The Second Covenant

The image faded and I let go of the wolf. “Oh shit.” I said and hands spun me around. My father. “What? What’s oh shit?” I looked up at him and didn’t know how exactly to go about explaining this. “They kept werewolves.” I said and he frowned at me. “What?” I waved at the room, the claw marks. “Werewolves, a mother and son. They came down here during the full moon, so they wouldn’t hurt anyone. The mother made a pact, with us, our families, they protected us and we protected them.”

Tyler nodded like that was common knowledge. “Yeah, it’s in the Book of Damnation, she was the last of the pack in Salem. Originally, there were twelve ruling packs, each in a different territory. Our family kept them safe during the Damnation. After she died, the boy left to find another pack. That‘s what it says in the book anyway.” I laughed, a shrill, almost hysterical sound. “Cherish, what the hell is wrong?” I pointed at the statue. “She had purple eyes. Like mine. Her eyes were purple, she‘s related to us somehow.” I told my dad and his jaw worked. “That can’t be right.”

I heard a lone, mournful howl and my head jerked up. “I could be wrong of course.” He said after a tense moment. The wolf howled again and my body twitched, something uncurled from a deep place inside me. Power lashed under my skin, fur where fur should never have touched. I could see the little wolf in my mind, it was me. Small and black, felt the desire to answer that call. We knew that sound, it was pack, home, safe. We wanted out. Now.

Hands tightened on my arms, I had a body, a human body, not wolf. I swam up towards the surface of that power, opened my eyes to find that I had let my head fall back, was held up only by the hands at my back and on my arms. “Cherish?”
“Dad?”
“What is that?” I swallowed and lifted my head up, saw shadows cast on the walls from the fire of the circle. “Wolf.” I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. The wolf outside howled a third time and I shuddered, my hands pulled into claws. “I need to get outside.” I panted and jerked myself out of the hands holding me, ran up, out of the darkness of the underground cavern, out to where the night air swirled, where the moon shone down, a mere thumbnail of light, but so bright…so bright.

I burst through the back door and stumbled to a stop in the yard. My wolf was there, and four others. But he was the biggest, mine. Pack. I felt them tense, smelled their nervousness when my father and uncles came out after me. “Don’t hurt them.” I rasped, my voice lower, the air in my lungs felt to thick to breathe. I dropped down in the grass, on my hands and knees, struggling to keep the wolf inside me, but it hurt. I shouldn’t be changing, it wasn’t the full moon. Furry bodies slid alongside my arms, my cheek, I could smell them, sweet, nose wrinkling musk. Wolf. Safe.

I’d never known you could pull the smell of something around you like a hug, but I turned my face into that fur and breathed deep. I was smelling so intently, hugging the smell of wolf to me like arms. All around me the wolves howled, calling to that little black inside me. But we didn’t want to change, it wasn’t safe, to change was to be vulnerable, there was something out there that the pack couldn’t protect us from. “No.” I said and the wolf, my silver, blue eyed wolf thrust his head against my side, growling a demand at me. My alpha, demanding that I change. Demanding I come to him.

But I was alpha too, if I didn’t want to change, I didn’t have to. I shook my head, my fingers digging into the ground to keep me steady. “No.” The wolves howled together, a harmony so pure it hurt me not to join the call.

My insides started writhing like a bag of snakes, my tendons and bones shifting. It was like I was a glove, and the wolf a hand. I could feel her, limbs and fur, stretching, trying to fit. But my body didn’t fit with the wolf’s and she tried to make me fit. The pain was indescribable, exactly what I’d felt when I had ascended. It was as though every bone and muscle were tearing apart inside me to force my body to the frame of the wolf. My hands curled to make paws, but when that didn’t work, she tried to force claws out of human fingers…I couldn’t do it.

“Stop it!” I shouted, screamed the words and the wolves shut up. I was gasping, panting, feeling the power of my family throbbing behind me, the power of the wolves beating at me in front. “You’re hurting me.” I whispered and the silver, my wolf gently rubbed his muzzle along my cheek. “I’m not going to shift. I wont.” He nipped my skin with his teeth and I snarled at him, an animal sound of challenge. “Cherish, what do we do?” My father asked and the wolf in front of me, a blondish red laid his ears back and growled. “Stay there, I’m okay.” Okay, okay I could do this I could…The wolves howled again, a different sound. No longer a gentle call, they were trying to force the change on me. My wolf didn’t like force, she fought, she would never submit. Never give in, never scream. ‘Scream baby, your bodyguards aren’t here to save you.’

I heard Taylor’s voice in my head and everything fled under the terror of that memory. There was nothing but cold, cruel hands on my body, pain, fear, weak. No, not weak, powerful. Strong. They couldn’t make me. I heard myself scream again. “I said NO!” Then there was nothing but blessed quiet and soothing darkness.

I was crying, lying on my side, my face pressed against the grass trying to remember how to breathe. “Cherish, say something.” My father demanded and I gathered enough strength to look back at him. “Like what?” I growled testily and he blinked at me and I pushed up enough on my elbow to glare at my wolf.

I reached out and grabbed the ruff under his throat, drew him right up so that our eyes were a breath apart. “I might smell like a full blooded wolf to you.” I said tightly, giving him a shake. “But I’m not. If you don’t stop trying to force the change on me, the wolf you‘re smelling is going to try and tear herself out of my body.” He snorted, tossed his head and drew back with a little hurt sound. His blue eyes shimmered with shock and he dropped to his belly, gently touching his paw to my hand. “You should be sorry.” I slid up to kneel in the dirt and looked back at my white faced parent.

I nodded and he slowly came to help me stand up, let me lean on him. “What the FUCK is going on?” Uncle Pogue demanded and I turned my gaze to him. He was just as worried looking as my father. “I’m Lukoi.” I said, not even knowing how I knew that word. But I did. “You’re what?” Reid asked and tried to move closer, but one of the wolves, a brown growled at him.

Reid’s eyes flashed black and he tossed a power ball to the dirt a foot away from the wolf. “Fuck off, that‘s my damn niece.” The wolves backed off a little, looking from me to the men around me. “What you thought I was the only one?” I said and the silver wolf got up and shook himself, his fur ruffling in agitation. And I had an epiphany.

I looked around at all the wolves, and every single damn one of them had blue eyes. “You have got to be shitting me.” I muttered and the silver ruffed at me. I ran my tongue along the underside of my lip and hissed a breath out between my teeth. “Honey?” My dad was rubbing my arm, like he was trying to get me warm. But I was plenty warm. I felt like I had a fever. “Lycanthropy Uncle Reid, somewhere way back in my gene pool there was a wolf.” Reid pointed at my dad. “That makes no sense at all, your dad would be a wolf too.”

The silver shook himself again. “Dormant strands probably.” Uncle Tyler said absently, looking around the gathering of the wolves. “Five different colors, the Book says twelve.” The wolves all tensed up, I could literally smell their disquiet, feel the muscles quivering along their backs.

We were getting into the wee hours and I was about ready to drop. “Look, I’ve been up all night, I’ve worked a massive spell and nearly shifted from human to wolf. Can we call it a day?” I was gripping my dad’s arm for all I was worth, because I didn’t know if I could stand up by myself. “Yes, you think the…er…are they normal wolves or Were?” I glared down at the Alpha. “I can‘t tell.” I lied, and He glared right back at me.