Ellida Read online

  “She needs to have intercourse with a werewolf to get her spirits united, right?” Peyton said.

  Morgaine confirmed. “And she needs to do that soon. She’s way overdue.”

  Astrid stirred and peeked at them through her heavy lidded eyes. “I heard you. We are not having this conversation. Please.”

  Inside her head, Astrid heard her wolf’s throaty laugh. “Why? It’s just started getting interesting.”

  “Oh, you shut up!”

  Peyton squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. I know who you’re going to do that with, and I’m still sitting beside you and holding your hand.”

  Morgaine chuckled. “Ah, I see! A conflict of interest. In that case, you’re doing great, Peyton Kincaid. I have to tell you something, then. You know that, fortunately, Ellidas cannot foresee the time to come, but since I’ve met you I have a feeling that a great future’s awaiting you. And it’s going to happen soon, mark my words. You just need to open the door to new possibilities.”

  Before Peyton could respond, Betty and Maggie came back with supper. Food usually made Astrid feel temporarily better, but not this time. She hardly managed to take a few bites before she pushed her plate aside.

  The pain increased. She kept her eyes closed and lips pressed tight. No sound came out. A few more hours and the wolf would take over. The next time… the next time, her hazed mind chanted. There wouldn’t be a next time. Jack would come back, they would make love before the next full moon, and her wandering spirits would unite.

  Another gush of pain ripped through her, taking her breath away. A string of tiny beads of sweat broke out on her forehead.

  “Please, help me,” she pleaded silently to her wolf.

  A moment later, a soft growl broke out from her chest. Astrid slowly opened her feverish eyes, golden-amber and bright.

  “I sent Ms. Spock to sleep,” she said in her deep, velvety voice. “The pain was too strong for her.”

  The Fellowship looked at her in amusement mixed with worry.

  Astrid repositioned herself on the sofa and reached for her plate. “I’ll finish my supper now.”

  Morgaine, Betty and Maggie moved their chairs, semi-circling the sofa. Peyton remained beside her.

  “How are you feeling now?” she said quietly and glanced at Astrid.

  Astrid tilted her head as her eyes swept over the girl sitting beside her. “You’re still here, huh?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, whether you like it or not.”

  “You’re looking exactly at the part of me you’re supposed to hate, Peyton: my jealous, selfish, possessive side.”

  Peyton smiled. “I don’t hate you. I never have. There was a time when I wished you’d never come, but not anymore. I like to think things happen for a reason.”

  The other women sat quietly, listening to Astrid and Peyton’s exchange.

  Peyton continued. “I’ll deal with my issues one step at the time. But you don’t need to worry about me anymore. I’m smart enough to know when to cut my losses.”

  Astrid smiled, and her eyes, hard and sharp just a moment ago, softened. “You’re a better friend than I deserve. The other Astrid’s more like you, generous and understanding, but I’m not such a noble creature.”

  “There is something to work on, then,” Peyton said lightly.

  Astrid smiled. “Do you mind holding my hand? I can cope with the pain better than her, but it still hurts.”

  The atmosphere in the room loosened up. Maggie moved the TV set closer and put a Blu-ray into the player. The women continued chatting as the movie progressed, keeping an eye on Astrid all the time.

  She would rarely join the conversation, letting her mind wander, thinking about Jack. Why didn’t he phone? Where was he? What was so important that he couldn’t come and be with her today?

  Every time another rush of pain swept through her, she would shut her eyes and tighten her grip around Peyton’s small hand. The same hand she’d seen on Jack’s arm a week ago and disliked so much was her greatest comfort now.

  “Things change, don’t they?” Astrid murmured and smiled weakly.

  “You okay?” she heard four voices almost in unison as four heads turned in her direction.

  “Uh-huh. What time is it?”

  Betty glanced at her wristwatch. “Five thirty. Do you shift as soon as the moon appears or closer to midnight?”

  “When the moon rises. I want to take a shower now.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Maggie offered.

  Astrid lifted her hand up, stopping her. “No, Maggie. Nobody’s going with me to the washroom. I’ll be fine.”

  THROUGH THE sound of running water Astrid heard her phone ringing. Jack! immediately crossed her mind and her heart gave a strong thump, angry and happy at the same time.

  It wasn’t Jack, though.

  “Your friend Ingmar, Astrid,” Peyton said when Astrid came out. “Can you talk to him?”

  Astrid nodded and took the phone.

  “Hi, Ingmar.”

  “Hi, love. How are you?”

  “Within the usual parameters for this stage.”

  “Let me see you.”

  “I’m not switching to video, Ingmar.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten stuck between two shapes,” he said, teasing her.

  Astrid cracked a smile. “You caught my wolf in her human form, if you know what I mean. Hey, you’re at the Blakes’. I can hear Liv in the background.”

  “I’m still staying with them. I took a year’s sabbatical from my job. I’m now working with Liv on her food allergy treatment research.”

  “Oh, I see. I’m almost jealous.”

  “I want to stay close.”

  “I know, Ingmar. Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

  “No worries, love. Take care. Here’s Tristan.”

  Tristan actually made her switch to video. “Well, you look okay, that’s all I can say. I’ll ask Gerhard Falkenstein to come and do a check-up when you’re done.”

  “We already talked to him, Tristan,” Betty said with a smirk. “Either he or Debbie Altman, another friend of ours, will come tomorrow to check Astrid. I know how protective you and Liv are of Astrid, but we are too. She’s among her kind now, she’ll be fine.”

  “Hi, Betty. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to preach. I’m not concerned about Astrid’s safety. It’s just that I used to examine her to make sure she was okay. Who else is there with you, Princess?”

  “Ellida Morgaine and three Mohegan women,” Astrid said. From the corner of her eye, she caught Peyton’s smile. “Uncle James, Eamon and Takeshi are around the corner, not including roughly five thousand residents with my best interests at heart. I’m well protected.”

  “Where’s Jack, by the way? He stopped by this morning but left in a rush to get there in time.”

  “I have no idea,” Astrid snapped. “Now it’s too late anyway. This time it’s a girls’ party. Liv, we miss you here.”

  “I miss you too, darling.”

  Ingmar’s face appeared again on the small screen. “I like your eyes, Astrid. Take care, honey.”

  “I have to… go now…” Astrid moaned as a sharp pain slashed across her abdomen. She passed the phone to Peyton and curled up on the couch.

  Peyton quickly exchanged phone numbers with Ingmar. “We’ll call you later. Astrid’s about to shift and she needs some privacy now,” she said and unceremoniously ended the call.

  There were at least two more hours before the transformation, but Astrid was thankful for Peyton’s small intervention.

  The women gathered closer to Astrid, as if they were trying to shield her from the pain. There wasn’t too much to do anyway, except to wait for the night and the first sight of the silver orb on the horizon. The pain alternately increased and subsided.

  With a great effort, Astrid pushed back her lustful thoughts about Jack. Next time he’d better be around or she’d throttle him. Or she might ask someone else to help her out. Sid Brandon, f
or example; he was handsome and had a nice sense of humor, she thought, or she said, she wasn’t sure which. She was caught up in the twisting and ripping last stage before she would change shape.

  With her trembling fingers, she unclasped her necklace and, after pressing the cold metal of the silver wolf-head to her burning cheeks, she gave it to Maggie. “Keep it safe somewhere,” she whispered. The room started spinning, first slowly, then faster and faster. Astrid crouched on the sofa, moaning and breathing laboriously. “Move the table and armchairs,” she ordered. “I need more room.”

  And then it happened. In front of four pairs of mesmerized eyes, in a split second, Astrid’s human form exploded into a wolf.

  Eyes fixed on the largest she-wolf she’d ever seen, Maggie whispered, “And we thought those guys in the movie did it fast?”

  One by one, the other members of the Fellowship of the Full Moon came out of the trance caused by Astrid’s spectacular transformation.

  Thirteen

  Astrid the Bleithast

  MY FIRST thought was that I’d missed one small segment of time, and then I realized that actually one sequence of the transformation hadn’t happened: the between-moment after losing my human shape and before turning into a wolf. It was always brief yet the most horrible part of the whole process. It was a truly terrifying sensation of being completely inverted. As if an invisible, burning hand reached inside me and ripped out my internal organs, blood vessels, muscles, and wrapped that bloody mass around my skin. My erupting into wolf form that followed immediately always came as an immense relief. My greatest horror ever was that I would somehow get stuck in that short yet indescribably painful stage.

  With all my heart, I fervently hoped to never go through the same process again.

  Something else was different. I didn’t feel exhausted, but strong, powerful and filled with energy. This time I didn’t need to crouch on the floor and whimper like a wounded animal. I wanted to go outside and run, run, faster and faster, to the top of the nearest mountain, and howl at the moon.

  One full moon ago I was happy to be with Jack, happy that Astrid the Wizard had finally acknowledged her wolf side. This time, Ms. Spock had gone even further: for the first time in our life, she was happy being who she was: unlinked and pretty much mixed up, still in pain, yet happy with her other part. The same way I’d always been happy with her, even when she let her boring, logical side get the better of us.

  I looked at my friends, my faithful guard, standing in front of me, all in a state of mild shock. Even Ellida Morgaine looked completely taken by surprise. Betty blinked several times as if she’d just woken up from a trance. Peyton’s deep-blue eyes were fixed on me as if I were going to disappear if she but blinked.

  My young cousin recovered first. “And we thought those guys in the movie did it fast?”

  I chuckled, and my voice in their heads broke the spell. Now everybody was talking at the same time.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this!” Morgaine said, clearly impressed.

  “Are you okay, Astrid?” Betty said and came closer, hesitantly touching my fur.

  “You are huge, Astrid! God, you’re one of the biggest wolves I’ve ever seen,” Peyton said, shaking her head in disbelief. Her pretty auburn curls danced around her heart shaped face. “Your wolf size greatly outmatches your human size!”

  “What are we going to do tonight?” I asked.

  “What do you want to do?” Betty said. “It’s your night, you choose.”

  The room suddenly seemed too small for all of us. I had to walk carefully not to bump into the furniture. Besides, it didn’t seem natural to stay inside. Miss Spock, who’d rarely wanted us to leave her safe place before—providing that she’d been conscious at all—suddenly started pushing me toward the door. This time she didn’t want to hide in her customary semi-consciousness, staying close to me.

  “I want to run!”

  “Great!” Morgaine said. “We’ll all shift, and then we can hunt.”

  I stopped dead. “Wait a second! Hunt what? I don’t want to hunt!”

  “Oh, yes, you do. That’s why you want to run. It’s in your blood. We’ll hunt deer. If you want to turn it into a safari trip, that’s fine, too. But you have to come close to the animals to learn to sniff them, track them, find them, and kill them, if necessary.”

  “Is that a part of my apprenticeship, Ellida?”

  “It is, Astrid.”

  Maggie and Peyton walked to the door. “We’re going outside to change,” Maggie said. “You two, are you coming?”

  “I have to call James first,” Betty said. “They’ll join us in the forest.”

  Oh, how could I even think the whole adventure would happen without my uncle taking part in it?

  Their shape shifting was quick, easy and fun. They took off their clothes and piled them neatly on the porch. As their transformations started, from their feet up, like Jack’s, they giggled and wiggled as if an invisible hand tickled them. Again I got the impression they were putting on Halloween costumes.

  Peyton was proof again that our human and wolf sizes often didn’t match. She was considerably bigger than her petite human body would suggest. Her fur, dark and wavy, soft and silky, did match her hair color. Her eyes were blue with a greenish-gold shine.

  Maggie was roughly Peyton’s size, with light brown fur and amber eyes that looked so much like her brother’s.

  Morgaine and Betty came out of the house and transformed the same way Maggie and Peyton had. The mother and daughter looked very much alike. The Ellida was on the big side with dark, reddish-brown fur. Her eyes were sage-green.

  “Lead us, Astrid,” she said.

  For a moment I was unsure what to do, and then my instincts kicked in.

  I walked to the backyard and across the street, keeping close to the walls so that we weren’t in plain sight, gradually increasing speed until we came to the clearing at the beginning of the forest where the Ellida and I had been practicing. The moment we reached the first trees, I started running.

  The blood rushed through my body, supplying my muscles with energy I didn’t know I possessed. There was a completely new kind of force that soared inside me. The trees blended into a dark blur speeding toward me, and yet at every single moment I knew where my body was and that I would never crash into anything.

  My senses sharpened and my mind was crystal-clear. I heard my pack half a step behind me. The Ellida and Maggie were on my left side, Betty and Peyton on my right.

  I heard the sounds of the night—wind in the trees and grass, the distant soft rumble of the nearby creek, frogs and birds. My nose detected many different scents that surrounded us: earth, snow, water, pine and other werewolves. I could see every shape, sharp and clear, every color and every movement.

  The faster I ran, the more energy I seemed to have. I could hear the crunching sound of my paws on the crusty surface of granulated snow, and the rush of blood in my head.

  Would I ever be able to stop?

  I did. As soon as my nose detected the scent of prey, unknown and familiar at the same time. Deer. A small herd a mile down toward the creek.

  I continued running until I led my pack close enough for a swift attack. Without thinking too much, I picked my prey. A healthy male, strong and fast, but not the leader.

  The chase was short. We separated the animal from the rest of its small herd and drove it into the open. We corralled it, keeping the same, symmetric “V”-shaped formation as before.

  In a few long, fast leaps I closed the distance between my game and me. My full body weight crashed into the animal, knocking it down. My jaws closed around its exposed neck. The grip was deadly; there was no escape.

  Yet I didn’t increase the pressure. I stopped myself before my teeth broke the skin.

  I heard two sets of heartbeats—one delirious with excitement, another one frantic with the horror of a certain death. A predator and its prey. I sniffed the animal. It smelled mouth-watering, an
d my stomach rumbled in approval. It also smelled of fear.

  And life.

  I listened to our hearts until the two erratic beats blended into one indistinguishable sound.

  I released my firm grip around its neck and stepped back.

  “Go,” I ordered it silently.

  The animal certainly couldn’t understand my soundless language, but it perfectly caught the meaning of my movement. It rose swiftly to its feet and ran toward the woods.

  I turned around and looked at my companions.

  Ellida Morgaine took a few steps forward.

  “Ellida Astrid,” she said and bowed her head.

  I bowed back.

  I’D SEEN the other wolves when we started the chase, and now my nose identified them as Jack, James, Eamon and Takeshi. Now I could see them. They stood on the edge of the meadow, silvery-gray under the moonlight. They had watched the hunt without interfering, but now they were coming toward us. My mighty bodyguards, I smiled, here with me tonight so that I could play safely.

  I could also sense more werewolves around. I recognized them too: the leaders of the eleven Red Cliffs families, who had come to greet me a few days ago. Tonight my uncle invited them to meet me in my wolf form.

  “And where have you been?” I growled at Jack as he came closer. All I wanted was to launch myself at him, but kept a good distance between us, circling around him instead.