Descendant (22 page)

“Heightened senses… and better equipped to fight should something happen, you know?” “I understand,” I told her, turning away. I didn’t want her to see my frown and misunderstand it. I knew why she didn’t want to stay human.

I didn’t want to stay this way, either. I’d never real y thought of myself as weak, but staring at Eli, and the clear outline of his muscles beneath his fur, I couldn’t help but feel a little pathetic. A little useless. My fists clenched at the thought of my failed attempt to shift earlier today. “You should rest while you can,” Vanessa said. I knew she was probably right, but the thought of using this downtime to work on shifting was tempting. It wasn’t especial y reassuring knowing that they’d all agreed to stop and rest mostly because they knew I needed to. And I was almost sure that was the case—because despite stopping being his suggestion, I remembered Eli saying they could go for days without sleeping. I wondered when I’d get to that point. If my heavy eyelids and aching muscles were any indication, I was in for a long wait.

Exhaustion eventual y won out, and I decided shifting practice probably wouldn’t be successfull right now anyway.

So instead, I settled for marveling at Vanessa’s transformation as I did my best to make myself comfortable on the forest floor. Her shift was graceful—there was no other word for it. It was fitting, then, that the creature she became was elegant, with a build that was muscular, yet streamlined. Her form reminded me more of the greyhound my friend Chelsea use to own than of a wolf. If Chelsea had given said greyhound steroids on a pretty regular basis, maybe.

Eli too, now that I real y looked at him, was easily distinguishable from the creature Kael became—though perhaps not to the extent that Vanessa was. Both Eli and Vanessa were taller, mostly thanks to legs that seemed almost too long for their bodies. Their heads were narrower too, with longer snouts and eyes that were small er and more cat-like than dog-like. They were almost elegant-looking, with long, flowing fur that feathered out along their legs, ears and tails.

As the last of the silky white fur spread across Vanessa’s back, I reached into my bag, grabbed Kael’s hoodie—which I had no intentions of giving back, even if he was pissed at me—and folded it into a makeshift pil ow. I was comatose before my head even hit it.

She rocked back on her heels and jumped to her feet, and with a single stride she’d closed the space between us. In one swift motion her hand shot out and struck my chest directly above my heart. When I looked down, though, I realized it wasn’t her hand that had hit me, but what looked like a broken shard of glass. It was sticking half-way out of my chest, an unnatural amount of blood gurgling up where it had pierced my skin.

I’d woken up just before my knees hit the ground. It was strangely comforting watching Vanessa and Eli sleep, their sides rising steadily up and down and their ears and tails twitching every few seconds. I reached a shaky hand out and let it rest in the soft fur between Vanessa’s ears. When she seemed oblivious to my touch, I moved closer, huddling against her side and trying to focus on the rhythmic thumping of her heartbeat. I tried steadying my breathing in time with hers, but that proved all but impossible. I was staring into the starless sky, my vision slowly blurring out of focus, when Kael’s voice disrupted the still night air. “Alex?”

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want him to see me like this, upset over some stupid dream.

“Alex?” he said again. God he was annoying. “What?” I final y whispered back, reluctantly moving away from Vanessa. I didn’t want to leave the comfort of her side, but I didn’t want to wake her up, either. I didn’t turn to face Kael.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

My lips had formed the word ‘yes’ before he’d even finished asking the question. But something stopped me from saying it out loud.

“I just had a nightmare,” I said instead. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“I wasn’t asleep. I’ve just been for a walk—couldn’t sleep myself, actual y.” “Is everything okay?” I asked robotical y.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “What about you?” “I’ll be okay. It was just a dream.” “If you want to talk about it…” His words snapped me briefly out of my daze. I raised an eyebrow. So he was being nice to me again? “You seem like you’re in a better mood,” I said. “Shane’s gone.” I rolled my eyes. Of course. I reluctantly drug my fingers out of Vanessa’s fur and crawled away from her. “Such a mature Vanessa’s fur and crawled away from her. “Such a mature relationship the two of you share,” I said, my voice still a whisper. “How old are you guys, anyway?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m four-hundred and six. I don’t actual y know how old Shane is, nor do I care.” “Four-hundred and six?”

I couldn’t help but stare. He didn’t look a day over nineteen.

“That’s what I said,” he replied. My disbelief must’ve been obvious on my face, because he continued: “I’ve figured out the math before, and it takes about twenty-five human years for us to look like we’ve aged one year, give or take. So, I’m a little over four-hundred years old, but I think that’s only equal to about sixteen human years.” He paused, his finger moving through the air as if using an invisible calculator. “Of course, I wasn’t turned until I was three, and my first shift didn’t happen for a few months after that, so I guess technical y I’m about nineteen or twenty in human years.”

I shook my self out of my astonished stupor. “So in other words—you’re more than a little too old to be bickering with Shane constantly.”

His jaw clenched as I spoke. Apparently I’d struck a nerve. I wasn’t about to take it back, though—he deserved it. I’d been dealing with his bad mood all day. The fact that arguing with Kael let me focus on something other than that nightmare was just an added bonus.

“Bickering?” he said. “I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that.” “What, you mean it’s about the whole race thing?” I shook my head. “Yeah.” He fixed me with a hard stare, as if daring me to finish my thought. He should’ve known by now that I wasn’t the type to turn down a dare. “That’s stupid, by the way,” I said, matter-of-factly. “I couldn’t even tell you were any different from the others. I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

His eyes closed for a second, as if he was deep in thought.

Not real y the explosive reaction I’d been expecting. Or maybe hoping for. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand,” he said in a monotone voice. “It’s been this way for centuries. You’ve been around what, fifteen years?” “…Sixteen,” I corrected him quietly.

“Whatever. You’re too young to understand.” I winced slightly at the word ‘young’, even though now I knew that, compared to him, it was an understatement. “But you’ll learn soon enough that there are a lot like Shane out there,”

he said. “Bunch of elitist bastards… I do my best to ignore it, but after four-hundred years it gets kind of annoying. So yeah, every now and then maybe I stoop to their level.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled stupidly. “I didn’t mean to—” “Forget it.”

“I was just upset about that nightmare. I didn’t mean to take it—” “I know.” “If you know then why are you—” I froze as he shot me a look. “Sorry.” “Stop apologizing.” “Sor— …

Okay.” Silence.

I coughed blatantly after a few minutes of it, and Kael shot me an impatient look. “You can’t even go two minutes without talking, can you?” “No,” I responded honestly. I was about to continue when Eli gave a particularly violent twitch in his sleep. My mouth hung open in mid-sentence as we both watched him anxiously. But after a few seconds he seemed to settle back into his peacefull slumber, and Kael turned to me with a quiet sigh. “If we aren’t going to sleep, we should at least let them,” he said pointedly. “Yeah.

Okay.” I got uncertainly to my feet as he did the same. He headed for the trees, while I continued to hover over Eli and Vanessa. “Are you coming or what?” Kael called once he'd reached the edge of the clearing. I hesitated, thinking about me and Vanessa’s conversation from earlier. I almost called back to him, to ask where we were going.

The truth, though, was that I real y didn’t care. I wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep, and the alternative would be sitting there, alone, staring off into space while my thoughts traveled down roads I didn’t want them anywhere near. I needed a distraction, and as far as distractions went…wel , maybe Kael wasn’t half-bad.

I took one last look at Eli and Vanessa’s sleeping forms, then I headed for the woods.

***

We left our argument at the campsite. Kael acted like it hadn’t happened, and was actual y kind of nice to me—or at least as nice as I think he knew how to be.

There wasn’t a lot of moonlight out. My developing lycan eyes meant I could still see, but it was a different kind of sight then when the world was il uminated with light. I saw things as shadows in my path, and the range of colors I could see had been reduced to a field of black and grey. It was like I’d stumbled across some paral el alien world. My imagination had just started to run wild, wondering about what sort of monsters might inhabit this world, when something jumped out of a nearby bush and darted off into the woods. I managed not to squeal, but I couldn’t keep myself from scrambling the distance from where I stood to Kael.

“A little on edge, huh?” he asked, looking down at me.

I shot him a dirty look, relaxing the grip I had claimed on his arm—though not completely. “Must’ve been the dozen near-death experiences I’ve had this past week,” I said flatly.

“For some reason I can’t help but be a little paranoid these days.” Out of the corner of my eye I watched a smile spreading across his face.

“Better paranoid than dead, I suppose,” he said. “…

Exactly,” I said, eying his smile suspiciously. “I mean, I know that bunny ran away from you this time— but you might not be so lucky next time.” “I hate you.” “Then why are you practical y embracing me?” I let go of his arm abruptly.

“How was I supposed to know it was a bunny, anyway?" I grumbled, shoving him into a tree we were passing. It had only been a playful, half-hearted shove, but I was surprised at the force with which he hit the tree. Guess I didn’t real y know my own strength these days. Not that it even fazed him in the slightest—he simply pushed off of the tree and sauntered back over to me, still laughing. “I’m glad you find me entertaining,” I said. I tried to frown, and look otherwise disapproving, but his laughter ended up being contagious.

“Stop laughing at me…” I said, trying to fight the smile threatening to spread across my face. Even as I said it, though, I knew I didn’t real y mean it. Because I vastly preferred this smiling, joking Kael to the scowling, moody one I’d been getting use to these past few days—even if his laughter was at my expense.

“You should smile more,” I thought aloud.

He scoffed. “Right. I’ll be sure to jot that down in my ‘ways-to-impress-Alex’ notebook. Oh wait— I just remembered: I don’t actual y have one of those. Damn.”

“Do you have a smart comment for everything everyone says to you?”

He shook his head. “Mostly just for you.”

“Awesome.” He laughed quietly at my reply, and we walked on for several minutes before he spoke again.

“But seriously? There’s no need to be so paranoid. There isn’t real y anything in these woods you need to be afraid of.”

“Says who?”

“You’re with me, aren’t you?”

“Right.” It was too easy—I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at his comment. “My hero…how could I forget?”

“Who’s being smart now?” he said wryly. “But even if you forget about me—you’re not exactly defenseless.”

“I might as well be. Or maybe you’re forgetting: I can’t shift.”

“No, but you can throw me into a tree hard enough to leave an outline of my body in the trunk.”

Wow, had it real y been that hard?

“...I guess so.” I hesitated, then added: “Sorry about that, by the way.”

This time, it was Kael roll ing his eyes. “No you’re not.”

I had to admit—Kael knew me pretty well considering we’d only met a few days ago.

“It felt pretty good, actual y.”

“You should probably work on your temper.”

“You should probably work on not being so annoying. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to throw you into trees.”

“…Fair enough.”

We exchanged a smile, and I had to fight a sudden urge to laugh. I must not have fought it off as completely as I thought I did, because a second later he gave me a dubious look.

“What’s so funny?”

I hesitated, but his gaze was unrelenting. “This is—us being here like this, I mean.”

“…You have an odd sense of humor,” he said. I shook my head.

“It wasn’t real y an amused laugh—it was more like a “what-the-heck-is-going-on-here” kind of laugh.” He still looked confused, so I elaborated: “It’s just that…I’ve spent most of today worrying about whether or not you hated me. And about what happened with Shane.”

“Forget about that. And forget about what he said—there’s not going to be a lot more where that came from. There’s not going to be any more.”

I frowned. “Doesn’t change what I saw.”

“No. I guess not.” There was painfull look in his eyes as he turned away.

“I want to trust you, though,” I said hurriedly. “I don’t know why. I don’t want to. I know almost nothing about you. And to be honest? I’m kind of terrified of you. And trusting somebody— anybody— is not even something I usual y do, but with you I just…”

He looked back at me then. His gaze took mine and for a second I forgot what I was saying.