Secret Girl

Oliver

I walked down a footpath leading away from the back of the packhouse. I had my head down, looking at my feet. This path wasn’t anywhere near as worn as it should have been. I wasn’t making my way out this direction enough. I felt guilty at that thought. I couldn’t really claim it was because of how busy things were with the pack; we had had peace for so long, and the hierarchy operated like a well oiled machine. I could take a couple hours to pay this particular Elder a visit more often.

She lived alone now, her mate dying five years previously from the slow decline of heartbreak, after their son had passed. I often wondered how the death of their only child and the death of her mate didn’t take her, too. Her mental fortitude was one of the things that garnered her a place as an elder.

I came up to her cottage. It sat about a mile away from the packhouse, a few hundred yards inside the forest that surrounded the town, but still well within our territory borders. She definitely knew patrols were run more heavily in this area, but we never mentioned it.

The woman opened the door and looked out at me. “Well are you going to come inside?” she called.

I walked up to the doorway and leaned down to hug her. “Hello, Grandma.”

“It’s good to see you, Ollie,” she chuckled.

She led me inside, and stood in the kitchen. She motioned for me to sit at the kitchen table and started pulling out bowls and ingredients.

“I assume you’ll stay for breakfast?” she asked.

I smiled. “Only for chocolate chip pancakes.” She looked sideways at me, and reached up to a cupboard to pull down a package of chocolate chips.

So what brings you here?” Her back was still turned as she stood over a bowl sifting flour.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I hardly slept last night, and it certainly showed. “I have some questions,” I said.

“I wouldn’t expect a social call, so I figured as much.” I winced at the backhanded comment.

I sat quietly as I tried to determine what question to start with, focusing on the sound of the spoon against the mixing bowl.

My grandmother broke the silence, saving me the trouble. “Your brother called yesterday. You should do better about talking with your family more often than just when you need them.” She looked pointedly at me. “We never know how much time we have left.”

I nodded. She was right, and she would know better than anyone. I was certain Thom had told her about my request.

“I’ll do better,” I said quietly. Keeping my eyes focused on a knot in the wood of her table, I finally asked one of many questions. “What do you know of shifters that suppress their wolf?”

She didn’t break from her task at hand, whisking ingredients together as she spoke. “That they live very unhappy lives until they accept their wolf, or the wolf finally takes over.” She paused, and looked as if she was racking her brain for information. “It isn’t common at all, so there isn’t a huge amount of information. It’s so hard to repress a wolf…”

“I would assume they would have to use something to assist with that, like silver,” I supplied.

She looked up at me. “You sound like you have a little experience with this,” she said wryly. “Would it have anything to do with the girl that had you taking off from the pack like a bat out of hell yesterday?”

I stayed silent for a bit, which was as good as a confirmation to my grandmother. It wasn’t worth keeping secrets from her. “We assume she was an orphan that got taken in by humans,” I said. “And with no one to help and guide her, she was going to extreme measures to keep her wolf away.”

Grandma returned to work, dolloping pancake batter on a griddle and sprinkling chocolate chips on top. “If the wolf is that far removed, she is more or less human. She won’t smell like a wolf. She won’t have wolf-like senses, and won’t heal the way we do - but still better than a human, I would think. She won’t have any control over shifting, and it will only happen when the wolf is able to take complete control, usually because of an overwhelming emotion. That would make the wolf unstable and only able to process emotional highs, which often leads to a reckless and dangerous animal. The rogue that took your father-” her voice caught. She took a deep breath before continuing. “The rogue whom our previous Alpha died defeating had repressed his wolf. When his wolf was finally able to take over, he never let go. The efforts that man went to to keep his wolf away made his already bloodthirsty, power hungry wolf go insane.”

My eyes grew hard. I hadn’t known that detail. The reason this pack was so large was because that rogue had taken out the leaders of a nearby pack in Wyoming, and they came to us for sanctuary. We all knew the rogue my dad faced in his last battle was an anomaly. Our kind are strong and powerful, but we usually don’t care about exerting that for reasons other than protecting our own. It was rare to come across a wolf that needed to show off his prowess, especially when no bad blood existed. It was becoming even more glaringly apparent that we needed to get this girl rehabilitated with her wolf.

I moved on, not wanting to dwell on this part of the conversation. I’d save my curiosities and further questions about the rogue for another day. “This girl was using silver. Trevor was friends with her before he realized she was a wolf. She would always wear a silver bracelet.”

Grandma nodded. “That is one of the more common and effective tactics, in part because that has become such a well known weakness for us.”

“She would also cut herself with a silver knife when her wolf overpowered the bracelet.”

Her face became pained. Just envisioning that amount of excrutiating torture was a lot to stomach.

“How does a wolf overpower any amount of silver, Grandma?”

She piled the pancakes on a plate, and went off to her study. It was more of a library, which was supposed to be the living room. It had quickly been taken over by books. She dug through a couple stacks - she had run out of room on the bookcases long ago - and finally came upon the one she was looking for. She dropped it in front of me before returning to the kitchen. I looked down at the book. I pulled away the cloth wrapped around it to see the cover. It was old, but in beautiful condition. I ran my hand over the title, A History, but quickly pulled my hand away as the silver embossment burned my skin. I didn’t dare touch the celtic knot of the same embossing.

“There is one pack of wolves that is thought to have that ability,” she said. “But we thought they had died out long ago.” This is another fallacy among wolves. Gifts don’t skip generations and then randomly come back. Once they are gone, they are gone. “It was a necessary evolution for wolves of that pack,” she added.

“How is a resistance to silver necessary?” I asked.

She looked at me gravely. “They were tortured inexplicably with it. By the first known hunters.” My eyes widened as my stomach sank. Hunters hadn’t come up this often in conversation for me in years, and I was developing a horrid feeling they would keep resurfacing.

Grandma strode back with our breakfast, setting one plate in front of me. “A repressed wolf also won’t be able to sense their mate until their human counterpart accepts the wolf, Oliver,” she said. A smile played at the edges of her lips.

I groaned. “Is it that obvious?” I asked.

Grandma laughed. “To me, your aura has changed. You’ll need to bring her by sometime.”

Pain rang through me at the thought of her laying in a hospital bed instead of here with me. “It doesn’t really matter right now, does it? She doesn’t even know her wolf’s name.”

Her smile became sad as she reached across and patted my arm. “Understanding the history of our kind may help her.”

“I don’t even know how to get her to want to be here,” I said.

Grandma smirked at me. “Maybe you should ask your brother for some advice on getting through to her human side,” she suggested. “Us werewolves are not very good at wooing because we have mate bonds. Try picking the brain of a wolf who chose a human mate.”

“How is Thom doing, anyway?” I asked.

“It sounds like you should call and ask.”

There was a niggling in my brain of someone trying to reach through the mind link. My eyes glazed over as I opened it.

'Will you be down at the hospital today?' Trevor asked. 'The doctor has some questions, and I don’t know how much you want to share.'

'I’ll be there shortly,' I replied.

I looked up at my grandmother. She smiled back. “Go on,” she encouraged. “I’ll see you soon enough, I’m sure.”

With that, I headed out, making my way back to the packhouse and into my car. The drive to the hospital was short, one of the many advantages of our town being self-sufficient and small. Trevor met me at the door.