Julia didn't feel it. If she felt anything, it was a bitter disappointment that her grandmother, whom she had looked up to all of these years, would turn out to be helpless in the face of this problem. Dee had always been able to fix anything, whether it was a scraped knee when Julia fell over a log or a homework problem she was struggling with. Now, though, there was nothing she could do to help Julia, and it frustrated Julia more than anything.
"I don't think this is going to work," Julia said, letting her shoulders relax. "I don't feel anything at all."
"No worries," Dee said, her go-to phrase for when anything wrong happened. "We'll figure it out. Keep working at it."
"Sure," Julia said, although she wasn't sure what she was supposed to keep working at. Nothing they had tried had shown even the glimmer of helping her shift.
"Child, come here," Dee said. She sat down on the couch and Julia sat down next to her. Dee hugged her close, and Julia let her cheek press against Dee's wrinkled face. Her skin was thin as birchbark, and just as spotted, but cool to the touch.
"Julia, dear," Dee said. "This isn't just about shifting, is it?"
Tears leaped into Julia's eyes, and she was helpless to stop them from running down her cheeks. Her face turned hot as she hastily wiped the tears from her face.
"It's just ... it's Damien," Julia said.
"Do you want to start a family with him soon?" Dee asked.
Julia nodded, her voice too uncertain to rely on.
"Child." Dee's voice was strict, now, and Julia looked up into eyes that pierced her to the soul. Ever since Dee had shifted back into wolf form to fight Trax's pack of scouts, she'd started to glow from her eyes when she turned emotional, just as Damien did. It scared Julia, to think that someone she thought she knew had an entirely different side to her.
"Yes?" Julia said.
"You have your schooling. That's something you've always wanted."
"Yes," Julia whispered.
"And do you want a family now?"
"I never did!" Julia cried. "I never did, but now I do. I'm looking forward to college; I'm sure it'll be wonderful, but ... " She waved her hand in the air helplessly.
"But this is an ache in you," Dee finished.
"Yes," Julia said, "It's important, and so is school. I can do both." She realized that she was sitting up straight in her chair, every muscle tensed. She'd dreamed about going to college for so long that it didn't seem right to let family become the overriding factor in her life. But now that she'd met Damien, she understood what it was to want a family—not just to want this as an intellectual desire, but to long for a child that was both of theirs and to feel that longing in her entire body. She didn't know how that fit into her plans for attending college, but she knew that she wasn't ready to give up her old dream for the sake of her new one.
"You said that I was hypnotized," Julia said.
Dee brushed her long white hair back and knotted it at the base of her neck.
"That was a long time ago," she said.
"Would the werewitch know?"
"You don't want to go back there," Dee said. Her eyes glowed white at the edges of the irises as she spoke. "It's dangerous."
"But if it's the only way to find out how I can shift—"
"It's not, my dear," Dee said. "And even if you did go back, there's no guarantee the werewitch would still be there."
"She is."
Julia and Dee both turned to the source of the voice in the doorway. Mara stood there, arms crossed. Her dark hair, almost purple in its darkness, hung loosely over her muscled shoulders. A thin white tank top clung to her body, curving around her chest and showing off her toned arms to the greatest extent.
"There's no need to interrupt our conversation," Dee said, her voice icy. "I would have stopped talking if I'd known you would intrude."
"I'm just trying to help," Mara said. "If you'd rather I not—"
"The werewitch is there?" Julia asked, a note of desperation stretching out of her stomach and into her voice. "Where?"
"Where she's lived for ages, before even this old one was a pup," Mara said, tensing her muscles as she looked at Dee.
"Which old one?" Dee said, the white lines of her eyebrows lifting only slightly. "You mean your pack elder? I'd be careful speaking so carelessly if I were you."
"Is this your pack?" Mara's mouth twisted upward into a barely-veiled sneer. "I thought you were all just a bunch of wolves thrown together."
"Wolves thrown together can form the strongest pack," Dee said.
"Oh? How does that work?" Mara said, cocking her head as though she was speaking to a pup.
"Have you never seen a beaver's dam?" Granny Dee said. "Or a nest in the hook of a pine branch? The twigs that snag in each other's bends, those are the ones which truly hold fast."
"I wasn't informed that we were in the business of building nests," Mara said, obvious contempt dribbling from her words. "I was part of a pack that ran smooth as metal. We fight. We win."
"That is a sweet sentiment, my dear," Dee said. "Except the last time, you lost."
Mara winced, and underneath her cool exterior Julia saw a flash of pain, true pain. Was she so committed to her previous pack? They had treated Julia like an object. She couldn't imagine that Mara had been treated much differently.
"I did not lose," Mara said, but her voice had lost much of its sharp edge. "Trax lost."
"True," Dee said. "A pack is only as strong as its leader."
"We say that the pack is as strong as its weakest pup."
"That seems to place a lot of pressure on a pup," Dee said. She glossed over Mara's use of the word we, but Julia saw her eyes track Mara's lips when she spoke about her previous pack. Mara noticed it too.
"Trax's pack was all strong," Mara said.
"Because you abandon wolves when they are weak. Or is that not what happened with Kyle when he was young?"
"There's no other way!" Mara said. Her eyes darted from Julia to Dee, as though she was a cornered animal seeking an exit. "If you're weak, you risk the pack."
"Those who would turn their back on a helpless pup—"
"Don't quote scripture to me, old woman!" Mara cried. Her hands trembled in fists at her sides. "I'm sure that's what your pack uses to justify creeping around like mole rats under the earth, hoping to stay out of sight. Weakness, not strength. Hiding, not fighting."
"It isn't my pack," Dee said quietly. "It's Damien's."
"A blind wolf! Ha!"
Julia seethed. How dare Mara speak about Damien like that? He had saved her from Trax's brutal pack. He had spared her life where anyone would have simply killed her.
"And you," Dee said, continuing as though Mara had not spoken, "you don't understand strength."
"If you weren't so old, I would consider that a challenge."
"Find me in wolf form sometime and we'll see how much of a challenge you can stand," Dee said. She took Julia's hand. "Let's go, dear."
No! Julia wanted to cry out. What about the werewitch? She needed to know more about where the woman lived, how Julia could reach her. But Dee was already moving her away to the door and Julia could tell that one moment more would see the two of them at each other's throats.
"I guess as old as you are, you've forgotten how to fight," Mara said, taunting her.
Dee turned around at the doorway, her eyes glowing white around the edges of her irises.
"Better than forgetting what it is I'm supposed to be fighting for."
CHAPTER FOUR
Damien
Damien walked down the back porch of Julia's house, across the meadow, and to the edge of the forest where the soft grasses underfoot turned into crackling pine needles. He stepped carefully. Normally in human form he carried a wood cane to guide him, but he would have no use for the cane where he was going. He wore few clothes, for the same reason.
He stopped at the edge of the woods, just inside the treeline. Stretching his arms over his head, he breathed in. The pine smell was overwhelming in the air, and the birds calling back and forth seemed the only creatures alive in the forest. Damien pulled off his clothes easily and began to shift.
Although sometimes he was forced to shift rapidly, as for a fight, Damien preferred to take his time changing from human form into wolf form. The stretching of skin, the cracking of the joints—these changes made him feel alive, and he loved to pay close attention to the shift. First the bones in the ribs, turning and knitting themselves more tightly. The muscles of the legs stretched here, and here they contracted, and the joint of the knee switched and bent. He let his wolf form take over slowly, slowly. The fur, sprouting between his fingers. His fingers shrinking, his nails becoming claws. Then his snout pushed out his face, and this was the part where he felt most alive.
He breathed in, fully a wolf now, and the world came into focus around him.
The resin from the pines differed from one tree to the next, so strongly that he could pick out the trunks of each one around him. The earth smelled of wildness and animals, and here was the trace of a fox who'd been chasing rabbits in the meadow. Underground he could smell the rabbits' den, the tunnels stretching out beneath the forest floor. Nearby a deer must have died; the scent of rot was carried on the wind. And farther on, faintly, his pack—he could make out the distinct scents of each of them, their trails from days previous and also from that day. He would track them. He would follow them.
He walked to find Jordan's trail and held to it fast. Once he was certain he knew the way, he began to trot, then to run. The inner parts of this forest were familiar to him by now, although he always feared a downed tree when he was running—the scent of the broken wood might not reach him before he met the obstacle. As he ran through the forest, he picked up speed and certainty. The wind shifted and he was able now to make out all of the things in his path before he came to them. And the scent of the wolves grew stronger and stronger, until they were just over a hillside. At the crest of it he howled in joy and heard the rest of his pack call back. All except Mara. Her scent was strange to him, new and not yet so familiar that he could track her without effort. As he came into sight of the rest of the pack, he could hear Jordan bark in recognition. They were running, they kept running, and Damien joined them, falling into easy step with Jordan.
Now they ran at full speed, indulging their need for exercise and loving the brisk air on their backs. Kyle and Katherine tousled, losing ground and being left behind. Damien smiled inwardly—the two were inseparable, and he was glad that Katherine had been able to find someone else after he'd found his Julia. Then Jordan nipped at his ear and he nipped back, playfully tumbling over each other now that they had reached the edge of their territory.
"Farther?" Mara stopped and looked back at them expectantly.
Damien shook his head just before hearing Jordan prepare to leap, claws digging into the ground. He rolled down and out of the way, and Jordan tumbled over him and into Mara, knocking her to the ground. She yipped at him and leapt over his back as Damien feinted a snap towards his haunches. Kyle and Katherine bounded into the clearing, and soon they were all five of them at play like a litter of pups, bowling into each other in rowdy leaps and nipping each other's heels and tails.