Page 10 of Untamed

I look at him, trying to keep my fear and loathing out of my eyes. "Hello, Father." He is sitting at the table, in Mama's chair, with his huge, meaty hands resting in loose fists on the scarred tabletop. Well, it's our only chair, but I call it Mama's because Father doesn't deserve anything in this cabin. It's not his hands that have chopped firewood, planted food, and cleaned and repaired everything we have. His hands are built for destroying, not creating.

His eyes are just like mine, the very light maple syrup brown. I don't like seeing my eyes in his face. Not that I acknowledge the similarity. I stare into Mama's blue eyes so often that I get startled when I catch a glimpse of myself in the stream.

We only have a small mirror in the cabin. It's spotted with age and cracked in a few places. I don't bother with it. It seems silly to even have it. In the winter Mama will sometimes do my hair all fancy, then pull out the mirror from its spot in the back of the wardrobe and try to show me. I may not care, but Mama does, so I pretend.

When I kill Father, I'll take Mama to the south, past where The Pack is. To the southeast, far, far away, there is the sea. Mama never saw the sea in her whole life. She was only fourteen when she was brought here from The Pack. We'll avoid the valleys, where the rogues live, and of course the north and the west, where the GriMaw rule with sharp teeth and claws. Most important is to avoid The Pack in the mountains and the icefields. They cannot be trusted. Mama has told me that, over and over and over again.Pack wolves can't be trusted.

"Willa, sit down," Father commands.

I sit on the rickety wooden stool, just a stump I found outside a few years ago, and hauled back. I move just slowly enough to be on the right side of his temper.

He stares at me for a moment while Mama bustles around and serves him his meal. I wonder if he has brought back anything helpful this time. He used to bring backsucre, fruits from the south, occasionally tools or cloth. In the last couple of years, it's all been drink, drink, drink, and some awful plant he chews on.

He'sscatological, gross, obscene, filthy. It's the longest word I could find for what he is.

"It's time you mated," he tells me bluntly.

I have no idea what he's talking about, but Mama gasps. I glance at her quickly. Ashen faced, her hands are shaking violently on the plate of deer meat she's holding.

Mated. I don't know that word. I resist looking toward the chest where the dictionary is. Instead, I turn my gaze back to my Father and hold his stare.

"What are you talking about, Thomson?" Mama asks him.

"Willa's eighteen. No sign of 'er wolf. She's a weak female," Father says bluntly. "No point in searching for 'er mate if she's no wolf. Best I can do is find 'er some MateLess fuck to take 'er off my hands."

I let my eyes go to Mama again. She's still trembling, but now there are twin spots of color in her cheeks. She's scared. Shealwaysis of Father, but she's also angry.

"You can't do that to her," Mama says. "Willa has a mate."

There's that word again.

"She's no wolf," Father enunciates with a nasty tone in his voice.

"She's too young to know for sure," Mama snaps. I've never heard her talk to Father that way.

"If you weren't wanted, what makes you think some wolfless little bitch will be?"

Mama loses the spots of color, stumbling backward as if Father just slapped her across the face. My body is rigid, my she-wolf watching my parents just as intently as I am. If Father tries to hurt Mama for talking to him that way, I'll stop him. I have to.

"Already found a male. Ole' Vickerson. Male lost his mate years on, now."

Mama sputters, "who is this male?! Some old abuser?"

Father snorts derisively. "Deal's done. Female'll leave tomorrow."

I stiffen. I'm leaving? I won't leave Mama here alone. That'sludicrous, insane, crazy.

I gasp out loud as Mama lets out a sheer cry of fury. The heavy plate in her hand swings outward towards his head.

I scream when my Father meets her with his claws. Red blood blooms, on Mama, on Father, splashing onto the table and splattering onto me.

In that infinite but minuscule moment in time between life and death, it is the old, scarred table is that makes the difference. Its heavy weight pins even wolves in place. Father's legs get caught underneath. He has to move the chair backward before he can fully stand up. I'm much smaller, and sitting on the lower stool; I'm faster.

My body bursts into magnificent pain. The itch of my skin now flames higher and higher as agony hits me like a bolt of lightning. Canines, sharp, longer, ill-formed in this new maw of mine, sink into soft, pliant flesh.

I see maple syrup eyes widen before all I can see is red.

I fall to the tabletop, hearing the screaming howl of a wolf over the choking wet gasps of lungs desperate for air. Agony sinks into my bones. Snap, snap, each limb flies away from my body. Twisting, contorting, I fall to the floor with a heavy thud.

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