Black Wolf (58 page)

He set plate,
jug, and cups on the hardwood floor beside the rug. "Help
yourselves. I'll find something more substantial, but that'll do
for the moment, I think."

Jaisan's
nostrils flared. "Fresh cookies?"

"They can't
get much fresher. There are more in the kitchen, so don't worry if
you finish those ones."

Deanna joined
them with two crocheted afghans filling her arms—one grey and white
and two shades of purple, one black and deep purple and two shades
of grey. She draped one around each of the wolves.

The reaction
was subtle but immediate, and to anyone used to wolves, it was
unmistakable. Both relaxed, Jaisan pulling the afghan closer around
him and higher—where he'd smell it with every breath, in fact—and
rubbing against it with one cheek.

"Really Jess,"
he whispered, with a faint smile.

*'Sela says to
make painkiller tea,* Deanna said silently. *She's getting dressed
and getting herself together mentally, she'll be here in a minute.
Shaine's going to move so he's not upstairs at all when we get
these two up there, so they can meet him with Jess awake enough to
help. I'll figure out beds somewhere for everyone.* Kevin nodded,
and perched on one of the wooden chairs.

Mandisa would
be forgiving about being hauled out of bed for an emergency, but
Gisela would probably be much less frightening. Better to let
Gisela do what she could and make the call on whether they needed
more expert assistance.

"Really Jess,"
Kevin confirmed. "But you aren't going to want to tackle all the
stairs up to where he's sleeping until you're ready to stay up
there. In hindsight, we should probably have given him a room on
the ground floor. And I don't think we can wake him up just now.
Long day."

"Soon?"

"Soon. I
promise."

Demon Wolf

56

Jess opened
his eyes halfway, saw sunlight; drowsily, he nestled closer to the
warm body against his. There were so many confusing things to deal
with when he got up, nothing made sense anymore, but he didn't need
to think about that right now. He could just relax for a little
longer, and enjoy the wonderful feeling inside.

"Good morning,
Jess," his bedmate murmured affectionately.

He mumbled
acknowledgement of some sort, rearranged himself a bit more
comfortably; the other helpfully shifted position to make it
easier, stroked his hair gently.

"Sleepy Jess.
I don't mind, you can wake up whenever you want. I'll just lie here
and wait and be deliriously happy as quietly as I can."

That sounded
like a fair bargain.

He wandered in
and out of vividly realistic dreams; more than once, he was sure
he'd already gotten up and gone about the day, and wondered why he
was still in bed.

At some point,
his mind decided to orient itself back on physical reality, much to
Jesse's disappointment; he could have been quite content to stay in
that pleasant state much longer.

Only then did
it occur to him to wonder whose body it was that was coiled against
his. The scent was strongly familiar, teasing at the edges of his
memory, but he couldn't put a name to it; it whispered to him of
love and trust and safety.

A soft
chuckle. "You smell all confused, Jess. Here, I'll help you
remember." Motion, a chill briefly as whoever-it-was moved, then
settled against him again.

A hand that
might have been his own, slender and dark, though the nails were
broken and rough, reached across him to lay a badly-tarnished
silver dagger in front of him.

That same
dagger had been flitting in and out of his dreams with increasing
frequency, never letting him read what it said on the blade.

He sat up,
wincing as stiffened muscles protested, and picked up the dagger.
It fit into his hand like a part of himself; he knew, though the
tarnish and dirt masked it, that the dark stones set in hilt and
sheath were amethysts. The sheath stuck; he wiggled it carefully
until it came free, and he laid it on his lap. His fingertips found
a rougher spot on the blade, just below the hilt, and with shaking
hands he rubbed at the tarnish, turned the dagger to the light so
he could see what was engraved in small neat letters.

Jesse Alexis
Kore-Tremayne.

How had he
forgotten his own name? It didn't matter how long it had been, he
knew it was his true name, the core of himself.

The perfect
mirror of himself lying beside him, watching, offered a second
dagger wordlessly. It didn't fit as well in his hand, but nearly
so; the blade came out of the sheath more easily.

Jaisan
Alastair Kore-Tremayne.

Which meant
the stones in that one were sapphires.

Which meant,
too, that this was Jaisan lying next to him.

Which meant...
far more than words could ever explain...

"Know
something Jess? If we could go far enough back, there wouldn't be
two of us anymore."

Jess raised
his head, looking at him in confusion, the elm tree whispering
around them and the rest of the world far away. "Huh?"

"We're twins,
right? Which comes in two kinds, I checked in the library. There
are fraternal twins and identical twins. Fraternal twins is when
two eggs get fertilized at once. Identical is when just one egg
gets fertilized and then it divides in half and each half grows
into a baby. And we're identical twins, so if we went far enough
back, we wouldn't be both of us at all, just one single cell."

There was a
mind-twisting idea, everything that became both of them contained
in one tiny thing like the teacher showed them in the microscope in
science class...

Without
Jaisan, without his name, so much of him was gone, that was what
the aching cold emptiness inside had always been, made all the
worse because he couldn't even remember what the void was.

"Jais," he
whispered.

Jaisan smiled.
"Really truly all of me. What do you remember?"

"Nothing. Sort
of. I mean... there are memories there, only I don't want to look
at them."

"Why?"

"I'm scared."
It was out before he even thought, but it was truth.

Jaisan laced
his fingers through Jesse's. "Don't have to be scared. I'm here. I
won't let you get lost."

Shivering,
Jess curled up against him again, the silver daggers left at the
side of the bed. The memories were there now, and he didn't think
any of the awful things the counsellor had told him could happen
were going to happen.

Warm soft
darkness, familiar arms around him, "Good night, Jess," utter
peace...

Rough wood
under him, wind and sunlight through leaves, "We can see the whole
world from up here!"

"Names have
power for those of demon blood. The daggers hold our names, and
that both protects us and gives us one weapon outside our own
bodies we can use to fight demons. Always, always keep your name
safe."

Wind and
sunlight, on the beach, with Aindry and Mom and Dad, learning how
to swim, Aindry teasing them and telling them to just
dog-paddle.

Intense grief,
Dad wasn't supposed to leave them, where was he? Samantha was fun
and they loved and trusted her, but that wasn't the same, Dad was
supposed to be here with them...

"Jess, Jais,
wake up, right now. You have to get up and get dressed, no
arguments, just do it." The strong scent of fear, their
own/Mom/Aindry/Sam, as they fled out of the house and into the
forest. A song that made his head feel strange, made things unreal
like in a dream, and the thunder from above, the increasing panic,
realizing suddenly that he was alone with Samantha... All alone,
with a grey-haired woman kneeling in front of him, it occurred to
him that she'd been talking to him for some time now but the words
hadn't made sense, the world didn't feel quite so fuzzy.

He looked up
at Jaisan. "Mom? And Aindry?" Tears stung his eyes, made wet paths
down his cheeks.

"Aindry's
asleep across the hall. Mom... I don't know, Jess. The demons
followed us, and we kept running. When it started to get cold, Mom
found a place to leave us with friends, and she led them away.
About three years ago, the demons came back looking for us. We ran
away so nobody else would die."

"Damn. That
doesn't sound good. Where were you for three years?"

"Wandering all
over Canada. We've been scared to stay still. We've hardly even
been into the villages, and we were avoiding Haven 'cause it's so
close to Unity and we thought you would be too. Otherwise we
would've found you
ages
ago."

He could well
imagine the kind of life that would be, even with the company. "So
how did you get here now?"

"We both got
hurt—I've got damaged ribs, and Aindry's leg is messed up. The
demons have been really running us hard lately, and we were sure
we're finally hurt too much to win a fight. So we decided, if we
were going to die, we'd do it in Unity. We were there I think four
or five days, then yesterday we ran into Sam. She went to get our
names from where she hid them, she wanted to give you the best
fighting chance she could. We thought she was a demon at first and
we were going to die and I'd never find you. I think Sam thought
she was seeing ghosts."

"Who knows
you're here?"

"Sam was
pretty tired, so she brought us here and told Kevin and Deanna to
take good care of us and went home. They're very nice. Very calm
about having two exhausted scared hurt paranoid wolves left on
their doorstep. Very smart, too. Deanna gave us blankets that
smelled like you, and we weren't as scared then although we weren't
thinking about why. And we had two big bowls of chili each and we
started to relax some more and Gisela made it not hurt so much to
breathe and made Aindry hurt less." He smiled. "She kept grumbling
at us that you keep her busy and with three of us she'll have a
full-time job, but she smelled happy and worried but not
angry."

"I don't get
hurt that often. Just, well, shit happens. But I guess she does
kinda spend a lot of time putting me back together. Just like Kev
spends a lot of time saving my ass. I would be so screwed without
them..."

"Smelling so
many people around and so many wolves made us really nervous, but
they kept telling us the wolves are your pack and won't see us as
intruders and that the others are all friends who are going to be
glad we're here. That's a lot of friends."

"Yeah, well,
they were friends with each other before I fell into the middle of
things. And yeah, there's a lot of people who always seem to be
around, but they're great, and I bet someone's going to want to
throw a party first chance we get." How
would
Bane and
Evaline feel about Jaisan and Aindry being here? They'd welcome
them, right?

Jaisan smiled
again, then his forehead furrowed. "Can smell someone here from the
lake, but didn't meet him, and I don't get how anyone from the lake
can be good but Kevin and Deanna say he is and he's your friend and
helped you."

"Mmhmm. He is.
Wonder how he managed that, since he usually sleeps here."

"Anyway, I
don't think it was more than, mm, hour and a half? maybe less, then
Kevin brought us up here and made sure there were lots of towels
and stuff in the bathroom. So we got clean, the hot water felt
so
good, and Aindry went to sleep in Kevin's bed and I snuck
in here with you where I'm supposed to be and you never even woke
up."

Jess drew back
a bit, took a closer look. Not quite a perfect mirror anymore: his
own hair was long, but not that long or that wild; Jais of course
lacked the claw-marks over his eye, though both ears showed signs
of having been torn a few times—definitely a recurring problem for
most wolves. His lower ribs had been tightly wrapped with a long
strip of magesilk almost the colour of his skin, but dark livid
bruising showed below the bottom edge. A liberal scattering of
shallow damage and fading scars; judging from the extent, he'd been
living wild so long it was a wonder he hadn't gone entirely
feral.

"I want to go
pounce on Aindry, and then find some food."

Jaisan closed
his eyes blissfully. "There are real honest-to-god home-made
chocolate-chip cookies down there."

"There's
better stuff than that once Kev really gets going. I know the
feeling, though. I haven't exactly been sitting here and happy for
six years."

"Sam wouldn't
tell us. She just said you're here and you forgot and there are bad
demons around."

"I'll give you
all the gory details later. I went from foster homes to getting
adopted by an abusive asshole to running away and living on the
streets, and luckily I tripped over Haven." He saw Jaisan's
expression turn sad with sympathetic pain, an echo of how little he
himself liked to think of Jais and Aindry half-feral. Reluctantly,
Jesse untangled himself from Jaisan, and went to the closet. "Real
clothes, or magesilks?"

"Whatever. If
it's clean, I don't care."