He had thought that his father left his mother for a younger woman, although he only thought this because his mother was vocal in her discontented theories about the reason for his departure. She never spoke these theories with Aaron directly, but kids are very perceptive and Aaron was always in earshot when one of his mother’s friends was around, even if he was confined to his room and on the other side of the house.
Liz opened a door into a spare room and stepped aside for Aaron to enter. The room was tiny; a single bed, a simple dresser, and a window covered by a thick yellow curtain that illuminated the room in a golden hue. But it was all Aaron needed. Hell, it was more than he thought he would get given that he’d fled to Vegas with little money to his name.
“This is great, thanks,” he said, laying his bag down on the bed.
“You can stay for as long as you like,” she said, “No one ever uses this room anyway.”
Aaron nodded, quiet, unsure how to address his father’s girlfriend. Did he call her Liz? Ma’am? Lady? Liz felt too informal. Ma’am felt too formal. Lady was downright rude and he’d been raised better than that. It would have to be Liz.
“You look like him, you know,” she said, still standing by the door. Liz was tall, he noticed now. Easily Aaron’s height. Her hair was long and it cascaded in messy curls over her shoulders and back. The wrinkles on her face put her somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, but there was no mistaking this woman for what she was; a warrior. “A splitting image,” Liz said.
“I have more of my mom in me,” Aaron said, almost defensively.
“I can see that too. I don’t know your mother, but the parts of you that don’t look like him are strong too.”
“Thanks.”
An awkward silence hung. Liz licked her lips, rolled her eyes, and put her hand on her hip. “Look,” she said, “You need to understand something. I’m not your mother and I’m not going to try to be. But I don’t believe in keeping things unsaid, so let me do us both a favor and just come out and tell you… your father left out of love for you and your mother.”
Aaron felt his heart squeeze. “I’m supposed to believe his leaving was an act of kindness?” He didn’t want to argue with this woman, this stranger who had offered him a room and food, but she was talking about something she didn’t understand, and that wasn’t right.
“Yeah, I do. Your mother didn’t understand him. They used to fight a lot and your father… he never wanted to hurt her, but he might have if she’d have pushed him too hard.”
Aaron wanted to fight what Liz had just said, but a part of him he was just getting to know understood what she was saying. “I need to change,” he decided to say.
Liz nodded. “Sure,” she said, and she closed the door before leaving.
Aaron unzipped his bag and pulled out a clean grey t-shirt. He then produced a bottle of roll-on deodorant, unscrewed the top, and sniffed it. The scent was harsh to his nose, but it was better than the spray-on deodorant he was used to wearing. He had sprayed some on before leaving the house but the chemicals in the spray hit him so hard he almost threw up. Aaron was starting to understand that having enhanced senses was a double-edged sword.
It only took him a few moments to get presentable again, and when he was done with the shirt he had worn on the drive over he stuffed it back into his bag, along with the deodorant, and zipped it closed. By the time he got to the living room Jackal had wolfed down almost half her steak. A second, steamy dish was waiting on the other side of the small table along with a glass of water. Aaron knew he was hungry, but he didn’t realize exactly how hungry he was until the meat touched his lips; the steak didn’t stand a chance after that.
Jackal’s eyes were on him the entire time. Why? He couldn’t tell.
CHAPTER 3
Sitting in Jackal’s car sent thoughts of Amber crashing into Aaron’s mind. Jackal’s frame was similar to Ambers, and her hair was red too—even if the shade was blood and not copper. She also had a tendency to tap her palms against the steering wheel along with the drum beat and mouth the words to the song on the stereo, like Amber. But it was the music itself that reminded Aaron of his girl back home; Jackal was a Nirvana fan too.
They had been driving for a while. The sun was still high in the sky but it had already begun its descent to the west, seeming almost to fall slowly upon the snowy caps of Mount Charleston which glistened in the light. Nevada sure didn’t feel like a desert to him, what with the bustling forest at the mountain’s feet and the sheer number of road signs advertising ski resorts along the way.
“Is this your territory?” Aaron asked.
Jackal lowered the volume and smiled. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of reflective aviators now. “Our home away from home,” she said.
“Why so far?”
“We’re not city wolves, Aaron. I mean, we live in the suburbs of a city but you can’t exactly throw your wolf skin on and run wild around there.”
“Makes sense.”
“So we cut ourselves a slice of the mountain and go out to it whenever we want to spend a little time with the wolf.”
“Cut yourselves a slice?”
Jackal grinned at herself, satisfied with the response she was about to give before she even gave it. “You don’t think we’re the only werewolves around here do you?”
“A couple of days ago I didn’t even know this species existed.”
“And now you’re about to meet a whole bunch of us. You’d best get yourself ready for that otherwise you’ll want to fight us all. I wouldn’t want to have to kick your ass a second time in one day.”
“I could have taken you,” Aaron said, only it was his ego that was doing the talking. He remembered how he had to focus on absorbing blows and how Jackal didn’t show any signs of getting tired. Another few hits and she would have been bringing the pain.
“I would have left you bleeding on the sidewalk if the old wolf hadn’t told me to stop. Unless you let me train you, you aren’t going to be much good in a fight against a werewolf.”
“Do you do much of that?”
“Fighting werewolves? Only when another pack gets a little grabby and tries to move into our territory. Mainly that happens on the full moon, but we all get a little riled up then.”
A car went zooming past; the only other car Aaron had seen for miles.
“Then there’s the cougars,” Jackal said.
“Cougars?”
Jackal smiled to herself. “Maybe that’s a story for another time. We’re here anyway.”
The car pulled in to a smaller road that wove around pine trees at an upward incline. Sunlight was breaking through the gaps in the trees, but its position in the sky and the height of the mountain had robbed the sun of most of its vigor by now.
A few minutes later, Jackal stopped the car in a tarmac clearing and stepped out. The road ended here, but Aaron spotted a couple of dirt roads leading further up the mountain and into the forest. Aaron also noted a few picnic tables, bins, and signs showing the names of the various paths as well as their lengths but there wasn’t a human in sight. He took in a breath of crisp, mountain air and let it fill his lungs before exhaling.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Jackal asked.
“It’s something,” Aaron said.
“This is the hub of our turf. We claim three of these trails for ourselves.”
Aaron counted six. “And the other three?”
“Two for the Sky Hawk pack,” she said, spinning around and pointing at each trail. “And one for the Mountain Cougars.”
There’s that word again; Cougars. Aaron noted that the Cougars claimed the longest single path; almost twelve miles of trail. Jackal’s pack’s trails weren’t as long, but they had more of them. Aaron figured that had to mean something, but he didn’t understand what yet.
“So, what happens now?” Aaron asked.
“Now we train you,” she said, coming up to him, the sun glinting off her glasses. “But first we’re going t
o meet the rest of the pack. No doubt they’d be dying to meet the Alpha’s son.”
“My dad is the Alpha?”
“We call him the old wolf. He doesn’t like Alpha. But yeah, he’s our leader. Good one, too. You’re gonna have to really wow us or else his reputation will take a hit too.”
“Why his?”
“You’re his blood. If you’re weak, it means he’s weak; at least in some way he is.”
He is weak, Aaron wanted to say. He abandoned his family and fled to a different state without saying a word. If he was having problems with his wife he should have stuck around and fixed them, not run away into the desert. Aaron wanted to be nothing like his father. He’d show them how much stronger he was.
Aaron caught the rumbling sound in the air at the same time that Jackal did. She perked up, went around Aaron and watched the road leading up to the hub. There, riding on the backs of large bikes, was the rest of the pack. Made up of four large bikes and a car, the convoy of burly men would have been hard to miss coming up the mountain road. If there were humans around, they would have heard this ruckus; but the pack didn’t much seem to care.
In fact, it seemed as though they enjoyed the fanfare their engines were causing.
At the front of the pack, on a heavy black bike with a wolf’s jaw around the headlight, rode Aaron’s father. His dirty blond locks flowed in the dying sun like silk in the wind, and even from this distance Aaron could see the blue of his eyes. Sharp. Predatory. Authoritative. And deep in the cage within his chest, the place where the wolf lived, Aaron felt a trickle of excitement. He wanted to drop to all fours and howl into the sky and proclaim his heritage. I’m one of you! he would say with that single primal howl. But he wasn’t one of them. Not yet.
Jackal cocked her head over her shoulder, grinned, and said “Oh and Aaron; try not to smell so… new.”
CHAPTER 4
The vehicles pulled into the hub in a rumbling roar of chrome and rubber. Some of the bikes pulled spins in the hub, their rear tires screeching so loud the sound sent birds scattering out of trees in a panic. Others parked up next to Jackal’s car, their riders dismounting and pulling keys from their metallic steeds.
Aaron’s father came to a slow halt in front of Aaron. He slipped his left leg off the seat, kicked up the tire stand, and switched the bike off with a turn of the key. Aaron’s heart was starting to pound hard against his chest. Strangers! Enemies! It was just as it had been with Jackal at the tattoo parlor, only now Aaron had a sliver of control which he was desperately hold onto. But the cracks in his composure were starting to show. His forearms were starting to hurt as the muscles began to stretch and pull and rip. He flexed his fingers and thought of Amber and her sweet copper hair and the pain ceased, but his heart refused to slow.
“It’s alright, son,” his father said, extending a hand in a greeting gesture.
But before Aaron could take his father’s hand a man came barreling from the rack of bikes, striding hard across the hub like a bull across a bullfighting ring. He had a full head of unkempt black hair, thick brows, deep brown eyes, and a jaw like a bulldog. The man was easily a head taller than even Aaron, and he was coming in hot; cocked, locked, and ready to rock.
“This is Marcus’ son?” he asked in a tone that was half mock, half threat. Aaron could see that his neck was strained, veins popping out from over his black shirt. He might have looked like a wrestler, charging at his opponent. Hell, he might even have been a wrestler for all Aaron knew.
Aaron shifted his body side-face, clenched his fists again—fully aware of the sharp nails that had begun to grow from the tips of his fingers—and prepared to defend himself. The guy was big, but that probably made him slow. Aaron had been in a fight with a bigger guy before, back in school. Aim for the knees, he told himself, bring him down fast and hard so that they can all see what you’re made of.
The bull charged right past Aaron’s father and made a run at Aaron, challenging him with his body if not his words. Aaron noticed that his father hadn’t stopped the mad rush of his pack-mate but he didn’t have time to question it, nor would he do so loudly at any rate.
A fist flew at Aaron’s face. Aaron jerked to the right, clasped the man’s thick arm, and pulled it round his back but the man’s elbow shot into Aaron’s face like a shotgun blast and cracked his nose. Aaron staggered back a few steps as gushes of blood fell from his face. His heart was racing now, hammering. He was changing shape now, too; his eyebrows were thickening, the bones in his forehead reshaping to create tough ridges of flesh and marrow, and his teeth were starting to elongate… painfully.
Aaron didn’t know which hurt more; the transformation or his cracked nose. But he didn’t have a second to consider that, either. The bull was after him again. Aaron braced, but then the bull lost his feet and fell face first into the tarmac with a loud crack that could have been bone or concrete. Aaron watched Jackal rise to her feet, roll the bull onto his back, and dig her shoe into his neck.
“Are you going to cut that shit out or do I have to teach you another lesson?” she said, cool as a winter breeze.
“Fuck you,” he spat blood. Aaron smelt it straight away, strong and metallic.
The bull was easily three times Jackal’s size, and even though he could have grabbed her foot and flung her into a tree with a single motion, he wasn’t moving. His hands were at his side, limp and idle. Why?
“This is the old wolf’s son,” she said, “If anyone’s got first rights to his blood it’s the old wolf or his beta; and the last time I checked that was me. You can get your turn when we’re done with him.”
“Jackal, that’s enough,” Aaron’s father said. This was the second time he had had to call her off someone.
Jackal lifted her foot from the bull’s neck and stood back a few paces while he stood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He scowled a bloody scowl at Aaron and then back at Jackal. “What kind of a wolf is he that he needs a woman to fight his battles for him?” he asked.
The word was full of contempt and even Aaron—stuck in the unnatural yet powerful space between beast wolf and human—saw the way Jackal’s jaw stiffened at the comment.
“That is your beta,” said Marcus, the old wolf. He was approaching now, walking across the hub with a proud swagger. “And unless you want Vinnie to tell us the story of how she took you down blindfolded and with one hand tied behind her back again you’d best keep that sexist crap to yourself.”
The man, whose name Aaron yet didn’t know, grunted and pushed his way past the old wolf. The rest of the pack was staring, now. Some of them were watching the bull, others looking at Aaron, trying to size him up. Aaron noticed, then, the lack of women present. It seemed like Jackal was the only one, unless there was a woman hiding in that car that had pulled up.
“Look at how he holds the form,” Jackal said, watching Aaron with a grin on her face. She had taken her glasses off now and was holding them in her hand.
“I see it,” Marcus said.
“Your blood really is strong.”
“My blood is yours too.”
Aaron brought his eyes to his own body and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His forearms were large and thick and covered in grey fur which seemed to shimmer in the fading sun. He touched his face and felt the ridges on his forehead and eyebrows, his elongated ears, his sharp teeth. Aaron’s heart was starting to beat a little more slowly, but he felt power coursing through him with every pulse.
Until he started to calm down and his body started to change shape again.
Aaron dropped to his knees and this time let out an agonized groan as the bones in his body returned to their normal positions and dimensions. His fingernails retracted, but their size had ripped Aaron’s fingers wide open and they were bleeding. The muscles in his arms, chest, and legs were twisting and contorting, ripping and pulling. And the transforming ridges in his face and nose were making it difficult for him to breathe. Aaron fought hard to stifle his groans
, but they came anyway and echoed far through the pine forest at the base of Mount Charleston.
When it was done, Jackal helped Aaron to his feet and asked him to stay calm as his body healed the wounds. “The first few weeks of transforming are always the hardest,” she said into his ear. “Breathe through it.”
Marcus approached and laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “The next time,” he said, “Jackal won’t be there to help you.”
“I didn’t need help,” Aaron said, although the blood covering his mouth and shirt would have said otherwise if it had a voice.
“You might be able to hold a form well, but you couldn’t hold your own against Rocky.”
Aaron shrugged away from Marcus and Jackal. “I didn’t come here to get picked on,” he said, cheeks flushed. “I came here because I’m a werewolf and I want to learn.”
“You’re learning right now,” Marcus said, “You lunged at Jackal at the shop just as Rocky lunged at you. This is how wolves are; they question their position in the pack. And when a new wolf comes along, the instinct to figure out your place intensifies. It’s not personal.”
“Seemed pretty damn personal,” Aaron said.
Marcus’ face shifted and took a serious tone. “You have come here to learn,” Marcus said, in a voice that was as full of theater as was authority. “But before you can learn from us, you have to pass one of our trials.”
Aaron’s eyes narrowed into slits. The wound on his nose and fingers had healed and he couldn’t feel any pain at all anymore. “What trial?” he asked.
“You’ll have to take one of our paths, climb Mount Charleston to its peak, and drink the snow from the caps,” Marcus said.
Aaron looked up at the mountain he would have to climb. From here it didn’t seem like such an impossible feat. He’d never climbed a mountain before, but he was sure he could do it in a single day; and he said as much.