Chapter 3

As soon as I turned to Mira with a question, the door opened again, and my aunt quietly entered the ward. She turned around anxiously and quickly closed the door, as if she was afraid that someone would have time to slip through the narrow gap of the opening. It was very rare to read emotions on Aunt Sarah's face, calm and restraint rarely left her. But now I could justly describe her as flustered. Dark eyebrows arched upward, causing deep wrinkles to appear on the forehead. Pale, thin lips moved soundlessly. Finally rejoicing at our meeting, I looked around it affectionately in search of changes that inevitably affect older people. But my aunt froze at the age of fifty. She was already like that at forty-six, when we first met, and she has remained like that now - at sixty-three.

She hurried over to my bunk, crouching on the edge, gently shaking my good hand. She smiled softly at me, and I again drowned in such a familiar warm look, full of regret and consolation.

"Oh, honey," she sighed. Yes, nothing has changed four years later.

- What's up..? - I tried again to get answers to the questions that tormented me. His failure and sore throat caused burning tears in the corners of his eyes.

- Be patient, be patient, - she helped me to take a sip of water from a glass. My caring and taciturn aunt seemed pleased at my impossibility to insist on questions and she herself was in no hurry to enlighten me - what the hell is going on here ?! I impatiently turned to Mira, but she was in no hurry to start that very "private conversation."

Only after checking the bandages did she resolutely move a chair closer to the bed and sit on it. Clasping her hands on her knee, she looked at me carefully, as if waiting for me to start this conversation myself.

“Lark…” she drawled, “it’s obvious that you didn’t quite understand what happened last night.” She glanced at her aunt for confirmation, and she nodded sadly, supporting these conclusions. Apparently, there was no point in nodding either, so she simply hurried Mira with an impatient look, begging her to get to the point, “No one expected this, we ourselves don’t understand how this could happen, because you don’t ...” she was interrupted by her aunt’s cough, - In any case, such phenomena have not been seen for a long time ... Our flock does not remember this.

- Luke immediately understood what happened, - put in Aunt Sarah, - in his native places, as a child, he was a witness to the wanjiti.

Wangity? My bewilderment grew and was fueled by irritation - do not torment already!

- Yes, and Morgan, as soon as he saw Reed's condition and your neck, he understood everything. Lark, how can I put it simply... I know you're confused and you think Reed attacked you. But he didn't mean to hurt you, his wolf went mad when he smelled his mate. Your neck, - she pointed to the bandage, - There is a mark. Her wolf puts his pair.

“Wanjithi,” my aunt said almost breathlessly.

What?

- What? - that's all I could get out. The rest of them had to convey my shocked face.

And then Mira gave way to her aunt, allowing her to tell me, apparently, their very touching wolf story about how some werewolves were given God's blessing to find uangity. Which, as I was nevertheless explained, meant "one life for two." Sounds like a threat to me. But for them it has a romantic meaning. In fact, this is a couple for a wolf - one and forever, suitable for him in everything.

It's very touching, but something just didn't grab me. And if about the subtleties, then such a couple is extremely rare, very, very rare, which was even forgotten in our village, usually at the first meeting or after puberty during the conversion. It's funny, in fact, you can live with your huangity at your side from birth, but when hormones play, that's it, I can't live. And this connection is mutual, with labels both flaunt. This is where we come to the main problem - me. I am a half-breed. Maybe I was bitten on the neck, but all the wolf signals passed by, apparently back to the universe, because I didn’t feel like a draw, or uangity.

Mira is a rather perceptive person, so she noticed how gloomy I was as the story progressed.

“We hoped to the last that even though you don’t have a she-wolf, you will recognize uanjiti,” Mira explained, “Okay, I’ll go and get you ...” she looked at her watch, “it’s already lunch.” And you stay together.

After waiting for the door to close behind her, my aunt turned to me.

- I understand that this news shocked you and even frightened you, - the aunt herself, it seems, was agitated because of the idea of ​​​​uangity, - but now your life here will be completely different.

Dear aunt, I forgot that it was not easy for her either. It wasn't easy for me. Usually, the aunt is stingy with emotions, and it was rarely possible to read the attitude to what was happening on her face. But now I noticed with confusion that the corners of her lips stretched slightly in a smile as she fussed around me. The thoughts that she was in no hurry to share with me definitely pleased her. What did she manage to fantasize about there?

Mira returned very quickly, carrying a bowl of soup on a tray, judging by the aroma, as my hungry body reported to me, chicken. I was also offered a cup of herbal tea, which after the test turned out to be my aunt's medicinal collection, and homemade cottage cheese yogurt in a bowl. My aunt helped me get through dinner, it's not that easy, I'll tell you, to become left-handed like that in a run. For the time being, I took pity on my right hand, it was scary to even lift it, with such an abundance of bandages.

Both of us were not talkers, and although we rarely saw each other now, only short phrases about the latest news, mainly related to my aunt's work, broke the silence. She didn't stay long, insisting that I needed to rest. She no longer touched on the sensitive subject. At parting, she touched my cheek with her own, slightly roughened palm and left, quietly closing the door.

And I plunged into the memories that I tried to hide all my years at the University of Wyoming, about these places and their inhabitants.

I have hated this place and everything connected with it, exactly since I was brought to Lovell at the age of five and a half. Even my aunt sometimes, for the fact that her flock is closer to her, even though she is the only person, apart from university friends, who cares about me in this world.

Everything that was up to five years, I remember vaguely. Only mom. It was then that Aunt Sarah told me that we lived in the town of Powell, moving from one rented apartment to another. Her father left her, what she took for love was a small affair on his part, and then remember what your name was. For him, she was a temporary episode, but he turned her life around completely. My mother is the same as them, she was born here, but fell in love with an ordinary person and left the pack. It turns out that you can leave, but giving birth to a half-breed is no longer forgiven, after my birth she was kicked out of the pack, so we wandered alone. But I don't remember her despair or sadness, I only remember the love that surrounded me while she was alive. I don’t remember how the neighbors found me alone in a locked apartment, only how the social worker in the shelter explained that they couldn’t find my mother, and I'll live here for now. And then Aunt Sarah took me and brought me to the pack.

To say that I was not welcome here is like saying nothing. Oddly enough, but it was Morgan who helped Aunt Sarah leave me here against the will of the pack and the alpha. Actually, after that incident, Morgan became alpha. I was allowed to stay, but this did not change their attitude towards me, a half-breed. Worst of all, I was a half-breed from a she-wolf and a man, in such unions wolves are not born. If it were the other way around, then I would have been born a weak wolf, but a wolf, and I would have been accepted. Maybe. Otherwise, the older generation did not notice me, except for Morgan, Aunt Sarah and Mira, but the latter simply often had to treat me. Broken bones of the arms, legs, ribs, once the collarbone - that's the charm of growing up in the company of little wolf cubs. If you say that children are cruel and transitional age is hell, then move over, the cruelty of wolf cubs and pereyarki cannot be surpassed. There were few but everyone cared about such a freak as me. And Reed? Perhaps only Reed did not descend to me himself, as a rising alpha, the son of a former leader, he was the king of these idiots. I will tell you this, in addition to baiting me, playing the dog has acquired a brighter and more revealing meaning. Represented? And no one stopped them! My aunt was afraid that they would simply drive me away, while the rest lived and live on the principle that the strongest survive.