Mated for Life Read online

  “Piss off, Onid!” Gindy spat. I held up my hand to silence him, and stepped forward in my adversary's direction.

  “Onid,” I said. “I should have been expecting this...”

  “Yes,” he sneered. “You really should have...”

  “I'm not afraid of you,” I said. “You see, despite your lofty regard for the nature of violence, I hold a very different view. I would much rather preserve life whenever possible. I would rather let peace flourish, so that all parties may benefit. But don't think for a moment that I harbor any reluctance about kicking your furry ass should my hand be forced to do so. Because I can, and I will do just that.”

  Onid threw back his head and cackled with laughter.

  “I'm not so sure about that,” he said. “If you were so capable of defending yourself and your people as you claim, then surely the surrounding humans would find it impossible to continue encroaching upon our territory. Taking more and more and more from us, threatening our very lives while our leader sits idly, and twiddles his fucking thumbs... If I was in your position, I'm positive I would have mustered up a legitimate response to such tactics by now. The fact that you haven't leads me to a single conclusion. You are afraid, Ethin. And your fear makes you unfit to lead...”

  “Are you sure you're prepared to stake your entire life on that bet?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

  Onid appeared very serious for a moment, his features falling entirely flat. Then a wide, wicked smile spread ear to ear across his face, his malevolent black eyes seeming to gleam with a blinding light.

  “Positive...” he breathed.

  And then he leapt at me, his body soaring across the room, contorting as it passed through the air. His clothes fell in tatters to the floor beneath him, and a thick black mane of fur erupted across his flesh. He hit the ground running on all fours, his obsidian claws tearing up splinters of wood as he charged toward the two of us.

  I lunged at him, hurtling toward the ground and undergoing a similar transformation, my own fur snow white compared to Onid's sable pelt. I hit the floor and rose up, howling at my attacker as he approached, my sky blue eyes locked upon him.

  I took a single step forward, but before I could get anywhere near Onid I saw a fast gray stroke of movement. It was Gindy, down on all fours as well, full of piss and vinegar and chomping at the bits too kick Onid's ass before I got the chance.

  His muzzle snapped at the air, clearly angling for Onid's throat, but Onid was far too quick for him. The black wolf ducked, then threw his head up against Gindy's chin, knocking his head back through the air. Gindy yelped and Onid lunged at him bearing his yellow teeth. I leapt in to intervene, tackling Onid to the floor before he had the chance to strike.

  The two of us toppled across the splintering wood, dust flying as we careened toward the far wall of the bedroom. Gindy leapt up to add himself to the fray but was thrown violently off course by one of Onid's dark gray colored cohorts. A third wolf trailed after the two of them, remaining the final minion to leap onto the pile in which Onid and I now fought.

  The three of us rolled spastically across the cabin, two sets of fangs digging into my sides, the heat of my own blood warming me as it spilled across my pelt. I chomped down on a neck, and slashed an angry claw across the air, gratified by the sound of a yelp on the receiving end. The gray wolf staggered backwards from the pile, his left eye decorated by a crimson band of blood.

  Before I could savor this small victory, Onid was slamming his weight down onto me, throwing his hot mouth down to try and sever my jugular. I scrambled from beneath him and bucked my skull up under his chin. He slashed the side of my face with his claws but I quickly recovered from the blow, rearing back, and charging forward to smash him into the wood of the floor molding.

  I rose up over Onid, trying to think of some quick and easy way to end this. Before anything came to mind, however, the minion I'd half-blinded came thundering back toward the two of us, leaping through the air right at me.

  I dodged out of the way and the attacker landed square against Onid's midriff instead, knocking him momentarily out of breath. Onid swatted an angry paw against his would-be helper, knocking him back. The minion nipped at Onid's paw, as though briefly forgetting his loyalties, then both of them sprang up, and lunged at me.

  Again the gray wolf was knocked off course, this time by Gindy, leaping up from behind me, tackling the minion to the ground. Their jaws snapped at one another, but Gindy was off of him again nearly as soon as he'd gone on. Another of the henchmen went chasing after him, both of them leaping through the bedroom door and disappearing out into the hallway.

  I glanced over for about a half second to see that one of the two wolves Gindy had been facing lay panting on the floor in a pool of blood, looking unlikely to make it. His half-blinded companion evidently saw this too, because he let out a murderous howl, and came shooting forward teeth bared, ready to end me in retaliation.

  I bolted for him, ducked beneath his muzzle, and clamped my teeth down as hard as I could against his neck. I began to pull. To tear. To rip the very life force out of him. The gray wolf struggled and thrashed, pulling back from me, but I refused to let go. I felt something vital and delicate tearing between my jaws, and tasted the hot brackish flow of his blood across my tongue.

  I was robbed the satisfaction of directly experiencing his last dying thrashes, by the ballistic force of Onid's body smashing down on me from above, pinning me to the floor. I rolled onto my back and whipped my claws across his face, evoking a yelp.

  We rolled across the room in the opposite direction, a frenzy of fur and fangs and claws. Again and again his teeth came down, searing through my flesh, the accumulation of bloody wounds coming so fast and so close together that they began to run one into another, and gradually become numb.

  I wheeled furiously up onto him, throwing my weight down hard and pinning him to the floor. I darted for the base of his throat, and he was too slow to chomp back at me before I had my teeth set into him. I bit down on his neck. I pulled, and I pushed.

  I slammed his head repeatedly down against the wood's hard surface, bashing down his skull, his rich dark blood staining my gums and spilling down my throat.

  I'm some pacifist, I thought, as at last I shifted my weight down below, threw my body forward and snapped his legs at the knees.

  I reared back, bloody, panting and exhausted, and watched the yelping, wheezing creature as he lay there. I almost felt sorry for him, the flow of his blood so abundant that it seemed to glow against the pitch black of his fur. But then, slowly, he began to change. His body shrank back down into its human state. Blood matted fur receded into his bronze flesh, bite marks now clearly visible in abundance across his muscular body.

  He was no longer yelping now, crying out for mercy, even with his legs seeming to dangle from his body.

  Instead he lay there, the smug bastard, laughing.

  I growled at him, as though this might actually get him to change his tune, despite knowing damn well that I was only egging him on.

  “You poor, deluded son of a bitch,” he cackled. “You really think you've won? You really believe that by defeating me, you've in any way reclaimed a throne that should never have belonged to you in the first place? Oh no, my dear child... You haven't won. Because you aren't a leader. And I am merely the tip of the iceberg. There are countless other wolves out there more deserving of the title of alpha. Men who will finish what I have started, even if I fail. You are alone in this world, Ethin. Completely, and totally alone. As such, you do not have a prayer, a hope of reclaiming your authority. I, however, I have the strength of numbers on my side. And once word of what you've done to me spreads to the rest of the pack, it will only cause their hunger for a regime change to grow even more fervent.”

  I was through listening to his bullshit.

  I rose up onto my hind legs, and shifted back into my human form.

  I stepped forward, staring Onid dead in his black, wicked eyes
. I brought up a foot, and placed it gently, threateningly against his Adam's apple. He didn't even swallow, only smiled more broadly still.

  “Beg me for mercy,” I snarled at him, “and I might just think about sparing your life...”

  Onid laughed. “You know I speak the truth...”

  “I know you speak out of your goddamn ass!”

  “You're afraid...”

  “Fuck you!”

  I was on the verge of extinguishing him, foot raised, ready to come crashing down against his windpipe. But then a horrible cry rang out from down the hallway. A cry I instantly recognized as Gindy's.

  I completely dismissed Onid from my thoughts, and raced toward the sound. Leaping into the sitting room I saw Gindy, pinned beneath the hulking gray weight of his attacker, covered in blood, and wheezing feebly for life.

  I rushed forward. I bit down into the wolf's side, plunging my fangs so deep into his flesh that I might have pulled out his internal organs had I wished to do so.

  I flung my head, and tossed the dog forward, into the raging yellow light of the hearth a few feet away.

  Instantly I realized what a stupid mistake I'd just made.

  The wolf cried out as the flames engulfed him, his gray fur instantly catching fire and charring midnight black. He leapt out of the hearth and flew the room like a bat out of hell, racing right past Gindy and I in an effort to extinguish himself, and leaving a steady trail of flames behind him in his wake.

  The cabin began to erupt into flames all around us. Plumes of fire wafted toward the ceiling, and black smoke clouded the entire room, with Gindy and I still caught dead in its center.

  Gindy sat up, shifting back into his human form, and coughed up a mouthful of blood. I transformed and stooped down, hurrying to gather his broken body up into my arms.

  “Gindy! Gindy, are you alright?”

  “Fucking leave me!” he begged, spitting blood onto my shoulder as he spoke.

  “Shut the hell up!” I boomed, over the increasing roar of the fire.

  “There's no reason that both of us have to die!” he argued.

  “There's no reason that either of us has to die!” I countered, and because I was the only one with working limbs at that moment, I was the one to win out in the end.

  I hoisted Gindy's dead weight up onto my shoulder, and we began to make our way laboriously through the very fires of hell, sparks and ashes swirling through the air around us. We'd no sooner made it to the doorway when a huge wooden beam collapsed in front of us, impeding our way out.

  “Shit!” I yelled, the roar of the flames now deafening. “Think you're up for some heavy lifting?” I yelled to Gindy.

  “You're joking, right?” he yelled.

  “I wish to God I was!”

  Mustering up the last vestiges of strength in his broken body, Gindy helped me clear the burning beam from the doorway, then immediately collapsed back against my shoulder.

  “I've got you!” I called to him, holding him close. “We're almost there now! Just a few more steps! We're almost there!”

  The sight of my cabin burning against the vastness of the Milky Way overhead was almost beautiful as we stepped out into the night, our hair singed, our bodies decorated with any number of surface injuries, but the damage, all things considered, surprisingly minimal.

  I sat Gindy down against the trunk of a tree, and then stared up in awe at the plumes of black smoke twisting upward toward the night sky. My thoughts fell inevitably to Leira, and the last remnants of her dying days being incinerated by the blaze. All those haunting memories, their visual presence now wiped wholesale from the earth. Henceforth, they would exist only in the confines of my tortured thoughts, and I was still too frazzled to decide whether I'd be better or worse off.

  “Um... Ethin...”

  I looked down at Gindy, and then up to where his eyes were pointed.

  He was staring off beyond the burning cabin, at a forest of human bodies silhouetted against the trees, all of them staring directly at the two of us.

  I turned toward them, taking several arrogant steps in their direction.

  “My brethren!” I called. “There has been an attempt on my life by the one called Onid! He and his men were all slain in the attempt, but I beg you– if any among you were privy to the details of this conspiracy, speak now! Let us end this madness before it spirals even further from our grip! Let us continue to flourish in a peaceful society, and weed out such underhanded treachery before it truly has the chance to take root!”

  I waited for a response, but none came. Only the crackle of the flames, and the endless staring of wide black eyes, glinting against the firelight.

  It was Gindy who at last broke the silence.

  “Ethin... I don't think they're your brethren. I think they're Onid's brethren...”

  I stared down at him, then looked back up at the crowd. They continued to stare, unblinking. And through some deep seeded instinct, some minute chemical change in the air, I knew that Gindy was right.

  “You need to get out of here,” Gindy breathed. “Go! Now!”

  “What– no, no, I– I can't leave you...”

  “You can, and you have to!” he hissed. “I'll tell them I was a double agent, that I'm on Onid's side... But if you don't leave now they'll tear you to fucking shreds!

  “Gindy...” I said, and it felt as though I was watching Leira die all over again, with no hope of stopping it.

  But then suddenly, one of the men leapt forward. He transformed in midair, howling as his feet his the ground. Then someone else transformed. Then someone else. Then someone else...

  I gave Gindy a last sad look.

  “Go!” he yelled, and I was forced to leave behind the man who was like a brother to me.

  I turned. I leapt into the air, and bolted from my burning home on all fours. The ground trembled beneath my feet with the weight of the approaching stampede, and it was all I could do to keep on running, even as my lungs seemed to burn as ferociously as the cabin, even as my head started spinning, struggling to process all that had just taken place.

  It had taken a long, long time, but at last the process was complete.

  Everything I'd ever known and loved had finally been taken from me. And as I made my descent into the growing darkness, the after image of the embers still dancing across my field of vision, I knew that my life would never be the same.

  2

  Natalie

  Three Months Later

  “But this did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body and soul, to the man-animals. He could not immediately forego his wild heritage and his memories of the Wild. There were days when he crept to the edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling him far and away.”

  There was always something calling me away. There'd always been that pull inside me. The desire to be somewhere far away, as far away as I could get from where I was. And then when I got to that place, wherever it happened to be, I wound up longing to be somewhere else again.

  That was why I'd always loved books. Books were an escape, a method of transports into other realities, all of them greatly preferable to my own.

  Tonight, however, books were failing me. And I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from where I was as possible.

  “Wooo! Yeah! Chug, chug, chug!”

  I turned, looking sadly up at the bar. I'd chosen this place to study because, believe it or not, this was one of the quieter joints in town. I didn't actually drink– the bartender had thought at first I was joking when I just ordered a ginger ale– but I'd needed to be somewhere other than my dorm room tonight. The residence hall had lately been ablaze with noise and distractions, to the point that this place, scarcely populated as it often was, seemed a far better place to study for my exams.

  But then again, this was the end of term. Which meant that nowhere in town was truly safe from the raucous celebrations of partygoers.

  In all honesty, I didn't feel like I had th
at much to celebrate.

  Instead of relief, I felt nothing but anxiety about the prospect of completing my college degree after four and a half years. I was panicking about this final English exam, and the question of my prospects once I'd finished with school, as well as about a million other things that I couldn't afford to think about right now.

  Worst of all, though, I couldn't help but feel as though my entire college experience had been a huge wasted opportunity for me. Not that I hadn't excelled academically– my current paranoia was in service of trying to maintain a perfect 4.0 grade point average right to the very end.

  It was the opposite of that, really. College, I'd been told, was the time to let loose and discover who you really were. To be a little bit wild, and let your hair down once in a while– or perhaps every other night, as most of my classmates believed.

  But in four and a half years, I'd never made it to a single party. I'd never had a single drink. I'd never even gotten laid.

  And now it was over...

  Four and a half years had gone by spent almost entirely in the library, and I guess as much as anything, that was why I'd settled on studying at a bar tonight for my final exam. I seemed to harbor some delusion that something magical might happen to me here. That if I just stayed open enough, the last night of my college career might still prove to be anything but a complete bust.

  If only I knew what I should be looking for, what possible redemption I was expecting from myself. It certainly wouldn't come in the form of those idiots at the bar, I realized, a huge group of sophomores I recognized celebrating the completion of their finals.

  I sighed, and turned back to my book on the table. I'd accidentally let it close, and completely forgot where I'd left off in it. I settled for opening back up to a page at random, and reading whatever text appeared to me there.

  “He had come to know quite thoroughly the world in which he lived. His outlook was bleak and materialistic. The world as he saw it was a fierce and brutal world, a world without warmth, a world in which caresses and affection and the bright sweetness of spirit did not exist.”