Waken (The Woods of Everod Book 1) (19 page)

“What was that?” he asked.

“Just seeing if you have your seatbelt on,” Tristan answered, knowing full well that he didn’t. Justin flopped back in his seat and yanked the belt on.

“Sweet ride,” Justin said, smoothing his hand along the black leather.

“Thanks.”

“Got any good music?”

I rolled my eyes at his question. No doubt, he’d brought some of his crap along.

“Yeah, the whole thing is voice activated. Just say the name of the artist.”

Justin began calling out artists, which thankfully were not available. “Damn, do you have anything on it?”

“I guess we have different tastes in music,” Tristan replied. He named one of my favorite old school punk bands and music instantly filled the cab. A few miles north of town, Tristan pulled off the highway onto a dirt road leading west. The drive was slow and bumpy.

Fifteen minutes later, a cabin came into view, its dark exterior lightened by large bay windows on each side of the front door. As we pulled into the drive, Lisa and Samara came out onto the porch, followed by Seth and the piano man, Lukas I thought.

“My parents had to go into Telluride, so they won’t be back until later,” Tristan said.

Was I that obvious? The anxiety I’d felt about finally meeting Tristan’s parents eased as I realized I would be surrounded by people familiar to me.

The day passed quickly as we unpacked then went for a short hike around the cabin. Tristan promised to take me to the nearby waterfall the next day. After changing from my hiking clothes, I headed back downstairs and found Tristan sitting in the living room surrounded by Seth, Lukas, and some people I didn’t recognize. I still didn’t see anyone who could be his parents.

“Hey,” Justin said coming up behind me and exposing my position in the doorway.

A chorus of greetings echoed through the room. Tristan nudged Seth, who then put his fork down and rose, heading towards Justin.

“Hey, man. I’m going to run the truck up to Kyle’s place and hook up the trailer. You mind helping me?” Seth said.

“Sure, let me get my boots and I’ll meet you outside.” Justin bolted out of the room.

“Tristan, you sure about this?” Seth turned back to him. The other four people stared at Tristan.

“Positive.”

Seth nodded then left. I stood there rubbing my palms along my thighs.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” a slim brunette woman said. She sat next to Lukas. “This is about more than you. If you tell her and she...”

“That won’t happen, Marissa. I spoke to the Council.”

“What?! You spoke to them before even consulting with us? What else are you not telling us?” Marissa stood up, panic causing her eyes to dart from Tristan to me and back again. Lukas leaned across the coffee table, squinting as he tried to read Tristan’s expression.

The other couple sat silently, although unlike me their silence didn’t seem to be due to confusion. I was tired of the feeling. Tristan was going to give me my answers and my introductions.

I cleared my throat and all eyes turned to me. “You said I’d get to meet your parents. You’re not avoiding it are you?”

“Be very sure, Tristan,” Marissa said before he could reply stomped through the door to the kitchen.

He threw a dirty look at the door as it clicked shut then stood. Coming to me, he gripped my hand and drew me further into the room.

“Janie, this is Adam and Katrina. My parents.”

He’d told me about the slow aging, but part of me had figured he was exaggerating, because honestly Tim still looked exactly the way he did eight years ago. Maybe if I looked closely I’d see the differences between the Tim of now and the Tim of years past. But the man and woman he just introduced as his parents couldn’t have been thirty yet. There was no possible way they were his parents. I yanked my hand from his, crossing my arms across my chest.

“So you weren’t kidding? All that stuff you told me…that was real? Not some kind of magic trick?”

“It’s not a joke or any kind of magic.” He reached for me and I shied away from his touch. I think I could honestly say I was finally freaking out. I hadn’t believed him. And I didn’t want to believe him now.

“I think you should talk to her alone,” Katrina said.

“Mom...”

“I trust you, honey.” She walked around the coffee table and kissed his cheek. “Janie, I’m glad we finally got to meet. I’ve heard such wonderful things about you. I truly hope we can get to know each other.”

Katrina and Adam went through the door to the kitchen and I turned to Tristan wanting answers.

“This is all of it, right? The healing, the long life. That’s it, right?” My words trembled. I wasn’t sure if I could handle anything else.

“No. I told you it was best if I showed you.”

I backed up a few steps. None of this was normal and that’s what I wanted. What I
needed
.

“I don’t want to know. I changed my mind. Just take me home. I’ll forget about everything. I’ll leave. Move in with our aunt.”

He shook his head. “It’s too late for that. I’ve already spoken to the Council. They know about you now. The only way for you to be safe is for you to know everything. To see everything.”

Chapter 16

He took a step back. There was a split second where his body went completely slack and I thought he was falling. Then he tensed, his back arching back and then forward. His arms came up and he gripped the sides of his face as it contorted in agony. His hair began to darken to a pale grey while extending along his arms. The fabric of his shirt and pants stretched and ripped as the body beneath took a foreign form.

I couldn’t move. There was no way I was actually seeing this. He lurched toward me, his body now completely covered in wiry hair. The pieces of his shirt shed from him and I scrambled to put the couch between us. In only mere seconds, Tristan was gone and before me was a large grey wolf.

Tingles running along my skin told me this thing was still Tristan, but fear invaded the sane part of my mind. Sleek muscles bunched as he stepped closer. I backed up and he stalked me, circling behind the couch, crouching as if he would lunge at any moment. His lips curled, fangs slipping into view. Then his head shook, tilting down and to the side as he gave a high-pitched whine.

“Tristan?” My voice quivered. I backed up more, moving closer to the kitchen door. Rational thoughts won over my illogical skin tingles. I bolted for the door. My heart pounded, the sound swelling until it filled my head.

“Janie!” Tristan shouted as I pushed through the door. I swirled back to see him standing by the couch holding his ripped pants in front of him. No trace of animal left in him.

I collapsed with my back against the door and slid slowly to the floor. I pulled my knees up and rested my head on top of them, wrapping my arms around myself. Long youthful life and health I could live with, but shape shifting? It was too much.

His touch on my hand startled me. I lifted my head and he placed his hands along the sides of my face, gently smoothing his thumbs in slow circles.

“How do you cure that?” I asked in quiet desperation.

“I don’t know.” His voice echoed my anguish.

“Is that what you want? To be cured?”

“God, yes. I want to be normal. To be able to leave this shithole town, and live how I choose. If I had a choice, would I stay here the rest of my life? Marry Rachel? No. That wouldn’t be my choice.”

“I imagine a lot of people would be happy, being almost immortal.”

“Being infected many extend our youth, let us heal quickly, but we don’t live forever. Some of the infected are happy, but most of us have been waiting for the day when it could end. The shifting is excruciating. It’s like being ripped apart bone by bone and then shoved back together into a form that feels completely unnatural. That pain really never goes away. And there’s this voice, our wolf’s voice that drives us, and we have to fight to stay in control of it. Letting it take over would mean the possibility of never changing back. Most of us start shifting around twelve or thirteen. At first, it’s uncontrollable with the wolf trying to take over. That’s why we stay within Lycan communities. It’s safer.”

His fingers continued their mesmerizing pattern. “For some a cure is what they’ve been waiting years for. It was in the promise made to Amelia years ago.”

“You say some like there are people who don’t want to be normal.”

“There are others who would be more than happy to make us...more.”

“What more can there be?”

“I don’t know and that’s what scares some of us.” He let go of me and rubbed his hands along the front of his thighs. “Do you believe in visions?”

“You mean like the physic hotline?”

“No,” he laughed. “I’m talking honest to God predictions of the future.”

I thought of the things I’d seen, the visions I’d had. There was no way I wanted to consider the possibility of them being of the future. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Ericka told me about you.”

“Ericka?”

“Ms. Markov. She is a direct descendant of the Wolf. In nature, wolves are led by an Alpha, a male who has proven his dominance over the others. But in Lycan communities, we are all controlled by her. She was the one that told me about you.”

“She told you about me? When?”

“About a six months ago. She said the Wolf would be revealed to me and I would know you.”

“That sounds kind of cryptic.”

“Yeah, well Ericka likes to be vague.”

“What makes you so sure that she meant me?”

“Your father,” he answered. “He admitted to me that you were his child.”

“You know my father?” His words registered slowly.

“Yes.” He tightened his hands around my face, refusing to let me move further away. “I can’t say why he left you, because I don’t understand myself, but I do know that what he did led you here today. His leaving was the catalyst for everything that has happened to you.”

“Sounds like a great guy,” I sniped, irritated that he seemed to be defending the man.

“Janie, I don’t defend anything he did. What matters here is that you are the one Ericka told me of.”

Neither of us seemed to know what to say. I tried to fit everything into my sense of reality, but finite truths were being tossed aside and I was tragically floundering, reaching for something that was beyond my grasp. There was no way to rationalize his story, to conform it to my world. He was so convincing and the strange effect he had on me, the strange events that had happened, tied it up so nicely, weaving it into a magical tale that made myth an actuality.

“Janie! Janie!” Justin’s panicked shouts reverberated through the house, shattering the connection I had with Tristan. The pounding of his feet followed his yells, as he raced through the cabin.

I turned to watch his approach. “Janie!” he yelled again as he rounded the corner. He charged towards me, gripping my arm and yanking me up off the floor, away from Tristan. “Let’s go.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We’re leaving. Now.” Justin pulled me harder, ignoring my resistance, dragging me past Seth and Lisa, who had followed him into the living room.

“Justin, calm down.”

“Calm down? Did he tell you?” he asked, his grip on my arm tightened almost to the point of bruising.

“Yes, he told me.”

“Everything? He told you everything and you still want to stay?”

“I…I guess. I just need some time to sort things out.” Justin searched my face, looking for something, an emotion that he thought I should have. Maybe it was odd that I was being so casual about my boyfriend having an infection that stopped him from aging and allowed him to change into a mountain lion. But I was still processing it.

He looked from me to Tristan. “Did you tell her everything?”

Tristan just stood there silently. He glanced up at his parents and Lukas and Marissa who had come down stairs after hearing Justin’s yelling.

“Did you tell her?” he roared. I’d never seen this side of Justin, his normally relaxed face scrunched in rage.

“Not what you’re asking about,” Tristan admitted. “She doesn’t need to know that, because it’s not going to happen.”

“Tell her now.” Justin demanded.

“Tristan? What is he talking about?” Adam’s voice boomed through the room. Tristan looked back at me, though I could tell it was more to avoid his father’s question then meet mine.

“Tell me what?” I interrupted, glancing back and forth between the people filling the room.

“They think you’re gonna save them. You’re their cure, Janie.”

Marissa sucked in an audible hiss of air, before sinking onto the stairs. Lukas stared at me, his eyes cloaked by the shadows.

“And that’s a bad thing?” I asked. “Isn’t a cure what all of you want?” It was what I wanted. The idea of eternal life was tempting, but the shape shifting was a different matter all together.

“Justin,” Tristan said with anger vibrating in his words. “It’s only words. We don’t know all of it.”