Chapter Six - Telling Tales

Jake gave one nod of agreement. “You’re sure?” Jake raised an eyebrow. Every werewolf knew their destined mate by scent from the day they turned eighteen. It was the moon goddess's highest gift to a werewolf.

“Look, I don’t know what happened, Selene never really said and I didn’t ask. It wouldn’t be my story to tell anyways. I will tell you that the older woman was running when we met her, a little over eighteen years ago. She was terrified of someone, still is actually. She has lived her entire adult life scared of this one wolf and his pack, certain that they are looking for her.” David sighed again and ran his hands through his hair making the brown curls stick out at odd angles on his head. “Okay look,” he said at last. “Liana is only seventeen, so she won’t scent a mate for a while yet.” Jake relaxed a bit against his seat. She wasn’t rejecting his scent, she was still a juvenile and not scenting him yet. That was easier to deal with.

“How long until she’s of age?”

“Not long,” David answered vaguely, “but I don’t know that she’ll be able to scent you even when she comes of age. She hasn’t shifted yet.”

“What?” Jake looked towards the house and recalled the scent from the night before. “I know she has a wolf, I can smell it, and from the shape of her, I know she’s long past puberty. How is it possible that she has never shifted?”

“All I can tell you for certain is that Liana won’t accept anything you tell her at this point. She doesn’t know she’s a werewolf. Hell, she doesn’t even believe in werewolves! She thinks they’re just...just stories.” David said with a shrug. “She’s friends with my oldest daughters. She thinks it odd that we have so many pictures of wolves in the house,” he smiled a bit ruefully, “I suppose a sheep farmer having photographs of wolves pinned to the fridge is a bit strange from a human point of view.”

“Seriously? You...farm your prey?”

“It’s easy to miscount a sheep, not record the proper number of lambs or mark a calf as stillborn, an old cow as deceased from disease, rabbits and chicks aren’t even controlled at all. It’s easier and safer to hunt on our own land than that of a human, or even to wild prey in the bush where we might be seen by hunters or inadvertently end up on pack lands.”

“That’s actually a reasonable solution.”

“We thought so. Lone wolves like our independence.”

“Okay, I think I’m starting to see that. But even the pups I saw knew I was a werewolf, so obviously know they are too. Why has Liana been raised as a human?”

“I don’t think it was intentional, at least it wasn’t at the start. Our pups don’t go to the private school run by the packs, they attend human schools, surrounded by mostly humans. Liana knew werewolf life when she was tiny, but when her school teachers told her werewolves were make-believe stories, she believed them.”

“That would have changed had she seen one of you shift.”

“It really isn’t my place to go into detail on this. It has to do with Selene’s past and her fear of being found. She and Liana never go out in the moonlight. As far I I know, last night is the first time Liana has ever been out past sunset, which is how she has gone so long without shifting. No nighttime full moon exposure means no chance of a first shift.” Jake scowled, balling his hands into fists again and then stretching out his fingers slowly. Going without his wolf sounded horrible. It would be like cutting part of him out. He’d been able to speak to his wolf for as long as he could remember, certainly long before he’d shifted, the emptiness of being denied that would be horrible. It was unimaginable to him. His voice was gruff and angry when he spoke.

“How can the old woman do this to her? Why have the rest of you allowed it?” He barked.

“Easy now, it isn’t torture to her,” David put his hands up and shook his head when Jake glared angrily at him, “Honestly it isn’t. She doesn’t know any different. The girl has grown up very happy, and at first, the choice was hers. She chose not to believe.” Jake opened his mouth to argue but said nothing because David held up a hand again to ward off the questions that he knew were about to come. “The old woman, Selene, is her mother and no, I don’t know why she looks so old” David shrugged, “She was younger than Liana is now when we met her and the girl was born shortly after that. Within two years she looked about forty and before Liana turned five, Selene appeared old enough to be her great-grandmother and has looked the same for about ten years. Selene says the moon goddess is punishing her for leaving her mate and taking the baby with her. I know that can’t be right, whoever she left can’t have been her true mate or she wouldn’t have been able to leave. My wife thinks it’s because Selene hasn’t shifted in years and refuses to go out when the moon is visible. She thinks it’s the stress of denying her wolf that has caused her to age prematurely. It is also possible that she has done it to herself on purpose. Selene is a great healer and knows things about plants that I’ve never heard any other healer mention, so if there are plants or potions that can change your appearance she would have found them and taken them. Any of them or all of them… whatever it took. She is terrified that her mate or his pack will catch up to them. I don’t know what happened or why, or how anyone can be so afraid of their mate, but she is. Well, she wasn’t an adult yet, so it probably was never a solid mate bond. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do to ensure that man and his pack couldn’t find them. An old lady and a young girl who barely smells of wolf are a lot easier to hide than two werewolves of the correct age and appearance. White hair and violet eyes are rare enough to draw attention.”

“She is frightened enough that she doesn’t ever shift?” Jake asked in disbelief.

“Not once in the eighteen years, I’ve known her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who has them so frightened? How has it continued all this time?” The disbelief in his voice was obvious. David sighed, seeming to resign himself to give more information than he was really comfortable sharing.

“She never talks about her life before we met her, never given a name for her mate or a location of a pack, neither her mates nor the one she was born to. From the tales she has told Lia over the years I have learned those aren’t the same. Whoever took her from her pack is a monster, not a mate. Selene has a lot of scarring around her wrists, neck, and ankles. Only one thing can permanently scar the flesh of a werewolf in bands like that.”

“Silver.” Jake hissed between clenched teeth.

“Which means she was fully bound with silver shackles and a collar or noose,” David growled, “If she’d ever once even mentioned the pack name I’d have sought the bastard out myself and gutted him.”

After a brief silence, Jake said, “This isn’t helping. I’m very sorry about whatever happened to that woman, but I need my mate, David. Now that I’ve scented her I can’t just walk away. I can wait until she’s of age, but I can’t just ignore the match.”

“I know,” he agreed softly. “We’ve been trying to talk Selene into talking to Liana about werewolves and having her shift for years now. Since Liana is obviously going to choose to go outside at night now, Selene might actually be ready to agree to it. This afternoon she said that maybe if Liana believed in werewolves, she’d be more careful and that seeing one shift, or shifting herself, would be the easiest way to convince her of the danger. I know! I know! David put up both hands and backed off a step at Jake’s snarl. “Scared of werewolves is not the angle we want, but believing in them has to be the first step, doesn’t it? The problem would have been solved for itself if she’d snuck out a bit earlier in the week, but she missed the full moon by a few days so she still hasn’t had her first shift. That would have been a nasty, scary surprise for her too, which Selene agrees should really be avoided. Lia needs to be prepared for the shift, not shocked by it. The next full moon isn’t until January 17, which gives us plenty of time. It’s also Liana’s eighteenth birthday.” Jake sat up straighter as his wolf’s excitement peaked.

Less than one month.

“I’ll keep an eye on her until then.” David continued, and Jake growled his displeasure. “Easy,” David said, “I’m mated, and I’ve been watching out for Liana since the day she was born. She’s almost like one of my own daughters. I know you want to be the one protecting her now, but you can’t be. You’re hanging around without an invitation will not be well received. Selene noticed you already and called me to talk to you. And Liana, well human girls are always being told to keep an eye out for men watching or following them. She’ll notice you eventually too, and it will make her think you’re a creep. That really wouldn’t be the best first impression. You should also know that she actually has been taught to scent werewoves in wolf form, and was taught to be afraid of the scent. If you hang around in wolf form she will soon remember the fear she was told to associate with that scent. Not to mention if her neighbor catches sight of you he’ll shoot you, and enough of other humans in the area report sighting a wolf they’ll investigate, which would make life hard for all the werewolves in the area. The best thing you could do now is go home and wait. I promise, we’re working on a way to get Liana into her wolf form and hopefully be happy about that. I’ll find a way to get a message to you if anything changes.”

“Call,” Jake said sliding a business card out of the holder on his truck console, “if anything changes, if you can think of a way for me to meet her, if she need anything…”

“Got it,” David said looking down at the card. “J.A. Lycanis Wildlife Conservation Biologist DNR?Seriously? Werewolves work for the department of natural resources now?”

“Our practical solution,” Jake said with a smirk, “I’m the one they call to investigate wolf sightings. Besides, nobody has more at stake than we do. Humans don’t see the need to protect wild spaces in the same way. Werewolves will die without them.”

“Yes,” David agreed pointedly, “We will. Sort of along the same lines as a wolf raising livestock to hunt rather than poaching off other farms or leaving the bones from a kill in the bush. Does that mean you’ll leave us lone wolves to continue living here in peace as we have been?”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “I’ll think about it. Naturally it will depend on all of you following some rules.”

“We aren’t good with rules,” David said, one side of his mouth tipping up, “That’s the main reason most of us aren’t in a pack. We keep to the rules that keep everyone safe, and we’d have no issue with a rule of ‘don’t attack the pack’ or ‘don’t build on pack lands’ since we don’t do those things anyways, but most of us won’t be willing to swear allegiance or anything like that. And staying out of the woods isn’t possible either. We need the bush to run just like every other werewolf. We usually only run on crown land, not into pack territories. Most of us don’t even mark on our runs, though some of the young males have been known to...forget. We need that space, and as Canadian citisens we should have the right to use it as long as we leave it as we found it.”

“True enough,” Jake agreed reluctantly. “I don’t have any say with the other packs near here though. Even if I leave you alone there are two others that could bring trouble.”

“I understand that. The thing is, the human population is expanding exponentially. They want the land too. The lone wolves have a fund and we’re buying up as much of the land around the preserve as we can, but there is only so much we can do. The more humans come, the higher the price goes and the closer the lone wolves and rogues have to be to them. We’d like nothing more than to keep our distance from both humans and other werewolves, there just isn’t enough unoccupied bush space left.”

“We’re going to have to adapt or werewolves will soon be an endangered species.”

“We’re close to that as it is,” David said sadly. “Far too close for a species that most humans don’t even believe exists, and those who do wouldn’t be in any hurry to create laws to protect us.”

“Not human enough to call it murder, not wolf enough to protect as wildlife,” Jake agreed grimly.

“Pretty much sums it up. Okay, I’m heading into the cottage now, I’ll tell them you were from DNR, checking out reports of a wolf in the area. That should at least put Lia at ease if she notices the truck. I can’t say anything about you being her mate though. The wolf who claimed Selene has wrecked that word for them. The werewolf stories Selene told Liana were not the children’s tales my wife told our girls. The mate was, literally, the big bad wolf in every single story. Hopefully, when she shifts my wife or one of my girls will be able to convince her you aren’t trying to enslave or torture her.” Jake growled. “Hey, don’t bite the messenger! I’m just warning you what you’re up against. What you do with that information is up to you.”

Jake watched the man disappear into the cabin and stared at the house for a while before finally deciding his best bet was to do what David suggested. Turn tail, and wait for the first full moon of the year.

The wolf moon.

That would make for an auspicious mate announcement. The Alpha and Luna joining during the wolf moon was supposed to be the best omen for a pack. He could wait a month to meet his mate. Hopefully, he would be able to claim her that day too. If not, he would find a way to wait for her to accept him. Surely the moon goddess wouldn’t be so cruel as to make him wait for a mate who could never belong to him. At his age a broken mating bond would be very hard on his wolf.