Page 16 of Ravaged Wolf
I’ve been sitting half-propped up for a few minutes when there is a brisk knock and my bedroom door flies open. My mother strides in, wrinkling her nose.
“Oh, Izzy.” She sighs at the sight of me on the floor. “It reeks in here.”
I don’t have a window. This room is intended to be an office. If I had a bedroom, I’d have a window, but the bedroom is Dad’s study, so there’s not much I can do but circulate my sweaty stink with the box fan that Aunt Catrin sent down for me.
Mom takes one look at my stripped mattress and pulls out my desk chair, primly seating herself on the edge, pressing her legs together all the way to her ankles. She’s wearing her good slacks with the sewn-in creases and beige pumps even though she didn’t go to the office today.
“Who was the female at the door?” I croak. I have a water bottle, but even though I’m parched, I keep forgetting to drink.
She ignores the question. “You can’t lie around, wallowing on the floor. You’ve got to get up, get in the shower, brush your hair.”
“I just had a bath.” An hour ago. Or this morning? Yesterday? Time is blurry.
Mom scowls. “This isn’t doing anyone any good.”
What good am I supposed to be doing? My arms and legs are rubber, and my brain is Swiss cheese.
“I don’t feel well.” Being sick has never gotten me out of school or practice or chores before, but it’s the truth.
My mom purses her mouth and smooths her bob even though there’s not a strand out of place. Her hair behaves. It wouldn’t dare not to.
“You need to bear up,” she declares. “Think about my great-grandmother.”
I swallow a groan and tuck my knees to my chest. I’m not wearing underwear. I can’t stand the feel of the elastic, but if I’d known she was going to come in here, I’d have managed to pull on sweatpants.
“It took her family fifteen days to cross the Atlantic, crammed in steerage, cheek-to-jowl with humans, starving and terrified of discovery. What do you think the humans would’ve done if they’d heard a howl? If one of us slipped and showed fang? The pups were kept muzzled in the cabins. Humans didn’t know about us back then. They would’ve seen us as monsters, and we would have never seen New York Harbor.”
I paid attention in history class. The packs in our part of the world came over by steamship and fled the city as soon as we caught a whiff of the raw sewage. We made a new home in the mountains here, far away from humans. At first, our people hid in caves, ignoring the threat growing closer and closer, until the Great Alpha Broderick Moore led us out of the dens, forcing us to abandon the old ways andlearn to live beside humans, so we would never have to live in secret again or face fear and want.
Even with my brain as thick as mud, I could recite the story. It never struck me as such complete bullshit before. Never face fear? Who were they talking about? Not me. I’ve been afraid of my father’s wolf for my entire life.
Before I can follow the thought, Mom continues, “Our ancestors did what they had to do, and they were better for it in the end. Stronger. Can you imagine making a new home in a cave?” Her mouth pulls back into a grimace. “Having a pup in a dirt cave?”
Is this supposed to be a comfort? Is thisencouragement? I gape at her slack-jawed as I clutch a soggy sheet to my agonizingly swollen breasts.
“Do you think those mothers wanted to muzzle their pups?” Mom draws herself up, her collarbones stark above the neckline of her silk blouse as she thrusts her shoulders back. “As a female, you do what you have to do. Tosurvive. To protect the pack. To protect yourfamily.”
The words should make sense. The order is right. The ideas have been drummed into my head since I was born—success demands sacrifice. Nose to the grindstone. It’s not about you; it’s about the pack. There is noIin team.
I should instinctually agree, but in this moment, the words are gibberish. We’re not a baseball team or soldiers. We’re wolves—animals—and this heat is killing me.
“I can’t do twelve more days,” I tell her, tears welling in my eyes, sticking on my lashes and blinding me.
“What are you talking about? End of quarter is only ten days away.”
Ten? I lost a day somewhere. Or more. I’ve been lying in this pile of limp, damp sheets forever.
“When is Trevor coming?”
My mother’s lips peel back in disgust. “Don’t worryabout that. His father is handling him. At least that male understands the stakes. That overbearing female he mated—” Mom shakes her head and sucks her cheeks in. “She refuses to accept that this is the way it is. She doesn’t have a choice, though. None of us do. This is bigger than any of us. And it’s only a few days, for goodness’ sake.”
What is bigger than us? Uncle Howell explained it all to me—probably the first time he’s spoken to me like an adult—so it must be true, but for the life of me, I can’t remember any of the specifics.
“I need Trevor,” I try again, my voice breaking. She’s my mother. If she could only understand how bad it feels, she’d help.
“You need to pull yourself together.” Her brown eyes go hard and dark like wet stone. “What do you think will happen to Trevor Floyd if he puts a spoke in the wheel of his betters’ carefully laid plans, and Madog Collins ends up fending off a challenge? Do you think Uncle Howell and your father are going to welcome him into this family with open arms? People disappear, Izzy. You know that. You don’t want to mess around and find yourself knocked up with a pup whose father ‘went for a walk’ like the scavengers say. Do you?”
My tears are falling now, streaking down my cheeks. No, of course I don’t want anything bad to happen to Trevor. “But Mom, it hurts. It hurts so bad.”
