Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend (25 page)

I learnt that with Cresida by my side the old
me was disappearing, turning into a warrior, independent and bold. The child in me who was strange
and used to being alone had found her niche. The
scrapes and gravel rash I had sustained thus far, were
nothing to a rough trained hunter; we were tough
but not indestructible, just hard. Cresida made sure I
warmed up and cooled down and my cuts and newly
acquired bruises were treated, bandaged and covered.
Cres was a half-blooded wolf; because of that, I was
able to progress faster than others who didn’t have
her blood around them - the blood of the enemy
swarmed around me causing a more driven desire to
overtake me. I was doing what I felt was right and
it inadvertently drew out my hunter like a shark to
bait. We discovered her presence seemed to be the
trigger my hunter needed – or perhaps it was just the
right time. She took me to the creek and morphed,
shaking grotesquely as I witnessed the metamorphosis into a wolf, a more violent transition than I had
witnessed from the pack.
Her hair wasn’t what I had expected; she was
grey, a mix of black and white hair. She lunged at me
playfully, I dodged her, she stopped and nodded, then
again she lunged for me, catching me by the leg, and
she phased back.
“I have never shown anyone,” she confessed
before her skin had settled. I passed her a jacket, noticing the quiver. I was glad she’d shown me. I would
have told her she was a beautiful beast, but I knew
she would have denied the complement. She resembled less of a dog than the pack; the wildness about
her natural colour made it seem like she was organic,
like she had sprung from the Valley’s forests or from
the mountains. Maybe somewhere inside I wondered
what I would look like.
Smiling, we rolled in playful battle over the wet
sandy mud and grass on the riverbank. Cresida talked to me about technique, my nose filled with the
scent of mint, which grew wild along the bank. I was
learning how to kill the creatures I loved most but
this burning desire to learn the skills urged me on,
that same insatiable need to burn the energy - and I
had to take it as it came. All the while still thinking
of Sky, Cresida was now the only thing keeping me
sane. I had to trust her whilst she occupied my outof-control body and mind. There was little doubt in
my thoughts that Cresida was there to protect me
from myself and from running away to find Sky under the spell of my own new-found power, drawn by
the strength of my feelings, which for some reason
seemed more powerful than those that had existed between Cresida and him. I would have run all
the way to him had she not tethered me to Shade,
keeping my feet on the ground and then knocking
them from under me, constantly it seemed and at
times relentless. I grasped the movement of a warrior
and rose to the occasion. After battle and weapons,
she trained me to be elusive, like the wolf.
“Tell me about the first days of my arrival?”
“Sure, what do want to know?”
“I have so many questions. You said Angie had
been taken, and Mrs Bealy? Where are they now?”
I had remembered what Cres had said to me outside the school, so long ago. Angie’s picture remained
posted in the cafeteria under the headline ‘Missing’.
“With the other pack, out of town.”
I was relieved they weren’t dead. I knew I couldn’t
ask where– “Is it my fault?” -all the while knowing
somewhere inside myself that I might have to kill
them one day.
“No, you couldn’t have known.” She pinched her
mouth.
“But I should have.”
“My priority was to protect you, Sam knew I was
busy and she somehow organized for the other pack
to pull members from Shade, to inundate me. She was
playing a game, toying with me. Sky came to me and
we decided until you changed, if you did, it would be
better that you went with them. Sam needed Reid to
get you to join them, so she encouraged him to date
you. Sky went along with it and I knew he wouldn’t
let what happened to me - happen to you. That left
me free to protect humans.”
“And they stopped?” I asked.
She nodded. “When Sam realized Sky was protecting you, she tossed you out; she didn’t think you
would change into a hunter after so long.”
“So she threw me back to Tealy and Monica.
Why did Sky want me to break it off with Reid?”
“He’d tell you it was for Reid’s own good, but really I think it was because he was falling for you,” she
uttered and pursed her peach-coloured lips.
“Do you think Sam saw that?”
“I don’t know, I think she maybe figured out it
was helping me by babysitting you, so she guessed
you weren’t going to change. She never liked you,”
she offered.
“Especially after I caused Lily’s death,” I thought
aloud.
“I killed Lily, not you.”

Cresida claimed she was there to protect me from
Sam, surely she knew I wasn’t that stupid. If Reid
hadn’t even brought Sky back yet, what shape was
Sam in? She certainly wouldn’t be well enough to
launch an attack; though I was sure she planned it,
perhaps with Bianca at her side.

I was sacrificing myself for the greater good. And I
wished Shade didn’t have to come first. I lamented
the thought of having to stay here when I wanted to
run free and see the world.

“You will have to take over for me one day soon.”
“Cres-”
She interrupted, “-Lila, I’m in no condition to do

this anymore.”
“That’s not true, Cres.” I didn’t want it to be. I
knew she couldn’t make me do it.
“Lila, I’m a hideous monstrosity.” Her head
seemed to slump, but her eyes blazed at me in the
dark. I knew she wasn’t, I wanted to be like her, but I
didn’t say it. That would have been a slap in the face.
“No, you are not – that’s crazy, you do so much
good.” I stared at her. “I need you.” I knew what she
was thinking. I wasn’t going to lose her, too. She was
the shoulder I needed, the carer and the constant loving teacher I had never had.
“I’m doing a job and when it’s done – so am I,”
she replied sullenly. I didn’t want to believe her.
“Cres, no.” My voice heightened with disbelief.
“What do you mean done?” I accused. But part of me
expected it; the fact that anyone cared for me almost
always bemused me and I knew it wouldn’t last. I expected to be left alone, that’s how it had always been.
“Not for a while,” she comforted me. “But I really
believe in you, it shows the power that’s greater than
all of us that creates us – had a path when I failed.”
“Cres, no, you don’t have to follow the path. You
can change it, look how useful you are, for me and
the wolves and your brother.” I knew she could do
anything if she wanted to. Part of me expected her to
abandon me, but not for death.
“I know I’m needed and as long as I am, I’ll be
here, it’s okay, it’s just sometimes, it’s hard you know?”
She said it to comfort me.
“Because you’re bitten - different?” I offered.
“Yes, and no,” she admitted.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, you haven’t done anything, Lila.
Without you I’d be lost.” She shrugged helplessly.
Despite myself I wondered what it would be like
to die - to know it was coming and to allow it. She
knew it would be quick.
This wasn’t the Cres I knew - she would have
gone out in pain, fighting.
“No, you wouldn’t, you’d be out here kicking
arse better than you would be with me holding you
down.” I squeezed her; and in a rare show of affection
she placed her head against me.
“Thanks, L.”
“Okay?” I glanced in her eyes again, searching for
the confirmation that it was just a moment of sadness, that she didn’t really want me to do it.
“Yeah,” she smiled limply. “Forget I said anything, I just get down about things sometimes,” she
shrugged.
I hoped she was just testing me. I couldn’t lose
her.
“Well, don’t ’cause I’m here, we’ll help each other,
I won’t forget how you have helped me Cres, you can
rely on that.” I meant it. She nodded. I handed her
a water bottle. “And you can bet your arse I’m not
going to let anyone hurt you, including yourself – or
I will hurt them personally.” I nudged her playfully.
“Cres, you are invaluable, I know it.” I nudged her
again and returned to our former topic. I tried to ignore her sadness. “Now teach me,
master
. How quick
do they heal? - Cres?”
She seemed a thousand miles away.
“What?” she said, finishing her water bottle and
wiping her chin with her shirt. “Oh, um I don’t know,
I heal half as quick,” she contemplated momentarily.
Secretly I hoped she wasn’t thinking exactly why
I wanted to know. As usual I was pretending it was
for training purposes, when really I only wanted to
know when Sky might return.
“Um, breaks a d–” I heard her quickly correct –
“a few days, sprains, bruises hours, cuts half a day…”
She smiled and threw the bottle at me. I caught it
and she ran. I chased her over the rocks through the
scrub, I could hear the crackles of the underbrush and
then sound of sticks breaking. It was a dark night and
it was now quiet. I could hear the breeze gently ruffle
the top leaves. I stopped and before I could think it,
she descended from above.
Her weight knocked me to the ground – she didn’t
go easy on me even from the beginning. I hit my forearm along some jagged sticks and leaves. Thankfully
she wasn’t too rough because I wasn’t winded – that
brought back bad memories. She morphed back,
crouching. I rolled onto my back and felt the other bits of gravel and sticks poking my muscles. She
stood over me and leant forward. I put my hands up
and she leant on them, easing her weight and our fingers interlocked. I thrust my foot upward we flipped
over; I managed to land on top, my knee over her
throat, my gun pulled with one swift movement to
now rest against her temple. I squeezed the trigger.
“Good – again,” she said cheerfully as I applied
the safety on the unloaded gun.
After a few hours practice tumbling and learning technique 101 How to kill a Werewolf, we sat
and talked about guns, because until I was changed
I knew it would be my biggest defence. Discussion
turned to what was really on our minds.
“We can’t be sure but we think Sam might try
to come back,” she confessed. Cres’s fingers pulled
blades of grass.
“For the pack?” I added.
“No, for you.” At least I knew she was being honest with me. She stripped the gun and began cleaning
it with a rag from her pocket.
“Were you keeping an eye on me from the start?”
“Since your first night, I heard the pack howling.
I was reading in bed, I knew something had changed.
Those cries weren’t for me,” she said to the gun.
“So you knew the hunter had arrived?”
“Yes, but we were never sure.” I knew she was just
covering herself, I knew she was sure.
“Was I so slow to develop?”
“Yes, but I think everything happens in its own
time.”
“Do you think it’s ‘cos you were here,” I said
thinking.
“Yeah,” she rubbed the barrel with the cloth.
“When I went to the library you were following
me, weren’t you?”
“I was laughing at you being berated by the li
brarians,” she admitted.
“Cres! You mean you could have saved me!” I
joked.
“From them, yeah, but it would have spoilt all the
fun,” she laughed.
“Why did you hide from Angie, Tealy’s friend?”
“She had the venom already, I wanted to protect
you.”
“But I thought as soon as you were bitten, you
changed instantly.” I recalled from memory that she
wasn’t yet luminescent – a sign of the poison.
“Everybody changes differently. I think it depends on a lot of things, your age your body weight,
your metabolism…”
“You were unable to stop it?”
“I guess I was distracted.”She shrugged dejectedly.
“It’s not your fault, Cres,” I soothed. I changed
the subject “Where’s your bite mark, Cres?”
“-From the attack?”
“The one Sam gave you, the one that turned you?”
She pulled up her jumper over her torso and in
the moonlight I made out a rippled dent in her side. I
imagined Sam lunging at her the way she had for me.
“She got me there, because she wanted to change
me. She had no intention of finishing me off.” She
shook her head and pressed her lips together into a
hard smile.
It was obvious to me now that Sam had avoided
easier areas such as the hands and legs, which would
have damaged her also; I was taught they went for
the neck in an attack. I wanted to tell her it was cruel,
but I didn’t believe that, because I wanted that cruelty.
“What does your aunt think of the scars?” I
picked a piece of grass and threw it.
“Signs of the devil,” she sighed.
“Well, now I know why she wouldn’t let me over
the threshold.” I chuckled.
“Don’t take notice of her, she takes prescription
drugs like candy, why do you think she sleeps so
soundly?”
Until then I didn’t know that was how she escaped at night.
“She’s only a church gossip because she’s never
had anything else to occupy her time around here,”
Cres said.
“How do you get along with her?”
Cres was suddenly quiet.
“I don’t,” her voice cracked slightly.
“Where does she think you are, now?” I asked
pensively.
“Who knows? She is literally on the edge of
having me made a ward of the state. Only thing is,
she would lose face to all those old biddies at Holy
Divinity, so she struggles forth,” Cres joked melodra
matically, making a holy cross over her chest.
I had a feeling despite the jokes Tabetha was
rough on her.
“Why do you stay?”
“Because my brother has already lost everything.
I can’t leave him too and anyway…” she breathed and
fell silent.
“What?”
“The werewolves might get him, and I couldn’t
bear that.” Her face was serious and drawn.
“Would they do that? Would Sam use him to get
to you?”
“If they wanted to, they could do anything, don’t
forget,” she sniffed.
Despite her dire warnings, with Cresida by my
side I wasn’t afraid. But now training was over for
tonight. He was still gone and I didn’t know for how
long. Exhausting myself would only last for so long,
and at night a familiar ache returned as I pined for
him in my pillow. Having him here while I was now
myself -the hunter, truly part of the world he existed
in - would have made me happy beyond words.
“We have a truce with them still though, right?”
I enquired.
“
I
had a truce with Sam’s pack.”
“You had an understanding?”
“Yes, but you change the game.” She shook her
pale face in amazed disbelief.
“Because they don’t trust me?” I frowned.
“You’re a real hunter, your job as far as they are
concerned is to take them out, no rules.” She shook
her head.
I was taken aback.“Can’t we establish a new one?”
“No, no more truce.” Cres’s mouth was pressed
into a hard line again but her cobalt eyes fixed on
mine in warning.
She touched my arm, I automatically flinched
away but then let her hold it. She pushed up my
sleeve and ran her fingers over the raised tattoo scar,
feeling the pattern of the ink on the underside of my
arm above my wrist. It seemed she had shown me her
scar and I was expected without hesitation to allow
her to look at mine.
I watched her expression.
“I got it last year.” I winced, embarrassed.
Her stubbed fingers traced the white scars above
it, left by the glass the night Sky left. “You’ve healed
well, it’s the powers the hunter’s healing in you,” she
mused. Then we were silent under the crescent yellow winter’s moon.
“Why is it faded?” she asked after a moment.
“I soaked it in water and the ink washed away,
made it look faded.” I recalled doing it. The memory
was painful, something I couldn’t undo.
Cres looked thoughtful “Why’d you do that?”
Now she was asking the hard questions. “I didn’t
want it, I guess.”
“What made you decide to get one?”
“A lot of things rebellion, love…” No, not love,
infatuation … not even that … a crush. I trailed off; I
had known nothing of those feelings, then, especially
love - though I was told what I felt now was a lie.
She smiled. “I should get one, too.”
I looked at her, surprised at the suggestion.
“I don’t know, I never considered doing it again.”
The memory of me trying to wash it away tugged at
me. “It was out of character for me to get one in the
first place.” Or at least I had thought it was. “But I
guess it was meant to be.” The symbol had chosen
me.
“There are no accidents, aye.” She nudged me.
Then noting my woeful expression she added, “I just
thought, you know…to mark the occasion, of us.”
She gestured to her knees meaning all of what we
had become, as though she had something in mind.
“What?”
“Well, we are like possibly the first hunter team
in history - maybe connected for life.” I knew ‘life’
didn’t mean long for Cres. So her suggestion didn’t
mean much to me, we were loners by trait.
I contemplated this. “Protectors of Shade’s innocents,” I mused sarcastically. “What would you get?”
I enquired.
“I don’t know?” She chuckled, shaking her head.
I laughed, too. “Rifles or something, skull and
cross bones.” I gestured with my fingers. She seemed
embarrassed and amused. “Dead wolves,” she added,
giggling.
“Well, that’s a bit rough considering you are one,”
I prodded humorously.
“And that you want to be,” she replied in kind.
We giggled and the stress of the last few days and
weeks fell away so easily, then.
Once the laughter had subsided, I wondered “Are
we like our own pack?” I said it with a serious look,
wiping the tears from laughter.
Cresida tossed a tuft of grass at me, which she
had been plucking from the bed of weeds around us.
“Yeah, for now we are…a family,” Cresida said,
looking up at the moon, which shone down like a
flashlight encased in a fog of clouds, reflected yellow
in its light. It was a crescent moon, a huntress moon.
This was not a wolf moon. We were relaxed, two girls
in a field in the dark night.