She-Wolf I Read online

  Since I started at 10, I had about two hours to kill. Two hours of freedom, during which I was not watched or yelled at or asked to behave in a certain way. Two hours to live.

  I parked my car in a lot downtown, which was close to where I worked. I would never get tired of wandering in those nearby streets I knew by heart. I was a regular there, and the shop-owners knew who I was, since I’d see them every morning and I always took a few minutes to chat with them. It was nice to see that the human lives, which were apparently simpler than mine, were actually tinged with problems as well. I enjoyed laughing to their jokes, listening to their complaints and even being hit on sometimes. I felt that my own worth was recognized, and it was obviously not the case amongst the wolves. And let’s not forget that the power relations of the humans were identical to ours, and even though they also had misogynists and social hierarchy, I felt that their grass was actually greener. I liked the way they behaved with me, and it was agreeable.

  The rain was running down my umbrella and wetting my boots. Threatening clouds were twisting and twirling and releasing torrents of water relentlessly. In spite of the cold weather, the temperature was rising as the day grew. It felt as if I were in Amazonia.

  I got into my favorite café in which I picked up on a daily basis, a latté with extra foam plus a piece of cake. The cafés in the city were countless, but I liked this one in particular mostly for its style and the fact that it was never crowded, and also because I appreciated its employees — one of which was a shapeshifter. Supernatural beings spot each other pretty quickly, and I had busted him on our first encounter, as did he. We were sort of friends, even though our friendship exclusively consisted in greeting each other every morning and drinking coffee together from time to time to chat. We were friends of circumstance, and I was okay with it.

  “Good morning beautiful,” he said as I reached the counter.

  “Hi handsome,” I answered smiling. First real smile of the day.

  “You’re three minutes late today, your latté was starting to get cold,” he chided, handing me the drink and a piece of cake he had picked. I grabbed the precious treasure with a thank you and his vivid green gaze lingered on me.

  He was a mixed-race young man and a fairly charming one. He frowned and apostrophized another employee to take his place. I rolled my eyes at his frowning and headed for an available table. He had felt I was not as well as I could have been, and he’d decided we had to talk — it was a sort of ritual which occurred every time one of us was down. I was feeling okay, but I knew what he was gonna say. I flopped on a banquette; my back was still aching from having had to remain in the same bowed position for a certain time this morning. Thanks to my immune system, I’d heal pretty fast; but it was no magic cure either: since I was tired, my wounds would take a few hours instead of a few minutes to disappear. I took a mouthful of the latté and the still warm taste of the coffee on my tongue was comforting. As usual, the cream was exquisite.

  Milo sat in front of me, holding a cup of tea. “Did your alpha mistake you for a punching ball again?”

  My eyes sparkled, meaning that he shouldn’t take it too far, and I backed that pseudo-threat with a discrete growl. The shapeshifters did not have the same social system as the wolves, it was not about domination and submission. They had enough to do with controlling their own shifting, lucky them. Even though I was fed up with hierarchy, I couldn’t help but be protective of my own kind and show my strength to the weaker ones.

  Wolf and human. It was hard to combine both. Of course, this behavior didn’t work within the pack, since I was a female and I had to play nice if I didn’t want to see my head leave my body. This life was not the best, but I was trying to focus more on the positive. Anyway, being a shapeshifter, Milo was smart enough to know where to stop. He’d never push me too hard, because even though he was a very good fighter, I would have gotten the edge in the end. “No concealer can obscure pain,” he added sipping his tea.

  “How poetic,” I said ironically. I bit full teeth into my carrot cake with orange frosting. I frowned my nose. The taste was not bad, but it was … surprising. I kept on eating. I’d always eat everything. The donut had not been enough. I enjoyed fine cuisine, and I liked trying out new recipes.

  Silence took over and I started to feel uncomfortable under Milo’s insistent look. “What’s wrong? Do I have frosting all over the face?”

  “Why don’t you leave your pack, Maddie?” he asked, handing me a napkin.

  I ate the whole of the cake and wiped my mouth. I turned my head towards the windowpane and closely looked at my reflection to check if there weren’t any carrot stain left. I realized my lip-gloss had vanished, so I pulled it out and put some of it back.

  “We’ve already talked about this,” I sighed.

  “Yes. But I don’t understand you. You’re being beaten up and bullied by your pack almost every day, and worst of all, you can’t even be yourself. You’re slowly killing a part of you for other people who don’t even appreciate you to your true worth.”

  “I can’t leave my grandma. I couldn’t take her with me if I went away, and I’ll never get to see her again. And what about Danny or Lola? I couldn’t abandon them to the yoke of William, I couldn’t leave them. And besides, I wouldn’t survive without a pack. A wolf needs a pack.”

  “Take me with you. I’ll be your pack.” He’d said this with so much sincerity and conviction that I was shaken. Milo and I were barely friends. But what he’d just said turned the seed that was our friendship into a huge tree. To know that he’d be willing to make the leap and leave home and give me his trust to follow me into the great unknown! I could have cried. I was moved. I hesitated but ended up putting my hand on his.

  “That’s awfully kind of you. But it doesn’t work like that. You’re not a wolf.” He clenched his hand on mine. His was warm. Loyal, friendly, invigorating. I realized at that moment that he was more than just an acquaintance. I shouldn’t have considered him as such. I could count on him.

  “You never know. It might work. You just need to have faith. You could have the pack that you dream of, a pack that is motley and colorful.” I smiled kindly upon this utopian idea.

  Milo was a dreamy young man, he saw beautiful things everywhere, even where you’d least expect them to be. But for me, the vileness of reality would always overcome the beauty of willpower. I looked at my phone and drank up my latté. It was already nine a.m. and I had to buy another pair of pajamas before going to work.

  “Thank you for everything Milo, really. I gotta go!” I got up, kissed his cheek and left before he could say anything else. He would have kept trying to talk me into leaving my pack anyway. He wanted to do well.

  I waved at him from the other side of the pane as he took his post back, and he answered by sticking his tongue out. I smiled back and after I opened my umbrella, I walked towards the lingerie and pajama store. I went there often, because its prices were quite affordable for my waitress salary.

  As soon as I got into the store, I felt something was wrong. A powerful and surprising odor floated in the air. It was the whiff of a lycanthrope. Musty. Mixed with the scent of soil and water. Brutal, bestial, angry.

  I quickly scanned the whereabouts to look for the foreign wolf, but it was pointless, my instincts told me he was already gone. He’d better be gone, because no werewolf outside pack members were allowed to enter this city. Another damn rule; and this one I didn’t mind, but as a member of William Parker’s mighty pack, I was bound to enforce this law. So, a part of me was glad this renegade had left because I wouldn’t have to punish him. As for the other part, well. It was kind of a mess. My she-wolf was reacting to this scent like crazy, and I was disappointed not to find anyone, I needed answers. The cashier Murielle and the two clients were human. No reeky lycanthrope to be seen. What on earth was this animal doing here? On our territory? Coincidence or danger?

  These questions kept trotting out in my head and the pajamas became invisib
le, being no longer my priority. I picked one randomly and I was anguished and depressed at the thought that my questions might remain unanswered.

  Chapter 2

  During my service, I was utterly unfocused. I went back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room for four hours, juggling with plates, glasses and customers. I was unable to shake that smell off. And I would definitely get in trouble if William found out a wolf had entered his territory without him being aware of it. With all of this dwelling on my mind, I would have broken the crockery a dozen times if it weren’t for my natural agility and my supernatural reflexes. I had enough problems; I did not need to be fired on top of it all. The humans barely paid attention to me anyway, and besides, I acted as if I was flat-out even though my head was in the clouds.

  No one but my colleague and pack-sister Clemencia noticed I was under the weather. As a woman, she didn’t get the chance to choose her job either, but she did apply here as well so she could rub shoulders with me. Whether it was luck or coincidence, she got the job, and I was happy for her. Our relationship used to be stormy, but her life was stormy still. She was twenty-eight and had a three-year-old son named Colin, whose father had decided not to raise in order to attend to his horny business. Werewolves are true gentlemen, aren’t they?

  Her relationship status with her ex was clearly complicated: they were neither married nor still together obviously, but she owed him allegiance and he didn’t give a tiny rat’s ass about leaving her to take care of everything on her own while he was fornicating or standing there doing nothing. It was revolting. And there was nothing I could do besides shut up, like she did, and help her as much as possible.

  At 3 p.m., our boss finally let us out. We had to go grocery shopping for the pack and drop everything back to the village before going back to work at 6. And we followed the same schedule every day, because William took perverse pleasure in making us buy anything and everything in order to get rid of us. The only comforting thing in all this was that Clemencia and I could talk and chill out a bit in the store’s departments we knew inside out. And shopping was not so terrible, I could even buy stuff for myself as long as I used my personal bank account and not the pack’s, God forbid.

  Fun fact: since being used as a minion wasn’t enough, half of our salaries, not just a mere percentage, half of it, had to go into the pack’s joint account. It was our way to contribute to the group’s welfare. And since I only had six hundred dollars left out of a well-earned salary, I could not afford to pay William a housing amongst those of the village, and therefore had to live in the shared villa. Top-notch, independence and privacy wise. And wolves lived in the woods, and not in the city, according to another dumb tradition.

  We headed towards the store, while Clemencia was on the phone with Colin, whom my grandmother babysat — she was old, but she was still able to watch over a child. The rain had vanished and left trails of puddles on the ground and clouds in the sky. The sun pierced those with feeble rays of light. Since the freshness the rain provided was gone, a stifling heat thickened the air. I regretted wearing jeans and long sleeves, something less warm would have been more appropriate but I was going to have to deal with it. The coldness of the air conditioning suddenly solved my problem. I took a cart and Clemencia, who had remained outside on the phone, came trotting in and took one as well. We drifted in the departments for a while, filling up the carts with what we needed. I wasn’t feeling extravagant, so I just bought some toothpaste for myself.

  I foot the bill, loaded everything in the car, as did Clemencia, and we left for the village. I put some music on, in order not to think and not to worry. When I was among lycanthropes, I was always on the lookout and anguished. No wonder I was this enthused. My conversation with Milo came back to my mind and I was even more bummed out. Not to mention this mysterious werewolf… I crossed my fingers, hoping no one would ask any questions so I wouldn’t have to lie. I was already lying enough about who I was, there was no need to lay it on thick.

  My anguish increased as I drove into the path that winded in the middle of the trees up to the village. The wolf growled, eager to turn away and leave this place never to come back. If only that were possible! The majestic and luxurious villa appeared, surrounded by cars and other neighboring houses. Who could have thought that forests had micro-societies like ours? I parked my car and got out. My face showed nothing but indifference and submission. I took the groceries out of the trunk with knots in my stomach, I was stressed out but I set about putting everything in the kitchen. Olive, William’s wife, was in there cleaning and told me where to put things away even though I’d been doing this for years. She only talked to me to give orders anyway, just like the rest of them.

  I was about to leave the kitchen after a good ten minutes of tidying when the person I hated most in the world got in and stopped me from going out. I insulted him silently and looked down. Ryan was the beta, a complete asshole and a real pain in the ass. He had this Bieber haircut with way too much hair gel, and his sneering smile inspired mockery rather than fear. But him being a male and all, I had to obey and pretend to respect him. He gazed at me for a moment before grazing my cheek with his hand, which made me feel sick. “You’re still gorgeous. It’s a shame you’re bound to remain on all fours in the kitchen cleaning everybody else’s shit.”

  “I am not on all fours,” I couldn’t help replying.

  “Really huh?” He smilingly punched the carton of milk on the counter and watched its contents splash on the floor. I didn’t move a muscle; I didn’t want to prove him right by showing how much I hated him. “I think duty calls, and you’re going to have to clean this up. On all fours,” he said.

  He was disgusting. He was a sickening schmuck. I resisted the urge to kick him in the stomach and make him bite the dust. Or maybe I could wash the milk off the floor with his face? I didn’t move. I looked up and stared angrily at him. The she-wolf wouldn’t submit. I would not submit. Olive just stood there irritated, scrubbing the countertop. Girl power was not her cup of tea. Ryan stared back, his eyes were half-closed, which made him look like a stone-marten. His inner wolf was starting to lose his temper because I hadn’t obeyed him. I knew I was going to regret being headstrong, but I couldn’t help it: I was not born to be a submissive. I did my best to adapt, obey, smile, shut up and accept being treated like a piece of shit, but it was getting harder.

  I saw his raid coming, but I didn’t shun it. I stopped the wolf from turning and ripping Ryan’s head from his body and took the punch. His foot kick knocked me down on the milk-dirtied ground. On all fours. How convenient. He grabbed my hair like William had this morning, brought my face down until my cheek touched the milk, and scrubbed my face on the linoleum. It wasn’t painful, but it was not a pleasant feeling. And it was humiliating. I didn’t resist, I had resisted enough for the day. When he realized I had understood the lesson, he let go of my hair and stooped down.

  “You know, you’re always welcome in my bedroom. If you ever want to reiterate this experience in bed, I’ll be more obliging.” My first instinct was to spit in his face, but if I were to do this, I was signing my own death warrant. I remained silent with lowered eyes. The one advantage I had left was silence. When Ryan understood I was not going to answer his request – how could I, I mean did you see his pick-up techniques? – he grabbed my hair back, set me back upright and slapped me in the face for a change. He finally left, probably in order to bully someone else.

  I slowly stood back up and caught Olive’s eye. “You better clean this up,” she said, still scrubbing the counter, “because I won’t”.

  What could I say? No need to get angry, I was used to this kind of remarks. I reached for the mop and cleaned the spilt milk. It took several minutes, but the kitchen was as good as new. I hurried back into my bedroom; I couldn’t go back to work with stained clothes, and so I quickly changed and washed my face. The bruise on my cheekbone had disappeared, lucky me. I put some makeup back on and left for work. As if n
othing happened. As if I did not just get pushed into a puddle of milk, as if I hadn’t been beaten up, as if I had not just endured lewd advances. Everything was fine. Everything HAD to be fine. It had to; I had no choice. On the bright side, I was less hot, since I now wore a tank top and a long skirt to work. I was about to walk down the stairs when someone called my name in the hallway. “Madelyne,” my grandmother said with a sigh.

  I turned towards her, and my heart became heavy. Andrea was the only person I could actually call family. She had long white hair and sharp grey eyes, she loved me and encouraged me in everything I did – even though there was not much to undertake in this crazy-ass pack. Upon my parents’ death, she decided to settle here with my eleven-year-old self, something she now deeply regretted. But I didn’t blame her for it. I understood what she’d done. She was a hundred and fifty-three years old at the time – werewolves live longer than humans – and she couldn’t take care of me all by herself. Andrea had thus chosen a notoriously strong pack, hoping that we would live comfortably and find a new family. That’s definitely not what we’d found. William had agreed to take us in, but we never became part of the pack. My grandmother could not go back in time despite how much she wanted to change things, and even twelve years later, she still spent her days eaten by guilt.

  I carefully took her in my arms. “What are you doing here? You should be in your room, resting,” I scolded grabbing her arm to take her back into bed.

  “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” she retorted. Yet she followed me.

  I gave her a glass of water and some cookies from Brittany – she loved those French biscuits. Her eyes followed my every move, her gaze was sad and thoughtful. Even though she was quite old, she was still in excellent health, and I didn’t doubt her keen hearing had figured out what had happened this morning with William, and just now with Ryan. The bonds were special. Deep down, I was aware of every pack member’s whereabouts, I knew what they were doing and I could even feel some of their emotions. With Andrea, and with Lola and Danny, the bonds were so tight that I felt them with me always. It was like we had our little pack of our own with a stronger connection than with anybody else’s. Right now, I knew she was angry because of what I endured, but she was mostly unhappy, which grieved me as well, for I didn’t want to be the cause of her unhappiness.