Howl for Me (3 page)

I took the little plastic stick out of the wrapper and made sure all the parts were in the right place, and that I knew how to use it. My hand had just a little bit of a shake, as I looked at it, and compared the almost ominous baby-blue stick to the picture on the box.

This wasn’t my first pregnancy test, but it
was
the first one where I wasn’t absolutely sure what the result was going to be. Between my inheritance, and the mystery packages that Damon’s parents kept sending him, money wasn’t a concern, really, but the idea of becoming a parent was strangely confusing to me.

I always wanted a couple of cute, little babies, but the
reality
of it happening hadn’t ever really occurred to me. I mean, there wasn’t anyone I wanted to have them with, until Damon, so I hadn’t even considered the possibility. Sitting there, on the toilet, with the test in my hand, listening to Damon grumble on the phone, I realized that it wasn’t fear I felt.

It wasn’t even anxiety, or the dull ache of worry.

It was hope.

Everything
was
okay. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have anything to complain about, or worry about, or think was going to fall apart, the next time I turned around.

My whole life, as crazy as it might be, was stable.

Thirty seconds or so later, it was over, and I was standing up, pulling up my jeans, and staring wide-eyed at the little blue thing on the countertop, waiting for one line, or two.

Damon – and whoever it was he was talking to – didn’t sound very happy. He had that not-quite-yelling thing going on, where he was speaking low and slow, but his voice was so deep, I could hear it from all the way at the other end of the house.

I stared, hard, at the little blue stick, willing it to do
something
before my head exploded in anticipation.

One line showed up.

“What do you mean, now?” Damon shouted from the other end of the house. Damon
never
shouted.

The second line popped up.

It was faint, yeah, and fighting for life, against the white background, but it was there.

I could hardly breathe.

I grabbed the test, stumbled over my half-zipped jeans, and managed to pull them the rest of the way on, as I yanked open the door.

“I don’t care what happens to him,” Damon was saying as I wheeled my way out of the hallway. I was gripping my little, blue friend so tightly my fingers hurt a little. “After what he did, he doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have a brother. I never did. Not really.”

Whoever he was talking to said something else, and Damon clenched his jaws.

“Fine,” he growled. “I’ll go, but not for him. I’m only doing this because you’re telling me to, Poko. Bye.”

Damon took a deep breath and let his arm fall to his side.

“Damon,” I said, holding the test out in front of me. “Damon! I’m... I’ve got...”

“I’m sorry, Lily,” he said, tossing my phone onto the sofa. “I don’t want to do this, but I have to go.”

Without even looking at me, he moved past, and out the door.

“Be back soon,” he shouted, from outside. “I hope, anyway.” Then he grumbled another apology.

The test dangled from my fingers for about four seconds, before it dropped to the floor, with a gentle
thump
.

“...I’m pregnant,” I finished, staring at the closed door, as his motorcycle roared to life.

The tears didn’t wait very long, at all, before they flooded my eyes.

––––––––

I
t was cold by the time Damon put his foot down on the asphalt and looked at the sky. The stars reminded him of Lily, of her hair and her eyes. There was a hint of lilac on the handkerchief Damon used to wipe his forehead. Two days before, just sitting around the house, she’d borrowed it to tie back her hair.

He took the cloth from his chest and balled it up in his fist, then inhaled the last of her scent.

Regret panged in Damon’s chest at leaving Lily, but he knew he had no choice.

Keeping her safe was the only thing that mattered, and right now, that meant leaving her behind – but only for a while.

Looking up at the low-hanging Orion above him, Damon rubbed his temples and spat out four hours of road dust that had accumulated since the last time he took off his helmet.

He knew that he’d only done what he had to do, but even so, he couldn’t get his mind off what she looked like when he’d left in such a hurry. It must’ve been important.

Damon shook his head, both to clear his exhaustion, and to try and get Lily out of his mind for a few minutes so he could think.

It didn’t work.

Lily’s lips had been twitching, and her hands shaking, like she had something to tell him. And she was standing there in the living room, holding something, but even thinking back, Damon couldn’t quite place what she held in her trembling hand.

A car whizzed by, spraying a fine mist of road rain onto Damon’s leather-covered jeans. Moments later, it vanished over the single hill on the desert road that had led him all the way through Albuquerque. He’d been on the road since before midnight. Dawn was still a half hour or so away, judging by the way the sky was going gray. The chill in the air was still deep, evidently not getting the message that deserts were supposed to be
hot
.

“I wish you were behind me,” Damon said to no one, staring at the horizon. “I wish I could have more than just the smell of your shampoo from your ponytail.”

Taking a deep breath, Damon indulged in remembering what it felt like to have Lily’s arms around his stomach, how she clutched him, held him tight with her arms and her thighs.

He had to fight his instinct to turn around, and say to hell with the Skarachee, to hell with the Carak and their war... and to hell with his brother, Devin, who tried to kill him once before.

No one had seen Devin, or even heard of him, since he left Fort Branch.

But then it all came back in a flood.

“Your brother is alive, but he’s in danger. The packs are in danger,”
Poko had said.
“I can’t explain it, not right now, but your brother has found something that was meant to stay asleep. Older even than me, this was never meant to happen.”

Out here, he felt like he was on the edge of the world, looking off the side.

The story sounded ridiculous. An ancient being? Some kind of elder wolf older than even Poko? Damon shook his head, ran his tongue along his teeth and spat again. None of it made any sense.

A tingle crept down Damon’s back, as the strange words Poko spoke during the tattooing filled him. He ran a fingertip along the now-healed lines that accentuated his cheekbones. His skin was hot and burning, but not from the ink, or from a fever.

“I’ll find you, Devin,” Damon whispered, as he threw his leg back over the seat of his bike and revved the engine. “I don’t know why I feel like I have to save you, but... if that’s what it comes to I’m not going to let you die.”

He shook his head, throwing his hair back, and replaced his helmet. He took the handkerchief out of his pocket and gripped it in his fist, then wrapped turned the throttle and kicked his motorcycle into rumbling, thumping, roaring life.

Damon was halfway to Texas by the time the day started to warm, and in El Paso before noon. By the time he hit I-20 – the road he’d ride all the way to Shreveport, where he hoped to find his brother – cool air started to settle in over the Texas desert.

By the time he hit the border between Texas and Louisiana, not far from Shreveport, Damon was worn ragged from the road. Dirty, hungry and exhausted, he wanted nothing more than a shower and a kiss from Lily.

Then he looked at the moon, and heard a howl.

“Duty,” Damon said under his breath, as a Sysco truck turned off the highway, and he had to veer around it. “Duty before love. Without the pack, there’s nothing.”

He said it again to make himself believe it.

Another howl pierced the night, rattling Damon’s spirit. He felt a stir behind him, like Lily was there, holding on for dear life, as he sped around a curve, and off the main road into a stretch of swamp.

“I’ll be home soon,” he whispered. “You won’t have to wait long. I promise.”

Under the heel of Damon’s heavy boot, the ground squished. Water seeped out of the sponge-like moss. He pushed his bike underneath the boughs of a drooping, waterlogged tree, and swatted at a mosquito.

Slowly, he undressed, carefully rolling his clothes, and sliding them into a burlap sack that he slung across his chest.

Naked, beautiful, and striking, bathed in the light of the mostly-full moon, Damon tossed his head back and forth. He knelt, and clenched his eyes as the pain of transformation gripped him.

Every pore on his body screamed as hard, wiry fur pushed out. His fingers twisted and curled, his knees shifted and his hips slid backwards. With a snap of his huge, muscled jaws in the cold, wet swamp air, Damon cast a glance at the moon.

The same moon Lily would see, if she were looking. Somehow, he felt like she was. Warmth coursed through him when he remembered his mate – remembered the only thing in the entire world that mattered to him more than his pack.

She shouldn’t, he knew, but what was the point of fighting his emotions?

Instinct – savage, primal, unchecked instinct – drove Damon forward.

The first step hurt. It always hurt, as the pads of his claws spread on the ground.

The next one was less painful, but still, a little sore.

Damon pulled a breath through his nose, looking around himself to get his bearings, and then realized, he didn’t need his eyes.

Devin was close. Damon felt him – sensed his brother – and sensed that he was in trouble.

One last glance to the sky was the last pause Damon allowed himself. Another howl pierced the darkness, and Damon joined it, calling to whoever, or whatever, may be listening. He scratched the ground, relishing the sensation of his claws cutting through the swamp moss.

And then, he ran.

Straight ahead he went, tearing through undergrowth, through water and brush and tree branches. With every step, branches whipped his face and roots jutting up from the moss and the muck jabbed his feet.

He knew he’d find what he was looking for.

If he went hard and fast and long enough, Damon knew he’d find Devin.

Wherever he was.

––––––––

V
ines, or some damn thing, tore into Devin’s forearms. Thorns dug through his wiry fur, and cut deep, making him curse every time he moved. Gritty, root-filled dirt squished between his toes.

“What... Where am I?”

He shook his head. It felt heavy, weighted down, wet, and groggy. If he’d been drinking the night before and woke up half-transformed in a gutter, that wouldn’t surprise him all that much, but as far as he could remember, that was just it – there was nothing to remember.

Devin stood on his tiptoes. Above him, there was open sky and a metal grate, presumably to keep him right where he was. Twisting his arms, the thorns dug in deeper.

“What in the fuck is this?”

Outside, something scurried across the grating – a raccoon or a possum, probably – and Devin blinked hard to try to and gather his thoughts.

Last he remembered, he crossed into Louisiana and started poking around a little hovel of a swamp town. Somewhere south of Shreveport, but he couldn’t be sure where he was or how far he’d gone. In the months since he left Fort Branch, he’d grown an ever-developing sense of regret, but there was no telling if that was from guilt, or simple loneliness.

The Carak – Devin’s pack – were nowhere to be found. That’s why he kept looking. At night, he’d listen to the howls, and hope they were leading him home, but they never did. It was almost like something, or someone, was trying to keep him away from his kin.

But why? What was the point?

He snapped back to reality, to the present, when heavy footsteps thudded, somewhere beyond his field of vision.

In a moment of clarity, Devin narrowed his eyes and tried to smell whatever was out there, but the earthen walls made it impossible to smell anything except dirt and roots and worms.

“Who’s out there?”

No answer not a sound. It was so silent that Devin thought he must have imagined the thudding, dragging footstep. That is, until he heard a second one.

He looked upward again, staring into the night, into the only light he had. It wasn’t enough to make out anything more than a small ring around his feet, but at least it was something.

Devin thought, one last time, about moving. The remaining pain shooting down his forearms kept that thought from turning to action.

“Who am I? Did I hear you... ask?” The voice, a ragged, leathery one with more than a little age behind it, and enough strain that it seemed to hurt, approached from Devin’s left.

The first blow to his jaw came from the right and followed through with such force that his head and then his whole body, followed. Red, hot, grinding pain coursed through him, first from the truck-like impact and next from the ripping in his arms.

Devin spat something warm, and drew a ragged breath. He found that he didn’t even have the strength to complain or make much of a noise. Instead, he just grunted. Dangling and helpless, he started thinking maybe this is what he deserved.

Maybe he deserved it, he thought, for what he did to his girlfriend whose name escaped him at the moment. Maybe it was karma striking back for what he did to Damon, and to Lily, and everyone else.

Regret, awful and biting, made the next punch sting a little less.

A balled up fist slammed into Devin’s rock-hard stomach and made him lurch forward. Forward, he learned, hurt less than side to side.

“What... do you want?”

Devin spat again, something warm and sticky clung to his chin.

“Why am I here? Where is
here,
anyway?”

The laugh that met his ears had such a rounded, almost pleasant tone, that Devin could hardly believe that it came from whoever was beating him.