Wolven

That night, Ataneq takes me out of the Vale, away from their haven and the rest of the pack. Rowan and a woman from the pack accompany us, and we all walk together through the jagged hills. The woman's name is Lyra, I learn as we journey by Ataneq's lead. She is a hard-looking woman, with eyes as dark and sharp as her facial features, not giving much contribution to the conversation that Rowan and I hold. She isn't a native, and says she was originally a rogue outcast from a pack in Montana when I asked her. Coming from such a faraway place, I'm curious about how she ended up in the Arctic Circle, but reluctant to ask because of her standoffish nature. I join Ataneq's point position as the jagged peaks begin thinning out into peat-covered fields.

He asks me how I'm doing, and I answer with a simple response. Another matter of discussion has been on my mind since my arrival to the Vale.

"Do you remember the first time we met, Ataneq?" His cool-toned eyes look to my questioning ones as I match his stride.

"Vividly. It was only a short week ago." I look back over my shoulder, noting the distance that we've put between Rowan and Lyra, whose conversations are lost to my ears from the distance.

"During the night, you were chasing an Inuit woman carrying a young child," I add to his description, my voice soft and low. The look on his face tells me he knows where the discussion is headed. I read him only briefly, before his features turn blank. His silence bids me to continue.

"She was heavily injured… and before she died in my arms, she told me that wolves were taking the Native children from her village." I pause, checking myself before I go on. I don't want to sound like I'm accusing him, or his pack… The situation just doesn't line up with his demeanor, it doesn't line up with the peace and warmth that this man emanates.

"Why… Why would you kill her?" I find my hand moving involuntarily to his, my fore- and middle finger sliding around his last two outer digits with gentle emphasis. He looks at me with a soft expression at the contact, curling my fingers against his warm palm. That look alone begins to dispel the confusion in my heart.

"We did not," he voices as he looks down as we walk, and my hand moves back to my side. "There was no way she could know, but we were escorting her to your village, after fending off a few members of the clan that attacked it the following day." A clear set of golden orbs, alight with the fires of malice, flashed across my memory. The ghost of a scent carrying death and fear sends a chill rushing up my spine.

"The black wolf," I whisper, more to myself than to Ataneq. He nods.

"The leader of the Tornuaq clan." My thoughts return to that day in the village once more, and I let my hand fall back to its side. "Your people were on guard because of our appearance, thankfully. A runner was sent back to the Vale to gather the rest of our hunters, but the rest stayed close. We had two Highbourne within your village to protect that day."

"That infant is one as well?" I ask Ataneq, "Is it safe?" He affirms both questions silently with a nod before replying verbally.

"We gathered the babe during the confusion of the assault. He's being raised by one of the newest mothers, with a child of her own around his age." The pieces fall to place in my mind, then.

"Why is the… Tornuaq clan hunting Highbourne?" Ataneq slows to a stop as we round the base of a hill to reach a small lake, nestled between two large peaks.

"That is an explanation for another time."

My brother and Lyra join us after the moment it takes them to catch up, and I return the smile that Rowan offers me.

"Let's rock and roll, King," he says towards Ataneq, who looks from my brother to me. His warm smile coaxes the small bits of anxiety that I'd been harboring since we left the Vale to leave my chest.

"Alright, Rheaden. My guess is that you have an idea as to why you were brought out here," he starts, and I give him a small nod. "To break past the barriers you have constructed against what you are." He finishes the clarification for good measure. I take a quick glance at Lyra, then Rowan. Lyra returns my look coolly, and my brother offers me an encouraging nod. I look back to Ataneq, who beckons me to him. Once in front of him, he rests both hands lightly on my shoulders, gripping them lightly as his forehead lowers to touch mine. His icy eyes are close, his comforting scent washing over me fresh.

"Are you ready, Rheaden?" he whispers. His eyes are clear, a bright vigor behind the light-colored pigments. His sudden excitement is contagious, filling my heart with a spark of lively anticipation. I nod against his forehead, my nose brushing his slightly hooked one.

"Yes." His smile widens.

"Close your eyes," he says very softly, and I comply. "I want you to try and tune out everything but my voice." I take a steadying breath of the cold air, my lungs filling with the scents of the green hills, the lake. The aromas of late summer. I let them drop out of my mind, let the wind on my cheek become nonexistent as well as the smells. One of Ataneq's hands moves to the back of my neck, grasping me firmly. "Confront that which is inside, bring it to the forefront of your thoughts. Utilize your command over it. Identify the things that prevent you from obtaining freedom, so that you may extinguish them."

In my mind, I stand before the great wall that divides me from whatever is on the other side. The apprehension holds me back. The dull pain, the roiling distress that claws at my insides and pulls me down with a force that weakens my resistance, keeps me from any form of peace. Experimentally, I take a mental jab at this barrier, this ache. When nothing changes, I realize I have no idea what I'm doing. I try again, with a similar result. Frustration flares, its light sending a brief flash of angry heat through my heart. My tight grip on Ataneq's coat sleeves goes unnoticed to me until he returns the strong grasp to my shoulder and the back of my neck.

"You are strong, Rheaden. I am right here. I am right next to you." My eyes are still closed, and I remain in the deep focus, standing down the roiling, cloud-like barrier. Ataneq's voice comes like a brief thought, or the gentle whispering of the wind. Yet, its meaning lingers. His added strength remains with me like the heart-aching echoes of his wolven cry.

Then the fire in my heart flares again, for a short moment. The strength it gives me is something I desperately reach for as it fades, and I mentally try to face down the barrier once more in an attempt to get it back. I can feel Ataneq beside me this time. The thick, malignant clouds seem to slip through the reaching fingers of my mind, bringing back the anger at my own failure to control myself.

Know that there is raw power in anger, Rheaden.

The strength from Ataneq sparks at the sound of his distant voice, and with it, the dormant heat in my chest blazes to life. A force so fully empowering explodes through my mind, that it practically shakes me to the core with its volatile strength. The fire in my chest spreads in a quick shot through my body, shooting from head to toes like piercing forks of lightning. With an unbridled fury, I release the rage onto the barrier.

A fog blinds my mind’s eye as everything fades. Everything besides the rage, that is, which seems to increase as all else diminishes. Unleashing this fire onto the barrier makes it flare the brighter, and a feral urge for another form of release overtakes me. I can feel myself shudder, hear myself gasp through the torment. It’s beginning to become painful. Snarls and fierce cries rip from my throat, each one following the last sounding more and more inhuman. I snap open my eyes with a sudden fear as I realize I have no control over myself. My eyes see nothing, and the panic spikes.

I feel hands on my face, and more restraining my body. Ataneq’s presence flickers back for a moment, before disappearing once more. Something builds within my chest, something above all else. My heart strains, feeling like it’s going to explode within my ribcage. Finally, a piercing relief rockets through my very soul as the howl of a wolf similarly splits the air.

When the long-drawn cry, full of relieving release, comes to an end, my head drops back down into Ataneq’s cradling arms. I realize with an aching head and heart that the sound came from my own lungs. I feel paralyzed, and I cannot smell or hear anything. All I feel is the biting cold of the wind in my nostrils, the heat from my own body, the hold of Rowan’s arms around my middle and of Ataneq’s supporting my head. They both look smaller as I strain to take them in with my still-working eyes. My brother’s arms are wrapped to hold onto the lower body of a large, white canine. My body… My now-keen eyes dart up to Ataneq, his words silent to me as his mouth moves rapidly, telling Rowan and Lyra something in haste. When he finishes, he looks back to me. I feel his hand stroke my snout, below my eye, and continue to gently grasp onto one of my ears. I see him mouth my name.

As he mouths it a second time, the sound of his voice begins to fade in, along with the sound of the wind. The smells of the earth, the water, the plants, and everything else of the wind start to rush into my senses. Ataneq’s scent is the strongest, and as my sense of smell comes back, it overpowers me with a potency that makes my eyes roll back in my head. All the smells do… All of them. It seems like I can smell everything, and the onslaught of the overload causes something other than my rational side to take over.

With a quick snap of my body, I’m out of both my brother’s and Ataneq’s grasp, barely stopping once I’m up to send a growl towards the now-smaller men. Lyra stands off to the side, poised in a stance ready for action as I snarl and thrash my head about, trying to rid my sensitive nose of the shockingly strong scents. The fire is back in my chest, the same fire that released me into this form. I feel like I’m trapped within another, watching from someone else’s eyes. I have no control, it seems, but I feel every ounce of the mounting rage, the scream of muscles that burn and strain to be used immediately. The next time my eyes dart to Lyra, a large timber wolf stands in her place, its hackles raised. Rowan shifts beside her as I snarl maliciously, and Ataneq just watches me with a strong look. The crazed sense to turn and run and never stop running wins over the sudden urge to attack one of them.

My body gives in to the screaming of my tensed muscles, and I’m flying along the banks of the lake at a rushing speed, the exhilaration and the wind an invigorating combination. I feel my ears swivel involuntarily to better hear the sounds of paws on pebbles racing along from behind. I feel a strength surging through my limbs, the power to crush bone within my jaws as they snap and grind, and I know then that nothing could ever feel better.

Lyra and my brother flank me, then, coming into my view as my ears alerted me they would. I receive a sense from them that I’ve never picked up on as a human, a demeanor just from the angles of their tales, their ears, the look in their eyes. Rowan gives off a positive energy, his eyes alight with a smile and the spring in his run beckoning me to race him. Lyra is guarded… hostile and alert as she watches me with a sharp, untrusting glare. Her aggression stokes the fires of my heart.

Skidding to a halt near the lake, I return her hostility with a fierce growl and a braced stance, showing her I wasn’t threatened by such actions toward me. The fire burns hot, and the crazed, wild feeling flares when she doesn’t back off, but stands to face me instead. My jaws are shooting for her throat before I have any chance to think rationally.

I connect with Lyra, the sharp bark from my brother sounding over the growls and yips that come from our scrabbling forms. The dominance shifts between us as we roll and fight, and soon Rowan is barreling into me after I have Lyra pinned down. I turn on him just as well, anger erupting anew. My brother is bigger than Lyra as a wolf, but still smaller then my own wolven body. Yet, he is strong, very strong. Our struggle stokes the rage like a stalwart bellows. Watching this all behind the bars of my instincts, I feebly beg myself not to kill Rowan.

In an instant, another body slams into mine again, sending myself and the assailant off of Rowan and into the gravely ground. I snarl, expecting to have another go at Lyra. Ataneq’s musk baths my senses with an icy shock, weakening my already-futile struggles from beneath the giant wolf. A growl rumbles from my chest as I bare my teeth at him, the action diminishing in courage as his shocking eyes pin me down with a force that rivals his body weight. His own large canines are revealed as his black lips pull back in a silent warning. My strength and my hostility is sapped underneath Ataneq… King… and I suddenly feel extremely ashamed. I can’t hold his eye contact. My tail tugs to tuck between my back limbs, which are smashed together under the weight of one of this alpha’s rear legs. My eyes close tightly as my snout nudges the rocky ground, my head trying to rotate away from his accusing gaze.

He holds me down for quite some time, before his crushing weight relents. He remains over me, forelegs on either side of my head. I keep my eyes averted from his. The pressure of his snout against my neck causes my eyes to strain down towards him, the side of my head still flat against the ground. His eyes are closed, and the demeanor I sense from him causes my more human thoughts to override the wolven ones. He is still Ataneq. I am still Rheaden.

He continues to nudge me, his nose working up to gently nip my ear, to lightly touch my own black nose. The contact makes the feral feelings of anger evaporate, and a different, weird feeling starts in my heart and pulses outward. Ataneq’s huge body lowers to a crouch beside mine, his cold nose remaining. I feel a wave of encouragement from him. I close my eyes as I let myself fall into the rush of tingling cold. When I open them again, the fur of a wolf tickles my face... My human face.

Ataneq shifts against me. My senses return with a dizzying feeling, and Ataneq’s arms tighten around me. He is crouched beside me where I half-lie on the ground, my upper body held and cradled in his arms. My face is against his neck, my arms folded between our upper bodies. I roll my head back onto his shoulder, looking up at him as the strands of his long hair fall to brush one of my cheeks. He’s smiling at me.

“I’m… so sorry…” I whisper. His hand rises from my arm to cup the side of my face, very close to his own. He shakes his head as his gentle smile broadens, his forehead closing the mere inch of space to rest down on mine.

“You succeeded, Rheaden. You drove beyond the first and hardest step,” he tells me very softly, pausing to lift his chin up and touch his lips to my brow before replacing his forehead there, “And most importantly, you’re alive.”