Children of the Wolves
Jessica Starre
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 2012 by Jessica Starre
ISBN 10: 1-4405-5478-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5478-0
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5479-X
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5479-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art ©123rf.com, ©istockphoto.com/©essenin quijada
For the real Jessica â
I'm sorry I had to leave out the dragon. It was an excellent suggestion.
Chapter One
Sitting alone on the front step of the main hall, staring up at the moon, Jelena inhaled the scent of lilac blossoms nearing the end of their flowering, sweet and heavy in the warm night air. The storyteller claimed that the first born had planted these lilac bushes from shoots they had found and nurtured during the early years. Longing for home, they had been, or so the storyteller said, and no one had any reason to doubt him. For Jelena, the smell of lilac would always remind her of despair.
The stars winked on their field of dark velvet. Lifting a finger, she traced them: the Scimitar and the Rider; the Wolf and the Wolfhunter; the Protector and the Newlyborn. One could obtain a full education in the ways of the people simply by learning the stories of the constellations. Jelena had them by heart, and knew all she needed to know.
She dropped her reaching fingers and clenched her hands into fists. No, she did not know all she needed to know. Not according to them, anyway. She would never know it. Never. And then?
The iron lantern hanging from the post near the door cast shadows across the hard-packed dirt courtyard. A lizard scurried past, kicking up a puff of dust. Jelena heard the horses in the western paddock restlessly stamping their feet in the warmth of the summer night, the frogs splashing in the pond out beyond the workrooms, the occasional burst of laughter from the dining hall in the timber-and-wattle building behind her.
Neolithic
, the rememberer had remarked after its construction, but when pressed would not say what he meant, just shook his head and drowned the memories in more ale. By now it was a miracle he remembered anything at all. Jelena, wanting to encourage her memories, abstained from the ale. But abstinence solved nothing.
The sentries, whom she knew had marked her appearance on the front step, stood a few hundred yards away, on the other side of the courtyard, stationed by the gate in the split rail fence. The intermittent torches in their iron brackets along the fence perimeter cast twisting shadows over their figures. One sentry casually leaned his elbows against the top rail; the other stood more alertly but with one ear cocked toward the dining hall as if she didn't want to miss anything. They both carried the regulation broadswords with their flat, sharp blades sheathed at their waists, shorter daggers strapped to their calves, and no doubt a dagger or two up their sleeves. They carried no firearms. The gunsmiths, if there were any, had not awakened yet.
Jelena felt, rather than heard, his approach behind her. No: she felt his
presence
; she hadn't been aware of his approach. He hadn't been there; suddenly he was there, as if the shadows by the door had merely thickened and grown substantial. Michael never gave himself away with sound or movement unless he wanted to. In a different tribe, he might have been a tracker. He was focused, disciplined and unrelenting. Even when you thought he was distracted, he kept watch. At first she had believed his watchfulness was his purpose, a skill that he had learned through long periods of training, but after all these years she had come to recognize it was his essence, his nature.
This evening after they finished their communal meal, she'd seen him deep in conversation with Charmaine and had seized the opportunity to slip out and take a moment to herself. She needed to think and found it hard to do so in his presence. Her unspoken, inarticulate longings must be sorted out, soon. She must make a decision, and she couldn't do it when he was so big and warm and near. But here he was anyway, her separate shadow, making it desperately impossible to think.
The crickets cried out for mates in the darkness. The urgent sound reminded her of the summer after she had been newlyborn, when a plague of insects had struck the land. The rememberer said these locusts descended every seventeen years. One of the other elders, Cara, had said, no, they were not locusts, they had another name. But Cara's brow had furrowed, and grasping, she lost the word she sought. The locusts â or whatever they were named â had frightened the tribe. Thousands of them droning on and on so loudly they drove out all other sound. They devoured the plants in the fields and drowned in thick layers in the pond, fattened the sparrows and the robins, met untimely ends at the hands of the trueborn children. Then they had gone, leaving their translucent shed skins behind, crunching under foot until winter came and swept all signs away.
“Cicadas,” Jelena said suddenly.
The man who stood behind her remained motionless. He never interrupted a memory. Though she said the words aloud, she didn't know if she was speaking to him or to herself. Sometimes she thought it was the same thing.
“Once, when I was a little girl ⦠I lived near the water. The ocean.” She twisted her hands together, reaching for the memory, willing herself to unlock the secrets. “The ocean and the summer of the cicadas,” she said, her voice rising in excitement. The ocean, pale blue and glittering in the sun, stretching endlessly in the distance â she could see the distant waves and smell the salty tang and feel the warm breeze on her face. She could hear the sound of the cicadas and a soft voice giving her the name. “Those are cicadas.” Had that been her mother? Then the vision shimmered, and faded, and was gone.
Jelena's shoulders slumped. She slapped the step with her palm, but there was little energy behind the action. She was more tired and drained than angry. So close, always so tantalizingly close, and then nothing came of it. Even her anger despaired. It was dull black, like the logs on the gathering fire long after night had fallen. She would have preferred anger red hot and piercing or ice white and purifying.
“No one has ever gone seven years, Michael,” she said. She knew he would understand the logic of her thoughts, the unspoken connections she made. He always did. He understood everything but the one secret she kept deep in her heart, buried far from the surface, so that no one would ever see or guess it, and it was that secret that made her despair when she thought she would never remember.
“Would it be so tragic if you never awakened?” he asked in the tone of one long resigned to participating in an argument he could never win. He was resigned; she despaired. What a pair they made.
“Tragic?” she echoed. “Oh, of course not. The unawakened are so helpful.” Her voice mimicked Elder Cara's. “I don't know what we'd do without them. They tend our gardens, look after our trueborn, see to the pigs.”
“It's important work,” Michael said, but he said it without conviction and she could hear the fatigue in his voice.
“Why don't you go?” she flung at him. She did not want
resignation
from him. She wanted heat and passion and
action
.
“Jelena,” he said. She did not answer. “Jelena,” he said, sharper. “Come here. Look at me.” Her shoulders stiffened in resistance. What would he do if she refused?
Nothing
, dammit. Damn him. She should refuse and then, and then â
Reluctantly, she got to her feet. Was there any other choice? Was there ever any other choice? She turned to face him. The light from the lantern played across his face, emphasizing the sharp angles and hooded eyes. Though it was dark, she knew those eyes were blue and glittered like the river in the summer sun. They'd been the first thing she'd seen the day she was newlyborn, and perhaps she had been lost even then.
She knew everything about his face, had memorized every feature, every scar and shadow and hollow. Tonight, his dark hair was pulled back with a leather thong. Sometimes, not often, he let it fall about his shoulders and she wanted to curl her fingers into it. But she never did. Unlike most of the other men, he kept his beard trimmed short. His hair was untouched with gray but the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes gave away his age; he was no fledgling but a man.
“Jelena,” Michael said and, touching her face, lifted her chin. “I can't go away. I won't.” Of course not. That would be
action
.
She tossed her head and he dropped his hand to her shoulder. “The elders will decide that seven years is long enough,” she said, holding back the impulse to shrug his hand away. His touch always soothed and gentled her and she hated that. Sometimes it aroused her â not his intention, she knew, she knew it bitterly, and she hated that, too. But she didn't shrug his hand away because she craved his touch, wanted more of his caresses, not fewer. Seven years, in this state. She said it aloud: “Seven years, Michael. Seven
years
.”
The night sounds had quieted. Now in the breathless darkness the night air did not stir. Michael's sigh feathered across her cheek. The slick sheen of sweat on his face reflected the flickering lantern light.
The stillness deepened and Michael tensed, his attention shifting from her to the night beyond.
“The wolves,” he whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the sentries, who stiffened now at their posts. His hand tightened on her shoulder and the pulse leapt in his throat. She knew he was ready to guide her into the main hall and the comparative safety there. Oh, he could take that action, all right. He could
protect
her. He could protect her from anything. Damn him.
She twisted away to see what he was looking at. Squinting into the darkness, she could make out the sinuous shadows pacing just beyond the fence, just beyond the pooling light from the torches. Seized by a sudden impulse she didn't want to resist, she tilted her head back and howled, a long, heart-rending susurration.
Michael jerked forward, clamping his hand over her mouth. “By all that's good,” he grated under his breath. “What do you think you're doing?”
