Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend Read online

  “Do you kill people?” I asked as my heart fluttered nervously.

  He huffed. “No, most of us have a conscience.” I was relieved; he was like me, just thrown into this world, still innocent. I wasn’t brave enough or ready to hear if the others had ever taken a life.

  “Oh, and you still live with your parents?” Which is what I had understood, but I now felt the need to check facts to see if the lies covered anything I was now meant to know.

  “I’m young, but I am just as good as Sky, he’s only forty,” he said.

  “Forty? So Sam’s a cradle snatcher then?”I teased. “Reid,” I asked, “when people are changed do they get younger? You said in the story that Sam became youthful and had to leave her job?”

  “Yeah, it kind of turns back the clock. Except if you are too old to take the venom, then you die,” he shrugged.

  “How young does a bite make you?”

  He thought about it. “It seems about, like your age, if you are like over 30 you become younger -say 20. But if you are under 20, you age a little, become adult-but stay as you are, just sort of more mature.”

  “And more shiny?” I offered.

  “Do you think I am shiny?” He preened humorously, looking at his body.

  “No, but there is something glowing about you,” I offered seriously.

  He nodded in bashful agreement.

  “I’m worried,” I said rebuffing his attempt at lightning the mood.

  “We won’t hurt you. What are you thinking?” He held my hand, looking into my eyes. I thought about Cresida and if this was what had sent her over the edge.

  “Who shot Lily?” I asked as calmly as I could, reserving all my emotion for the next blur of words, once I had the answers. I couldn’t help but look around as if I thought the sniper might be watching us now.

  “She shot Lily ’cause Lily got out of line.”

  “Who?” I blurted.

  “Cresida,” he said, sounding surprised I didn’t know.

  “Is she one…of you?” I followed quickly.

  “No, and yes - she’s what we fear most,” he breathed out. “A hunter.” I must have looked puzzled. He added clearly, “The kind that hunts us,Lila.”

  “A werewolf hunter?” It felt strange to say the word. “Then why aren’t you all dead?” Would they be soon?

  “We step out of line and she pops a cap in our ass. She doesn’t hunt us all because we have a truce. She has a deal with Sky, because she’s one of us now, a wolf also, but it’s complicated, it’s not all black and white.” I was to learn nothing was.

  “Because they were together?” I puzzled.

  “Yes and other stuff,” he explained. “That,” he replied,“and she understands what it is to live like this; she’s actually a walking contradiction. Cresida is a wolf that was meant to be a hunter. Sam had a one in a million chance that whoever she turned would be a hunter - sometimes I guess you get unlucky, or lucky.” He raised his brows as though still blown away by it all. I watched and waited for him to speak, to tell me more. “There’s so much you don’t know, yet, she wants to kill all of us. If she wasn’t half wolf she would have slain us. This turn of Sam’s has been a bit of a nightmare and now she’s lost Lily…. who was with her from the beginning.” His voice almost cracked. “We have risked exposure, we have awakened this instinct in Cresida and maimed her at the same time and she can’t reconcile the two parts of herself. We should probably get out now, Sam wants to finish it up and leave, but she won’t – can’t, let go.”

  I said, “Because of her sister?”

  He cleared his hoarse throat.“Yes, and she doesn’t know when she’ll get another chance.”

  “How long do you have?” I swallowed.

  “Too long, some of us are hundreds of years old.” He looked for a reaction in me to see how far he could press me.

  I spoke quietly. “How old are you?”

  He breathed, “Only as old as you.” He was happy about this I saw, relieved to tell me this. When I perhaps didn’t return the same relief he continued, “You have to understand it’s like Sky has told me, there is no limit on how long we live, except that limit which we place on ourselves – most of us at one time or another don’t wish to be immortal, can’t take it anymore…”

  “Do you? Want to be immortal?”

  “I’m still young, but once I’ve lived my life, who knows?”

  I wondered silently how he would do it, remembered how quick it had been for Lily, and closed the thought off.

  “Are you sad that Lily’s gone?” I hadn’t observed the same devastation in him over her sudden death, which seemed to torture the others. He seemed more concerned with me, my reaction to him and the others rather than in mourning her death.

  He looked pensive. “I’m not sad she was killed to save you.” He looked at me, his jaw tensing. I knew he was in pain over it and that the words didn’t come easily.

  “I’m so sorry she’s dead.” My voice cracked.

  He put his fingers to his forehead and sniffled. I could see tears, large and heavy, roll down and drip onto his jeans.

  I put my hand on his hot back and rubbed his shirt. I didn’t speak. It was my fault their friend was dead. The wound of her death was fresh.

  After a while he looked up and spoke. “You’re not frightened now, are you?”

  “No.” I thought then to ask myself why I wasn’t scared. I was in shock. “And anyway you said Cres had my back,” and I had seen what she could do. I knew now she was not crazy, she had tried to help me.

  “Do you want to go back inside?” He noticed me shiver from the breeze. I was fascinated by them and I told myself Reid had told me all he could when he could, without terrorizing me. But I wanted more.

  I nodded in agreement.

  “You have the least to fear, Lila,” he said, guiding me back inside the house. But that wasn’t true. I wasn’t worried about being shot or eaten, I was afraid they would leave or that Cresida would kill him.

  “Will Sam finish her dream? - Of winning? Or are you going to leave?” I swallowed, bravely awaiting the answer as we approached the sliding door.

  “Yes, and no,” he promptly assured me, his hand on my neck. He pulled me in as we walked and kissed my head.

  “But we are going to have trouble cleaning up the aftermath, you’ve missed it all, L.” Reid could manage to be sanguine in almost any situation.

  13. Funeral

  We went inside. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until we stepped back into the house.I realized why it was so warm inside. Giny was there, the only one of the pack who was like me, human and cold; she had turned on the gas fire. She looked even more dishevelled than earlier in the day. Mascara was smudged under her small brown eyes. Reid continued telling me that my mother had been filled in on the situation - that Lily had committed suicide in the high school and that we were so horrified by the news that I had stayed here at Sam’s place to band together the group to console each other and grieve.

  “Sorry about the tranquilizers,” Giny said, sniffling.

  I must have looked puzzled. “I didn’t realize how strong they were.” She shrugged. “When I got out of the room I went to take mine and Sky stopped me, otherwise I would have been out the whole day as well- huh- you look better than me, maybe I should’ve taken them.” Bianca came from the kitchen area with a glass for Giny. “We needed you, that’s why.” She seated herself beside Giny on the couch. “Shh, you can rest now,” she soothed wrapping her arms around Giny protectively and rubbing her arm.

  They had been talking; there were scrunched tissues all over the couch. Giny had taken it badly. She had held it together long enough to help me and do what it was they needed her to do, now she was letting it out, falling to pieces. I learnt later that she had to lie to the police and her parents. Now she was having her moment to grieve, to break down. Bianca held her and rocked. I wondered who had held Bianca, because she had lost her friend too. I wondered, had she lost friends befo
re? She seemed experienced or maybe it was just because she was older than us. Though she glistened with youth, she was an old woman, I recalled. Everyone she knew from her old life was dead or old, now.

  “Can I get anything?” I offered helplessly, looking at Reid beside me.

  “You’ve done enough,” Bianca replied sternly, as she comforted Giny sniffling on the brown leather couch.

  “I heard that!” Sky’s voice called. “Shut up, Bianca!” he growled, appearing from the hallway. He threw Reid a jacket.

  “Get her home now - fill her in on the way, so she doesn’t give us away,” he ordered in an alpha tone. That last line was meant for me as a threat, I guessed. I wondered where Sam was. I knew the jacket wasn’t for Reid. He wrapped it around me as I was ushered out of the door. Of the four visible options we took Sky’s blue pickup. I breathed in the smell.

  The story was that Lily was depressed; she’d shot herself in the head following a fight with Jackson. They told the police it was a short tumultuous relationship made worse by Lily’s mood swings. Sam pretended to find her body, as she was the first one there every day. After I had been dragged out covered in blood and taken away with Giny, Cresida had inspected her kill. An argument ensued between Sam and her, in which Cresida felt so threatened she morphed, and Bianca was the voice of reason. Time was short and they had to agree on a course of action. Cresida handed it over to Sam to deal with the body apparently. They took her rifle and laid it with the body, said it was a probably bought illegally for its intended use. No one questioned it. Lily was old money, she could have acquired it easily enough. They had been interviewed once by the police and again later in the day. They told the police Sam’s parents were on holiday. It seemed money could buy most things. Sky had to call in a favour from some wolves in another territory that Reid had never met, to travel in and play mother and father to the dead Lily. The whole thing had taken its toll, even on the unshakeable Sam. It was a logistical nightmare, not to mention that it threatened the entire pack.

  They had someone to falsify papers, that sort of thing. This was all very stressful for them; the change in their demeanour was a heaviness that had previously not been known by the pack. Sam had been conferencing with wolf acquaintances of hers and was absent making arrangements, sorting out the details, including a request from Lily’s ‘father’ for no inquiry and no autopsy.

  If they left it would have to be a long time from now. Rather than giving them an out from Shade this incident had locked them in. They voted this as the best course of action, to ride it out. Their disappearance would have been noteworthy now. We were all to lie low –in mourning for a while. And get our stories straight. I had to prepare myself for my mother, her concern and her sympathy, worst of all her attention. The incident was newsworthy, which now more than ever the pack didn’t want. Reid was set the task of staying close to me for support, to help coach me on what to say, if someone called. After convincing my mother not to worry I pretended to need to lie down in my room. Reid met me and held me on my bed and I listened to his heavy breathing and his heartbeat and tried to sleep. It’s strange being solely responsible for the death of someone. Every time I saw the colour red, I saw her face for days after that and when I saw both white and red I would remember her body slumped on the floor in a pool of her own crimson blood.

  Lily’s ‘father’ had wanted to keep it quiet, or so the public story went. Hopefully he was persuasive enough to keep it from the headlines. Sam had secured two wolves to play parents at the funeral and for a few days afterwards, which was a hard task given Cresida’s presence.

  Sam’s pack now owed this other pack big time, for their help. The whole school required counselling; there would be memorials, assemblies and a funeral. I wasn’t required to attend for appearances or otherwise. I stayed in my room, but the day of the funeral I decided to attend. I couldn’t stand being in the house, pacing the room, wondering how far the funeral had progressed, whether they had laid her in the ground yet. I knew she was still angry with me and she had died so suddenly I worried her ghost still kept watch at the hall. I took a bunch of camellias picked from the front of the house. I acted like I was part of the in-crowd, like Reid had said I had to ‘lie for the best,’ and ‘to keep to ourselves’. The wolf actors were quiet, as parents in mourning, and looked hardly old enough to fit the bill. Lily’s ‘father’ had a goatee and pony tail and remarkable light brown amber eyes which sparkled like the others did. He wore glasses which made him seem less dishevelled, perhaps, more mature than he otherwise appeared. For me it showed the lengths the wolves as a society would go to protect their existence. It gave an authenticity to the onlookers and a certain falseness to the proceedings for the rest of us, as a quiet reminder of the staging. I felt a certain sadness that it cheapened her life somehow. Her ‘mother’ had long auburn hair, was tall and her eyes were ice blue like Sam’s. She wore big sunglasses for the service and a hat. Her hair was dyed, it didn’t look natural. The supposed resemblance to Lily was only that their eyes glowed like hers once had. No one questioned anything other than the fact that they were absent before her death. Sam flitted about as usual making sure all was well. She made sure her best friend’s funeral ran smoothly and I thought it was a pleasant touch that she insisted Lily’s favourite music was played, though I’m sure the gathering thought it was odd that a teenager would love Elvis and the Supremes.

  I hoped, though I couldn’t be sure, that the rest of the pack, her real family, had a private funeral. One without the orchestration, one where their feelings were real. I didn’t cry at the funeral. Maybe I tried but my eyes were dry. In the night as I lay my head on the pillow I remembered sections of the funeral and as I thought of Sam laying the flowers on her coffin my eyes swelled and all the pain that was absent or numb was real again. I had no one to hold me, but neither did Lily. I wanted the world to swallow me up whole.

  After missing two weeks of school in the morning we hit practice - now for Lily’s memory or at least that’s what Sam told the concerned faculty. But really it was for herself, to save her own skin; did she feel guilty like me? We all had to attend group counselling in which we all agreed to continue to practice for calisthenics dance finals, in Lily’s memory. And for a time she indeed did haunt the school hall in which we practiced. As a temporary memorial an enormous portrait photograph marooned in flowers leant crookedly against the stage. And she smiled at us with a blank look in her eyes while we danced without her, over the spot where she had died.

  I wondered if Sam was angry with me. I felt her distance was a sign of the pain of losing her wolf sister. She didn’t tell me it was my fault, but how could I deny it? Her silence spoke volumes; it was the least I deserved.

  It seemed fate was against Sam’s sisters; the team was down again in numbers, we needed a fifth to meet criteria rules. Sam would have to pull someone else from the sea of students. But what she ultimately decided surprised me.

  “Team meeting at lunch,” Giny whispered in class leaning across the row of desks blatantly, as Mr Marshal lectured. One of the perks of a dead best friend was leniency. He passed us over with his eyes and kept talking, unlike he would have three weeks before.

  Sam waited until we were all at the lunch table. Sky sat nearest her, as usual. But his placement today was for an important reason. “I have been in discussion with Mr Crealy and the board of dancers CGDA (Calisthenics Group Dance Association) and together we have come to an agreement.” She looked pleased. “We are allowed to compete but it must be with five. They have decided even though it is the female category that it can be a boy, so I have invited Sky to be involved. We can then compete in the required section. They have shown leniency because of the circumstances.” I wondered why this compromise still pleased her. Even if we won now it would be a pity victory, surely?

  “So, Sky is now part of the team!” she announced. I wondered if her enthusiasm was for the observing students in the lunchroom, or genuine. He was the best choice becau
se he was Sam’s official boyfriend; it was believable that he would be able to pick up the steps because he had spent so much time with her and for all anyone knew had watched practice.

  And there was no doubt that he was the athletic type. Werewolves tended to be agile, fast and strong.

  And he would want to please Sam, no doubt. And then, I thought, maybe I was just a little overly pleased to have an excuse to be in very close proximity to him. My heart felt a little flutter. I shifted so that I mightn’t have to struggle to conceal it.

  14. Reid’s Secrets

  He visited me in my room most nights. If my mother heard anything she didn’t come in and she didn’t inquire what was going on; for once I loved her for it. We would talk for hours at a time; he made me laugh, to feel the way he was – youthful and light, entertaining me with whispered stories of his family. I hadn’t had that sort of upbringing, with lots of family.

  I thought about when I had asked him if he wanted me to become like him, he said it would be nice but he probably didn’t want that, unless I needed to. And anyway Cresida would kill me if I was out of control, as young werewolves often were. I didn’t care that he was most likely there with me on orders from Sam, since the funeral, just in case I cracked and talked. I thought he was there to stop me complicating the situation further, to keep me from implicating them in something sinister.

  I shuddered at the thought of Cresida out there, like an action figure armed and waiting.

  After one of our nightly talks he kissed me goodbye and left through the open window, down the trellis like Romeo.Though he could have jumped out of the window like it was nothing, he wanted to keep it low key – and anyway Ben Flinds could have been watching with his rifle nearby - as usual the radio was on.

  I ached for Sky when he left. I could have loved Reid. He was everything but he wasn’t Sky. He was handsome and buff and kind, but a feeling of nausea had infected me every time I thought of Sky with anyone else, even though he wasn’t mine.