All three of us jump about a mile high when the voice invades from the far right, startling us into standing and poised aggression because none of us even sensed her. It’s weird, but even with our sense of smell, our hearing and instincts, our awareness, none of us picked her up last night or this morning. She’s like a freaking ghost. Just swans in undetected and scares us shitless with that sudden voice which comes at you like a flying dagger.
We stand and pull together in front of the now glowing low embers of the fire, rattled, hearts elevated in beat and look around expectantly for her ‘guest’ with high suspicion, but she appears to be alone.
“Aren’t you missing someone?” I point out, eyeing up the fact she’s still in the same clothes as last night but despite hiking through dirt and forest, she’s immaculately clean and no sign of fatigue on her at all if she was up all night. I wonder if Meadow is right, and witches can wear some sort of outer mask to conceal the real them. She’s too neat to have been out all-night walking around in this horrid landscape and damp air.
“No. He’s here. Waiting by the road…. Where we’re going now. So, chop, chop, ma wee darlings. Did you eat?” she asks in that merry brogue of hers, and noses around looking for evidence of food which causes her to frown when she sees nothing.
“We were about to go get our supplies and you showed up.” Meadow responds drily, still an edge to her voice, and Leyanne nods with a slight shrug of one shoulder.
“Guess you can eat on the journey. We have to go. He doesn’t like waiting. So come along, pets. No time like the present.” She gestures behind us to the path we came last night, and Carmen is the first to get up and move. Glad to finally be leaving this place.
“I for one will be happy to get back in that truck and out of here.” She adds in passing and I catch up behind her to resume our single file trail. Finding security in being between my two femmes, especially now I know what I carry. Leyanne moves to walk behind us as the birds hitch up and follow, flocking in from God knows where and it seems like the sky is suddenly full of caws and cries and the battering of wings.
“I don’t know, it has it’s positives. Quaint, peaceful. No humans for another few miles in any direction. Seems perfect to me. No one nosing in or getting in your way.” Leyanne smiles cheerily, being strangely upbeat and annoyingly merry, as if we’re all just out for a summer walk at dawn, in the ugliest of landscapes. This witch is too weird for this time of the day, and I hook Meadow’s hand in mine to feel more secure now that we’re moving. Instinctively I reach out, catching Carmen’s from behind, sliding my fingers into hers. She stiffens at the contact, hesitantly glancing back at me before returning the grip without argument and loosely holding onto my hand. I can feel her awkwardness, her uncertainty, the alien feel of another femme wolf having this kind of contact, and I’m sad for her that between her own pack sisters, touch is not familiar. It makes me wonder if it ever was. Has she always been so alone?
“You said turning was a no for me, right?” I turn back and glance at Leyanne, dismissing Carmen’s posture, asking a question I have been going over all night. I have to clarify a few things. I’ve turned recently, and yet I am still pregnant, even though she said it had to do with the age of the babies.
“Right. Many hybrids were lost with just one turn. The perfection of your DNA is also your biggest flaw when it comes to species breeding. As soon as your body identifies it as something that’s drawing from your health, it fixes it.”
I guess in the earliest days they are so tiny and unformed that my wolf gifts ignore the presence until they start to make you sick. I know that pure wolf pups somehow have the ability to withstand turning and I guess the impurity of a mixed child, is its other species is the one who can’t stand up to it.
“Right, ummm…. my gifts, my abilities. In human form I can use them still though, right? They won’t hurt them?” I ask tightly, raising my brow as worry wriggles into my brain. Needing boundaries and guidelines to keep them safe, and I wonder how many times I have carelessly used them these past weeks while I didn’t know. How close have I been to losing them before they were given a chance at life.
“Yes, fine, although…. some report that abilities and such may be weaker and get worse as thing progress. Your body focuses on the new life and stupidly leaves you more vulnerable. I think its nature’s way of ensuring the weaker hybrids don’t get out of the womb. So many obstacles to ensure failure. Only the strongest make it so I’m not at all shocked that Sierra gave birth to the future Santo Alpha.”
“You’re saying she might lose them, even if she doesn’t turn?” Meadow spins her head on Leyanne, homing in on the details and ignoring her other words, much like I do and gets an infuriating shrug in return. We both gawp at her and my brain goes into chaotic overdrive as nerves flood me and make me feel instantly sick.
“Not if she’s careful. Limit her need to protect herself. Relies on her pack to shield her, her mate if he wasn’t cursed. Sierra got through, I’m sure you will too. Colton was a strong baby, and I don’t doubt his offspring will be the same. I mean look at you, your mother didn’t have half of your ability and she still carried you to term. Be calm, Luna, have faith in your fates.” Leyanne yanks a passing branch, snapping off a twig to use to swipe at long grass as we walk, and she seems so utterly casual and relaxed. Like she isn’t telling me the possibility I may still lose my children.
“You knew my mother?” I’m distracted by her words, head pulling away from the topic at hand for my own sanity, and like always thirsting for more of what I lost in my past. Anything I can ever learn about my mother from before, it’s like a drug for me. Always needing more of it as the memories of her fade with time. So few beyond our pack knew of her, and so little of the remaining ones can even recall her at all. A lot of the valley forgot the Whyte pack as it was completely wiped out.
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