Bloodling Wolf

Bloodling Wolf

by Aimee Easterling

Copyright © 2014 by Aimee Easterling.

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"A bloodling!" My father's voice is filled with disgust and his large hands are quick to drop me back into the midwife's arms. "Why did you even bring it out for me to see?"

The room, which was full of jovial laughter and the scent of cigars only moments earlier, is now silent. My eyes are still closed, but I can scent the dominant male werewolf in front of me, along with several other alpha-leaning shifters. Anger from my father nearly drowns out the other aromas, but I pick up sorrow and repulsion in equal measure. The former seems to emanate most strongly from a male who I later learn is my mother's younger brother Oscar, but my uncle soon slips out the door, taking his tear-laden scent along with him.

"He's a boy, and healthy," the midwife speaks up after a moment, her voice quavering with fear. Even with my eyes glued shut, I'm able to understand that no one stands up to my father, so I'm impressed by the woman's spine. "The heir and a spare...." the midwife continues, but my father has turned away, dismissing the woman from his thoughts.

As a pup, I'm less interested in adult voices than in the smell of blood wafting from the room I was recently carried out of. Childbirth...and death. No wonder my father seems less than pleased by my presence. I changed to wolf in the womb—fourteen years earlier than most werewolves—and tore my mother apart during my unwitting struggles to escape the wet dark. Later, I'll learn that it wasn't my murderous act that turned my surviving parent against me. Bloodlings are forced to spend their entire childhood as wolf pups, unlike most werewolves who enjoy human form until their first change. Those of us who start off four-footed are never quite the same even after shifting, our brains having ossified into wolf form. To me, that's a good thing. Dear old Dad sees it differently.

On the day of my birth, though, these deep thoughts all lie in the future. Cradled in the midwife's arms, I mewl a complaint at the cold, at my hunger, and at the confused emotions swirling around me. The sound is enough to turn my father's eye back onto his unwanted child. "Toss it out to freeze," he orders.

I'm plucked from the midwife's embrace by one of the male wolves, who now smells of annoyance and distaste. The unknown shifter dangles me by the scruff of my neck, opens the door to the even colder outdoors, and I tumble head over heels as I fly through the air and then land in a pile of soft, yet frigid, snow. I struggle at first, but my minuscule weight just drags me down deeper into the frozen powder, and soon my nose is all that remains above the snow's surface. At last, I succumb to the chill and settle down to die.

To my young brain, I seem to lie there forever, but my exile must last mere moments. The sorrowful uncle who fled my father's house had set a simple yet effective plan in motion, cracking open the neighboring residence's door and counting on a toddler's curiosity to draw that young werewolf outside into the snow. When Chase finds me, an interesting ball of fluff nearly on his doorstep, he isn't gentle, but the toddler's warmth awakens the spark of life that has nearly fled from my damp form. My playmate-to-be drags me into his home by one paw, my sodden body thumping up the stairs behind him, and my lack of struggles attest to our newfound understanding—I'll be Chase's pet, and he'll be my lifeline.

"What is
that
?" Chase's mother exclaims as her intrepid son wrestles a nearly dead wolf pup into her kitchen. I can sense the adult's distress when she realizes who and what I am, but Chase's mother possesses the softest heart in our village. When her son jabbers his baby-talk request, she can't resist—Tia braves my sharp teeth and takes me into her arms to nurse.

Soft-hearted mother or no, I would have been tossed back out into the snow if I'd found my way into any other household. But Chase's father died not long before, and his mother now answers to no dominant male. So she takes me in, and by the time my father realizes what was happening, there's no going back. Chase and I are milk brothers, and Tia is willing to protect us both with her life.

"Halfie! Halfie!" The taunts ringing out across the playground would've made you think I was surrounded by a pack of wolves. Oh, wait, yep—a pack of wolves.

My age-mates and I were now old enough to shift, but since we studied under adult shifters in a werewolf-only schoolhouse, we generally took whatever form felt the most comfortable. For everyone else, that was human. Me? I stayed wolf.

The girl being taunted was two-footed, although fear would have made her transform to wolf shape if she'd been of age. Her face was flushed and her eyes frantically scanned the grounds in search of an adult to stop the bullying, but older shifters tended to let these matters run their course. Halfies weren't as disdained as bloodlings, but those werewolves with some human blood often gave birth to pure-human sons, and their halfie daughters did the same. In a pack obsessed with the male lineage, halfies were considered bad blood—allowed in the village, but definitely not good enough for a dominant wolf to mate with.

Or to talk kindly to, apparently. At the moment, the most dominant youngster of all was hurling insults toward the halfie girl. He wouldn't admit to our relationship, but this was Justin, my biological brother and a scaled-down version of our shared father. Justin was slated to become our village's next alpha wolf, and he already acted the part in the schoolyard. As a result of his dominance, everyone with any sense was afraid to take him on, which was why even the better wolves around me were looking the other way rather than helping the taunted halfie. The worse wolves were joining Justin in his sadistic game.

Luckily for the halfie girl, I didn't count myself among those who possessed sense, and I was quite willing to take advantage of my wolf form's ability to act now and think later. Pure protective rage led my charge through the throng of Justin's cronies and up to the halfie in the center. As I faced my bullying brother and bared my fangs, I could feel the girl's hand close onto the fur along my raised ruff, testifying to her relief at my presence. Unlike most members of our community,
she
was happy to see my bloodling face.

Turning my attention back to my brother, I hoped a show of teeth would be enough to deescalate the situation. While he would never admit it, Justin was scared shitless of his little brother since I wasn't really his
little
anything, except in age. One of the benefits of being a bloodling was that I'd grown up on a wolf's schedule, not a human's. Justin was two years older than me, but I had a man's body while my brother still looked like a teenage boy. In wolf form, the difference was even more pronounced since Justin's scrawny ribs stuck out through his fur and his paws looked huge on the ends of his feet. On the other hand, no alpha male could back down from a challenge if he wanted to maintain his position within the pack, so despite being outclassed, Justin ripped off his shirt, kicked off his pants, and started to change.

The girls all averted their eyes, and I couldn't blame them. There was nothing sexy about my brother's naked form, either as a man or as a wolf. Definitely not during this in-between stage when his bones were shifting into new arrangements and hair was sprouting out of his ears. It made a difference, too, that my brother was still learning to control his wolf limbs. Something I'd learned...oh, around about when our shared father tossed me out into the snow.

So I wasn't worried when I growled at the wolf in front of me and Justin bared his teeth in reply. The kids around us probably couldn't tell with their untrained human noses, but I could smell the reek of fear on Justin's breath. I knew I'd won before we even started.

I could almost hear Chase telling me to do the smart thing, to use Justin's anxiety against him, giving me time to back the girl out of the bully's way and defuse the situation. But my wolf brain just wanted to tear Justin apart and usurp his position within the pack. I did, however, reserve enough of my human self to nudge the halfie into flight before I let my wolf have his head. The girl scurried between the ranks of Justin's lackeys, her face trained onto the ground and relief evident in her scent.

Justin took advantage of my distraction by charging, his shoulder knocking into mine, but even the element of surprise couldn't gain the smaller wolf an advantage. It was as if my brother had hit a brick wall, and I barely swayed on my feet at the contact. Too bad I wasn't two-legged, or I could have laughed in his face and watched my blood brother's face turn red with anger. But the chagrin now coating his scent was satisfying enough to feed my wolf's appetite for submission, and I opened my mouth in a doggie grin.

If my brother had taken a step back then, I might have let the altercation go, but Justin's fangs remained bared, so I prepared to retaliate. Before I could tear into the smaller wolf, though, a raised adult voice rolled across the playground and stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't focus my human brain enough to catch the words, but I
did
understand the rough hands that pulled me and my brother apart. Our fight was over before it really had time to start.

As adults converged on us, Justin was yanked away and then set loose, and my brother shook his fur angrily at being manhandled before stalking away. In contrast, I was rolled over onto my back, belly exposed to the air, and the rebuke was strong in the voice of the teacher above me. I didn't protest, even though anyone could have told the adults that Justin had been the bully in this situation, not me. It was par for the course—our teachers wouldn't protect a halfie, but they
would
protect an alpha's son.

***

"I know
why
you did it, but it was still stupid," Chase lectured as we walked into the nearest town. I yawned, ignoring his words since my milk brother's scent only held a hint of worry nearly hidden beneath the dominant flavor of contented excitement. Chase had asked Tia if we could skip school today to pick up some supplies in town, and my foster mother had agreed, mostly because she was worried about the repercussions of my schoolyard chivalry the day before. But, despite his lecture, Chase wasn't actually all that concerned about my past actions, so I just rubbed my head up against his trailing hand and broke into a trot as the nearest houses came into view.

It took me a full minute to realize that my brother was yelling after me rather than following in my wake. Chase had often said that one of the worst things about bloodlings is that they had a hard time focusing on human speech. But who really cared about all those words? My brother had already wasted the entire forty-minute walk rambling on about the previous day's events, when it all boiled down to emotions I could pick up with one sniff. In my opinion, it was the "normal" werewolves who were handicapped, since they required decades to begin understanding the wolf brain, if they ever even made that mental leap. Plus, as Justin knew, a normal werewolf teenager was no match for a bloodling of any age.

"You stupid wolf!" my milk brother finished. I finally squashed my wolf brain enough to parse what Chase was saying, and the words made me laugh, lolling my tongue out the side of my mouth. Despite Chase's speech, his scent was full of fondness, with just a hint of exasperation underneath.
Oh right
, I remembered as I wracked my brain to figure out why he would be upset at me this time.
The leash law
.

"You know, you
could
just change into human form, and then this farce would be unnecessary," Chase grumbled, snapping a collar and leash around my neck. The collar itched, and I dropped into a crouch so I could scratch the annoying band of cloth until it lay in a better position atop my ruff. Despite the tickling sensation, though, I ignored my blood brother's advice and stayed wolf. Even though Chase refused to acknowledge the fact, I did better around people in canine form. A fact that was confirmed by the old lady who greeted us as we walked down Main Street.

"Chase and Wolfie!" Mrs. Tiller exclaimed happily, pulling a dog biscuit out of her purse for me and gracing my brother with a smile. I dropped into a sit and raised one paw, gently tapping it against her knee. The lady responded by laughing merrily, then watched with satisfaction as I chomped down the treat. "I'm so glad you brought your dog instead of your cousin today," she confided to my milk brother. "That boy was a little odd, don't you think? Autistic, maybe?"

Chase's cheeks turned red, and embarrassment rolled off him in an overwhelming wave. My kind-hearted brother was unhappy that I'd heard the lady's words, but the truth was that I agreed with everything she'd said. Mrs. Tiller and I got along just fine when I was a wolf-pretending-to-be-a-lapdog. Not so much when I was a wolf-pretending-to-be-a-boy.

Before Chase could put his foot in his mouth in a misplaced effort to protect me, though, we heard the clopping of horse hooves on the pavement and turned in tandem to peer behind us. Our werewolf pack used the illusion of being Amish...or maybe a low-key cult—we didn't specify...to keep outsiders at bay, and the buggy rolling toward us was another aspect of that illusion. My father kept a car in his garage for the rare occasions when long-distance travel was necessary, but for the most part we used horses to get around. Youngsters like us rode shank's mare.

Rare as it was, you'd think a lift home would have been a treat, but Chase and I eyed each other with worry, knowing that the presence of a buggy meant that one or both of us was in trouble. And Mrs. Tiller agreed with the assessment. "I hope you didn't do anything terrible," she said to Chase with a mischievous grin, then simply laughed when my brother assured her that it was Wolfie who was in the virtual dog house. The old woman thought Chase was joking, but my blood brother and I were well aware who the buggy had come for.

As Mrs. Tiller said her farewells, the buggy pulled up to the curb beside us, and I was glad to see that my favorite uncle was the one who would fetch me home. The same man who'd helped save my life years ago still walked the fine line between obeying his alpha and following his heart, and I imagined that Uncle Oscar had volunteered to pick me up today so the truly painful part of the afternoon could be put off until after my arrival. Wordlessly, I shot Chase a goodbye tail wag and jumped into the buggy to face the music.

***

My trailing leash caught on something and jerked me to a halt as I entered the alpha's sitting room, where I was to wait for his attention. Oh, wait, my leash hadn't caught on some
thing
...it had caught on some
one
.

"A leash?" my blood brother laughed, yanking my head around to face him. "Really?"

I could have kicked myself for not remembering the stupid restraint earlier, but Chase had been kind enough to put a lot of thought into the contraption, so I wasn't as snagged as Justin thought I was. All it took was a simple twist of my head followed by one sharp yank, and then the velcro my milk brother had sewn into the collar parted to leave me scot-free.

My human brain would have rubbed my easy escape into Justin's face with some witty repartee, but my wolf brain thought it was amusing to simply roll over and scrape my back along the carpet as if I needed to get rid of an ornery itch. Of course, it didn't hurt that the playful move made it clear I wasn't afraid of my brother's teeth one bit.

"Stupid wolf," Justin muttered, then added, more loudly, "Will you pay attention? You don't even need to shift—I'll talk and you listen." I yawned, but sat up, curious what my blood brother thought I'd want to hear.

As I waited, Justin began to pace back and forth across the sitting room, wasting energy that a smarter wolf would have put into the hunt. My own lupine half understood that my brother was definitely hunting something, and we pitied the poor shifter for being unable to turn on his wolf brain while in human form to make the chase go more smoothly. Instead, Justin ended up wasting energy with erratic two-legger emotions, energy that could have been used to tunnel directly toward his goal.

Eventually, as my blood brother's silence continued, boredom overcame me. I dropped down into a lounge and had just begun to doze off when Justin's words returned me to his presence. Too bad—naps were one of the best things about wolf brain. I lolled my tongue out of my mouth in amusement at the thought...and at the look on my blood brother's face when he realized that, far from being intimidated by his pacing, I had instead taken the opportunity to catch up on my z's.

"I
said
," my brother continued, "that this village isn't big enough for both of us." If I'd been human, I would have rolled my eyes. Really? This was the best my big brother could come up with after several minutes of deep thought? The teenager needed to work on his elocution skills. Of course, I wasn't one to talk since I spent 99% of my time in wolf form and mostly got by on head shakes and tail wags, but I also wasn't trying to pretend I was some movie sharpshooter, now was I?

"We all know I'm going to be the next alpha," Justin continued, blissfully unaware of my snarky internal dialogue. "And your posturing is going to get someone hurt." Someone? The dunce in front of me was the only one in any danger, the way I figured it. Although I might just die of boredom if I was forced to listen to Justin's monologue much longer.

My blood brother glared straight into my eyes and I matched him stare for stare. "You're old enough to start your Running Around time early," the older shifter growled at last, struggling not to look away as my own piercing gaze trumped his. "Take my advice and go find a mate somewhere else," he muttered, his voice getting quieter under my steady gaze, but remaining adamant. "This pack isn't safe for you," he concluded.