Silver (13 page)

I stared at the door for a long time,
fighting a battle I knew I couldn’t win. I fell asleep that night
with a nightmare of werewolves chasing Nikki down a dark road. She
stopped at the end and turned, a silver knife in her hand. A wolf
jumped at her and she impaled it. The wolf fell to the ground,
lifeless. When I got closer, I realized the wolf was my dad.

I walked slowly to school with Brock the
next morning. My arms and legs tingled in anticipation of the
coming night’s phase. It wasn’t usually that bad, but Dad and I had
never gone so long without phasing. We used to run maybe two or
three nights a week through the woods a mile from our house. We
would chase deer, run through streams, and race so fast that I felt
like we were flying across the ground. My muscles ached for that
release, and anticipation shivered through me even though I knew I
would be locked in the basement, unable to take part in the monthly
run.

“
So tonight, huh?” Brock
asked, guessing my thoughts.

I nodded.

“
Are you worried about the
pack?”

“
I’ll be staying inside,” I
said, though the regret in my voice was undeniable.

He glanced at me and mercifully changed
topics. “You ready for Mr. Henry’s math test?”

I shook my head. “Algebra was never my
strong subject. And for some reason, I can’t keep my mind on
studying.”

“
For some reason,” Brock
laughed pointedly.

I glanced at him. “What does that
mean?”
Brock grinned. “Oh, come on. I hang around enough to notice that
you have a budding relationship with a certain neighbor, who also
happens to be in a relationship with a certain Alpha werewolf, if
you know what I mean.”

“
It’s not like that!” I
protested.

He laughed again. “All I know is Nikki Valen
never so much as smiled at me until you were around. Now, it’s like
we’re in this secret club.” His voice took on an awed quality. “She
even winked at me the other day when I walked past her and Chet in
the hall. I’m lucky he didn’t see or I’d be dead right now!”

I laughed despite my somber mood. “Yeah,
well, we’re just friends. I’m sure Chet has no idea.”

He grinned. “You better hope so. That’s one
werewolf I never want to face.”

I nodded in agreement, though like any
werewolf in another’s territory, I wondered deep down which of us
would win. I shook myself to clear the dangerous thoughts. By the
time we entered the school, Brock’s good humor lifted my mood
enough to help me push down the reminder of what the night would
bring.

I locked myself inside the unfinished
basement long before midnight, knowing the closer I came to
phasing, the harder it would be to listen to my brain instead of my
soul. I longed to run, but I also wanted to survive the night.

I paced the floor, tracing cracks in the
cement. The scent of fresh earth seeped through, moist from the
recent rains. I breathed it in deeply and held it, and was reminded
of forest runs at midnight, ancient oaks stretching toward the sky,
rich loam soft underfoot, the faint trail of a rabbit, and the
flick of a white tail as deer left the meadow.

A shudder ran through me and I opened my
eyes. Moonlight streamed through the tiny window in the far corner.
Though I couldn’t see the moon, I could feel its fullness. It
called to me and I had no choice but to answer.

I took off my clothes and waited. The need
to phase increased until I let go of my control with a shudder.
Seconds later, my bones began to change; some lengthened and others
shortened, pulling me in familiar directions. My fingers withdrew
into paws. I stretched and rolled my shoulders, not fighting it
now. Phasing ached, but it was like stretching muscles that hadn’t
been used in a long time and I relished the slight pains of my
scars and the ache of the few remaining bruises on my back from the
drunk driver.

My mouth and nose elongated into a muzzle.
My teeth rounded and sharpened, and ached to tear into something.
My skin itched a second before coarse black fur followed by a
softer undercoat grew along my body. I pushed my paws out on the
floor as far as they could go, then shook and was a wolf.

Even my werewolf-heightened senses as a
human were no match for what I had in wolf form. A breeze escaped
through a crack in the corner of the small window above me and
tickled tantalizingly along my muzzle, beckoning me to follow it
past the city to the rolling hills and forests beyond. I couldn’t
follow it, and paced madly around the tiny basement. What had
seemed a safe haven before was now a prison.

Howls caught my ears, angry and challenging.
They came closer until the wolves circled the house, calling me
out. Chet had decided to wait until the full moon, until I couldn’t
avoid the change any longer, in order to challenge me to the duel
for leadership instinct demanded of two Alphas in the same
territory.

I regarded the angry golden eyes in the
window and my lips pulled back in a silent snarl. Wolves dug around
the window sill; their claws scraped against the cement foundation.
The black wolf stared at me, hatred and domination in his eyes.
Chet in wolf form was even more ruled by the wolf instincts to
defend his pack against a stranger, especially an Alpha. I hadn’t
planned for the basement to be a fortress, but the decision was
proving more insightful than I had realized.

After about an hour of pacing, the wolves
stopped their angry howls. I wondered vaguely if Nikki’s parents,
the Hunters, had heard them, but no yelping or sounds of pursuit
followed their near silent trek from my house. I listened with a
crazy, vain longing to go with them despite the danger, to run with
a pack again, to perhaps lead the pack myself.

I shook hard to clear the desperate
thoughts, then sat by the window and soaked in what I could of the
moonlight. It caressed my fur, a gentle touch that brought a
comfort and peace I hadn’t known since the night Dad was killed. I
longed to break through the window so I could bask in it
unhindered. I looked closer at the window and realized I could.

The promise of an unfettered run through the
night was too much to bear. I backed up, my muscles coiled tightly,
and was about to spring when another pair of wolf eyes appeared in
the window. A snarl of pent up frustration ripped from my lips. The
wolf dropped on its belly, its head barely visible in the window
now. I caught a faint whine and pricked my ears in surprise. The
wolf pawed at the window, not angry or hasty but as if submitting
to me. I trotted cautiously to the wall beneath it and sniffed.

Mouse! I gazed at him in surprise. The lone
wolf, Brock’s quiet friend, had defied the pack’s anger and come to
my house. I stared at him for a moment, unsure why he would do such
a thing. He met my eyes, then dropped his gaze and pulled his ears
back. Without warning, he butted his head into the window. A small
cracking noise sounded and more fresh air leaked through. I
realized what he was doing and growled a quiet warning. He backed
up from the window.

I trotted to the back of the basement, then
turned and ran. After three short strides I gathered my legs
underneath me and jumped. I flattened my ears and ducked my head,
hitting the window with the top of my skull. It shattered easily
and I pulled through into the fresh night air. I shook the glass
from my fur and gazed around. The full moon basked the night in its
pale glow; mile upon unexplored mile beckoned to me. I inhaled
deeply and let it out through my nose, my brain categorizing the
new scents as quickly as they came.

Mouse rolled over on the grass and I glanced
at him; I had forgotten his presence in the gift of freedom. He
looked at me with his belly exposed, his mousy gray fur soft and
fine. I took a few steps toward the street. Mouse rose slowly to
his feet and watched me. He whined quietly in his throat. I debated
whether it would be safe for him to come with me, but he had
already risked so much I couldn’t leave him to the mercy of Chet’s
pack. I gave a sharp bark and he trotted up and wagged his tail. I
snorted and took off. Mouse followed close behind.

It felt so good to run, to forget about
Mason, my dad, the school, Chet’s pack, and Nikki’s parents.
Everything fell away with the pounding of my paws against the
pavement. We ran until streetlights no longer showed the way, then
I dove into the underbrush along the side of the road with Mouse at
my heels. We darted through the trees, two ghosts scaring up
wildlife in the split second before we passed and left them far
behind.

We ran the entire night. Mouse and I
followed game trails that twisted between rolling greens hills and
through cow pastures. We darted through fields of sleeping geese
and swam across lazy, winding rivers. Mouse loosened up from the
shy, submissive wolf and bounded around me like a puppy with a new
bone. We ran through the trees until the moon went down and we
stayed in wolf form of our own free will.

We only caught scent of the werewolf pack
once the entire night, and we stayed far clear of them until they
were gone. It was freedom. Not the freedom I was used to or that my
Alpha instincts longed for, but it was far better than staying
locked in a basement all night chasing the moon through my
dreams.

Mouse and I crept back to my house in the
early hours of the morning. He grabbed up a pack of clothes in his
jaws he had hidden behind the bushes, and we slipped through the
broken basement window and phased.

“
I’ll have to get that
fixed before Mom returns,” I said, pulling on my shirt.

Mouse glanced at it. “Yeah, you never know
what kind of pests might show up.” He threw me a grin, shy and
timid now that we were back in human form.

I studied him and he met my gaze for a
minute before dropping his eyes. “That was a risky thing you did,”
I said quietly.

He looked at the floor. “I know. I just. . .
.” He glanced back up and his eyes flashed. “I just get so tired of
Chet and his pack. Everything has to be done his way, everyone has
to follow him and listen to him.”

I fought back a smile. “That’s kind of the
way it is with Alphas.”

He shook his head. “Not like that, at least
not the way my dad used to do it.”

I stared at him. “Your dad was an
Alpha.”

He nodded.
“
The
Alpha, until
he died.”

I frowned. “But you’ve got a gray coat.”

“
My mom’s human.” He
glanced at me curiously. “Like yours, right?”

“
Yeah,” I admitted, “I
shouldn’t have been born an Alpha, but I was. I can’t explain
it.”
Mouse shrugged. “Maybe you can take the pack from Chet. It’d be a
lot better off.”
I held up a hand. “Let’s not get hasty. The pack is his and I don’t
want it. There’s something going on here and I need to get to the
bottom of it before anyone else gets hurt.”

“
Anyone else?”
I meet Mouse’s eyes, wondering how much I dared to tell him, how
much he could take. I took a deep breath. “Someone is killing off
all the older wolves and Alphas.”

His eyes widened in shock. “Why?” When he
realized his own father would have been included in this, his voice
dropped. “Who would do such a thing?”

The pain in his voice echoed the ache in my
heart and I fought to speak. “They want control of the packs, all
of them, as far as I can tell, and eliminating the stronger wolves
is the best way to do it.”

Mouse’s eyes darkened and he glared at me,
not realizing the challenge he gave. “Who?”

I shook off the instinct to fight such a
challenge. “I have reason to believe it's my father’s brother,
Mason. I saw him here a few days ago. He not an Alpha, but close,
and he definitely has the ambition for power. I wouldn’t put it
past him.”

Mouse stared at me for a couple of seconds,
then seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped his eyes.
“Your father was killed, too?”
I nodded.

“
By his own brother?” his
voice was incredulous and tinged with bitterness.

I nodded again and turned away with the
pretense of picking up glass. He joined me.

“
That’s messed up,” he said
quietly after a while.

“
I know,” I replied in as
calm a voice as I could manage.

He sat down against the wall and toyed with
the shards of glass he held. I watched him, concerned about what he
might do. He twirled one short shard between his thumb and
forefinger. “And you’re planning to kill him?” he asked, though it
was more of a statement than a question.

I shrugged, but my voice was determined.
“Whatever it takes.”

He nodded. “Then count me in.”

I stared at him. “You don’t want to get
tangled up in this.”

He glanced up at me, a small, bitter smile
on his face. “I don’t know if you noticed, but your uncle counted
me in a long time ago.”

I studied him for a minute; the
determination in his eyes gave no room for argument. I nodded
despite the pit in my stomach. I didn’t want anyone else to get
hurt, but if he felt he had to fight, I couldn’t blame him because
I had the same reasons he did. “Okay. Glad to have you with
me.”

He gave me another small smile. “We make
quite the pack, don’t we?”

I laughed, but the comment eased something
in my chest. “Yeah, we do. Let’s go get something to eat.”

He followed me up the wooden stairs and I
unlocked the padlock I had used.

Mouse glanced at me and I grinned
sheepishly. “To keep me from escaping as a wolf,” I explained. We
both looked back at the broken window and laughed.

Chapter 13