“Because we aren’t here to take it, and they know that.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“As sure as I know that the Cougar we hurt is on the move. He’s behind us somewhere.”
“How do you know that?”
“Feel the breeze?” Jackal asked, taking a deep breath. “Which way is it blowing?”
Aaron paused, felt the cool air on his skin, and took another breath; this time it was a soft one. “South,” he said, “I think that way is south.”
“Doesn’t matter which direction it is. The point is that the wind is flowing past us. I could smell him more easily when he was ahead of us, could even tell how far away he was. Now all I know is that he’s gone downwind.”
“Whatever,” Aaron said, “If he comes back we’ll just send him running again.”
Jackal stepped toward the edge of the cliff and looked down. Aaron did the same. The drop was about a hundred feet into trees and rock. The world started to spin a little and Aaron stepped away from the ledge to regain himself.
“Scared of heights?” Jackal asked.
Aaron frowned. “No,” he said.
In truth, Aaron wasn’t sure if he was scared of heights. He had never been on an airplane—never had the need—and he’d never lived in a place where tall heights were common. But looking down into the crag made his stomach churn. It could’ve been the height, or it could have been his body reminding him that he was hurt, and climbing down wouldn’t be a walk in the park.
“Good,” Jackal said, “Because we’re going down there.”
“Alright,” Aaron said. “Ladies first.”
Jackal threw Aaron a grin, turned to face him, and cracked her neck. Her transformation was liquid; smooth as water. The features on her face seemed to sharpen; nose, eyes, chin, and even her cheeks. It was as if a sculptor had taken a hammer and chisel and turned all of her bones into sharp angles. Her blood red hair grew longer and shaggier, her arms got thicker and a thin layer of dark fur spilled out of her skin, covering her tattoos. When her transformation was done Jackal’s eyes seemed to pulse with blue fire for an instant, and when the light dimmed her eyes seemed to have retained some of that intensity.
Aaron marveled at how she hadn’t grown much in size nor had she grown nearly as much hair as Aaron had, and yet her muscles were more defined, her nails were longer and sharper than his, and her teeth—though not as pronounced—seemed every bit as capable of ripping someone’s throat open as Aaron’s own. Somehow Jackal had retained her femininity even in her transformation into part beast, and Aaron understood then and there why werewolves take other werewolves for mates.
There had already existed an attraction between the two of them. Aaron would have been lying if he had denied it. Watching her transform, seeing the definition in her abdomen, arms, shoulders and neck forced a tremor of desire to rush through him. But he didn’t act on it, nor did he speak about it. The image of Amber’s beautiful, smiling face was enough to send the feelings running for the hills and then deep into the woods. Aaron belonged to Amber; only Amber.
Maybe in another life Aaron and Jackal would have been a pair, but not in this life.
“You make it look easy,” Aaron said.
“That’s because it is easy,” Jackal said, her voice a little hoarse and rough. “Only… don’t go doing this too much around the rest of the pack. They get jealous.”
Aaron nodded.
Careful not to fall, Jackal went down to her knees and began her descent down the Cliffside. Aaron came up to the ledge and waited for her to make enough progress for him to follow. The up-draft caught Jackal’s hair and sent it whipping in all directions, but it didn’t seem to bother her as she went down, one step at a time.
Aaron went to his knees and willed his body to begin the transformation process. For Aaron, starting the transformation had become as simple as flexing a muscle. But there was nothing simple about the slow cracking, pulling, and reshaping of muscle and bone. When the muscles around his ribs stretched and pulled Aaron let out a groan and reached for the wound with his hand. It had started bleeding again and the pain had come back, but only for a moment. The moment passed, the pain left, and the bleeding stopped.
Not wanting to fall behind, Aaron lowered his leg and searched for a ledge with his foot. When he found one, he dug his right hand into the dirt, found a sturdy nook with his left hand, and came down after his leg. The ache in his side returned—a heavy throb to match the rapid beating of his heart—but Aaron stabilized his body and then took the next step.
“You alright?” Jackal asked from below.
“Yeah, fine,” Aaron said.
“Don’t you go falling on me now.”
“If I fall I’m taking you with me.”
Aaron’s foot lost its grip sending a little dirt and a few rocks down the side of the cliff. His heart skipped, but he grabbed a thick root and kept his body tight against the wall while he searched for another nook with his foot.
“Woah,” Jackal said, the laugh that followed floating away on the breeze. “Easy with your feet up there.”
Aaron scowled. “Sorry,” he said, “I lost my foot.”
“I noticed.”
Another fall of dirt and rocks came, only this time Aaron was holding perfectly still. His eyes widened when the football-sized boulder came rolling down. Aaron watched it tumble, hit the cliff at an angle, and then bounce away only inches before hitting Jackal’s head.
“Okay, that one nearly got me,” she said, looking up. “You’re gonna have to be more—”
Aaron and Jackal saw it at the same time.
There, at the cliff’s edge, climbing down the mountain with the grace and agility of a cat was the Cougar. It had a snarl on its face, tail swishing in the wind, claws gleaming against the moonlight. Aaron’s heart started to pound against his chest and he became acutely aware of the pain in his side. He glanced at the floor—maybe another eighty feet to go—and swallowed hard.
“I told you go to back,” said the Cougar. “Now you die.”
“Aaron, move!” Jackal said.
Aaron snapped out of it, grabbed the next nook that he could, and lowered himself. The sudden rush of adrenaline allowed his senses to sharpen. The world seemed to slow around him to the point where his rapid heartbeats sounded like they were ten seconds apart. Nook. Grab. Pull. Nook. Grab. Pull. The pain in his side was immense, but he worked through it until somehow he passed Jackal on his way down.
When Aaron looked up again Jackal was a few feet above him and the Cougar only a few feet above her. He saw it reach out with its hand. Aaron screamed for Jackal to watch out. She looked up and saw it, yanked her arm away from the rocks and lost her balance. Jackal reached for a root as her body drifted away from it, but her body tipped—tipped—tipped, until she was in freefall.
Jackal, no!
Aaron reached for Jackal as she came past him and he grabbed her arm. Pain ripped through him again as he struggled to hold onto the wall and onto Jackal’s bulkier frame. When he looked up he saw the Cougar approaching again like lightning. His feet were as sure as his hands. Aaron thought the Cougar had made this climb a hundred times. A thousand times, maybe.
“Let me go!” Jackal said, “Let me fall into the trees!”
“You don’t know what’s down there,” Aaron said, “I won’t let you go!”
He couldn’t let her fall into the trees. Neither of them knew what the rocks were like on the ground. For all he knew they were jagged and deadly and waiting for someone to impale. Even a werewolf wouldn’t risk jumping into those trees from this height, much less if he thought he had no control over his descent.
Summoning all his might, Aaron swung Jackal into the rock below and she grabbed on tight, steadying herself before starting to climb again. Aaron glanced at the Cougar again and saw him closing the gap. He wasn’t more than a few feet now. In seconds his claws would be on Aaron’s flesh again, and he was sure the Cougar would go for Aaron
’s good side this time.
I have to give her time, he thought to himself. Then he remembered what Jackal had said about the beast wolf form. The Cougar’s claws may not have cut so deep if Aaron had been wearing it during their fight.
Aaron flexed.
The muscles in his arms exploded. Thick grey fur came rushing out of his pores, covering every inch of his skin. The bones in his face cracked and twisted, his skull elongating and stretching out into a wolf’s snout. Pain gave way to discomfort, and discomfort gave way to power. Aaron’s breathing became heavy and deep, his vision more focused, and his senses sharper. He snarled at the Cougar, who hadn’t paused his descent even for a moment, and then started to climb up the Cliffside—toward the cougar.
The Cougar halted his descent, stared at Aaron, wide-eyed with surprise. Aaron took the opportunity, grabbed its leg, sank his claws into its skin drawing a trickle of blood, and pulled hard. The Cougar scrambled to find something to hold on to and found the same root Jackal had tried to grab earlier. It hugged the wall and started to kick, but Aaron held on tight and continued to climb. He was stronger, now, and despite the size of his body Aaron’s nails were almost perfectly suited to scale walls with.
Aaron let go of the Cougar’s legs. It kicked him in the shoulder, but he shrugged the blow off, climbed up another foot, and raked his claw across the Cougar’s back. The werebeast shrieked. It lashed out with its claw, catching Aaron on the forearm. Aaron could have let go of the beast and avoided the blow, but he let the Cougar’s claws rake his thick, gray-furred hide.
He had a different plan.
Jackal was almost at the bottom now. A few more feet and she would disappear into the trees. But Aaron wouldn’t be able to get down there without fighting the Cougar, and on the cliff face the Cougar had the advantage. So Aaron let go of the rock entirely, grabbed a hold of the Cougar’s thighs, dug his feet deep into the mountain, and pushed hard.
Aaron and the Cougar started their own freefall.
CHAPTER 9
“Aaron! Aaron, wake up!”
Aaron shook his head and opened his eyes. The world was swimming, spinning, and turning before his eyes. He reached out to touch Amber’s face and smiled, comforted that she was there, only her orange locks began to bleed red and Aaron realized it was Jackal he was touching.
“You’re alive!” she said, smiling. “You’re alive.”
She hugged him so tightly she took the breath out of his lungs. Aaron coughed. “Where is it?” he asked.
“He fell in the trees around there,” she said, pointing.
Aaron wasn’t sure if he had landed on rock or on grass, but his body was on fire. Everywhere was throbbing, pulsing. He struggled to sit up, groaning as he went, and blinked until the world came into focus. He could see the trees and the darkness between them and knew, somehow he knew, that it was still alive.
“That guy refuses to die,” he said.
“So do you.”
Jackal helped Aaron to his feet and held him upright. Though his body was ablaze with pain, Aaron realized that the wound on his side had almost completely healed. This puzzled him, but he thought it best not to ask questions until he’d gotten out of the woods. There would be plenty of time for that later.
“I have to go and finish this,” Aaron said.
“What, kill him?”
Aaron nodded.
“You’re both just as arrogant as each other. Let’s just go and do this thing and get out of here. Do you still have your phone?”
Aaron tapped his tattered jean pocket and, miraculously, his phone was there. The jeans had ripped at the calves and thighs, but the waist and crotch were intact and that meant that his pockets were intact too, though he couldn’t feel his wallet in his back pocket.
“Yeah, why, are we calling for back up?”
“No. We’re going to—”
Aaron put two fingers to her lips and shushed her. He could hear something in the darkness beyond the trees. A groan, maybe. Twigs snapping. He couldn’t tell exactly where the noises were coming from, only that they were coming from somewhere up ahead.
“He’s getting up,” Aaron said.
“No shit.”
“I can’t take him alone.”
Jackal looked up at Aaron and for a moment her blue eyes locked with his. She cocked her head slightly and furled her brows. “What did you say?” she asked.
“I said I need your help. If we’re going to do what we came here to do we need to send him packing, and I can’t do it alone.”
Jackal’s lips curled into a smile. She reached up to him and kissed his dirty, sweaty cheek—something she didn’t much mind doing.
“Congratulations,” she said, “You just passed your first trial.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve been oozing this singular, macho thing ever since you showed up. Wolves work in packs, not alone; and this is the first time you’ve admitted to needing my help. I’d say that merits a pass. ”
“So the Cougar; he was all part—”
“No, no,” Jackal said, shaking her head and frowning, “He really is trying to kill us for violating his territory.” She let out a little laugh.
Aaron turned toward the trees again and narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t hear any twigs snapping, nor could he hear any more moans of pain. In truth, Aaron’s own body had stopped throbbing now too. The Cougar must have healed. But where was he?
Jackal spun around and put her back to Aaron. Aaron, then, turned his back to her and pressed up against Jackal. He quickened his breathing—which got his heart pumping hard again—and flexed his muscles until they started to grow and expand. Only this time he wouldn’t stop half way. His bones cracked and crunched, his legs twisted into wolf’s legs, and a mantle of grey fur grew from out of his skin to cover him from head to toe. The transformation was easier this time, quicker.
He sniffed the air, caught the Cougar’s scent, and forced the word “There,” to roll out of his mouth.
Jackal swung around and when Aaron looked at her he noticed that she too had transformed. Her body was covered in black fur, her back was arched into attack position, and her head replaced by a wolf’s snout and ears with bright blue eyes that shone with an inner light. And yet, despite the bestial visage she wore, her femininity once again remained. It was the eyes, Aaron saw. The eyes gave her away.
A snarl came from the trees and Jackal responded with a growl of her own. The Cougar melted out from the darkness, teeth and claws gleaming in the moonlight. Aaron shot his shoulders forth and snapped his jaws. The Cougar flinched, but then hissed in defiance. Jackal stepped forward and scraped the earth with her paws, a gesture that seemed to Aaron a little bit like drawing a line in the sand; a challenge.
The Cougar eyed the werewolves up. He was growling and hissing, his ears were pulled all the way back, and his eyes were blazing with anger and hate. From the dark of the trees he slashed at the air—a counter-challenge—his claws shining with malice and intent. And Aaron knew; outnumbered or not, the Cougar would not back down.
Aaron narrowed his large, predatory eyes and the Cougar flew out of the darkness to greet him. Its claw sailed through the air, fingernails like the sharpest razors, but Aaron blocked his arm, twisted around him, and this time bit into the Cougar’s neck. Then Jackal, who wasn’t two feet behind Aaron, clawed the Cougar across the chest as it went to turn around, tearing through fur and hide and muscle. But the Cougar wouldn’t be so easily subdued. He shook free of Aaron’s grasp and slipped between the two werewolves, turning to face them a few feet away.
He was breathing hard, now, with puffs of steam leaving his mouth and blood in its fur. Jackal and Aaron turned to it, stared it down, and promised it death without saying a word. The Cougar, understanding that it had been beaten, turned tail and made for the trees. Aaron made as if to follow it, but Jackal reached for his arm and stopped him. She shook her head, sternly, and pointed at the direction they had to go. The path was c
lear.
From a place not far from where they were, sounds came rushing through the trees. Growls and hisses echoed and for a moment it was as if the very forest had come alive! Aaron, in a moment of clarity, understood that the Cougar’s friends had been watching all along; and now that one of their own had been beaten, the werewolves were open season for the next challenger.
Or challengers.
Jackal turned on her heel and made a dash for the trees, determined to complete her mission; the parameters of which she hadn’t discussed with Aaron. He thought they were done, that he had learned his lesson and they could get out of the forest, but he was wrong.
Still, he followed. He was on two legs at first, but then he dropped to all fours and ran like a dog using his tail for balance. Aaron was much faster in this form than he was in his human form, and when he ran on all fours he found that he moved even more swiftly, his sharp senses telling him exactly where to put his hands and feet in order to propel his body to where he needed it to go as quickly as possible.
He couldn’t feel any pain now. None. Maybe it was the adrenaline in his system or maybe the powerful skin he wore afforded him a kind of immunity to pain. But all he could feel was the wind in his fur, the dirt under his hands, and the blood in his mouth; and it filled him with a kind of joy he hadn’t ever experienced, not as a boy or as a man.
Finally, the trees gave way to a clearing. Jackal stood a short dash from the trees in her human form, her clothes stretched to comic proportions but only barely ripped. At her feet Aaron spotted a small stone structure. It was a pond, irregular in shape. On one side of the stone border stood a small shrine with candles and carefully laid out cat icons; trinkets and gewgaws, nothing more. But it was the water that struck Aaron hard.
The water in the pool was green, and intensely bright. It was as if the water was luminous, as if there were lights beneath the surface shining outward. And the water was warm, too. Aaron didn’t have to touch it to know that it was; the clouds of steam rising up from the water were proof enough.