The Unmaking (The Rayne Whitmore Series Book 1) (26 page)

            Our city loves its
football and I see many people sporting our team’s jerseys. My dad had season
tickets and he made sure that at an early age I understood and loved the game.
A frown threatens to form on my face, but then I force myself to be grateful
for the memories that I do have, and I smile instead.

            We go to a small coffee
shop called Pete’s and grab a seat near the window so that I can feel the sun
on my face. I feel normal for about forty five minutes, talking and laughing
with Selene, flirting, commenting on people’s outfits, but it doesn’t last.
Sirens pierce through my false bubble of normalcy, police cars zoom down the
streets, zig zagging through traffic, and I remember that I will only have
these small pockets of peace until I finish my goal, and even then...

            This is why supernaturals
sometimes used to term awakened to describe themselves. How can I go back to
what I used to be when I’ve already seen so much?

 I have a different purpose now. I am
needed to be a hero to my kind. Is it heroic of me to try to kill a man for his
crimes against me and others? No, I don’t really think so, but I also know that
true heroes are those among us who would do what other’s dared not. At the end
of the day, I would not do this for the approval of others; instead I’d be
doing this so that they can continue to live in their bubble of happy
ignorance.

            “Can we shop for a few
more things? I just want to feel normal for a little while longer,” I say to
Selene. I can simulate blissful ignorance for a few more minutes.

            She looks at me and
smiles, her gaze filled with love. “Yes, baby.”

            In the end, I managed to
buy many unnecessary clothes and shoes that I wouldn’t get the chance of
wearing for a while, but I didn’t care, it’s what people did, it’s what Jazzy
would have wanted to do with me. It’s what she deserved to be doing, living,
enjoying life. Damn, why is this so hard for me? I just still can’t accept their
deaths, even if I try with all my might, I just can’t accept it. Maybe I need
therapy.

Chapter Twenty One

           
N
ight falls and Selene and I go back to Obsession to talk
to Jaxson. This time, I have Katsu firmly strapped to my back and I’ll be
damned if she didn’t stay there. When we pull up, the music is low but
vibrating against the windows and doors just like before, but this time there’s
a line. I also don’t feel the pull of wrongness that I had felt when I first
tried to enter. Maybe it wouldn’t affect me anymore since I had broken through
once. We wait in line patiently with more than a few glares directed our way. I
give them a couple winks and a finger in return. Probably not the smartest
thing, but oh well. They leave us alone.

            Jaxson is working the door
again dressed in a grey polo and black jeans. When he sees us, he says
something over the radio in his back pocket and tells us to wait as another
wolf, medium height with blond hair takes over for him with a smile.
Apparently, he has no issues with me being human, or having a sword.

            “Follow me,” Jaxson tells
us, as we weave through the crowd of people who are body to body, grinding to
the slow r&b music. I don’t recognize the song and I’m slightly irritated
about having to catch up on all my favorite artists songs that I missed. We
head upstairs as the music switches tempo and then becomes quieter when we walk
through one set of steel doors, then Jaxson unlocks another until it’s all but
a hum.

            Jaxson pulls out a couple
chairs for us in a small, but comfortable office with no pictures on the desk
or wall. Only a laptop and paperwork sit on the table. Selene and I take our
seats, me crossing my legs, letting my heels catch his eye. Hey, I want some
compliments, at least notice of my excellent taste.

            “So, Jaxson, what is it
that you plan to do for us?” Selene asks straightforward.

            “As I said, I am Anubis’s
second. I answer only to him, for he is where my loyalty lies. If he gave you
Namen Young’s name, then he must see something in you that he’s willing to bet
on. I love my Alpha and I will do what it takes to keep him safe, so it is not
what I plan to do for you witch, but what I will do for him.”

            “Ah, my mistake,” Selene
apologizes humorously. Clearly we are grasping straws, even if none of us say
so, we all know it.

            Then, I understand. “When
your Alpha gives an order, it is absolute is it not? So, Anubis must have told
you not to help us unless he gives the word.”

            There is a cleverness in
his dark eyes that I appreciate. “You could be on to something there, but as I
said, I am not helping you, I am helping Anubis.”

            We all nod in
understanding and I smile and look towards Selene. I let her take the lead on
this. “Jaxson, if you want to help Anubis be rid of Namen, why has it taken so
long? Surely, there are other resources at your disposal.”

            “True, but there has not
been an opportunity before. There also doesn’t seem to be many here who either
know what Namen is doing or who are willing to oppose the man. And for all he
is, Anubis may have one major fault, he cares for his pack more than his own
life.”

            “One would not find that a
fault among wolves, especially not an Alpha.”

            Jaxson obviously doesn’t
seem to be fearful of telling us something that could be seen as a weakness to
Anubis’s enemies. Obviously Jaxson would protect his Alpha to the death, even
from us.

            “Perhaps, but there is a
difference when there is a threat and you’d die to protect your pack from the
threat and allowing the threat to slowly destroy you rather than risk your
pack. Either way, you’ll lose, but Anubis doesn’t seem to understand that he is
losing much more doing this his way. He is still young yet, and doesn’t always
see the bigger picture. He has over twenty wolves that are willing to die for
him, yet he doesn’t make one move. The pack is starting to sense his fear and
they will turn against him and look for a new leader and he will lose it all
anyway. An Alpha that is frozen with fear is as good as dead.”

            “I think I understand. But
there is something else to this. How is he controlling a pack this large
anyway? Packs are usually no more than fifteen, eighteen at the most?” Selene
asks, leaning forward, adjusting the collar on her black v-neck.

            “First, she must tell me
her story. Then, I will decide if knowing about our pack will help you help
Anubis.” Jaxson turns towards me, waiting for me to begin. His dark eyes seek
my own, testing me. I give him ten good seconds, studying his scars on his
face, his short mohawk, his slightly large nose, and then change my vision, satisfying
him. He may be second in the pack but he doesn’t have the aura of his Alpha.
Still, it would be rude to drag this out any longer. Then, he looks at my back
as if just noticing my sword and raises an eyebrow out of curiosity.

            I tell him as much as I
feel that he needs to know of my family’s murder, my un-making, and how I came
here today. I leave Damien completely out of it as well as what my father’s
business was. He didn’t need to know that my father was making weapons against
supernaturals, not yet at least. Though I had never made it a habit to do so
anyway, I still had to remember that werewolves could smell lies easily when it
came to things that I was telling him. He needed to trust me, he wanted to
trust me. I needed Jaxson to know that he could.

            “I’d heard rumors when I
was young that humans used to have strength like a wolf, brains like a fox, and
could hunt our kind down single-handedly, but never thought I’d meet one. I
just thought that you were another kind of super that I didn’t know about, even
if you smelled human. Interesting. Not only that, but the Immortals do exist.
It just goes to show that there was still a lot that even our kind does not
know.”

            “Well, Jaxson, imagine how
I felt, finding a demon about to eat my dead sister,” I say rudely, then
apologize. There was no need to snap on him, it’s not his fault that I grew up
in the world that I did. Oblivious. Especially when my father knew and could
have told me a long time ago.

            “It’s okay. I can
understand your anger. When we luna dasa, the moon’s servants, as some of us
wolves call ourselves, first hit puberty, we begin our change as well. Imagine
the challenges of becoming a teenager, mixed with rage, indescribable pain of
those first turns, thinking of yourself as a monster, afraid that you might
snap and kill your loved ones, and the need to hunt, taste blood. We all have
different crosses to bear and trust me, imagine how I feel when I have to kill
my own because they can’t handle the change; the young ones, when they become
feral. You wouldn’t switch places with me for a second.” The seriousness of his
tone makes me feel sorry that he has to do such a job.

            I nod in respect. I had
forgotten that not all wolves survived the change, or should I say were allowed
to survive the change.

            “This is part of the
reason why our pack numbers are so strong. Thanks to Anubis, we do not lose
hardly any more of our young. We are thriving. We take care of our own and
we’ve learned something that not many other packs have. This is the real reason
why Namen will not kill Anubis. It is because he is special and he wants to
break him until he can use him. Anubis has conquered his Wolf and taught him
how to shift as well,” Jaxson says, excitement evident in his voice.

            “I do not understand what
you mean Jaxson. Please explain,” Selene requests looking at me with the same
look I give her.

            He smiles. “When man
shifts he becomes Wolf, but when wolf shifts, what does he become? Man, of
course, or at least partially so. For us, we once thought that the shift was to
wolf and wolf alone, that you could not stop the change once it began or that
if you were caught in the middle of the change that you would die like that.
This is not true however. Anubis discovered this when he had been caught in the
middle of a change and panicked. He was able to stop the shift and come back.”

             “He practiced with this,
over and over, forcing the change on his hands, his feet, his face. Do you know
how painful it is to change? How much skill and resolve you’d need to focus
enough on one part of the body while fighting back the pain? He did it, and he
did it alone. And he meditated and spoke to his Wolf, understanding, learning,
until he realized something else. He could have the look of a wolf, with the
body of a man, one that had more strength than a wolf, sacrificing the speed of
four legs, but gaining so much more. It is the ultimate form for our kind to
fight in. Somewhere along the way, we had lost that skill as the world
developed, but Anubis, he, brought it back to us.”

            I can understand the
advantages, and it is actually slightly terrifying to think about. Weres were
already extra large in size in their wolf form, I couldn’t imagine how this
mountain of a man sitting in front of me would be in wolf-man form slashing at
me with razor claws and teeth. Hell no, I didn’t want them as enemies and I bet
Namen didn’t really want them as enemies either, he wanted them fearful and
complacent.

            “Scary,” I say truthfully.

            “Oh, it is. Anubis and I
can even use weapons in that form,” Jaxson says, eyeing Katsu. “For some
though, it takes too much focus just to maintain the shift. For now, at least.”

            “But, to what end? The
world has changed.”

            “Our kind is becoming
scarce. We are not naturally urban creatures, but cities are popping up everywhere
and in rural areas, there’s just too much suspicion for our kind to have large
packs. Because of this, many of us are hesitant to mate or breed, and for the
last ten years, we’ve had to kill many of our own kind because they’ve snapped
and gone rogue. If humans were to find out about us, we’d need to have better
skills to protect ourselves. Our packs must get stronger because that day when
our numbers reach a low is when they’ll find us out, and they’ll come for us. I
say, let them fear what we could do to them so that they’d leave us alone.”

            “So how do you cope with
the issues of the cities then?” I ask.

            “Well, most of us join the
police, firefighters, or even the military. We have a drug that almost all of
us take that keeps us from having to change during the full moon, but because
of that, we have a lot of pent up aggression inside, most of us choose
dangerous, adrenaline filled jobs that help us blow off steam. I’m actually a
volunteer firefighter myself.”

            “Hmm, I’d have to keep
that in mind. Don’t piss off the wolf behind the counter.”

            Jaxson laughs and grabs my
shoulder firmly. I take it as a sign of friendship.

            “We need to find a way to
learn Namen’s end game. Maybe if we cut off his plans, it will bring him out of
the woodwork, or at least cause him to make a mistake that will allow us to get
close,” Selene suggests, bringing us back to the point.