04 Daughter of Fury

Touched

The woman, the Spark, sat next to me looking thoughtful. Eventually she drew her knees up and dropped her slender arms over them. Twirling a bit of hay in her fingertips. “Why are you hiding in here, little one?”

“The other wolves don’t like me. I am weak…Not like them.” I confessed.

“You’re a hound?”

“A wolf.” I corrected. Not liking the ugly nickname that Skins often gave my kind.

“I’m sorry. I meant no affront.”

I bobbed my head.

“I suppose this is a pack camp then?” She tilted her head up and looked around. Her red hair splashing over her pale shoulders as she glanced side to side.

I nodded.

“Why are you hiding?” I squinted one eye closed, hoping it might force the one closest to her to focus enough I could see her as she answered me.

“There is a man looking for me.” She leaned toward me to whisper. “A mean man.”

“He wants to hurt you?”

“He already has.” She said quietly. Her head fell in a way that told me that the subject made her sad.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered. “I wish I was strong like the other wolves. I’d rip his throat out for you.”

I sensed her smile. Though I couldn’t see it.

“If only it were that simple.” A laughing note entered her voice. “Might I share some of your bread?”

I looked down at it. I brought enough to share anyway.

“I wish I could see you.” I handed it to her. “You sound so pretty.”

“I am actually not as stunning as you might think for what I am. Rather plain actually. But males find me...Irresistible.”

“I wish the males here liked me...” I said a bit enviously.

“One day they will. You’re a pup yet.” She assured me. “But I sense great power in you. Someday, you’ll see.”

“Really?” I looked at her.

I heard the humming sound that meant she was agreeing with me. Only then did I realize how clearly I had heard her as she spoke to me. It was unique because generally I could only catch fragmented bits of what others said to me.  

***

The barn door grated open.

She and I both, silenced.

I saw a blinding gold light that I guessed was sunshine off gold armor. The Pyre Army.

Only they wore that vibrant gold armor. Everyone in Ferus knew who they were.

The most formidable army in the country. Whatever they hunt, they find. I shot the woman a worried glance. Fearing for her.

They’re not here for me. I knew.

Wolves handled wolf business.

The woman next to me squawked and ducked sideways as if in confirmation of my suspicions.

There was a ripple of power emerging from that shadow at the door. It told me we were in the presence of something powerful.

I knew right away that the man standing in the door was far from a Skin. I sniffed the air and caught no scent.

Mother had told me what creatures carried no scent a wolf could detect.

“An Eternus…” I hardly realized I’d breathed the word aloud until the man’s head whipped in our direction.

The woman and I both ducked deeper into the stall.

She nodded tightly. Confirming my guess.

I could feel her apprehension. She’s scared.

I had never been in the presence of an Eternus before. But I was aware they were some of the most powerful beings in all of Ferus. Only they exuded this sort of vibrating energy.

Because she was frightened, I was too. She was so nice and I didn’t want him to hurt her…Just because she’s different than the others!

I connected with that point very deeply.

I surged to my feet. “You’re not going to hurt her!”

I dropped my loaf of bread and took a threatening step toward the end of the stall, wanting to confront the looming shadow in the doorway.

The Eternus man stared at me, unmoved. Though I couldn’t see his face, I could feel his cold eyes burning into me. But a sudden grip on my arm stopped me from challenging him any further.

I looked down into the blurry face of the woman. Squinting as I tried to see her more than the red flare of hair pouring over her shoulders.

“No!” She whispered urgently. Her grip tightening almost painfully. “Don’t get between he and I. He’ll cut down anything that keeps him from me.”

My blurred gaze slid from the hazy outline of her face down to where her shadowy hand gripped my arm. I reminded her. “You said we shouldn’t touch.”

“Oh, no.” She released me and fell back. Her voice trembled with fear. “I’m so sorry!”

I watched her crawling away from me in horror. Her hand went to her face, likely to cover her mouth as she chanted. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

What did she do? I gaped at her in confusion.

She didn’t get a chance to answer because I was about to find out in my next breath.

Then my organs began to vibrate, quaking against my skin as if they were going to leap from my body. There was a bloom of fire that exploded in my blood. Turning it into lava in my veins.

In moments I was writhing in pain. Soon, it would prove to be the worst day in my life.

I didn’t know what happened to the Spark and the Eternus man. I was too consumed by my pain to notice.

I heard the woman murmur another desperate apology from somewhere distant in my subconscious. But I couldn’t care. I was in too much pain.

I hardly realized when screams had began spilling from my throat. A long series of excruciated cries that echoed on forever in that hollow stable. My body was bouncing over the hay as every muscle inside me disconnected and rewired. Every part of me was untethering.

The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt. A sentiment carried in my visceral wails. The entire camp heard me. Perhaps, I should’ve been scared that one of the other wolves would come kill me, but concise thought was impossible in that moment.  

It was the Alpha’s sons that found me first.

The Gallions boys. Jamie and Ajax. They were first to rush into the stable and check on me.

I heard the low tones of boys arguing. Then one left.

Soon he returned with my mother. She hurried in and demanded of the one next to me. “Ajax! What’s wrong with her?”

That told me it was Jamie that had gone to get her.

Thank heavens, someone did! I thought. Throwing my head sufferingly side to side. I didn’t know why they had chosen to help me instead of letting me die but I was grateful, nonetheless.

I convulsed. Lightning currents striking through me as if a thunderstorm raged beneath my flesh. The pulsing beats seared my skin. My bones felt as if they were shattering than reforming, twisting, beneath my flesh. Everything inside me felt as if it was either trying to realign or destroy itself. My burning bloodstream had entered each of my organs, turning them molten too.

My fingers and toes twitched against the layered pain taking me over.

I faintly heard my mother telling the boys to lift me and carry me to the shack.

They struggled to hold onto me because I was spasming so hard. Which made them yelp fearfully. Suddenly I could feel how terrified they were.

They think I have the plague. I guessed. Even I, was beginning to wonder.

What was the worst day soon expanded into the worst night of my life. I spent it sweating and rolling side to side, curling into a ball and clutching my stomach as if I could stop the tearing inside me.

“Baby girl. Please!” Mother cried as she rubbed a hand over my back. Trying to soothe me. “What is it?”

“My body is ripping itself apart.” I sobbed weakly. “The Spark…”

Her touch is destroying me! I wanted to tell her but I couldn’t get the words out.

***

It took hours of agony before I would realize what was happening.

I heard a howling in my mind. A strong, steady sound. Unlike any I’d heard from my wolf before. At first I didn’t recognize her.

She doesn’t sound weak and malformed.

She was calling like every other wolf I heard beneath the pink moon. She was wrathful, and forceful, banging against the layers of my flesh to emerge.

I was so terrified that I didn’t want to. I feared what would happen when I suffered in that form. I could hurt someone.

Hour after hour ticked by. And I was changing anyway. First my hands and feet were replaces by short paws with claws. Then my legs changed angles, folding different directions. Some of which were foreign to my human body and extremely painful.

Most wolves endured their first change when they were too young to recall it. And every turn after that, especially when done often, became easier.

The Spark had summoned the strength in my bloodline to emerge in its stoutest form. Pulling from me, something I hadn’t known was inside.

Or perhaps never was, until she gave it to me. I would spend many long moons wondering that.

As my human body weakened from the pain, my wolf’s determination increased. She was pushing her way out. Her snout jutted from my mouth and stretched my face. Folding my eyes into new sockets.

“Please baby.” Mother held my hand to her lips. Begging me. “Fight it. We don’t know what the others will do if they scent her. They could hunt you. They’ll smell how broken your beast is.”

But I couldn’t. I was too tired. Too weak. Just before dawn, she won.

The Spark’s power had done its work. It had overwhelmed every human part of me and given my beast strength she’d never possessed before. I quietly let her take over.

I dragged myself to the edge of the bed my mother wasn’t sitting on. I fell over the side with a dull thunk. Dropping to the floor and twisting onto my side until all the lumps of fur had completely wrenched their way through my skin. My spine crackled like rocks tumbling from a bank.

Everything in me had broken.

Now, I was reborn.

I rolled to my feet as a wolf and instinctively shook myself. Throwing globs of bloodied skin all over the floor and walls. They hit with sickening slops.

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to their new orbits. I focused my gaze and was so startled that I tripped backward.

I can see. I blinked my huge brown eyes, no longer hazed with blue, at my mother. I saw she’d rushed around the foot of the bed to cover her mouth as she looked at me. There was utter shock written over her face.

She stared back at me and her hand slowly lowered. She could tell that I truly saw her, now.

“Deva?” She knelt before me. Opening her arms.

I rushed to her. Dropping my nose along one side of her neck, then the other before I flattened the bottom of my furred chin over one of her shoulders. Pawing her lap lovingly.

I inhaled deeply and smelled everything on her.

The hints of flowers from the meadow she’d walked through yesterday. Dust from when she had cleaned yesterday morning. A small scratch that still marked her arm. All of those combined with a scent that I was sure was solely hers.

I looked into the lovely face of my mother and saw for the first time. I took in her pretty cornflower hair and sky-colored eyes.

She’s beautiful. I thought in awe. Which made me wonder. Am I?

I’d always imagined myself as horrifically deformed. Painful to look upon.

Now I couldn’t wait to see.