Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

Jacob reached over and took my hand, and then looked up at me and smiled, a pink line of healing scar tissue bisected his lower lip, and I knew he wasn’t sorry for them.

Then you shouldn’t be either.

I smiled at him and looked back up just in time to catch Jack’s glare as a uniformed officer led him out a side door.

We shook hands with Mr. Atchison and Officer Parker again, and I led us out into the lobby. Malcolm and his mom stood at the clerk’s window, Jack’s father near them by the door. By accident, I caught his baleful gaze as we walked past. His face was hard and mottled with rage, but I held his stare and refused to back down. His eyes flicked down to my throat and I realized he was staring at the cross Fen gave me as he said, “You are a blight in the eyes of God, and He is always watching…”

“Yeah, He’s always watching,” I repeated, “so remember that the next time you lay hands on your son.”

He scowled at me with utter hatred and disgust, and then he turned and stormed out the door.
Hmm, no bail for Jack then…
I felt Mom’s hand on my back, and it snapped me out of it. My wolf settled and I walked out into the unexpectedly warm sunlight. My eyes ached as they adjusted to the brightness.

“You shouldn’t antagonize him,” Mom whispered at me as we buckled into the car, “It’s over, we won!” she shouted and high-fived Jake in the front seat. “Now, who’s up for breakfast?”

Jake whooped and started singing ‘we won, we won!’ while I sat back in my seat and stared out the window, a slight smirk on my face. It felt nice to
win
for a change…

Despite my dreams to the contrary, I felt—good— which was odd enough by itself, but oh well. ‘Weird Month’ hit full swing; I felt strong, invulnerable even. I was a wolf in man’s clothing, power drunk, and I fucking loved it. The sucky part was that Jacob got the whole day off from school, but I had to go in and finish the day’s classes.

After enjoying my court victory and the short day of classes, I walked Loki down the hall to her locker after school.
When she opened her locker, my arms wrapped themselves around her waist before the notion of self-control even ghosted through my mind.

She twisted out of my arms and leaned back against the lockers as her eyes bore into mine. My body reacted, savoring her proximity, but I still didn’t dare cross that small distance that separated us. Slowly, we grew closer and our eyes closed—

“Loki!” Fen’s voice ripped through the air the moment he came around the corner, Geri wide-eyed by his side.

She looked back at me with strained eyes; “I’m sorry,” and she broke past me and ran down the hallway and out the door.

I turned and looked back at Fen, who stood there glaring at me, the stink of his rage ripe in the air.

“Meet me here after sunset…” was all he said, and he stalked off.

“No, wait Fen—” Geri tried to stop him, but Fen shoved him into the lockers with a snarl.

I ran over to help Geri up while he glared after Fen with unmasked resentment and hate, but he pushed me away. I watched Fen storm out the doors and
savored the moment.

Finally Fen… your shell is starting to crack…

I smiled.

Dinner passed and dusk fell. I watched the last colors fade over the mountains from the school lawn, waiting hidden in the shadow of the football bleachers, warm within my jacket. The unusually warm day—which apparently
was
normal for Colorado—faded into a frigid night, and my breath condensed as it floated away over the brown grass where a half-moon broke the horizon, fat and yellow. I felt his arrival the moment he set foot on the lawn, even before his familiar scent laced through the breeze with a sour tang. I stepped out of the shadows and walked out to face him. His anger was plain to read and he was ready to assert his dominance.   Unfortunately, so was I…

“What part of ‘forbidden’ did you not understand?” he snap
ped.

“I dunno, probably the part where it’s spoken by a
hypocrite!
  ‘I can tell you what to do ‘cause I’m Alpha, and I’m strongest’,
bullshit!
We choose our own damn lives! The only reason you forbid relationships within the Pack is because
you
couldn’t get the girl, so you made sure nobody else could either!”

“Liar!” he barked so forcefully that spittle flew from his lips.

“Prove it!” I snapped right back and he flinched, “You seemed awfully willing to lead
me
along! All that time, you knew I liked you, but you knew I liked Loki too; so you toyed with my heart to pull me away from her! You used me Fen!”

“No, that’s not—”

“You’re a hypocrite and a liar Fen, and I’ll be
damned
if I ever submit to you again.
You are no Alpha!
”

Our gazes locked and the contest was on… We circled each other, growling low in our throats. That amused tutoring look was gone from Fen’s eyes, replaced by rage, jealousy, and territoriality. I knew mine were the same. This was no lesson, no romp…

We met in a crack of teeth, tearing and biting at each other, punching and clawing in a melee of savagery. It wasn’t even a matter of thought, strategy, or timing anymore. My shifting energy swirled and surged like a cloud of electricity, crackling and itching over my skin.

When Fen realized I had the upper hand, he reached into his pocket. My gut ached as soon as he pulled out the lump of turquoise, and then he jabbed it toward me as a weapon.
I jumped back on reflex and slipped into the shadows.

Fen froze, shocked as I disappeared right in front of him. I slipped around him, slapped the rock out of his hand, and then picked him up and threw him with a burst of berserker strength. Before he could even orient himself, I pounced and flattened him to the ground. With a snarl, I buried my teeth in his neck. He tried to push me off him, but I refused to relent and I squeezed until he coughed. When he realized it was over, that I had proved my dominance, he went still as death. I released him, and saw little beads of tears run down his face.

I’d never—ever—seen Fen cry before… But now his inhuman eyes looked more hurt—more
human
than I’d ever thought him capable…

He sat there with bits of dried grass all over him and glared at me. I
wished I knew why he hated me so much.

“It’s not fair…”
His human words pulled me out of my shift, leaving only the remnant energy boiling within me. “It’s not
fair!
” He screamed and surged to his feet, “Why does she love you more than me? I’ve been with her for years, and then
you
came along and she just discards me… She left me for you! It’s all your fault!”

“Loki’s life is her own, she chooses who she wants to and neither of us have any say in the matter!”

“Not just Loki!” He screamed, his fists balled at his sides and his face flushed crimson, “Lupa hasn’t visited me for months! She’s always loved you more; she just used me to get
you
back! You stole them
both
from me!”

He lunged at me and I tensed, but he collapsed against me. He sank to his knees, pounding his fist weakly against my chest. I knelt down with him and wrapped my arms around him as he wept out months, maybe years of pent-up anguish. Despite the pain he’d caused, I still couldn’t help but feel for him…

“I don’t think they left you for me,” I whispered into his hair, “I think your fear and jealousy pushed them away. They’d return to you if you were honest, I have no doubt about that.”

“They were all I ever had…” he sniffed, “I didn’t have money, or friends, or even a fucking dad… All I ever wanted was them…”

“We’ve always been here with you; I think you just needed to catch sight of us again…”

A car started in the parking lot by the athletic field, and its headlights flicked on, blinding me. I held my breath a moment, wondering if it was a cop, wondering what they saw, but its engine growled as it sped out of the parking lot. I relaxed a little, but felt uneasy.

“Hey, I think we should leave, that car spooked me.”

Fen nodded and we brushed ourselves off
, “Let’s go to Loki’s, we need to resolve this completely.”

We walked
to her house and knocked on her front door. Loki’s father answered, unhappy to see unannounced visitors so late, but he took in our disheveled and red-eyed state and then pounded on Loki’s door and told her to make it quick. We needed to talk but we couldn’t stay, so we quietly agreed to meet out at the den. She let me and Fen use her phone to call our parents, and we told them we were going to spend the night at Geri’s.

I tried to call Geri, but there was no answer. Something about it felt strange, but I tried not to dwell too much on it.

Fen and I left and walked just far enough down the street to be hidden from her house. The neighbor’s dog trotted up to the corner of the fence to greet us. She leaned against the fence and let me scratch her behind the ears as we waited.

Finally, a shadow slipped away from the house. After giving the dog one last goodbye rub, we slipped silently along the field’s
edge, careful not to leave footprints in the residual patches of snow along the fence.

Halfway back to the den the dog barked at something out on the street. I looked back, but she wasn’t barking at us so Fen started moving again and I followed. At the entrance Fen slipped down first, and I looked back where the dog was still barking.

I felt watched until I heard a bird caw nearby. I forced myself to relax, reassured that it was probably just Corwin keeping up on Pack business. Paranoia appeased, I got onto my knees and crawled inside the den as a car engine started and rumbled down the street.

We lay in silence for a while, each of us spread away from the others; a stark and painful reminder of the divisions that had formed between us as friends… as Pack…

“I guess…” Fen spoke first, “I owe you an apology… Both of you and Geri too once I see him. I was greedy, and jealous; instead of holding us together like an Alpha should, I’ve torn us apart…

“Jimmy, I’m sorry that I misled your feelings and hurt you, believe it or not, I do love you, but in the same way.” I swallowed down the bitter ache inside me as he continued, “Loki, I can’t stop loving you, I’ve tried, but I shouldn’t have caged you either; it wasn’t fair or right of me. I’m so sorry, guys…”

I sighed, hurting, “What are you supposed to say to someone when you accept their apology, but it’s not ‘all right’?”

“I guess you say
that
,” Loki answered and fidgeted in the dark, “So… What do we do now? What comes next?”

A voice whispered in the back of my mind.
You beat Fen, you should take charge…

As if he read my thoughts, Fen answered, “Jimmy beat me fair and square; so he’s Alpha now. It’s up to him.”
Well shit.

I cleared my throat. “I guess,
we just take it one day at a time.” I tried to hide the uncertainty in my voice. “Take a step back and remember the things we love about each other that we started taking for granted somewhere along the way. Right now we have to make things right with each other again.”

“In the more immediate future, let’s just stay here tonight,” Fen said, “I think a night in the den might just help us all find ourselves again…”

We kept our coats on and snuggled together against the cold February night and eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.

It chased me, the dark being just behind me without any face or body; yet real nonetheless, and inescapable. I recognized my dream, and yet even realizing it was the same dream, I had no control over it… I ran with all my might down the forest path, but this time I recognized the faces of people from school.

I ran past Fen, and tried to shake him but he merely gazed into space with vacant eyes. With a sinking powerless feeling in my gut, my body continued running against my will, and left him behind. I glanced over my shoulder and watched in horror as the onrushing wall of darkness enveloped him and tore him away from me.

I ran and ran, my chest burned and my eyes blurred with tears. This time I knew where I was heading, and eventually the path ended; and there, as before, stood the black iron gate, wreathed in fog, with the cold blue moon overhead.

I tore open the gate and dashed inside, and then stopped cold. Instead of a classroom, I entered the gymnasium.

I felt it at the threshold, peering in ravenously with such utter loathing that it chilled my blood. I turned to look at the door.

Loki stood there and held her hand out to me, oblivious to the hungry darkness behind her. My heart froze; I tried to scream out a warning and run to her but my legs felt like they were made of cement. With victorious hunger, the darkness reached out to consume her…

I woke with a cry and struggled, startling Loki and Fen out of their sleep. They asked me about the dream, but I told them it was some weird nightmare, while I reassured myself with their presence.

They’re all right, they’re okay, they’re right here.

To change the topic, I asked Fen if Lupa had visited him and he grew distant. I assumed she had not until he answered, “Yeah…”

His reaction puzzled me, “What happened?”

“She told me to uh, make a choice… And that then, things she’d foretold would begin to come true.” I frowned. I could tell he was editing a
lot
, but I let it slide for now.

Loki stretched and yawned. “Ya know, I’ve always been jealous of you two. It seems like you guys get to talk to her all the time, but I only ever catch so much as a glimpse once in a blue moon.”

I winced has her words reminded me of the dream.

“Well, maybe that’ll all change soon. Lupa made it clear that things are about to change in very big ways…” Fen looked at me in the dim light with sad eyes.

I had the strangest feeling. I didn’t want to leave the den… I wanted to stay here a very long time… It was probably nothing but some subconscious panic left from my dream, but I couldn’t get my heart to slow down. Fen gave me a sad smile and then started up the tunnel.

“Come on, it’s time…” he said.

Fen led us out of the den and stood up outside. The sun was just teasing the sky with its earliest grey light; it hadn’t even broken over the mountains yet. I snagged on a branch and reached back to unhook it when I heard a dull thud as he grunted and staggered. Something hot and wet misted my face, as Fen’s knees folded and he hit the ground next to me.