Page 126 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

Chapter 50

When night fell and the full moon rose, we were relieved of our worldly tasks and given a much more sacred one. All of the maidens, faceless and anonymous now in the dark, followed Selene and her pack into a grotto located in the back of the temple, perhaps the reason why it was built here in the first place. We walked down hewn stone steps towards a spring where water burbled from a crack in the rocks. Selene pulled off her robe, tossing it into a huge basket that I assumed would become a receptacle for them all, and then stepped into the water, naked as the day she was born.

“Right now, you are still girls, high-born or low. Children of the gods, but no different to any other Strelan,” she said. There were some small murmurs of dissent at that, but she charged on. “When you step into the sacred spring, all that you were, all that you think you are, will be washed away. For this night, you become what the Maiden dictates. You surrender to her divine will and allow her the opportunity to roam the streets again. Come forward.” Selene gestured to the spring. “Cast yourself aside with your robes and then emerge a wolf with her pack.”

The first girl’s steps were tentative, looks shot over her shoulder as she was forced to step naked into a pool in front of a crowd of strangers. But as Selene scooped her hands into the water and doused the girl’s head with it, she laughed, brushed the water from her face and then scrambled up the steps on the other side where some of the Maidens waited.

They handed her a drying cloth, then our costume for the night. There wasn’t much to it. Just enough slightly sheer fabric to wrap around our breasts and hips to hide our nudity from the eyes of the children attending the first part of the ceremony, ready to be tugged away when the young ones had all been taken home by their parents and the real ritual began. The hunt… The word pulsed in my blood, bringing with it a need I didn’t quite understand. But the next girl stepped forward and the next, until it was Malia’s turn.

She had none of the hesitation of some of the other girls. She tossed her robe aside without pause, standing on the bottom step for a moment, the golden light of the candles on the rocks turning her into some kind of burnished idol. But at an irritated sigh from Selene, she stepped forward and was cleansed, then went and dried off and donned her costume.

But when it came my time, I paused as well, before I took my robe off. It felt like the moment required it, just a tiny breath of introspection before I was swallowed by the dark fabric, before my head popped free. Selene smiled, moving to scoop water up already and then I was hit by the arctic blast of a mountain spring, leaving me spluttering, then scrambling up the steps to find my own costume.

And when I did? All trace of Darcy, of Malia, of Selene or Ayala or Orsha, disappeared. We were now pack. Our number grew and grew and with that came a power, one I didn’t understand but I could feel keenly.

“It’s time,” a rich feminine voice said, but I couldn’t tell who. The leaders of our pack just gestured us forward, so on we went.

There wasno direction about how we went or where, we just knew. We fanned out, taking over the hallway, then the foyer with all its pillars, before emerging out under the night sky. Our alpha stopped and so did we, then she threw back her head and howled to the sky.

If you’d told me, when I was back in Grania, I’d be howling at the moon I’d have feared you were describing some kind of horribly discriminatory stereotype of the wargen, but now that I was actually two-souled, it all made sense. The wolf’s song, a long mournful yodel, was a tribute to the goddess herself.

Apparently while we’d been cleansing ourselves, the rituals that children were allowed to attend had taken place, so now there was just us. We prowled out onto the stage, our wolf’s-head masks tugged low over our eyes, though not low enough to impede our vision. We saw the men and women clustered there, each one holding a votive candle, a sea of light before us. And prey, they were prey, we knew that. I scanned the many faces, seeing heat, need, hunger, burning in every one of them, some for us, some for each other. It wouldn’t be just us that hunted tonight. And then I saw him.

Perched up on the low wall that surrounded the courtyard, Gael sat there, a picture of lazy indolence. Once I caught sight of him, I found my feet moving automatically towards him.

“Steady…” our alpha said, because apparently I wasn’t the only one beginning to stray. “Find your packs now.”

That was a leash around my neck, jerking me where I needed to be, but my eyes remained on Gael and he lifted his candle in salute. I felt the presence of the Wolf Maidens all around me and then the strange sibilant music began. At the sounds of strings being plucked, I straightened up. At the clash of small cymbals, my body found the first position. At the reedy sound of the flute, I started to move.

Twisting, turning, switching my weight from leg to leg, always elegant, but wild with it. It was hard to describe the way it felt, running on four paws rather than two feet, but this came as close as I could remember. We moved faster and faster, just like we did at a full sprint. The wind picked up around us, just as it did when we ran. I heard pants, grunts, whines, growls, like a pack would, as we performed each step with deadly precision. And that’s when I saw her.

Summoned I guess by the ritual, the Maiden stood in the front of the crowd, her jagged curve of a smile on display. Golden eyes burned from within the depths of her mask, taking in everything that went on before narrowing down on me. It felt in that moment like I was her dancer, that only I performed her ritual to her satisfaction, her eyes locking with mine, forcing me on and on until she spoke.

“You’ll face many trials, little queen,” she said, her voice sounding like the far-off thunder that masses on the horizon, just before a storm. “And this will be the first of them. You are goddess-touched, you poor wee thing, but you’re strong enough to stand it. I’ve massed all the victims of the Reavers together tonight, just as you said. They’re going to the alehouses now with my gold in their pockets, ready to buy everyone a beer and tell their story. Some won’t need to. The marks on their bodies will do the job. The scars and the bruises, the ones you can see easily and the ones that take a keener eye. Everything’s in place, everything but you.”

“And what do I need to do?” I asked the goddess.

“Hunt,” she said and at that, the dance came to an end.

I froze where I was, hearing the wild applause from the crowds, seeing the young men push forward, with their desires to be the ones we sank our claws into, but I knew where my hungers lay. My focus strayed to the wall and there I saw Gael standing, taut as a stag catching wind of a hunter.

“That’s the one,” the Maiden said. “He’ll run soon, but you’ll track him down. And when you do?” The goddess smiled and did something so unexpected it drove all thought of Gael from my mind. She removed her mask, and there stood a woman who was unnervingly familiar.

“Pepin?”

“They think they have to work so hard to let me roam the earth, but I’m the Maiden,” she said with a sharp grin. “I go where I want. And now you need to do the same, little queen. Time to find your king.”

All thought, all memory, of what Selene and her pack had taught me went out the window then as the most perfect hunger filled me. My howl cut through the night air like a knife, quickly followed by others. I flung myself off the stage, landing squarely in a spot in the courtyard before taking off.

Gael…my heart beat.

An answering howl, one much deeper and rougher in its tone, went up somewhere out in the city. My ears pricked as my nose searched the air for scents before I leapt away. Away from the temple, from the Maidens, from the castle, from all of that. Even from Pepin and the plans we’d all laid. Gael… my heart said, over and over.

I ran down the streets in pursuit of that howl, stumbling sometimes with how fast I was moving. Men lurched into my way, but I shoved them to one side as I searched for what I needed. He led me on a merry chase. I passed more buildings, more parks, more shops than I could keep count of, until I found him in front of a familiar-looking house. The gate was festooned now with bouquets for the triple goddess, but I recognised that we were in front of Weyland’s house.

“You found me,” Gael said, trying for calm and failing utterly. His head was held high, his eyes burning bright and then brighter by turns as he stared at me. A small smile formed and then got bigger, as if he couldn’t hold it back. “You could have searched for the others—”

The others? That thought niggled at me, but I couldn’t pay attention to that now. There was only him. A low growl escaped my lips as I paced closer, my claws hanging by my sides, then I reached them up to pull my headdress off. I didn’t need a papier mâché mask to tell me what I was. I knew.

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