Wolves among men (19 page)

“
No you didn’t, Ethan, and
being a martyr isn’t going to help anyone. Not you, not your
sister.” I scoffed and turned away from her. “Listen to me.” She
grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face her. “People got hurt,
it happens but you couldn’t have known. If you want to blame anyone
blame the wolf that turned you. She should have stayed with you,
explained what was going on, taught you but she didn’t and
that’s
her
fault
not yours. All these deaths are on her hands.” I paused.

“
How did you know it was a
girl?” She bit her lip and shook her head.

“
Lucky guess.” She
shrugged. “Look it doesn’t matter. It is what it is and we’re here
to help you now.”

“
You know,” I interrupted
her. “The one thing I can’t figure out is why that thing even
changed me. I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t want this and I
don’t
want this now. I
really,” I paused. “I just wish that thing let me die.”

“
Ethan, don’t say
that.”

“
Why?” I barked. “It’s
true, what was the point of what it did? Huh?” She looked down at
the ground, escaping my angry gaze. “It changed me into a monster
for no reason at all, it left me to figure everything out on my own
and now a lot of good people are dead, my sister will never be the
same. What was the point? Why?” I screamed. Her eyes turned black
as she stared into my face.

“
Why? Ethan, that’s all
this is about? What does it matter anymore, what’s done is
done.”

“
That doesn’t explain
anything! Why me?!” I screamed as my anger getting the best of
me.

“
Because I couldn’t just
let you die!” She screamed back. I stood there stunned and stared
into her angry doll like face. There was a long pause between us
and I didn’t know what to say.

“
You did this?” I asked in
quiet disbelief.

“
I’m sorry, Ethan. What I
did was wrong.”

“
Really, Sam? I hope
that’s an apology.”

“
It is.” She whimpered.
“It is.” She turned her eyes to the ground. There was a long
silence between us as I stared at the woman that made me what I am.
I didn’t know what to think, how to move on from here. Forgiveness?
Anger? What was I supposed to feel? I took a deep breath and sighed
as I shook my head.

“
Why?” It was nearly
impossible to keep my voice from wavering as she took a step back
and stared down at the ground. “Just tell me that much.” She shook
her head and crossed her arms at her chest, holding onto herself
tightly as she closed her eyes.

“
You were going to
die.”

“
I’m well aware of that,”
I spoke through clenched teeth.

“
You told me you didn’t
want to die.” She looked up at me, her eyes stained with tears as
she silently begged my forgiveness but I wasn’t quite ready to give
it.

“
Well I sure as hell
didn’t want this!” I bellowed as I closed the distance between
us.

“
What do you want me to
say? I know I can’t apologize enough for what I did to you.” She
sucked in a sharp breath and closed her eyes as she gathered
herself.

“
I’m not going to be mad
that you saved my life,” I muttered after a long silence. “Thank
you.” She looked up at me and I hoped that she could see the
sincerity in my words.

“
I should have been there
for you.”

“
That would have been
nice.” I nodded and crossed my arms over my chest. “So what now?” I
asked her as my body began to calm. She just smiled weakly and
shrugged.

“
I don’t know, I guess...”
Pausing, she looked into my eyes. “I guess if you’ll let me, I’d
like to try and make up for leaving you alone like that. I’m proud
of you.” She turned her eyes to the ground.

“
For what?” I asked
quietly.

“
Honestly, I was expecting
to find you dead or worse but somehow you managed to hold your
own.” She smirked as she shoved her hands deep into her pockets and
looked up at me.

“
Yeah?” I asked with a
smile.

“
Yeah, you did.” There was
another pause as we stood only inches from each other. I couldn’t
be angry at her, despite what she did. She saved my life and for
that I at least had to be a little bit grateful.

“
So where do we go from
here?” I shrugged. She smiled and took my hand in hers.

“
Wherever you want. I’m
sure what it is that you want most is answers and I promise,” She
let go of my hand and looked into my eyes. “We can give that to
you.” I smirked and shook my head.

“
Do we age?” I
smiled.

“
No.” She shook her head
slowly and smiled up at me.

“
Is there a
cure?”

“
No,” she answered
quietly.

“
Do vampires exist too?”
Her laugh was sweet and the mood seemed to lighten. I was starting
to feel better about the situation. At least I had friends now. At
least we weren’t alone anymore.

“
Hey, how did you find
us?” I asked as we began to walk back up to the house slowly. She
smiled and met my eyes again. I could get lost in hers easily and
in some ways I wanted to.

“
I made you, Ethan, like
it or not.” She laughed. “We’re connected for life. Wherever you
go, I’ll find you.” She winked and turned to walk into the old
cabin. I followed her in and as the night pressed on I began to
feel like finally, everything was going to be okay. And from
Cordillia’s glowing face and happy smile it wasn’t hard to see that
she felt the same.

Chapter
Twelve

Sam pressed us to stay put until we found a
place to go and luckily for us that was easy to do. The news of
Maura’s death spread like wildfire throughout the tiny reservation.
The official cause of death was listed as a rouge animal attack and
there was no way of really knowing how many people believed that.
No one came looking and Jonathan never came back. We were safe, and
as long as we stayed quiet we remained that way.

The days pressed on peacefully as we got to
know one another and I got answers to the questions that burned in
my mind for so long. From what I could tell it seemed that Sam was
a sort of gatherer of lost pups and I was her latest find. Matt was
first, a Russian soldier from Stalingrad left to rot after taking a
shot to the stomach. She saved him just as she saved me only he
seemed to be more than grateful for his new life. In a way I hoped
I would share his enthusiasm one day.

James came next. He was a grad student at
Harvard who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time. He didn’t seem to mind what had happened and if he did, he
never talked about it. He was quiet, always involved in his books
or research. But one thing I would give him, the kid had a way
around finding any piece of information you could ever
need.

Logan was the last to be found but he wasn’t
the youngest by any means. He was turned in 1813 by his sister
after a particularly nasty fight and according to him he hadn’t
seen her since. Logan didn’t have the benefit of a teacher and
according to Sam went feral for quite a long time before she found
him wondering the streets of Memphis. She took him in as she did
the rest and after a lot of work managed to bring him around to a
more peaceful way of life.

Sam told me that there were others, not of her
pack but there were others that they had lived with that helped
them to keep the peace and soon we would be headed to see
them.

“So what’s all this about a treaty between the
wolves?” I asked as they finished their stories and I started in on
my fourth helping of Sheppard’s pie.

“Well,” she began as she finished her meal and
placed her plate on the table beside the couch. “You know that
there are two kinds of wolves, the ones who hunt people and the
ones who don’t.” I nodded. “I’m not saying that those are the only
ones out there, it’s just that they make up the majority.” I nodded
and leaned back against the couch as she gathered her
words.

“Well the ones who hunt people, they tend to
cause trouble for us and the people around them. They don’t just
hunt, they slaughter entire towns and not just people. Other wolves
get caught in the process. You’ve heard of the Great Evil as they
call him here?” She asked me as I forced a large spoonful of food
into my mouth. I remembered Robert talking about him, the man with
the yellow eyes. I nodded and looked up at her. “His name is Malik,
he’s been around for God knows how long and he kind of started the
whole ‘we’re the top of the food chain’ crap.”

“What do we know about him?” I asked with a
full mouth. She giggled and James looked up from one of his many
books to meet her eyes. She nodded at him and smiled. He placed his
book on his lap and looked over to me.

“We don’t know much other than he’s been
around for a very long time. I’ve traced him as far back as I can
but after the French revolution the trail goes cold. There are
stories though about a wolf with yellow eyes originating from the
black forest of Germany. Legend has it that this wolf was well
known for destroying entire towns of people for no reason at all.
After that there are stories about a yellow eyed man torturing
people in various settings royal and otherwise. I can pin him in
the civil war, the slave trades and even world war two as a Nazi
general in charge of the experiments in some camps. The last record
of him though and I’m talking photographic proof was out in
Mexico.”

“When was that?” I asked placing my plate on
the floor. I was too interested to eat now. I wanted to know
everything I could about him.

“This small town was slaughtered overnight a
few months back. Newspapers say it was an animal attack but there
are pictures of him wondering around for a few days beforehand. See
he did things like that a lot here and it quite frankly was making
a problem for us so we tried to make a deal with him.”

“We tried to convince him to stop or at least
slow down.” Sam took over for James. “But he didn’t want anything
to do with it so we went after his kids so to speak. If one of them
got out of hand we killed it and it was done. After his numbers
went down he made the treaty with us. He wouldn’t attack in areas
where we lived and he would keep the fact that we exist under the
radar.”

“Why would he want to be known, isn’t that
dangerous?” Cordillia asked from the floor in front of me. I jumped
at the sound of her voice forgetting she was there after being so
engrossed in Sam’s story.

“You’re right.” She sighed with a smile.
“There was a time when it was dangerous to be known. We used to be
hunted but now people don’t believe in things like werewolves. And
we like it that way. But we had our own rules to follow. We had to
stop hunting his kids. If one of them gets killed by one of us then
the treaty is over.”

“That’s why Jonathan showed up,” I spoke
quietly. Matt nodded from the chair opposite us and
smiled.

“Thanks to you its war now.” He chuckled. Sam
shot him a disapproving glance and returned her gaze to
me.

“It’s not your fault, Ethan. You didn’t know.
And you did the right thing to protect your sister.”

“No, don’t worry I get that now,” I
interrupted her with a smile.

“I’m glad you’re starting to understand.”
There was a pause as Cordillia stood up and tussled my hair. I
smiled as she walked off into the kitchen to greet Logan who was
working on another course of food.

“So what now?” I asked looking back over at
Sam. She smiled at me and shrugged.

“Well, at this point we’re sure that he knows
what happened and he would be gathering others to…” There was a
pause as she looked down at her hands nervously.

“Get us out of the way?” I asked. She nodded
shyly and looked at me, the nervousness and fear in her eyes more
than obvious. I shrugged.

“Okay so I guess that means we do the same.”
Matt laughed loudly from the chair and we both turned to face him
as he shook his head.

“I like the way you think.” he
smiled.

“It’s not that easy, Matt, and you know that.
Look, Ethan,” She turned her gaze to me. “it’s not like we can just
go somewhere fight a war and come home, this is something that’s
going to take time, planning and numbers and we just don’t have it.
He’s already sending people out to fight as we speak and the only
way to stop this once and for all is to get rid of Malik. Ethan,
he’s over three-hundred years old. That more than tells us it’s not
an easy thing to do.”