunned me into silence I was just tired. I was tired beyond all belief, past the point of forming a coherent thought. All I could think was: Wolf. Lukas. Wolf. Lukas. Stars. Lukas. Wolf. Conan. Lukas gone.

I was drained, warn out past delirium and exhausted beyond comprehension. I had been home all of five hours and already I had lost my will to fight, lost my resistance against this place that broke me down so perfectly.

My family was falling apart: Why was it always falling apart? Why did someone always have to be dying or in danger in my family?

My family’s allies were in shambles: battle torn and scattered, bitter and unforgiving, it festered resentment and pain deeper than any infected wound.

My town was broken so perfect and wrong: you could draw a line in the sand that separated me and mine from them and theirs when once upon a time there had only been an us.

Lukas:…Lukas…I was far to tired to even broach anything close to explaining anything remotely involving him.

“Sage?” His voice was closer and I turned my head toward the moonlight revealing my face. His eyes fell to my sitting tired form on the ground and alarm flashed through his eyes. “Are you alright?” he was beside me, crouched down to eye level, in an instant.

I opened my mouth to tell him I was fine. I was Sage Wolfe I didn’t feel pain, I didn’t get hurt, I was old reliable, I bounced; I was the one no one ever had to worry about. My mouth closed and I swallowed hard. I couldn’t make myself say it; the mere idea left a bitter taste on my tongue. Instead I wrapped my arms around my brother silently and fell into him, allowing him for once to act the part of an older brother. He caught me, holding me tightly, telling me he was there, telling me he’d never let anyone hurt me with him there. But how could dear Conan, the son who held no blood ties to the Alpha who fell here, the son always revered as a silent threat for his lack of lineage to our town, protect me from our own?

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I had missed breakfast in my house, a meal that so many missed was the most important meal of the day in more than one-way. It was a new beginning for my family, a time of optimism before the day wears it away, a time for hoping before the day steals it.

Conan was making waffles, Belgian waffles—my favorite. He was flipping the hot lightly sweet smelling breakfast food onto a plate while Mia (insisting on helping) washed strawberries while I (in all my unhelpfulness) sat at the large oak breakfast table, that was once made to hold six, and basked in the feeling of being home.

“All I’m saying is powdered sugar makes all the difference,” Mia stated shaking the water free from the strawberry filled strainer and carrying the fruit to the table.

“Do you hear this?” Conan asked me jabbing a finger in Mia’s direction with a faint smile on his lips, disbelief in his voice. “She’s trying to change family recipes over here! Blasphemy. Really Sagemint who the hell did you bring home?”

I smiled faintly as I gazed out the window, my mother’s perennials that still appeared even so long after her absents, were in full bloom.

“It was just a suggestion,” Mia grunted. “Gees.” She reached for a berry and popped one in her mouth, licking the juice out of the corner of her lip as her gaze flickered to Conan.

I closed my eyes, reveling in the feeling of absolute normalcy, an atmosphere this old house hadn’t felt in so long.

Then the air shifted, like goose bumps rising on your arm, like the subtle but warning sense of a dog with its hackles up, I felt the change in the air.

Someone was coming.

My chair fell back with an embarrassingly loud sound against the tile floor. Mia’s gaze shot to me with alarm, her eyes startled and wide. Conan froze, his hazel orbs locked on me silently searching me and the air for the cause behind my action. But there was not time, someone was coming and they weren’t what we considered a Familiar. I was across the room in a heartbeat but Conan was at the front door before I’d even gotten halfway down the hall.

With only a “stay there,” in Mia’s direction who, bless her soul, listened.

In a short controlled jerk, Conan opened the door just enough to wedge his body into, blocking the unknown from the inside of our home, from me.

But I smelt it; like black pepper it made my nose flare, like nails on a chalkboard it made my skin crawl. I knew instantly who it was.

“Conan.” The baritone voice made me want to bare my teeth and growl.

“What do you want?” Conan’s voice was filled with nothing short of hostility or, putting it nicely, annoyance. “You never requested permission to cross boarders.”

“Neither did a guest of yours.”

Conan’s posture went ridged, not in fear or defensiveness, but to hold every inch of himself back and not try to kill this person. I say try because our welcomed guest, Conan, and myself knew that Conan couldn’t take him; it was not an insult to Conan’s strength just an honest impossibility.

“If you aren’t-“

My hand touched Conan’s back in a silent gesture. The muscles in his back calmed and he peered over his shoulder at me questioningly; all I could do was gaze back unwaveringly. I wasn’t afraid of this man no matter how much he tried to instill it into me. Conan moved aside to reveal the trespasser.

His hair was jet black but was beginning to highlight with streaks of grey with time. His thin face, sharp cheekbones, and goatee gave him a dangerous look. He was the type of person that appeared perfectly approachable but everything in you screamed not to, but to the contrary get as far away from as possible.

His name was Viktor Canis, alpha of the Eastern pack, cause of all my problems, and…wait for it…Lukas’s father.

It’s all so perfectly cliché isn’t it?

His posture, his emotions, were so carefully controlled that if I hadn’t known him better I would never have spotted it—quick as a bolt of lightning across the sky, surprise flashed across his hard oaken eyes.

“Sage,”

“Viktor.” The cold chill in my voice could only have been made from years of anger, bitterness, and resentment.

“Its…nice to see you have returned for a visit.”

A smirk pulled at the corner of my lip. “I’d say the same but it’s never a pleasure to be in your company Viktor.”

His eyes turned to a hard glare, his fingers twitching like a wolf’s tail at his side.

After a long strained moment in which Viktor’s silent gazed challenged me to back down, to submit to him.

“Conan your sister is as spirited as ever I see,”

“It’s not spirit Viktor,” I corrected politely. “just a genuine distaste for anything involving you.”

“Anything involving me?” he questioned. Now it was his turn to smirk and I wanted to growl in anger in response—in fact I was pretty sure Conan had just done as much.

I gritted my teeth and looked away, not in submission just to keep myself from going for his throat.

“What do you want Viktor?” I spat.

“How long are you staying in Blackwood?” Goosebumps shot up my arms and down my back. I could feel it, the psychic pull of an Alpha in command. Sharp as the cutting of a knife I could feel the wolf in me fight back rabidly against the pull.

A true canine growl issued from behind me, deep and husky with age, it sent a whole different kind of chill down my back. It was an exhilarating feeling, adrenaline, reassurance. I stepped across the threshold to the porch, forcing Viktor back.

“You are not the Alpha of all of Blackwood, you have no dominion here Viktor. You are not my Alpha. My father was Alpha here—How dare you try to command me.”

He raised his chin, looking down at me with cold murderous eyes.

“My business is none of your concern Viktor. I may stay the day, leave in a week, or maybe just maybe I wont ever leave again. How does that sit with you Viktor? Is that a good enough fucking answer to run back to your precious little committee with? Go ahead, run a long and tell them that, yes, Sage Wolfe the estranged daughter has returned and, yes, if you try anything fucking stupid, she will be a problem for you.”

Viktor’s eyes flashed dangerously and he took two steps toward me but a blur of brown rushed past me and hit Viktor. The sound of strong snapping jaws and vicious growls filled the air. The animal moved and Viktor scrambled to his feet, his mouth open angrily, a threat on the tip of his tongue, but aside from a tear in his shirt was unscathed.

“I believe you have overstayed your welcome.” Conan commented.

“Incase you aren’t clear on the matter, if you cross these boarders again without permission it will under any and all circumstances be considered an act of war.”

“You are not Alpha!” Viktor seethed, his words dangerous and cutting. “You cannot order decrees, child.”

“No,” a figure rose from the ground to tower over me and at 6’3 he was eyelevel with Viktor. “but I am—the statement stands.”

Viktor’s eyes pulled to the man, disbelief in his face. A hiss left his lips before he turned on his heels and stormed away.

“Be sure to escort our guest to the boarders.” He ordered in a powerful voice filled with command.

Shadows moved at the edges of my vision, they never came into focus but as I opened my senses I could sense each and every one of them—nine individual wolves moving as one collective movement, stealthy as ninjas through the shadows and brush keeping out of sight.

Conan took a hesitant step forward, the command driving him along with the others; the command I didn’t feel.

“Except you Conan.” His muscles relaxed as he came to stand beside me.

The older man’s gaze turned to meet me. Salt and pepper hair, black eyes, olive skin, crows feet, smile lines, 5’o clock shadow, and one large telling scar that ran from just beneath his ear down his neck. His eyes sparkled and his mouth upturned in a warm grandfatherly smile.

“Sagemint.”

“Uncle K.”

I couldn’t help myself I leaped into his arms and for all the lack of strength in appearance Mankato was in actuality very strong. He caught me, lifting me into his arms as easily as Conan who was less than half his age and twice his size in muscle.

Mankato wasn’t actually my Uncle, in fact I was the only one in my family aloud to address him as such; he was my godfather and…well Alpha of the Western pack now.

“Let me have a look at you,” He insisted pulling away from me and holding me at arms length. He shook his head in wondrous disbelief. “Time away has been good to you,” He smiled touching my cheek. “But we’ve missed you m’dear.”