The Wolf at the Window

The Wolf at the Window

By

Jessica Inclan

Jessica Inclan

The Wolf at the Window 1

Prologue

In her dream, she’s pressed up against the glass, her palms on the flat, smooth coolness, her exhalations making circles that bloom white and then disappear in seconds. Putting her forehead against the window, she stares out into the darkness, though there’s nothing to see but the ghost of her own reflection and the periodic white flume of her breath. Nothing but the vague outline of the mountains that surround her, her people. No danger. Not now, not yet. But something has pulled her out of bed, and here she is, looking, waiting, knowing that it’s out there. He’s out there. Again. She puts her cheek against the glass, breathing in the slick night chill. The fires must have gone out in the house, and in her room, nothing crackling in the hearth behind her. Why isn’t she wearing anything? Her body is a prickle of gooseflesh, her knees shaking. All she had to do was turn back to grab a blanket from the bed, but she can’t seem to move, stuck in front of the window. She needs to go back to bed. More than anything, she knows she shouldn’t be waiting for him. Any contact with him or his world is dangerous; she’s known that since the very first time she saw him. One tiny misstep, and the safe world that the Colonists have struggled to save for over 1000 years would disappear in a savage snarl of blood and bone and death. One second of contact with him, and all they had worked so hard to build and maintain could be crushed, everything darkness and evil and despair. Jessica Inclan

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But even knowing all this, she can’t stop herself. She’s weak where she should be strong. She’s ignorant when she should be smart. She’s eager when she should turn away. Even though she long since left her father’s house, what would he do if he knew she was waiting at the window? How would he look at her if he knew what her heart yearned for? How could she explain that her betrayal wasn’t just a lie but a possible death sentence? What would her people think, knowing she’d turned against them? How can she be doing this then, reaching out to The Others, the ones who would destroy them given the slimmest fragment of a chance? All they had ever wanted was to destroy The Colonies. Why then is she doing this? Because. His eyes. His tall, dark beauty. The way he looks at her. No, not looks at her. The way he sees her. The way he knows her. Many, many times before this, she’d been called to the window. She’s watched him forever, just beyond her reach. Two nights before, she’d stood just like this, and from the night came his eyes, his gaze, his want. And that last time, she somehow knew that they would meet. Touch, a real touch, even though the very idea was impossible. But why? Why couldn’t they meet? It seemed the only natural thing she’d ever known in her life. Everything in him matched what was inside her. He was Other. But he was her, too. So she won’t leave the window sill, not until she sees him, though something inside her tells her she is dreaming, tells her that none of this is real. Yet nothing in her life has ever been as real as this. Given the chance, she would give up days of the real for seconds of the imaginary, his face before her. She knows no one will ever present her with that option. She will wake up and go on with her life, the endless days of ruling and protecting her people from the outside and The Others. Endless days of the same thing over and over again. The outside that always Jessica Inclan

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wants in. The outside that will kill them all if for one moment they drop their guard. The outside that wants to kill and feed on them, destroying all that all her people have been fighting against. And yet, what did it all matter anymore? She wants no more worry. She is weary and exhausted, and what she wants is just one tiny second of him. No matter if she is asleep or awake, just his gaze is enough. That’s all she asks for. She will wait right here and not move a muscle, not take one step. Not until she can turn back to the glass and see him outside. Not until all the voices of her people or her father disappear into his dark, lovely gaze. In her moment of waiting, he comes. Just like that, just like always. She turns slightly to see him, and he’s outside her window, floating or flying or hovering in a way she’s not sure is possible in his world. But he is doing just that now, in this dream sleep moment. At first, all she sees are his eyes, that look, that bright, strong look, his eyes brilliant in the night around him. His gaze constant, knowing, and sure, she relaxes into his strength, the strong line of his jaw, the calm of his expression. No face, no one has ever looked as wonderful to her as he does. This is a man she knows, even if she does not, could not, should not. Never will. But he is known to her, the same way her own flesh is. She remembers his hairline, the smoothness of his eyebrows under her fingertips. The slide of skin along his nose. His lips. His lovely lips. She should be afraid of him, recoiling from what he is, but she only wants to move through the glass into him, closer to him. She wants to put her hands on each side of his face, and stare into those eyes, green and full and holding the story she wants to hear. She can almost feel his face between her palms, as real as the glass separating them. Rough from a day’s worth of beard, smooth under his eyes, on his cheeks, strong, the bones firm and fine and true. His dark hair is long and flowing and soft, and she could breathe him in. She could pull him to her and not let anything—not a swarm of Others—pull them apart. Jessica Inclan

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How can it be that he’s from the outside? He can’t be one of them. He can’t be Other, but before she can ask him who he is, before she can call out through the glass, into the night, out to him, he begins to change, shift, turning into the wolf he has to be. Every single time, each dream, this is what happens. Black, cunning, fur raised, he’s a wolf, and he backs up to spring at her, to take her out or away or through; she doesn’t know which. She’s so scared but ready to go, to have it all be over. Even though she knows that his first touch means death, she stands still, closes her eyes, holds her arms out to her sides and waits. She hears the wolf snorting in hard, quick breaths, can almost smell his outdoor life, the wet earth, the forest, the animals he’s killed to stay alive. Impossibly, she can feel his muscles contract, tighten, and then spring, the wolf almost at her, on her, his teeth wet and slick and sharp. She screams, waking up into the bright light of her room, in her home, in the place she is stuck, now and forever without him.

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ONE

Talaith Rikala sat at the Council table, sitting back, leaning forward to put her elbows on the large wooden table, and then sitting back again, blinking away fatigue. Next to her, her best friend Rachel gave her a nudge with her foot, the reminder to focus that Talaith was all too familiar with. Tally, she imagined Rachel saying, her friend’s dark eyes wild with laughter that she would contain because she, unlike Talaith, behaved. You are supposed to be our leader, but here you out of control. Will you just pretend to pay attention? Nudging her one more time, Rachel didn’t say anything, keeping her gaze forward, trying to ignore Talaith’s fidgeting. Talaith tried to take in Rachel’s warning, straining to focus on the interminable meeting, pulling in a deep breath and sitting back in her chair. But her whole, heavy body lethargy wasn’t going away, only growing as the minutes went by as slow as cold honey from a jar. Talaith stifled a yawn and then looked at the far wall for the time piece that wasn’t there, had never been there. Why would they need one? Who needed time, after all, when time went on forever? Who needed yet another reminder that—baring disaster—none of this life would ever end? For Talaith and her people, no illness could fell them, few injuries, and certainly not their own internal rhythms that were always set to go, set to forever and ever. Fine. Time could be a long, flat, open, safe river, but why, oh why, she wondered, did every member of the Council say the same thing, without fail, without variation, every meeting. Jessica Inclan

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Time flies like an arrow. Ha! Time flies like an arrow, until it hits the wall. And in Talaith’s mind, they were all flat against the wall. There Malcolm Zeno was in front of his fellow Council members, his arms moving, his hands trying to drum up excitement for the latest plan, a plan that seemed to only exist in order to keep some of them from losing their minds with boredom. “It’s a wonderful new chance,” Malcolm was saying, though Talaith believed that new wasn’t a word anyone could use in Uveris, their home, their Colony, with any veracity. What could be new after a thousand years of old? “It’s a great opportunity for . . .” he was saying, and Talaith wondered what opportunity could be had that wasn’t had a hundred, no, a thousand times before. “We will see great potential . . .” he continued, and now she wondered how anything could be seen potentially, when everything was as it was as it was as it was. Nothing, as her father Jodoc always said, changes. Everything stays the same. Even during an emergency, here they’d all be, the same reactions, the same responses. Bla, bla, bla. Maybe the context of the conversations was sometimes different, but, invariably, all of the Uveris Council members played the roles they had grown into. Malcolm would always raise his arms in an expansive gesture and complain that the process they wanted to follow was unorthodox. Rachel would fling back her red hair and insist that everything had to be followed to the letter, but then she would turn to Talaith and wink. Muttering under his breath, Seth would never complete a sentence, his final phrase dangling in the wind. Liam would stand, swagger, letting all see his fine, strong form, and then would call for order. Huffing as he pounded his fist, Util would break ranks with whomever he’d been aligned with the meeting before. Quiet, dark, and Jessica Inclan

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silent, Nasha would sit and stare and say not a word unless she was one hundred percent certain of the answer. And she would watch them all and then break the tie. Year after year, meeting after meeting, ceremony after dedication after pronouncement, they were the same seven people her father Jodoc had put in charge of Uveris, the third colony, and decade upon half-century upon almost a millennium, they were still fighting with each other and getting very little done. Of course, there wasn’t much more to do than keep it all together and pray the center of their world held. All the sayings The People Before had made up about time didn’t work anymore. Hadn’t for centuries. Time lost was found again, day after day. Time stayed, and they stayed, too. Time was not only on their side, it was on their sides, fronts, and backs. Time was not what she wanted most. Time was a great teacher, but instead of killing off its students, it simply bored them to death. Well, not death because they didn’t often die. Whatever began never ended. And here she still was to prove it. Time wasn’t just the essence; it was all there was--beginning, middle, and no end. Talaith pushed her long blonde hair away from her face and watched her fellows talk and gesticulate, no longer worrying that Rachel would step on her foot. Sighing, her breath so heavy it hurt, she looked out the window to the mountains surrounding Uveris, their safe haven, their world, the center surely holding for now, nothing amiss. Maybe they were growing complacent if all they could do was fight amongst themselves and worry about who could build a meeting house next to the river. There hadn’t been a serious threat against their colonies in over one hundred years. Yes, there had been sightings and threats to the perimeters of their colony, but for the most part, The Others and their violence and need seemed like a dream, something that Talaith forgot to even think about for hours, even days at a time. Yes, somewhere, out in the Jessica Inclan

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world past the protective barriers surrounding Uveris, The Others lived. Survived. Did whatever it was they did now, now that those uninfected by the ancient poison, The Untouched, must be gone. Or were they all gone? What did The Others do for sustenance now that their meal sources might have all been killed or bled dry? The images of how The Others might sustain a group of The Untouched was chilling, a human farm, bled only to the point of near death and then left to recuperate. But was that how they ate? Was it blood or flesh? So many of the stories that her father told her about the savage behavior of those outside The Colonies seemed about as real as the myths she’d read in the old books, the stories that survived from The Time Before. So much seemed like lore, fairytale—no, that was an understatement. The Other tales were wrought of horror and tragedy, blood and despair rolled into one. Some of the ugly, violent stories had to be true. Somehow, The Others had to eat. And they ate, she knew, alive things. Creatures. Animals. Humans. And the Colonists knew that without the elixir they would be the very same savage creatures. Without this magical treatment, they would all revert to this animal form, destined to live an ugly, murderous life. Without this cure, they would revert to the violent, animal natures of The Others, nothing and no one safe. Talaith shook these thoughts and images out of her mind, as she had every time she’d pictured how The Others survived. Whatever they did, she really did not want to know. The good news was that she didn’t need to know, not any more. Here in Uveris and the other two colonies founded by her father and The Elders, the Colonists had the elixir that kept them alive and kept the need for blood and flesh all but gone. Here in Uveris, The Untouched lived amongst them, living out their normal life spans, being born, Jessica Inclan

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growing older, and then dying in cycles that Talaith had almost stopped paying attention to. Their lives seemed like the seasons, fresh green buds turning to a full crop and then to nothing but dried weeds. And then spring came again, as did a new generation. All of this over and over again, while she and those like her watched and lived on. Time was out of joint. At least that saying stayed true. But what being alive was like past the mountains and in the lands of The Others was something Talaith didn’t like to think or imagine. What she did want to imagine was in her imagination. A mountain, a blue sky, a man with long dark hair and grass green eyes. A man who walked up to her, his eyes never leaving her own, his body strong, his mind quick, his heart hers. “Talaith, we need to talk with Jodoc,” Malcolm said as he continued to walk back and forth behind the long table. “We just can’t decide something like this on our own.” “We are the Council,” Rachel said. “We have our orders. We have our own powers.” “Excuse me,” Talaith said, rocked into attention by Malcolm’s demand. “Rachel’s right. We are talking about a long house for meetings, right? A building. Not the end of the world as we know it. This isn’t about an attack or a message from The Others. This is completely ordinary. Why would my father be the least bit interested in this at all?” The six of them turned toward her, and Talaith realized this was the first thing she’d said since she’d convened the meeting over an hour before. “It’s very, well,” Seth said, his voice so low Talaith knew that maybe half the Council could not even hear him. “You know.”

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Standing up from her chair and walking around the table, Talaith felt how slow and long and dull their lives had become. But how ridiculous that sentiment was, when what the Colonists had faced before was strife and hardship. No, worse, much worse. Words like terror and disaster and apocalypse were more accurate. Over one thousand years ago, her father had survived the poisoning with a few others, and together, they had struggled to find the ancient ones, those very few who knew the secrets from The Time Before. Her father had been the only one to survive the journey, exhausted and hunted by The Others the entire time. When he recovered, he and The Elders traveled to the land that became the first colony Naruci, the colony her father lived in still, the colony he commanded them all from. The Elders taught him everything they knew, and then retreated to the mountains, ruling from afar. The survivors of the poisoning were in the first Colony when the times grew dark, when the magic turned black, when everything fell apart. But The Colonists held their ground against The Others, fending them off, saving those Untouched as they did. Over the centuries, Jodoc had led forays into The Others’ territories, fighting against them in order to create two additional colonies, of which Uveris was one. Naruci, Zadne, and Uveris: the three colonies. The three safe havens from the ugliness the world had become after The Poisoning and the darkness and the black magic. “No,” Talaith said. “I don’t know. But I am not going to bother my father with architecture and engineering. If you have—“ “We are all equal voting members, Talaith,” Liam said, standing up from his chair to face her. He glared at her, his blue eyes veiled, holding secrets. No longer could she look at him and know what he was thinking, his thoughts, his mind, inaccessible to her. Since her refusal of him over a hundred years ago, he’d turned away from her, grown hard. But he liked to show himself Jessica Inclan

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off, letting her see, she supposed, what she’d missed out on by saying no. The thought of him in close proximity to her made her realize she’d need more than her father’s approval, her own loneliness, and her never-ceasing boredom to consent to be his life partner. His wife. His anything. Not even the relentlessness of time could make her say yes to Liam. If it were possible, being with Liam would make time stretch on even longer than it already had. Liam continued. “If the majority of us think we need to speak with Jodoc, then we should vote on whether or not to summon him. I know him well enough to think he’d appreciate our concern and dedication over this project.” Talaith tried not to shake her head. Liam asserting his “relationship” with her father made her want to scream, but that, of course, would be counterproductive. Screaming or even a simple head shake would show him that she still minded how he went to her father about his feelings for her before bothering to mention them to her. One head shake, eye tick, lip sneer, eye roll would give him what he wanted and that was what Talaith never wanted to give him. Ever. Breathing in, she found a solid, centered place. “You want him to face danger in order to vote on a building?” she asked. “It’s not just a building,” Util said, ignoring Rachel’s shushing gaze. “It’s a meeting house for a new group, made up mostly of The Untouched. Some of us as well. But this is a new group that wants significant change in the colony. It’s more than engineering. It’s about the very way we govern here.” It wasn’t just Liam. It was all of The Council, she thought. All of them, except Rachel, but her friend had to follow along as they all did eventually. Talaith felt her irritation skitter under her skin like ants. She wanted to be out of this room, out in the air. She wanted it to be night. Jessica Inclan

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She wanted to be asleep so that she could forget about this long, long life. Being here, year after year. Because of the elixir The Elders had developed, they didn’t age, and she’d long thought that because they didn’t age, they didn’t grow wiser, either. They seemed to be growing more and more into themselves, and these selves weren’t very useful any more. Or, at the very least, they weren’t very interesting. And she wasn’t immune to this stasis. Here she was, getting angry, one against many, just like always. The old, calcified part of her personality wanted to jump at Util and push him down to the ground as if they were both still youngsters in school and not almost 900 years old. Maybe they hadn’t changed in hundreds of years. Maybe they all had grown into statues of their former selves, hardened into roles probably none of them wanted to take on any longer. Maybe the rest of the Council was playing out their old, known roles, as was she. But they were right. Decisions about the new group wanting change and a meeting hall for them should be settled by someone with more authority than they. And that person was her father, despite the fact that travel here from Naruci was dangerous, the journey through time and matter a potentially life-threatening event. “All right,” Talaith said, picked up her journal and walking toward the door. “I will contact my father. This meeting is adjourned.” She didn’t wait for any acknowledgement. From the past, she knew that Liam was looking triumphant, probably preening and swaggering in front of Rachel, flipping his long blonde hair around like—like a something in heat. Rachel, at least, would roll her eyes, at least she would when he had turned away. The others were likely smiling and nodding, knowing all along that Talaith would capitulate. So she avoided looking at any of the Council and swept out into the

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expansive hallway, taking in air, wishing for sky, for flight, for a place far away from Uveris, far away from everything.

When she was Talaith was in her younger years, she made up a rhyme to remember the history Jodoc made her promise she would never forget: Power; then poison; then death. From the ashes, black magic, death, rebirth. But at a bloody price. The elixir not a promise but a curse, though life. Every day for centuries, she learned about The Before Time: she read the ancient literature, riffling through the pages of books written during a time that no longer existed. With the other children who grew up to just adult age and no further, she delved into lush green gardens, climbed on jungle limbs, lived in castles, rode the beasts that had not survived the poison, and traveled to parts of the world even Jodoc did not know of, not to mention knew if they still existed. She learned how people loved and lived and thought in the time when people did not have to drink The Elixir to keep from spreading more destruction, to keep the awful blood lust tamped down. The people in The Time Before did not have to treat their mutated genes like a chronic disease. Talaith studied The Before Time through their words and pictures, viewed their city landscapes, their bridges and buildings and houses. She learned about the big machines that ran Jessica Inclan

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entire cities, the systems and structures that provided heat and light and air. She learned their rituals and cultures and medical practices and laws, skills that the Colonists needed to use in order to tend to the many generations of The Untouched. She learned how bad planning, worse practices, inattention, and denial led to dramatic changes in the earth’s temperature, ice shelves folding in on themselves, the air turning thick with particles and pollution, the heavy and dangerous to breathe. She learned how all the cities and machines and plants and factories led to the poisoning of the entire world. She learned how wars created environmental disasters, which led scientists to develop genetic therapies using animal DNA, theories that went haywire. Results that eventually escaped the labs. She learned how she and The Others became the horrible things that they were. Or the horrible things they could become. She and those she came of age with learned what they needed to in order to make life possible now, using the scraps of the ancient culture and well as their own new talents to cobble a life together. But there were stories she relished far more than those written in the old books. Back in the long ago time before The Poisoning, the Elders worked with technologies Uveris and the other two colonies had no command of nor capacity for. In her early years, Talaith had begged Jodoc nightly for the stories. When The Elders had taken the young Jodoc under their protection and tutelage, they had told him about the things that machines used to do, the way that the tiniest piece of almost nothing, a speck of what might look like dust could be implanted inside a person, allowing the person to communicate with someone a world away just by thinking. He didn’t always want to talk about the old history, wanting instead to focus on what had happened since. Sometimes though, in the late evening, she could get him to tell her stories. “It was computer technology,” Jodoc had said. Jessica Inclan

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“What’s a computer?” Talaith asked. “What’s technology?” “A computer was a programmable machine. People could input information and the computer would respond to what the people asked of it. It performed mathematical or logical operations.” Talaith remembered wondering if computers had been like dogs, waiting until Talaith said, “Fetch” before getting the ball. But a dog always brought the ball back. What information did the computer bring back? Answers to hard equations? “Did everyone use a computer?” Jodoc nodded. “Most people did. They became tiny, machines people could hold in their hand, put in a pocket, tuck in a tiny bag. And through different technologies—tools—the computer became a way for people to send information and messages to each other through the internet,” Jodoc said, smiling. “The internet was something I could see?” “No,” Jodoc said. “Not really. It was a way for people to communicate.” “That sounds silly,” Talaith had said. She wanted to say stupid. The people before The Elders had been stupid. Or ignorant. Prideful. Uncaring and indifferent. Selfish and, ultimately, insane. The history Jodoc and The Elders had taught all the young ones showed that the people before had created the great disaster that had led to the poisoning. Their communication devices, their fuels, their wastefulness had brought the world into disaster. There were wars and fires and bad decisions. The Before People had been on the planet for millions of years, but in their last two thousand, they’d ruined it all. And now, so many years later, Talaith and all her people were suffering because of them.

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In the last gasps of The Time Before, a solution was devised to enable humans to live through the poisoning that was slowly choking away life. Because animals have adaptive characteristics and powerful abilities that humans do not, scientists imagined that splicing isolated genetic strands from robust animals would help the failing human race navigate a hostile terrain. Of course, few of The Before People listened to the outcry over this untried, untested, unproven practice. Every day there was a new problem, disaster, meltdown, governments turning their giant heads to look this way and then that as everything broke around them. Soon, there was no one to pay attention to what a few scientists had done. No one took notice or cared. No one was there to oversee who got the elixir and who turned into a bloodthirsty, savage animal. No one noticed that the cures were worse than death itself. And then it was too late. Jodoc was running for his life, traveling as far as he could from the laboratory he’d come from, The Others close behind. Talaith hated The Before People for their shortsightedness. Their inattention. Their stupidity. So The People Before weren’t people Talaith wanted to know. But she relished hearing about the things they used to live their lives, despite the fact that it was this life that led to ruin. But what inventions! The machines that moved them along the ground and in the air, machines with wheels and wings. The little devices that played sounds they could listen to. Some of The Untouched living in the Colonies collected artifacts, bits and pieces of machines from the time before the poisoning. The erected structures—with permission, of course—and called them museums. In them, they’d lay out the precious items they’d found. Now and then, they send out groups to turn up the artifacts of these old lives to add to the collection. Part of a baking machine. A ring. A stained and battered piece of ceramic. But

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Talaith didn’t want to see the broken shells of what once was. No, she wanted the stories of how things had worked and flown and moved because of motors and gears. Her father had looked at her, his eyes wise and waiting. All her long life, since the time before she could remember, from the time of her mother’s death till now, this was the gaze she remembered best and always. So serious and yet, she knew that in a sentence or two, she could make him smile. And his smile was like summer, hot and intense and clear. “Talaith,” he said. “It wasn’t silly for them. It’s the way that led to our abilities to communicate. Their thinking led to my ability to travel.” Talaith had nodded. “But we can communicate with each other without their technology. We don’t need chips and metal and machines.” “It was their metaphor,” he began, stopping back then because she hadn’t learned what a metaphor was. But now, hundreds of years later, she knew that the idea of sending information over and through wires and tubes and into and out of satellites was the same way that some of The Colonists who wanted to could focus their minds on communication and simply think it to the intended person. There were no chips now. No computers. But they used the old metaphor, something that The People Before passed on that actually was of use. As she walked home from the Council meeting, greeting people on the wide street, passing by the small shops that parceled out the food and necessities that The Colonists and The Untouched needed, she wondered how to begin this conversation with her father. The last time they’d communicated in this way, he’d seemed angry, upset, curt, even through his thoughts. Why do we need more space? she’d thought. We have a steady population. We don’t need more room.

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How do you know what all the Colonies need, Talaith, he’d replied. How can you know what is going on with all our people? Our situation may have changed. Our needs. How can you know about all three colonies? How indeed? she thought now. For a moment, she stopped and looked around, realizing she didn’t know much about anything. Even though things seemed exactly the same, all the time, she wasn’t clear on What Needed to Be Done. She didn’t understand her father’s insistence, emphasis, and more than not wanting to bother him with building and group plans, she realized that she didn’t want to hear the edge in his voice, the harsh, critical, slightly scary tone that had been there during that last conversation. Talaith looked at the ground and then breathed in, starting to walk toward her home. She nodded to a woman she knew, and then felt a hand on her shoulder that moved down to her elbow, pulling her to a stop. “Talaith,” Liam said, and she shut her eyes briefly before opening them again and turning to face Liam. If she hadn’t turned to face him, eventually, she would have recognized him by smell, his scent dark green, a plant extract, woody and sharp. For many years, she’d enjoyed the smell, the scent reminding her of hikes in the Naruci forest she’d taken with her father when she was a young one. But now, she only thought of decay, branches and logs moldering under moss, mushrooms, and constant rain. “Yes, Liam,” she said. “What?” “I just wanted to make sure that you were going to contact your father,” he said, letting go of her arm when she shifted under his hand. He stepped back, pushed his hair away from his forehead.

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“I said I would,” she replied. “Don’t you trust me, Liam? I told you I would contact him, and I meant it.” He paused, sighed. “You don’t always live up to your promises.” She stared at him, watching his reaction play out on his face. If she hadn’t known this man for hundreds of years, Talaith would appreciate his desire for her. If she didn’t know him, she’d smile when she saw his tall, strong body, his almost white blonde hair, his clear blue eyes. She’d thank her lucky stars that of the all the men in Uveris, he wanted her. He’d asked her to partner with him—asking Jodoc first, who’d given his happy permission. To all but Talaith, the match seemed ideal. Match was the right word because they did match, both tall and strong and fair. The entire Colony had been thrilled with the notion of their partnership before Liam had even bothered to ask her. When he had, she’d said yes out of her need to not upset the Council or her father or, for that matter, the entire colony. But then after one night of thinking about spending hundreds of years and maybe even more with Liam Tyrnauer, she’d changed her mind. As he said, she didn’t always live up to her promises. She backed out, chickened out, didn’t live up. And this was a betrayal Liam had never let her forget. She started walking, Liam next to her. If only she could have said yes to him. There was nothing wrong with him, really, except the way he didn’t make her feel a thing, their surprising and total lack of chemistry. They had their moments together, walks along the lake, a kiss or two that had seemed if not exciting, pleasurable to point. She’d not asked for more, hoping that given one, two hundred years, she’d somehow develop feelings for him. She prayed, even, that the nothing she felt would grow into passion. She wished that the need she had to pull away from his touch would transform into a need to push toward. Why couldn’t it suddenly change? He was smart, the people in Uveris, Naruci, and Zadne liked him, respected him. Even now as Jessica Inclan

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they walked together down the street, women and men both looked at him, smiling, hoping to catch his eye. “You are lucky to be with Liam,” her father had said. “He’s a strong, smart man. A good match for you. A true balance. A good, loyal, lasting partner is not an easy find.” Talaith’s almost-mother Akla had said the same thing but in a more Akla like way. “What a damn fine looking man. I wish I could see him step out of the bath!” And by now, if Talaith wasn’t partnered, she never likely would be. The known members of all three colonies were old, predictable, sometimes annoying friends. And while some of those among the colonists formed relationships with The Untouched, it was an unpleasant thing to watch a beloved age, grow older and more incapacitated, and then die. Based on biological facts, these mixed relationships couldn’t last. Rachel had formed two such relationships, the last making her swear she would never do it again, her pain still deep decades even after her last partner Stephen died. Despite the fact that Stephen had died a normal death after a full, long, Untouched life, one rich with love and happiness and fulfillment, Rachel couldn’t accept his absence. Since the day they’d watched his body turn to ash, Rachel had lived alone by choice, not wanting to feel that certain, terrible pain again. Talaith didn’t know an Untouched woman enough to ask her questions. She couldn’t walk up to the woman, Mei, behind the meat counter in the market and ask, “What is it like to meet and then grow old with a man? What do the seasons of your relationship feel like? How is it to watch him slowly die as he watches you do the same?” Besides, those questions would be inappropriate, even if the answers would help her understand the rhythms of relationship and a life that she did not understand. No, her models

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were Colonist relationships, steady, strong, surviving the centuries, the same thing day after year after century. So what was left was this: talking with Liam about things that would not change in a world that would not change. “I don’t know why you think he wouldn’t be amenable to a discussion,” Liam said. “It’s a waste of his time,” Talaith said, realizing her slip of phrase as the sentence left her mouth. There was no time to waste because that’s all there was. “What I mean is that he has enough to think about. We could easily have spent ten more minutes discussing this and been done with it.” “Then why do you fight us? Always. You argue. You ignore. And then you leave,” Liam said. Talaith was about to argue, but that, of course, would have proven Liam’s point. “You’re right. I do. And I’m sick of it, sick of myself and everyone else. But you always come after me and tell me that I argue,” Talaith said. “We are nothing but our conditioned responses to each other. We are going nowhere and doing nothing.” Liam stopped walking and grabbed her elbow, his fingers sharp around her bones. “What are we supposed to do? We have what we need. We have shelter and safety. The Untouched are fine, for now, as long as they feel they have a voice. We haven’t been attacked or even approached for decades by The Others. Why can’t you just enjoy that? Why can’t just enjoy me?” If she turned to look at him, Talaith knew the expression she’d see, the longing that had lasted for centuries. The need. The want. And lately, something else, something mean, seen only in

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the crescent furrow between his eyebrows. Liam seemed to know something he would not share, asking her something else he would not voice. “Do we have to do this once again?” she asked. “I can’t bear to say the same thing one more time to you, Liam. Not one more time. Will you finally hear me? Listen to me. Please.” In an instant, she saw that new, mean, angry look, and then he turned away from her, dropping her elbow, standing still. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll not approach you in this way again. Not until things change. But one day, Talaith, things will change. I don’t care that you think they won’t. I can promise you that you are wrong. And you will have to change with them.” “What are you talking about?” Talaith said, but without looking at her again, Liam walked away, down the street, back toward the Council building. “Nothing is going to change,” she called after him. “No one wants change. There was too much of that in The Time Before.” But Liam didn’t stop moving, each step taking him farther away from her. For a second, she wanted to run to him, to ask him how it could change. She wanted to agree, to tell him that she was sick to death of all the sameness, day after day. But change had only brought pain. Thousands of years would have to go by before anyone would want change again. Talaith blinked into the sunset, the ruddy, slightly dusky haze, the only type of sunset she had ever known. What had the sunset looked like before The Poisoning? Before the time when everything had truly changed? Had it been bright and orange, blazing into the west as those the old books extolled. Were the skies crystal clear and blue as the robin’s eggs, the birds that probably no longer existed?

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The Colonists and even The Others were living in a world that was half or worse, half and ruined. Half and false. The Others refused to take the elixir, and eventually, the three colonies would be three small dots surrounded by a world of savage madness. If the Colonies were taken, eventually, The Others would flame out, having eaten and consumed all that there was. Who would be left? There would be no one to see the dusky sunset. No one to mourn for a world that was gone. Talaith turned away from Liam’s departing form and walked on, knowing that she owed it to her people and herself to keep going. Every day may be the same, be a repetitive shadow of the day before, but they were alive. They may not live in the world that the humans before them wrote about, but they were healthy. They did not have to hunt or farm or do anything to The Untouched to live. They did not have to lose their humanity in order to be who they were. And for now, they were safe.

Talaith sat in her bedroom on the cushion she always sat on when contacting her father. It didn’t really matter where she was. In fact, she could have contacted Jodoc when she was on the street with Liam. But this connection felt sacred to her, and not just because telepathic conversations were hard to forge, a skill that not all the Colonists had developed. The sacred quality came from her regard for her father, from the safe, sure feeling he always gave her. Whatever the problem was, he knew how to fix it. No matter the dispute, he knew the words to say to disarm the conversant. He was wise and warm and funny. He was strong and tolerant and

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firm. She had often thought that The Untouched were lucky that her father had found the Elders first, not someone else who would have used the power to harm instead of heal. Jodoc knew how to prepare and disperse the elixir, the very essence of which kept them in this almost human form. He knew when they needed more space to live and forged the plans to develop the new colonies. Jodoc created the system to keep The Others out of the colonists’ territories, using ancient technology that The Before People developed. If Jodoc didn’t know how to tell jokes and make her laugh, Talaith was sure he would have overawed her. He was chosen by The Elders, those wise people who taught them all how to live. Jodoc was the chosen one, the only one who could lead them away from savagery and barbarism. He had been alive longer than any other Colonist. He was Jodoc, The Overseer of the Three Colonies. He made the decisions that effected them all. He kept each and every one of them alive. And yet, he was simply her father. He was the man who’d read her bedtime stories from the time of The Before People as well as new stories written by Colonists who liked to fashion their own stories, stories about lives that were so very different than the tales passed down over one thousand years. He made her porridge in the mornings, and he reined her in when she was slightly mean or too loud or upset Akla. Jodoc. Her father. Talaith settled herself and closed her eyes, waiting for the stillness to fill her. One by one, she let go of the images of the day. The Council and the argument about the meeting house gone, poof! in a whirl of smoke. Liam, gone. Her walk home, only a disappearing memory. Slowly, nothing was left inside her but a sure and steady conduit, something that to her always reminded her of a tunnel. From her position on the floor, in her house, she imagined the tunnel growing, Jessica Inclan

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stretching, arcing up and over the protective, invisible net that covered Uveris. Out in the open, dusky air, the conduit moved, snaking across skies Talaith had not seen in centuries. Remaining open and clear, Talaith focused, pushed the connection to the place she knew her father to be, letting the conduit hover over Naruci before pushing through the protective net that kept The Others from entering and destroying that colony. Slowly working her way down, she pictured Jodoc’s house, the home he shared with Akla, her almost-mother. Breathing, keeping clear, Talaith spread her awareness around the house and called out. Father? she thought. Are you there? For a moment, there was nothing but her own clear internal emptiness. She did not react to the delay. She did not worry about her father not being home. She simply waited and held herself open. Daughter? Jodoc thought back. Is everything all right? Yes, Talaith thought. Everything is has it has been for years and years. And years. And even more years. She stopped her thought, not wanting to sound like a complainer. But she was a complainer. She didn’t appreciate what she had. I can hear you, Jodoc thought. Loud and clear, in all ways. Now, my love, tell me how you really are. Don’t hold back. Not that you ever do. Conjuring Liam’s image as he walked away from her, bringing forth the disastrous Council meeting with the attendant argument, she thought to her father about her day. So we need you here, she finished. We need you, apparently, to come and christen a meeting house by a river. We need you to approve this new “radical” group. That’s it. How are you? Jessica Inclan

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She could almost hear him laugh, the sound low and full of understanding as well as commiseration. With power comes a great need for the ability to let go, he thought. One of these centuries, you will figure that out. Maybe, Talaith thought. But you? Akla? What’s going on in Naruci? Zadne? What has been happening? In a whiz of a second, something as fine and gossamer thin as silk, she thought she felt a message, a sentence, a feeling from Jodoc. And it wasn’t what she expected. No, the feeling was harsh and sharp like the razor Jodoc had used every morning to shave his beard. But then, just as she recognized it, the feeling was gone, and she was filled with his happiness. We are all good here. As much as you despise this sameness, my love, we appreciate it. We are safe. The Untouched are thriving. No illness sweeping through. No uprisings. No attacks from The Others. Naruci and Zadne are safe and sound. In a nutshell, we can’t complain. It’s what I do best, she thought. I clearly have issues. You have a mind, he thought. You have strength of body and character. You want a challenge, and you see that as something you have to go find. When, of course, that challenge is in yourself. Talaith felt herself shaking her head. Always the same message. And, of course, always right. So will you come? she thought. If you don’t, I will have to endure a contentious Council meeting, one where I will be accused of subverting their plans. I will be told I’ve withheld information and then be accused of being power hungry.

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My love, Jodoc thought, I will be there in less than a week. I have some obligations here . . . Jodoc paused, and Talaith could not read his silence. But then he continued. And I must plan my journey. But yes, I will save you from the madding crowd. Tell the Council I want a full report of everything. That should keep them busy. And then I want you to make me a meal so delicious, I will be hard pressed to leave Uveris. No, wait. Plan a party. Invite the entire Council. Talaith felt herself relax, soften, feel almost as though she, Jodoc, Akla were at the dinner table, laughing, telling stories. All, as they say, would work out. Jodoc would approve the building, the group, calm the Council, and she would be able to lean on him for just a while. That, she thought, will be wonderful. Indeed it will, Jodoc thought. For a few moments, they passed some additional information about shared friends and acquaintances, and then they said goodbye, the conduit shrinking, compressing, returning to her, inside her. And then she opened her eyes, finding herself back on her cushion, in her bedroom, in her house, everything just as it had been. But even so, she could feel her father’s presence, as if he’d just left the room, the echo of his laughter and the smell of his soap still in the room. Taking in a deep breath, Talaith stood and looked out the window at the evening sky. Soon it would be dark, the time when The Others had always ruled. Whenever there had been attacks, sieges against the colonies, it had been at night, no sunlight to bother the Others during their rampages, the darkness hiding their hunt. For so many centuries, she’d dreaded this very time of the day, knowing that everything was in transition. Crack, and the daylight would break into night, bringing with it the howls and wails of The Others right at their doorsteps. For decades Jessica Inclan

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after the attacks had ceased, she continued to feel a stab, an ache, a flicker of fear the moment when the sky segued from gray to black. But now enough time had passed that she felt nothing, knew that the darkness was only night. A night that would end and turn to another day. In just a few such cycles, her father would be here. She turned away from the window, but as she did, something caught her eye. A glint, a gleam, a whir of light color. She walked closer to the glass, scanning the gloam, trying to see into the shadows. There had been something, hadn’t there? Color? Movement? Or was she just imagining things again, wishing that there was some kind of life, right there, outside her window. Wishing that her life of the mind was her life right now. Wishing for the man with the green eyes and the long hair and the way of knowing her, all of her, within seconds. Talaith waited, looked, but after a few seconds of scanning, she knew that there was nothing outside there but her imagination. Nothing at all.

In her dream, there is no man, only the wolf in front of her. The animal seems pensive, even though its ears are raised, its eyes narrowed. The fur around his eyes and ears is dark, though that around its muzzle is light, full of the moon. She knows that she should be afraid, fearing the teeth, the sharp, dark claws, the muscled power of this beast. But she’s not afraid. In fact, she’s moving toward it, the silvery gleam of its fur inviting. She wants to run her hands through the depth, the dark and light between her fingers. How soft it will feel. How warm. And she realizes that she is cold, outside in the night, her nightgown clinging to her chilled body. She

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needs to get next to that warm, powerful animal body or she will freeze to death, the sky filling with clouds and almost snow. The animal paces back and forth, and Talaith wonders if it will howl, somehow disturbing her dream, bringing forth the truth that is either consciousness or her death, the pack running toward the call. But then the animal stops moving, sits on its haunches staring at her with its sharp, smart, green eyes. Its tongue hangs out of its mouth slightly, and then it lays down, still looking at her. A wind blows around and seemingly through her. Talaith can’t feel any part of her body but her heart, and even that beat seems so far away, like a memory of a long forgotten life. All she knows is that she needs to get close to this animal to survive. The animal will be warm. Its fur will protect her. If it doesn’t bite her neck, if it doesn’t shake her to her spine until her bones crack, she will make it through this cold night. She moves closer and closer, hunching over as she approaches, trying to get as small as she can, trying not to antagonize, evoking beta, delta, gamma, omega, the lowliest wolf in the pack. But the wolf doesn’t move, just keeps its eyes on her until she is so close she can smell its fur, full of night and energy and something like juniper. Kneeling before the wolf, she closes her eyes, lays down on her side, and presses herself against what she knows will be its warm wonderful fur, the warm breathing animal body. But what she feels is not fur, but flesh. Skin. What she feels is not the animal’s chest but an arm, a strong, muscled arm, that pulls her close to the body--human body--that is behind her. Her heart, so loud now, misses a beat, skitters, starts up again, beating harder than it has in minutes. She wants to sit up and look, to see who this body is, this man is. Because it is a man behind her.

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She can feel his muscled strength, the hard, warm bones of him, his thighs pressed up against her own. But how? How did this happen? She’s suddenly so scared and so tired, not knowing how she got out here in the cold or how a wolf turned into a kind man who is keeping her warm and alive. A warm, kind man, who feels so good behind her, his breath just at her neck, his mouth pressed against her shoulder blade. But her eyes are heavy, full of sleep. So instead of worrying any more, she relaxes, trying to will herself to safety. Her heartbeat calms, smoothes into a steady, sleeping rhythm. The last thing she remembers is the way the arm and body feel, the way the man pulls her toward him, holds her tight. And before she falls asleep, she realized that despite the dark, the cold, the threat of death, she feels one hundred percent safe.

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TWO

What he remembers is the way things look as he runs past them, in that whir of time that is faster than any other part of his life. Night is alive, electric, fast, and full of intense color. The gray shadows of trees, the dark mounds of bracken, the sky the color of a painting he once saw in a book thrown onto a pile to burn: the darkest blues, greens, and yellows studded with a swirl of brilliant stars. Next he recalls the sensations, the sharp branches dragging against his body, the dirt, rocks, mud, and hard, man-made surfaces under his paw. The chill to his bones, the accidental savaging of flesh as he rockets over a bush of thorns or sharp, angry stones. The air is always harsh in his nose, the scents overwhelming—a body, warm, mammalian, 200 yards to the left. A small rotting corpse ahead, gone five days. Flowing water to the left, down the hill, in the gully. Another just like himself in the bushes, hiding. Around him here and there, sleeping birds in branches, their small bodies safe up in their tree perches for the night. He is all muscle, all movement. Trot forward, stop, crouch, jump, attack. He tears into the small mammal, the kind that follows its own night rhythms, this quick death one of them. He moves on, finding the tracks of the other like himself, changing paths in order to avoid a meeting. They are pack hunters, and he is alone, almost a cliché but made so out of necessity. A very long time ago, he hunted with Boren, the older one, the wise one, the one who showed him how to live. Not his sire, but sire-like, father-like. But since the older one disappeared, he has been alone at night, every night.

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And the pack is not hunting what he is after. Not at all. He has never hunted as they do, though he knows they hunt because they have no choice but to embark each night on this quest for food. They hunt because they are hungry. They hunt because they want to live. But somehow, from the first moment of his becoming, he knew that there was another way, and that was the path he would follow, despite his lack of energy during the daylight. In those early, confusing days, he imagined there were others like him, those who made the same choice. He has a memory of a family of sorts, young ones around the same age as he. Together in a haze of early time, they tried to live together, but he was taken away somehow, and he grew up amongst those who loved the hunt. Only Boren was different. Only Boren taught him another side of the story, one where there was no need for murder, a word the pack did not accept as part of how they survived. To the pack, it wasn’t murder but a meal. Boren taught him how to be an animal with a man’s mind not a man with a wolf’s needs. Boren taught him to carry himself, his thoughts, into his wolf body, even during the hunt, the chase, the capture and kill. But Boren had been gone so long, the stories he told were like a memory, a dream, a vision as unreal as any life that might exist beyond the compound. But he never gave in, despite his constant aching need for sustenance over hundreds of years. How he wants to be nourished. How he never wants to be full of the life force of a human. How he longs for a contentment he only hears others describe, that full, sated warm, hot feeling he cannot recall or pull up from sense memory. Hungry. Always so hungry. As he is now. So hungry. He breaks into a run, and then stops. Looks up to the sky, the dark air still and quiet, the moon sliding behind a mountain. In the silence comes the note, her note, one sound, a moan of light and crystal. She is sleeping, and as she does, she sends the sound that

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curls up and out of her like a dream, in a dream, a dream that calls to him, a dream sound he follows. How he learned to follow her note he doesn’t know. Had he heard it before he knew to follow it? So many years ago, he had been out in the wide open darkness, hunting as he was now, finding the food that would keep him alive, keep him from living the life of his fellows, the people who lived in the colonies called The Others. Other. Outsider. Not one of those who chose another path. To them, he was not even human. Not whole. They were not whole enough to be let into the colonies that were close by but protected. Close by but forbidden, impossible now to invade. Long ago, he gave up trying to find a way in and through, and yet, her note brought him there, at least in dream or thought or hope. While his people (and they called themselves Wahya) hunted down the remaining survivors of the poison, those savage, wild creatures who lived in caves, hiding in the trees at night, clinging to their last hope of survival, he went after the same animals they ate as well, and it was one night such as this that he first heard her. Ohhhhh, the sound went, tinkling like a charm. Ohhhh, his man mind thought back, and he felt the catch, the connection, and he’d stopped, sitting down, closing his eyes so that he’d slam shut his wolf senses, using only his mind to follow what he’d heard. Ohhhhhh. Cracking crystals. Blue notes. Soft sound. Her body enveloped by night air. Her wide eyes staring at him as a man. And then as a wolf. Her taking both of his forms to her heart. He followed her with his mind, twisting through turns of thought where he imagined he’d lost her. But he’d wait, find the Ohhhh somewhere above, around, and in him, and he’d go on until there she was, standing at a window, waiting for him. Jessica Inclan

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Except for the sky at night, he’d never seen such beauty, every single part of her full of light and more light. There was no life or light where he came from. There was only death feeding upon death. Yes, his people put on a show of culture, using the past like a fuzzy map, trying to follow how those in the light times had lived. They’d created their own machines, their own culture, their own ways to enjoy themselves, but it all seemed like a drama, one of those plays the ancient ones put on. At times, he had appreciated his own world, enjoying the look of a fetching woman, one with soft, shiny hair, bright eyes, and long legs, legs he would appreciate in either wolf or human form. But this woman at the window? The woman with the long blonde hair and kind, open gaze? She was like the first breath of life. She was the cold water at the bottom of the fall, the wild wetness and the music both. She was the rare times the sun broke from the hazy, sickened sky, an orb of brilliant orange yellow. She was calm water on a lake just before dawn. She was the moon clipping up over the horizon, bigger than any sun he’d ever seen. She was what he imagined a full belly would feel like. At first and for so many visits, he didn’t approach her, wary of breaking the spell, of jarring her out of her acceptance. On those visits, he wasn’t sure she actually saw him, her face confused behind the glass. But then one night, he inched closer to the window than usual, and her eyes widened in surprise, her rosy, vibrant skin paled, her hand went to her mouth. She didn’t run, though. She didn’t turn from him or leave their shared vision. No, she waited, despite her horror. She waited even though he came to her as the wolf. The dream visits continued, and he didn’t know why. He was careful, though, not to ask himself too often as he didn’t want them to stop. Without the dreams, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the rest of anything. And dream after dream after dream, he drew closer to her, Jessica Inclan

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enough to imagine he could smell her fine scent, something he could almost taste, a lick of something sweet, the whisper of a tangy herb. Imagining her was a full meal. Nothing he had to shake to bitter death. No, just the idea of her was sustenance. He pulled closer, breathed in. Soap, the fine salt of her skin, something like the blue wildflowers that grow at the edge of lakes. He took in the smells that he knew would upset her but the smells he craved, the warm wet slick of her sex, the dark rose of her underarm, the smell of sleep in her mouth. All of her that made both his animal and human parts want to do more than breathe her in. He wanted in. Inside her house. Inside her mind. Inside her body. Later still, in dreams that came after they’d played this sleeping game so many times, he began to touch her. In the dream, they were no longer separated by glass or a wall, no building between them. She walked toward him, afraid, her body prickly with fear and cold. But she didn’t stop moving toward him, coming toward him, her eyes never leaving his own. He was a wolf, and then he was not. He was a man, and he was holding her against him, feeling the stirring of something that was like sense memory. He’d never been able to love a woman in the way he knew humans could. Because he wasn’t human any more. Never had been. He was only the genetic mistake that he and his people were. Wahya were like the sea creatures he’d read about, sharks, that swam with open mouths through the darkest oceans, back when the oceans were teaming. All they did was eat and eat until they died. But he would never die. And he was always hungry. Except for when he pressed her lovely body up against his, taking her shivers, feeling her breath push against her ribs, accepting her body as she pushed back against him. But then there Jessica Inclan

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was more feeling, her body softening into his, warming, turning from tentative, settling to desire. Dare he move his hands to touch her, feel the whole of her, the parts of her? In his mind, he already knew what the smooth outline of her hips would feel like, the glimmer slip of softest skin. Her breasts—no, he couldn’t imagine. Wait, yes, yes he could How would it feel to cup them, hold them gently as he pressed up behind her, feel that silken weight in his hands? What would it be like to back up an inch, turn her on her back, reach between her legs and open her, open her for him? He would kiss her and then settle on top of her, letting his body find the rhythms of the things he so wanted to do. He will not feel the pull to her blood, to her flesh except in this new way. He will not see her as a creature to hunt down. The hunger will go away forever because of her. She would show him the way, the way toward her and away from himself. And she would say yes and yes and yes again. The answer seemed to be a yes, yes, always yes. He was seconds away from being able to kiss her shoulder, her neck, her chin. He would turn her slowly and then this dream would become the best dream, his only dream. He could die after this dream and feel satisfied. Oh, so close. He breathed out, moved his hand, and then, without warning, as usual, he was back in the night, sitting on his haunches, staring up at the moon. Alone in the world. Still hungry. Always so damn hungry.

Now he is in the night again, hearing her sound, knowing that she will give him some comfort but not enough. He wants everything. More. All. He closes his eyes. He waits for her. Jessica Inclan

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THREE

The morning of her father’s arrival, Talaith overslept. She couldn’t help it, consciousness seemingly miles above her as she swam in an ocean of dream. And why not? Her vivid dreamscape was better than her life, even if her father were visiting from Naruci. Since she could remember, her dreams had been full of a longing she didn’t know she had, full of waiting and waiting and then finding, finally finding. Her body seemed to pulse and glow in these dreams, every part of her alive, wanting, needing. Sometimes, there was a far away landscape, a wide open field, a beautiful snowcapped mountain, the sun bright, the sky clean. In this dream, she could breathe in forever, and turning, she knew she was with someone, a man, the man from her dreams. And of late, Talaith’s dreams had been richer, fuller, more of the man who had always been there in the distance, more of the wolf, the wolf man who let her approach him, lay down beside him. During the day, she would often find herself thinking about him, wanting to talk to him, touch him, solve the mystery of who he was. And Talaith seemed to be getting closer. Just last night, he’d been about to touch her in a way that she’d, well, in a way she’d wanted to be touched. By him only. But like always, the dream was yanked out from under her like the stupid trick Malcolm did at dinner parties after he’d consumed far too much beer. Ha! The plates and cutlery all in place, but the table always looked bereft. Like her. The man, the man wolf, had vanished into the gray of awakening. Like always. She turned in the comfort of her bed, pulling the bedclothes over her to keep the sunlight from yanking her up by the scruff, thrusting her into her day. Aside from the joy at seeing her father Jessica Inclan

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and Akla, it would be a day of pomp, circumstance, and irritation, the Council wanting to have a marathon meeting, covering all the past year of motions and discussions, not to mention ridiculous meeting houses down by the river. Damn that Liam, Talaith thought, throwing back the covers, awake for good now, the thought of the man like a rash. By bringing up all that the last year encompassed, he was questioning Talaith’s very authority and the decisions they’d made together as a group. “I have to ask your daddy,” he seemed to be saying. “I have to check to see if you made a mistake.” “Idiot,” she called out, swinging her legs to the side of the bed. She knew that even now, as she was trying to wake up, Liam was likely down at the Council building, working on various details and plans for the day. She could see him telling people what to do and how to do it— creating an agenda, a list, things that would override her own agenda and her lists. “Idiot!” she said again, standing up and grabbing her robe. But then, she sighed. Isn’t this what she’d wanted, though? Something different? Her father’s visit was out of the ordinary, an event that didn’t happen every day. She should be happy for the meeting and ensuing confrontation with Liam and maybe even Malcolm. Maybe Rachel would present a surprise argument, deciding that the meeting house was being erected over a new frog habitat. Today wouldn’t be business as usual, the same old, same old. Good, thought Talaith, as she walked into the kitchen to make a warm cup of herbal tea. Fine. If that’s what the day would bring, she would go into it. She’d have her tea, dress regally, pulling herself up into the mirror image of one of those queens she’d seen in her father’s books. She’d look at Liam as though he weren’t even there. “Oh,” her gaze would seem to say. “Are you? Hmmm . . . who are you?” Jessica Inclan

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And she’d make it through the Council meeting, her decisions remaining intact. Afterward, she would endure the celebration banquet, but then, if she was lucky, she and only she would have her father’s company. Thinking all of this, she started to laugh. “I’m a tyrant,” she said aloud, the only other conversant in the room the kettle. It hissed and sang, and she picked it up and poured hot water into her mug so the tea could steep. She was a petty tyrant. The only reason Talaith felt this way was because there was no other way to feel. There was nothing else to do in Uveris, nothing left for her to act on. Taking her mug with her, Talaith walked outside to stand on the stone patio in the hazy sun of the new day. The air was light and slightly warm. In recent decades, the landscape had changed, grown more lush, greener, more alive, the poison in the world diminishing. And now, if she listened hard, she could hear birdsong in the highest branches of the now full trees. By mid-day, it would be hot and bright, perfect for her father’s arrival. Uveris would never look like the photographs of the cities in the books—there would never be tall buildings and great green swathes of grass. Many lakes were now nothing but marsh land or even dried holes in the ground filled with weeds. Water and materials were too precious, too rare. But this little colony of Uveris was a good place, and Talaith needed to—well, she needed to stop whining, put on her mature, adult, leader-type underwear, and shut up. She drank her tea, watched the trees sway in the slight breeze. Today was a good day. Her father was coming, she thought, knowing that it was time to get ready, get dressed. Though she needed to put on her adult attitude and clothing, she didn’t need to show off and dress for a banquet or procession. She would put on a simple dress and leave her hair down and just be

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herself because at least she knew who she was. After all these hundreds of years, how could she not? And if she didn’t, there was no excuse for her at all.

“My dear,” her father said. For a moment, Talaith was unable to breathe, always so amazed by the way her father had learned to travel. The Elders had given him the ability, shown him the way, something involving space and time and a continuum of something Talaith did not understand. A few times, he’d tried to explain it and about as many times, he’d tried to show her the technique, but Talaith didn’t want to learn, scared by the idea of being there and then simply not being there. What if the intended destination never showed up, and she was left truly in the middle of nowhere? How would she get home? How would she find Naruci, Zadne, or Uveris, the only three places she had ever been in her life? So, her father gave up trying to explain, and time after time, she watched Jodoc disappear, headed for someplace through visualization and intent alone. And here he was, in front of her house, as if a tunnel had opened up out of nothing. Jodoc and Akla walked out into the daylight of Uveris, as simply as if they’d decided to go to the corner market for strawberries. The air around Talaith broke wide open and presented her family just as though they were disembarking from one of those so-long-ago trains The People Before had invented. “It’s not that amazing. It’s much like the way we communicate,” Jodoc had told her. “Thought and body are not separate. Nothing is separate, actually. Let me explain. Let me help you understand. And then, my dear, you could travel, too” Jessica Inclan

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But Talaith did not understand, even though her understanding would have made travel possible for her, allowing her to leave Uveris and visit her father in Naruci and perhaps even go to Zadne. Maybe, she could actually go to The Out World—though such travel was deemed too dangerous and thus forbidden--to places where there might not be people like them. Maybe there was a place in the world the poison had not touched, where somehow, a group of people had escaped the viruses and plagues and toxins and lived better that The People Before—smarter, with more care, with more heart, with more foresight. With this forbidden dream in mind, Talaith had once again considered asking her father to teach her, but after hearing him say that the travel wasn’t necessarily safe—that there was the chance of abduction during the ride in matter—she’d decided to leave well enough alone. She did not relish the idea of being abducted mid-ride through matter, whisked away to wherever or maybe whenever the abductor had in mind. And really, who knew if The Others had the same abilities that her father did? There were so many rumors about what they could do, who they were, how they moved through the night. Nothing was clear except that they were dangerous and that they lived to kill and killed to live. Having her father and Akla in constant jeopardy was enough. Too much, really. “Father,” Talaith said, moving into his embrace, smiling as he held her. Like always, he smelled of allspice and the quick tang of a sharp cologne, something like the lightest of liquors, slightly thick and amber colored. She could almost see the smooth liquid in a thick glass bottle. Jodoc’s cloak was soft under her cheek, and she realized that she could be at any time in her life, from when she was young throughout all the long centuries of her life. Her father was always her father. He sounded and smelled and felt just like her father and nothing but. Again, Talaith thought of what he always told her. Jessica Inclan

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“Nothing changes,” he would say. “Everything stays the same.” After squeezing her and kissing her on top her head, Jodoc pushed her back slightly and looked at her. She smiled up into his face, and looked closely at him, seeing that the year since she’d seen him hadn’t left a mark on him, not in worry lines on his forehead or fatigue under his eyes. In fact, he looked happy, relaxed, better than ever, his blue eyes bright with happiness at seeing her, his face calm and smooth. There were perhaps one or two additional gray strands in his otherwise dark brown hair, but he was as handsome and strong and assured as he always was. “You look wonderful,” she said. “Not a day over a thousand.” “Don’t start with the overdone compliments,” he said, teasing. “I might leave and come back just for more.” “Jodoc,” Liam said behind her, and Talaith moved aside to let Liam barrel past her to shake her father’s hand. Some childish part of her wanted to push Liam away, slap at his arm that was busy trying to convey all his heartfelt emotion to her father. Heartfelt, she thought. As if he had a heart. Talaith shook her head, trying to keep her feelings and the word disgusting from entering her mind because she knew her father might hear it as his connection never died. But there disgusting was, like a boulder in the middle of a desert. Disgusting. “So good of you to come,” Liam was saying. “We have so many questions and concerns that only you can answer.” As Liam greeted her father, Rachel, Malcolm, Util, Seth, and Nasha came up, greeting Jodoc and then Akla, who soon walked around the obsequious throng to hug Talaith. Behind them, even more people clambered to see Jodoc, smiling, waving slightly.

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Rachel looked at Talaith and winked, but then she couldn’t bear to miss out on Jodoc’s small, important words, turning back to listen to each and every word. “It’s a love festival,” Akla whispered. “Maybe we should leave now before it all goes to hell in a hand basket.” Talaith smiled, closing her eyes into the hug of the woman who had raised her since the time just after her mother Aniela’s death. Talaith could not remember her mother’s actual touch but because of Akla, she knew what a mother was. Akla smelled like home, Talaith’s childhood, and her younger years in Naruci. Akla was spice cookies and the fresh air blowing in from the ocean and laughter. Akla was the middle of the night, the one who ran to Talaith’s bedside, hushing her, holding her tight. Akla was the only aspect of living forever that made sense. For always, Talaith knew she’d always have this constant love, and she squeezed Akla tight “Makes me want to go home and go back to bed,” Talaith whispered back into Akla’s soft hair. “That or throw up.” Akla laughed and let go slightly, pushing a strand of hair away from Talaith’s face. “You haven’t lost your mean little sense of humor, have you? You can’t let a little over-anxious fawning of your father throw you into a twist. And throwing up would certainly put a dampener on the day.” “Lately, everything throws me into a twist,” she said, thinking of how she might tell Akla of her dreams, of the wolf who came to her in her sleep, the wolf who was not Other but something, someone else. She wanted to tell Akla about her loneliness and boredom and irritation at just about everything, but as she searched for the words to begin, Jodoc was at Akla’s side, his minions behind him. Talaith tried to think different, better thoughts, and she smiled, ignoring Liam’s sap-happy face. Jessica Inclan

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“Let’s go to the Council building,” Jodoc said. “We need to take care of some important business.” Talaith heard his words, but when she looked into his face, she saw that he was really saying, “Let’s take care of this ridiculous conversation and then eat.” “Wonderful,” Talaith said, falling in behind him and Akla as the moved down the street toward the meeting that would feel as long as her entire lifetime. But then there would be food. And then, if she was lucky, she’d be able to talk to Akla and tell her about everything.

Talaith sat at the long table at Seth’s house, her chin in her hands, watching Liam fawn over her father. Now that all the talk about the meeting house and the new group and the year of Council rulings was over, Liam was relaxed, happy. He poured Jodoc’s wine, laughed at his jokes, was gracious and polite to Akla. He passed plates, made sure everyone near him had had a share of the quail and collard greens and small, richly sautéed mushrooms. He even let other people talk, nodding appreciatively as Util told a long story about finding a lizard, the first he’d ever seen. Rachel sat with Util’s wife, listening—Talaith knew from the countless times she’d sat with Mira herself—about her woes and complaints, her desire for children and her equal desire for order. Neither side seemed to win out, and Rachel was hearing the whole of Mira’s complaint. Once during the meal, Jodoc looked at Talaith and gave her a knowing smile. For an instant, she almost reared up, reading something in his expression she had not expected to see. For a tiny fraction of a second, she thought Jodoc was approving Liam for her—showing his fondness for Jessica Inclan

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the man, wanting her to finally—after all these centuries—to accept him. He wanted something he knew she’d never wanted, would not accept or tolerate. How proud you’ll make me, his look seemed to say. What a wonderful day and event your wedding will be. In that moment of understanding, she saw that her father really didn’t care about her, had no regard for her feelings, and was forcing on her a man that made her skin wild with prickly disgust. How? Why? Talaith couldn’t breathe, and the world seemed to stop, the sound around her only a whine. But then as the scene seemed to rearrange and re-pixilate, all she saw was his ironic smile. His eyes were bright with reflected light, twinkling and full of the party and people around him. He raised her glass, and she picked up hers and mock-toasted back. “To you,” she said, though he was too far away to hear her. “May you always stay the same.” Jodoc seemed to hear her and seemed to be ready to stand and come toward her, when Liam put his hand on Jodoc’s arm, his voice insistent with yet another crucial piece of information. Her father shifted his gaze, and once again, Talaith was alone again with her wine glass and the echoes of other people’s conversations. “Are you feeling sorry for yourself?” Akla asked, pulling up a chair and scooting in between Talaith and Malcolm’s wife Isi, who was talking at length to Seth about crop rotation in the summer garden. “Of course I am,” Talaith said. “It’s my favorite past time, time being the operative word here. I love to feel sorry for myself. That and ruing the day. Not to mention thinking about the past and crying over spilt milk.” Jessica Inclan

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“Have you counted your blessings yet?” Akla asked. “Seems the prudent thing to do when you consider what the past has been like. Certainly better than crying over spilt milk.” Talaith sighed and shook her head. “You must think I am ridiculous,” she said. “After all we went through with The Others and I’m worried about being bored.” Akla laughed and patted Talaith’s knee. “My dear, do you think I blame you? I’ve been alive even longer than you have, since before you were born and then some. I knew your mother before her death, though just in passing. . . “ Talaith tried not to move, wanting Akla to go into this conversation about her mother, Anelia. Jodoc would not speak about her mother, and the topic was like that of the The Out World, forbidden, dark, and dangerous. Talaith only knew that her mother had died shortly after Talaith’s birth, died in a world where death was not easily possible. How and where and when were topics neither Jodoc nor Akla nor anyone would speak of. But just as Akla appeared to say something else, she turned, bringing the conversation back to Talaith and her dilemma. “I know what you think about time, my dear. ‘If time is ripe,’ you’d say, ‘it needs to be picked.’ And I understand you. I’ve watched generations of The Untouched come and go,” she went on. “I’ve fought battle after battle against The Others, both situations relentless, both reminding me always of death, of turning into something I could not bear to be. For so many years, death was a constant, daily worry. The death of our life in Naruci. The death of the way we lived. The poor Untouched died, those I’d grown fond of and some I loved like children. But even with all of that worry and concern, there were days that I thought if I ever saw that damn hazy sun come up again, I would lose my mind.”

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Talaith felt her mouth open in wonder. Not one memory she had of Akla involved anything but her almost-mother’s intensity, focus, love, and patience. Akla was joy and light, her song the song Talaith awakened to each morning. Her food prepared with love. Her arms were the arms around Talaith in the darkest part of the night, The Others howling in the forest, so hungry. Of anyone Talaith had ever met, Akla was just, well, there. “Really?” Talaith asked. “You?” Akla smiled, nodding. “Some days, I thought that one minute felt like a hundred years. Nothing was different. Everything was the same. The exact same thing over and over again. No one seemed to progress or change or move into another, better way of being. Some years, I felt cynical, wondering why we were even bothering. Why not just flip the switch, cut off the protective boundary around us, and let us battle The Others. Get it all over with. So yes. Me.” “How did you get through?” Talaith picked up her wine glass, taking a small sip. “How did you manage?” “In my mind, I would throw things out. One by one until I got to the people and things I couldn’t live without. My immortality. My safety. My house. My friends. Food. Water. Your father,” Akla said, her eyes filling for a moment, the glisten there, and then gone. “And you. I had you. You needed me.” Talaith felt her throat tighten, and she heard the fact that she was last on the list of important things. Akla went on. “So many things that I needed. People who needed me. And there were our people and work. Your father is so busy, all the time, and I couldn’t just sit back and watch him take on everything. He was doing all he could to make our lives better. I forced myself up and

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out and into the world, the three small worlds that we have. I decided for it to be otherwise. I decided to live in joy instead or in sadness. Instead of living in the feeling of nothing.” Talaith nodded at everything Akla said, but what she heard was “I had your father.” Who did Talaith have to make the slow days pour more quickly? No one. “Oh, my dear,” Akla interrupted, clearly hearing her thought. “But you could. You could have anyone you want.” “I—There’s no one here that . . . “ Talaith couldn’t go on, not wanting to betray her dream, her wolf, her man. “Who?” Akla said. Talaith waved her hand, dismissing any notion of anything, but Akla was not easy to budge. “Well?” Akla asked. “It’s just a dream” Talaith said. Akla raised her eyebrows. “A dream?” “A really good dream,” Talaith said. “Sort of an out of body experience kind of dream.” “Who is in this dream?” Akla said, her expression changing slightly, shifting from enjoyment and commiseration to concern. And then Talaith tamped down her thoughts, knowing that she could not tell her almostmother about her dream of the wolf man outside her window, The Other who came to her and pressed his fur, his skin next to her. The Other who made her feel the way that Liam never had, not once in the hundreds of years he’d tried to make her feel anything. The Other who was not real but more real than any person she had ever met. Akla wouldn’t see this visitation as hopeful but as a possible invasion of the Colonies, an attempt to bust in and through their careful protection. This dream would be Akla’s nightmare. Jessica Inclan

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“Oh, someone very tall and handsome,” Talaith said, keeping her lie as focused as her voice. She made up a man so not the one in her dreams. Akla could never know. “With blonde hair. I have no idea who he is.” “Not Liam?” Akla asked. “Not he of the striking blonde hair and large arms? Not he of the large ego and perhaps even larger parts?” Despite Akla’s humor, Talaith had to swallow down the revulsion that flew up into her throat as if Akla had said kidney stew. She shook her head. “Oh, no. I don’t know him. It’s a dream, after all.” For a moment, Akla watched her, nodding slightly. “Maybe this mystery man is from Zadne. Maybe he’s been in the foreground all these years. Maybe there is a chance meeting in the offing. You haven’t met everyone alive, after all. You haven’t been to Zadne in years.” Hoping to move away from this discussion, Talaith agreed, and then sipped some more wine. As she put down her glass, she saw Liam looking at her from his place by her father, his eyes focused and unkind until he noticed her looking back at him. In a second of transformation, his eyes widened, he broke into a smile, his teeth white in the golden glow of table light. Liam nodded, and she felt her lips move into smile even as her eyes stayed on him. Wrong, she thought. Something is so wrong. Akla wasn’t looking at Liam, but still intent on Talaith’s dream. “Whoever your dream man is,” Akla said. “He will come. I promise you. He will come and save you from whatever it is that truly haunts you. Soon, all your dreams will come true.” “How can you know that?” Talaith asked. “I have to say as much as I’d like to agree with you, this perfect man materializing out of nowhere would be quite a change. And you know what Jodoc always says about change.” Jessica Inclan

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Akla smiled, shrugged. “Your father doesn’t know everything.” Talaith almost started, never able to imagine saying such a thing, never able to think something so, well, wrong about her father. How could Akla say that? “The world,” Akla went on, seeming to hear Talaith’s thoughts. “Is a bigger place than these three colonies. We don’t comprehend 99 percent of it. As you know, we have maps of what it looks like, but people are living out there, people beyond us and The Others. After the poisoning, people found many ways, not just two. The Out World is a world, big and full of possibility. If The Out World exists, so does your dream man, my dear. Trust me.” At her almost-mother’s words, Talaith felt like nodding, wanting to hear more. This was a truth she believed in, a truth her father didn’t want people to contemplate because it involved danger. As far as he was concerned, The Out World was a mythology, much like heaven or hell, except, of course, that hell had been a place right here on Earth for a millennium. Talaith wanted to say, “I believe you,” but couldn’t. Instead, she nodded, both of them sitting there for a while together in silence, letting the sounds of the party fall around them. Then Akla squeezed Talaith arm and then stood up, walking back toward Jodoc and the conversation most of the group was enthralled with, something Liam was now leading like a conductor, his arms open wide, his smile even wider. Who was he trying to impress? Jodoc or Talaith? Or everyone? Maybe this wasn’t about wanting Talaith at all but wanting her position, her power, her relationship with her father. She was just a piece of his overall puzzle plan. The party went on, the servants pouring more wine, the conversation growing louder. Without Seth or Liam or anyone else noticing, Talaith sat up, slowly walked to the end of the large room, passing by the women who were collecting the dirty plates and glasses from the table and then bringing in new cutlery for the dessert course. If Liam kept up his chorus, no one Jessica Inclan

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would notice she was gone for a quite a while, and by then, maybe they would all have had too much wine to even care. Passing through a hall, skirting past the murmuring conversation in the kitchen, Talaith made it to the foyer and then in a second, was out the door, breathing in the night air. For a moment, she stood on the wide stone porch, listening to the night sounds, sounds that had only come back to this level in recent years. In her early years, she’d heard about frogs and owls from the storybooks Jodoc had read to her, tales crafted in The Before Time. In the stories, these creatures and many more were everywhere, living in ponds and trees. In the cities and in the country. In rivers and streams and pine boughs that swung in the breeze. Salamanders slithered under logs, newts under rocks and moss. Crickets and grasshoppers—the insects she’d only seen in picture books—clung to grass stems and leaves. Ladybugs with their hard red shells, bugs that needed to fly away home. In her entire life, Talaith had seen but few of them, knowing them mostly from photos and from rare sightings within the colony. “They are thriving somewhere,” Jodoc had told her, and for many decades, Talaith had thought his hope was only that—something to pass onto a child in order to keep her believing that things might change, even though everything he ever told her suggested that nothing would. But, as usual, her father had been right, and now the forests around the colony towns were alive with owls and frogs and forging mammals, the tiny lives that made their larger lives healthier, happier. Soon the bigger animals would flourish, those few scraggly bears and elk and cougars coming back and roaming the planet as they did before The Before People ruined everything. Somehow, the earth had bounced back, even if the human race hadn’t really been able to make it without a huge scar.

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It was possible that maybe the sky would clear one day, reflect a brilliant blue of the water, the water reflecting the brilliant blue of the sky. The clouds will be white and puffy and free, the breeze clear of contaminants and haze. Maybe one day, the scars would fade and disappear. I’m a scar, she thought, knowing that if she wasn’t dosed with the elixir on a yearly basis, her dose coming up in just a few days, she would revert to the almost animal forms of The Others. The Untouched were whole and complete and pure—untouched as their names suggested--but if they weren’t protected from The Others, they would go the way of many of the creatures that hadn’t survived the poisoning—elephants, giraffes, tigers. Maybe some Untouched were living like the skinny bears Jodoc had told her he’d seen during his journey to find The Elders. Maybe the wild Untouched were scrabbling inside cold caves and hiding high up in the trees at night, every day a blessing, every night a curse. Talaith wanted The Untouched to live. If nothing else, she was here in Uveris to keep them alive. If nothing else, she needed to stick around for just that. She walked down the stone steps, and instead of going toward the road that would lead her back home, she turned right and followed a path to the lake she could follow in the moonlight, the moon a bowl of muted white in the sky. Talaith could make out the bushes on either side of the path, the dirt below her feet smoothed from centuries of pedestrian traffic. As she walked on, the path grew narrower, the bushes whisking her arms, her dress. Above her, she heard the whoosh of a bat or a bird, around her face, the fluttery flicker of moths seeking flame. Behind her, the party noise receded, and then there was nothing but the forest, the night holding her in dark, safe arms. It hadn’t always been like this, night once a time of danger. But now, Talaith knew she could walk down to the lake and watch the moon line the water with its white stripe and not face anything more frightening than a raccoon. Jessica Inclan

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Making one last turn, she walked on, and there in front of her, the path opened up, the lake in front of her, brilliant as a black ceramic plate. Talaith walked carefully down to the shore, turning right, knowing the exact log that awaited her, an old pine log worn and smooth. The water lapped at the land, a wuh, wuh, wuh, a constant rhythmic beat. A dog barked in the distance from an outlying house, and she felt her heart stop for an instant and then beat one, two, that night sound too close to the howl of The Others. But that fear was an old one, not enough to make her turn back and go home. When she reached the log, Talaith sat down, arranging her dress so that the water wouldn’t touch the hem. She breathed in the smell of the water, the wet of the dirt, the green of the moss that grew on the trees close to shore. And then she closed her eyes, wanting the dinner party to disappear from her memory. She let go of Liam and his awful smile. She let go of her father’s affinity for the man. She let go of thinking about her mother and the mystery of Aniela’s death. She even let go of Akla and her commiseration and wise words. She let go of everything, her entire world the lake, the moon, the still air, and without her biding, the wolf, the man came into her mind. Her heart began to sing a song, a note, a cry that came to her when she dreamed of him, when she conjured him from nothing. Ohhhhh, she heard her mind sing, her sound of hope and longing and need. Ohhhhh. As Talaith thought, the world around her folded itself away, nothing all around her but nothing. Air. Air that was no thing, no place. Air that might be like the very space her father traveled through. She called to the man, the wolf, not knowing his shape or his name. Not knowing if when she saw him, he would be real. Not caring that if he were real, he might tear her heart from her very body, needing the sustenance she provided to live. All Talaith craved was that touch, fur or flesh, warm and inviting, holding her with his man hand, pulling her close. Jessica Inclan

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Talaith didn’t care what might happen, here in the space that was no space. If she were to die, right now, she would wish the moment of him appearing to be the moment she would stay in forever. There, she imagines. There he is, a shape in the distance. There, his wolf body walking toward her, his green eyes steady on hers, steady, steady, as if she were a rabbit, antelope, elk that would bolt away. He’s so close now, right up upon her, and as he moved even closer, Talaith saw him begin to shift, fur turning to muscled flesh, his gait changing, his body shifting to walk upright, his head lowering and then lifting. As he raised his head, she saw that he was now a man, a beautiful man, his dark hair flowing over his shoulders, down his back, his chest and abdomen tight, firm, rippled and articulated with muscle, the two delineated grooves from hip to groin, his legs lean and ripped and long. She could not help herself, and she looked at his body, knowing that despite herself and her centuries of abstinence, she wanted him. She wanted him next to her, on top of her, inside her. It was that simple. She wanted him, despite his otherness. Despite the fact that he was not real. Despite the fact that having him might mean her end. So in this strange space, Talaith decided to do what she had never done before while conjuring him. She stood, the log no longer there. The tree no longer there. No lake, no frogs, no owls, no night sky. Nothing there but him. She walked up to him, taking in every bit of this memory for it might end or it might be her last. Each step brought her closer, each step made her feel stronger. He seemed to glow, but she realized that was simply his clear, focused attention, the intensity of a predator looking at prey that made him seem so luminescent. He’s eyes didn’t waver, his gaze so green, she thought to blink against the brightness. But she needed to be awake, alert, and she continued toward him, almost able to smell juniper, the forest, the wind in his hair. Jessica Inclan

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I—I am Talaith, she thought, hoping that he could somehow hear her. I mean you no harm. I —I don’t want to die. For the first time, the man blinked, shifting, his eyes widening. He heard her. Somehow, he could hear her. She continued forward, getting to the point where all she’d have to do is reach out her hand to touch him. So she stopped, feeling her breath, watching him for a flick of muscle, a twitch of eye, anything that might suggest he would transmogrify into his wolf self, this beautiful glance of him her final look at her dream man. No, he thought. No. Part of her seemed to crumple in upon itself. No? He didn’t want her here, in this airless, empty space with him? But how to get out? How to leave? No, he thought again. Stay. I meant to say no, I won’t hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. Watching him carefully, Talaith searched him for any sign of wolf. Dark, bristling fur, smaller, slit eyes, snarl of long tooth. But nothing. He was only and truly this most amazing man, standing naked in front of her without shame or modesty. And now, he was holding out his hand. Talaith glanced down at her own hand, and realized that she’d already extended it to him, a reaction to his action. Over and through the grainy world they were in, she saw and then felt them reach for and then touch each other. His fingertips were warm, and she let her hand slide across the top of his hand, feeling the solidness of him. These hands worked, and probably, what that meant was that his body was conditioned from changing at night. From running through the wild for miles upon miles looking for food. From hunting. From hunting people. Jessica Inclan

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No, he thought. No, I don’t hunt people. She pulled away, looked at him. How could she believe him? All the centuries of battling The Others for life and land and limb had made it impossible to believe that he’d never killed a human to survive. Her father had always told her how The Others turned from the elixir, preferring their bloody existence. So how could she believe this man? How could she accept that he’d never taken in the blood or flesh of The Untouched or the Colonists to live? No, he thought again. No. That’s not how I have lived. Not ever. I have never hunted down a human. Why, she thought. He looked at her, his eyes emerald even in the dull gray light. I don’t know. I have been hungry enough to do so countless times. But I have not. Taking in a deep breath, she looked up once again at him, saw the truth in his thin, angular face, his jawbone strong, the flesh and skin pulled taut over his cheeks, his eyes brilliant with feeling—or was it hunger? And with that one look, she believed him. What’s your name? she thought. Who are you? I am called Kaherdin, he thought. By those who care to call me anything at all. I’m not sure the last time anyone called me by name. Some memory flickered through Talaith’s mind, an old story about two lovers, but she couldn’t bring the memory up to the surface. But his name was old and serious, a name that had survived The Poisoning. Kaherdin.

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She lifted her hand again, and this time, he took it pulled her a little closer, close enough that she could breathe him in, feel his heat, see the hardness of his body, his muscles, strong, sculpted, ready for fighting. Necessary muscles, needed for living. With her other hand, Talaith touched his shoulder, and she felt him react, his body jolting at her fingertips, her palm. In that second of reaction, she knew that he had never been loved or touched in a way he wanted, in all the centuries of his life. He had turned away from who he was and by so doing, had become invisible to all his people. Yes, he thought. But you see me. I have always seen you, she thought. I have seen you at my window for centuries. And I, you. He nodded as he thought this, brought his other hand to her cheek, letting the back of his hand caress the slide of her skin from her throat to shoulder. Without bidding, her body burst into feeling, a pulse of heat she had never felt, not in the very few times she’d let a man touch her, especially not when Liam touched her. This was electric and alive and true. This feeling came from her heart and mind and body, all of her agreeing and saying yes. And yes again. How is this happening? she thought. How can I see you? How can I feel you? I don’t know, he thought. I don’t care. I’ve never cared about anything but the fact that you are here. I’ve been watching you for so long, I can’t believe that you are really here. Are you really here? Slowly, he moved closer to her, and she felt his heat from his stomach, the pulse of his center. She reached down to touch his chest, those defined muscles now under her palm. She let her hand follow the dark line of hair running from his chest to his stomach, stopping, catching her breath. Jessica Inclan

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I don’t care either, she thought. You are here. I am, she thought, knowing that she’d never been more here in her life. For a moment, they looked at each other, and then he slowly bent down to kiss her. Though it seemed impossible to her, time actually slowed down. He was leaning toward her, she was taking in his warmth, his smells, his feel. And then his lips met her lips, his body pressing so lightly against her own. So much in a kiss. So much in that simple touch of lip to lip to lip to lip. Warmth and pressure and that feeling in her, that twirl of heart, mind, and body, all of her for once, finally connected. Talaith kissed him back, pulled him closer as he did the same. This was more than letting his body curl against her in the cold. This was, this was…. Us, he thought. Yes, she thought. I’ve always known you, he thought. I’ve been waiting for you. I tried to get here before. I don’t know how I made it this time. I didn’t know that this would ever come true, she thought. And then she didn’t think more, his arms around her, her body urging her forward and on, needing more and more. If this was the beginning of their embrace, she didn’t want it to end. She wanted time to stretch on and on like a piece of soft, pulled taffy, warm and delicious. She wanted hours, days, weeks to run her hands over his shoulders, feel his hair against her face, learn the language of his kiss. Jessica Inclan

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The air was a whip of ice on her shins, the space between her and Kaherdin wide and huge and so, so cold. She was staggering, splashing, something yanking her back and up from the water, someone hissing in her ear. “What in the hell are you doing?” Liam asked from a great distance, as if he were standing at the top of a well, calling down to her as she floated in the stagnant water. “Wake up. Snap out of it.” Talaith was yanked again, her arm pulling from her shoulder with a wrench. She couldn’t open her eyes, and now she needed to keep them closed against the pain, the entire right side of her body throbbing. But she was being towed through water, her feet on rocks, sand, and then she was on the ground, dirt and sand in her mouth. “What are you doing? What are you doing in the lake?” Talaith coughed, clearing her throat. But even as she did, she wanted to go back, back, back to Kaherdin and his hands and mouth and thoughts. She wanted to be in the space of nothing with him. She knew that she could stay in a world made of nothing if he were there, and somehow, she had to find a way back. First, though, she’d have to open her eyes and take care of Liam. So taking a few long, deep breaths, she opened her eyes, the gray world now turned back to black, the moon completely hidden behind a cloud. Slowly, her eyes adjusted, and she was able to make out the silhouette of Liam standing over her. Using her left arm, she pushed herself up to sitting and then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, ridding them of water and dirt. “Talaith,” Liam said. “It’s a miracle that I came down when I did. What were you thinking? Why did you go into the lake like that?”

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She shook her head, and then struggled to her feet. “I was fine. I’m going back to Seth’s house. I need to talk to my father.” The air between them shifted, and she could feel his anger and confusion and—and fear. Why would he be afraid? “Let me take you home,” he said. “Let me go get the healer, too. I think I might have dislocated your arm. I heard it.” “Akla will care for me,” Talaith said. “No,” Liam said. “I will. It was my fault, and I will take care of it.” Talaith started to walk, pain throbbing from her head to her chest like an arrowhead lodged in her side. “Leave me alone, Liam. I didn’t need to be saved. I was fine. I’m a better swimmer than you, in any case. I’d have ended up saving you if that went on any longer.” “Talaith,” he said. “Stop. Stop right now.” In his second stop, she heard something else. Anger. And then she felt him behind her, his heat and intensity so different than Kaherdin’s. Liam was angry. And Liam was strong. “No,” she said, having to clear her throat to find the power to say the word strong and clear. “I’m going back to Seth’s.” “No,” he said. His voice was flat and sharp, like a long, horrible knife slapping on a stone counter. “No?” she said. “No! And what do you think my father would say to that?” “He’s not going to hear about this,” Liam said. “He’s going to only hear that you have finally accepted my long-standing proposal. He’s only going to hear how happy you are. And you know what? He’s going to be happy, too. He’s finally going to have a grandchild, something

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that in his long life, he’s deserved. He’s over a thousand years old, Talaith. Why do you keep him waiting?” She started walking again, but Liam grabbed her around her hips. As he pressed her against him, she felt his erection. She tried not to shudder or react, but she felt the revulsion mix in with the pain of her throbbing arm. “He’s not waiting for anything but to see me right now,” she said. “He will wonder where I went off to and send someone to find me.” “Who do you think he sent to find you in the first place?” Liam said. “He’s not worried about you because I’m looking for you, me, his trusted subordinate. He and Akla have already turned in for the night. So it’s just you and me and the dark sky, Talaith. Try to enjoy it. In fact, you will enjoy it. I insist on it.” She struggled, but it was hard to move her body too much because of the ropes of pain holding her still. He tightened his grasp, digging his fingertips into her hips, squeezing her and pressing himself harder against her. Why hadn’t she paid attention when her father told her about his manner of travel? Why had she been so afraid? Why hadn’t she insisted? Now, in a matter of seconds, she could be gone. She needed to disappear. She wanted the no space world to swallow her up and hold her tight. She’d be safe there, and Kaherdin would come to take her any place but Uveris. For a second, she closed her eyes, hoping to see him and the grainy light of the space they’d been in. She wanted to feel his arms again, taste the heat of his skin. But there was nothing but what actually happening to her out here by the lake in the quiet darkness, no one around but Liam. “Why do you always hold back from me?” he said into her shoulder. She thought she could feel the edge of his teeth on her skin. “Why do you always dismiss me? Why, Talaith?” Jessica Inclan

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He bit her again, this time harder. Warmth bloomed on her skin, and she knew she was bleeding, red teeth marks on her flesh. “Stop,” she said, his voice uneven, harsh, cracked. “Stop?” he whispered. “I haven’t even started yet. I’ve been waiting forever for you. And you know it. You’ve lorded it over me every single day for centuries. You walk away. You roll your eyes. You lift your nose as if I don’t smell good. Any other woman would throw herself at me.” “You said you wouldn’t do this,” she said, trying to find the calm sure center in her voice. “You said you’d leave me alone. You promised.” He laughed, the sound a horrifying low pulse in the night. “I guess I lied.” Liam bent his head down to her shoulder again, this time licking her from collar bone to ear. “Let me go. Leave me alone!” she cried, trying to wrench clear of him. All she needed was a second, and she could run to Seth’s house. She would scream and scream, and Liam would never be able to show his face in Uveris again. And her father? What would he do? In a flash, she hoped he would banish Liam, let him out at night beyond the protective net of the city. Leave him to The Others. Let The Others take care of him. Let The Others show him what it was like to be held and pinned down like an animal. Did she really want that? she thought, but then she felt Liam’s hand run up her cold, shivering leg, and she knew that yes. She wanted him gone. She wanted him dead. “Leave me alone. Just stop it.” She wondered if she was screaming or whispering. She couldn’t tell, fear confusing her senses, her hearing, her language. Maybe she wasn’t even talking.

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“The time for leaving you alone is over,” Liam said. “You and I are never going to be separated again.” Talaith struggled, pulling herself forward and then back and then forward again, trying to find an opening in his grasp, but Liam held tight, and then he threw her to the ground again, her head hitting the dirt, her eyes filled with stars not from the sky. Her arm throbbed and beat with a constant, aching pain that made her nauseated, and she spat out dirt and sand, feeling as though she were going to choke. Liam’s hands were rough and cold and ugly, pushing up her dress, ripping off her underclothing, pressing her against the cold earth. She heard nothing but his hard breathing and the renting of fabric and the horrible slide of his hands against her skin. Not knowing what else to do, she pulled at his hair, his face, feeling her nails catching skin and shirt and more skin. She punched his shoulders, she beat at his chest, she thought to scream, but he clamped her mouth with one hand as he spread her legs open wide with another. “Shut up,” he hissed. “Shut up and take what’s yours. I am the only man you are ever going to have from now on. You’re mine. I’m sick of your no’s. I’m sick of your arrogance.” He fumbled with the opening of his pants and then with one hard thrust, he was inside her, pumping in fast, jerking movements. Her eyes open, she stared at his face, his eyes on hers as he pushed and grunted. Her entire body filled with disgust and hatred and anger and sadness, and she wanted to be away, away. Where was the space? Where was Kaherdin? But somehow, she relaxed, knowing that there was nothing she could do now but wait for it to all be over. Maybe later, she would be able to find Kaherdin again, but after this, would he want her? Even if he were a dream, would he be able to stand the sight of her? Who would ever look at her now that she was covered in and filled with Liam’s filth? No one. Jessica Inclan

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“Just me,” Liam said, as if he had been in her mind. “Just me.” And with that, he came inside her, falling to her chest, pushing out any scream she might have uttered. With his dead, solid weight on her, Talaith lay on the bank of the lake, staring up at the sky that had grown slightly lighter, the stars the true stars above the earth, none of them blinking for her. Nothing would ever be the same after this. How had she ever wished for life to change when this was the change it brought? How would she be able to work for the Council with Liam sitting across the table from her every day? How would she even manage to walk down the street, knowing that she was the woman who had been thrown to the lake bed and raped? How would she be able to tell her father or even Akla? Who would listen to her sad story when there were so many years to live and remember it? For a second, Talaith tried to still her mind, but his heavy, dead, horrid weight on her reminded her every cell and fiber of what had happened. She couldn’t blink it away. She couldn’t just forget, so how would she go on? How would she be able to not kill Liam at some point, moving close to him and sticking a knife slowly in his heart, sliding it in cleanly, without noise, without warning? And how could she live with that murderous thought? Everything still now, the night creatures came back to life, sure that all must be safe. An owl hooted from a tree branch close by, small animals rustling in the brush, something with tentative steps moving along the edge of the lake. And instead of wishing for the gray space to swallow her up and bring her back to Kaherdin, Talaith coveted unconsciousness. She needed to escape this place that was too real. And she was sure that she could never go back to Kaherdin and the place that was like heaven. Jessica Inclan

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So despite the cold, her throbbing arm, the lump of Liam on top of her, Talaith closed her eyes and fell asleep.

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FOUR

“No,” Kaherdin howled into the still, dark sky. Or did he cry with his human voice up into the moonless night? He didn’t know what part of him voiced the pain, his human or wolf. Both perhaps, the sound a hurl of pain into the night. But no matter what cry he uttered, Talaith was gone. He was alone, naked, a man, cold and still hungry. Worse, he knew that she was in danger, something yanking her out of the gray with force and anger. Without noticing, he reverted to his wolf form, and because his smooth, sleek animal body commanded him, he started running along the wide field of tall grass, searching for the place where the gray would take him back to her. As he moved, Kaherdin’s body one concerted push of forward and fear, he knew he would never find her here. She was someplace else, in one of the colonies, protected and isolated from those like him. But attacked by one of her own. Maybe she was—no, he couldn’t even think that. How could she be gone at the very moment of them truly finding each other? This last encounter had been real, real as anything Kaherdin had ever felt. Touching her had been as real as this moment, the grass parting as he sped forward, the soil, the trees, the wind. Real as this very night. Finally, running himself to exhaustion, Kaherdin stopped, understanding he would never be able to hunt enough to satisfy this night’s expenditure of energy. Between the encounter with Talaith and his search for her, he had nothing left inside but sadness.

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Soon, the sun would begin to rise, and he’d have to be long back in the compound, curled up with others from the pack or stretched out alone in his small living area, the place he most often retreated to. Wahya were not allergic to the sun or the moon or specific vegetation, nor would they burst into flame or be killed by any metal—iron nor silver--the way some old legends had it, though the oldest of his kind had long since destroyed the evidence of such tales, burning all the stories that could hurt them. When he was young, Kaherdin knew he could turn to Boren for the truth. The older Wahya had taught him about being a wolf, about hunting, about hiding from the sun. “Why are we this way?” Kaherdin had asked. “Why does it happen?” “You ask so many questions. The answers will not help you here and now. The answers will not help you during the hunt at night or in the compound during the day,” Boren replied, his dark eyes on Kaherdin. “The answers aren’t what you should be looking for but rather the needs inside you that force the questions.” Kaherdin ignored him, wanting to know the why of everything. “Why do we have to sleep during the day?” “Try to ask questions but not with your mouth,” Boren had said. “Try to listen.” “To you?” Kaherdin had asked, looking up at the man who had always been there, right in front of him. “No, not to me, small one. To what’s around you. The trees. The earth. The pack. Listen to the wind. The birds. The thoughts in the very air.” “There are thoughts in the air?” Kaherdin hadn’t known what to make of this. The only thoughts he had were of food and sleep. The only feelings he had were of need and fear. Sleep was the only thing that took it all away. Jessica Inclan

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Boren was somehow older than the rest of them, ancient, Kaherdin had supposed. But now upon reflection, Boren had likely stopped aging at the same time they all did. But his voice was deep, gravely, profound, the sound of what a god might sound like, the god from the stories in all the burned books. “How did it start? How did we happen? Why are we here?” Kaherdin had asked, insistent, needing the answers. He imagined that he wouldn’t be able to go on if he didn’t know the how and why and where of everything. Boren had taken in breath, Kaherdin hearing his patience in his slow exhale. “Many years ago, things began to change on this planet,” Boren said. “It was the air, the land, the people. Those in the light times grew lazy and greedy and stupid. They grew to be too many. They wasted all that was around them, and instead of changing their habits, they tried to change their literal bodies. They fooled with the very code that works inside each human, adding in codes from other creatures to form a human who could survive in spite of a cataclysm. We are the product of such an experiment, animal genetic codes put into human embryos. We are stronger than they were. We are more adaptable to cold and heat. We do not suffer physical degradation. We are resistant to illness. We can change our form to hunt, a skill those earlier humans had long forgotten how to do.” “So we were better” Kaherdin had asked. “Not better,” Boren said. “Different. And worse. We cannot eat the way they could. We cannot live their diurnal lives. We cannot look at the sun, our bodies refusing the nutrient from the sun that their bodies took in easily.” “Why did they do it?” Kaherdin asked.

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“Because they were desperate, and they passed that desperation on to us. They tried to change their bodies rather than fix the mistakes they’d made. Nightly, we have to live these desperate lives. Our kind has had to kill the offspring of the people who created us in order to live. We have become the nightmare they hoped to avoid.” At these words, the long horror of the life that lay ahead of Kaherdin began to take shape. Eat and sleep and kill, night after night after night. “But it’s the life we have,” Boren said. “It’s what we were given.” “How do I live it?” Kaherdin said. “Why do I want to?” “If you are to survive this, if you are to go on and past and through this nightly life, you need to listen. And not just with your ears. With your mind. Next time you go out at night to hunt, hear with your heart and soul, small one. Someday, you will learn that you don’t even need the ground under your feet to move. You will find the life you have is one that you want.” The next night, Kaherdin ran with the pack instead of Boren, hunting as usual, but he listened. He heard what he always did—the sounds of paws on earth, the yelp of a caught animal, the swift flight of disturbed birds from branches—but he heard the thoughts of the wolves around him. He heard their want and fear. He heard their anger at the alpha male and heard their acquiescence to his demands. He heard with his nose and body and heart. And Kaherdin thought he heard something else, a small noise from far away, a call, a life force beating in a place he could not reach. He thought he heard a place that was not somewhere he could run to but a place he thought he could reach through his mind. Boren was right. He imagined that Boren was traveling at night far from the compounds, to places that Kaherdin could only imagine. To places, really, he could not.

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Boren taught him how to listen at night, and each night, Kaherdin tried to discover as much as he could about his own life, his own people, but information was hard to come by, as the earth did not create them. The wind did not begin them. The ocean did not spew them forth, the sand did not hold their nascent bodies as they crawled toward the forest. No, the Wahya were not natural. They were man-made by ignorant scientists in a time of trouble, and those scientists were long since dust. Kaherdin needed more information, asking Boren countless questions. “Why can’t we go out into the sun?” Boren sighed. “I ache for the sun,” he said. “I know that light kiss of the morning rays and how good they feel until they don’t. But our bodies cannot metabolize what the sun gives us. Too much, and we get sick and die. The earliest Wahya learned this the hard way.” “Why don’t we just catch our food as humans at night and eat the food raw?” Boren had laughed, tilting his head back, the sound making Kaherdin smile. “Does the flower decide to not bloom? Can you imagine running in the forest and not wanting to truly run as we were made to? Can you imagine the hunt without the wolf inside you? We must follow what is inside us.” All these many years later, Kaherdin still heard Boren’s words in his head. Every night as he changed from man to wolf, he knew he was following the now ancient code of his people. Every night, Kaherdin still listened for those sounds Boren taught him to listen for. Every night, he followed the tendrils of sound and movement that had led him to Talaith in the first place. But staying out here, waiting for Talaith to come back was not a solution. For a second, he imagined what Boren would say to him now, Boren who disappeared one day centuries ago, doing what the injured, desperate Wahya often did—walking off into the sunlight for good, Jessica Inclan

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dying in the light. But what had hurt him and how was never clear. There was no evidence, no clue, no remains of any kind. Boren was simply gone, and Kaherdin had to start to answer his own questions. Mostly, he stopped asking any. Until now. Until Talaith. Pacing back and forth, Kaherdin wondered what to do? He could stay outside and sleep under brush or in an empty cave. The next evening, he could begin a search for a place to contact Talaith again, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. He never knew what he was looking for. She just made the sound, and he found her through his mind. Not through a certain location. Maybe he could go to her from where he slept. But she was usually awake when he was asleep, and he’d have to wait an entire twenty-four hours before he could contact her again. Slowly loping back to the compound, Kaherdin realized that maybe they would never find each other. Maybe what had happened to her—no, he couldn’t think that. How could he think that? How could he believe that he’d just lost what he had finally been able to touch after all these years? Fool, he thought as he pushed up over a hill, seeing the lights of the compound in the valley below, hearing the calls of his pack echo in the paling night, the sky now the color of river rock. Fool to have gotten involved. Fool for caring about a woman who was likely not even real but a figment of his ravenous imagination. Fool for trying to live a life any other than what he was barely living. He was a hungry, rangy, misplaced person, living out century after century pushing against the current. All he should do is eat and sleep and hope that one day it would end. And he should forget about Talaith, despite her gaze and feel. Despite the way she leaned into him. And her smell, a scent he could breathe in despite the gray space they were in. White flowers, soap, clean linen. Life. Jessica Inclan

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As he ran, Kaherdin heard a rustle and then he smelled the creature, something larger than what he usually hunted. A raccoon, maybe. A possum. He thought to ignore his stomach, but the day would be long, his sleep interrupted if he didn’t eat again. Fool to think that a real life woman like Talaith would want a thing like him, a creature who had to eat like this. But that’s what he was. Who he was. A creature. He had no choice. Not when the very cure that would save them all was held in the hands of the mad man who created the colonies. The man who refused to allow them to be healed and live an almost normal life. That’s what Kaherdin and his kind had been fighting hard for all these long years. Kaherdin’s wolf body slowed, stopped, turned, silently moving through the bracken, his eyes tracking the humped form of the rabbit moving quietly toward its warren. The creature had ventured out in the almost dawn, and Kaherdin could smell its unknowing of the danger around it. In a second, he was upon it, his mouth, on its neck, snapping the creature dead. And then he ate, knowing even as he did, that it would never be enough.

Just before dawn, the sky a bowl of rose and the lightest gray, Kaherdin stopped in front of the compound and felt himself transition from wolf to man, the movement in his skin, under his skin, in his bones. Pushing his hair away from his face, he looked up into the sky, knowing that it was time to get indoors. He nodded to a few others returning from the hunt and walked into the compound, going to his quarters, the two rooms that he called his own. As he walked through the courtyard and up toward the building his quarters were lodged in, he ignored the stares of others heading home, almost able to read their thoughts and wishing he could not. Jessica Inclan

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Who does he think he is? the thoughts came. Why does he think he’s better than us? He’s always alone. Closing the door behind him, he took his robe off a hook and walked to the stove and threw in some logs, the embers still deep red and hot from the day before. Wisps of heat and smoke licked out of the stove, hot and crackling. He put the large pot on the range, heating water, knowing that he smelled of the forest and of his kill, which already seemed too long ago. His insides twisted, and he wondered if he’d be able to eat without feeling sick about himself, sick to his stomach about the way he had to live. The water hot, he poured it in the basin and began to wash, feeling the night rinse off him, this ritual ablution he did every day, every morning, in an attempt to become whole again. Dirt and blood swirled in the basin, and he poured off the water and replaced it with new, hot water, rinsing and cleaning and then soaping his face, chest, body, hair until he felt almost like a human. Almost. But, really, not even close. For a moment as he dried himself, he stared into the glass, wondering what Talaith would see if she looked at him now, in the muted daylight, clean and free of dirt and the blood of the night. He knew that despite his body that was knocked into rock-hard shape from the hunt, he was thought of as good-looking. Many women approached him, especially when he was in human form and more appealing—no female wolf wants anything but the alpha male. How could he be alpha when he ran with no pack? But he was beta to no one. No wolf. No man. But here, now, clean and slightly fed, the keen urgency gone from his eyes, he looked at himself in the glass and saw what he imagined Talaith would see. He was tall, lean, muscled. His dark hair hung wet down his back, his face angular with high cheekbones, his green eyes full of a rage that had always been with him. The memory of Talaith radiated through him. He felt Jessica Inclan

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her hands, her face, her mouth. But would she want to touch him as she had done so last night? Would she press him close and let him take her to his bed? Would she let him take off her clothing, feel her naked flesh, kiss her lips, neck, throat, breasts? The thought of her excited him, the memory of her body against his making him grow hard. Kaherdin closed his eyes, his mind seeking out the gray space they’d been in, yearning to hear her call, her Ohhhhh. But nothing. Kaherdin opened his eyes, looked at himself again in the glass. No one would ever see him as she had in that short time together. The only person he’d ever wanted was her, and she was likely a hallucination, a dream, a figment of his desperate, starving mind. The sun was up now, and he pulled the shades, feeling fatigue seep into him. The long, strange night with too little food and too much upset and confusion had exhausted him, and he knew that night was only hours away. Night and more hunting. Night and maybe another call from Talaith. Sighing, he put his robe back on and moved toward the bed, craving the unconsciousness that only sleep could bring. As he was about to lie down, there was a knock at his door, soft at first, and then harder, and then as he was heading toward it, the door swung open and Sika walked in, her black eyes on his immediately. He could almost see her try to use her wolf sense, sniffing out his night, his kill, his pursuits. “Sika,” Kaherdin said. “What do you want?” She smiled her wolf smile at his rhetorical question, her lips slightly lifted at the corners, her eyes clear and hard on him, seeing everything. “What do you have to offer?” she asked, walking up to him, her right hand grazing his arm. Jessica Inclan

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“Not a lot,” he said. “Nothing you want.” She blinked, smiled again. “How do you know how much I need? How do you know what I want?” Kaherdin shook his head, smiled himself, sitting down on his bed. “After hundreds of years, Sika, I’ve managed to figure it out. You want to be bedded. A few times. And then, you want me to suddenly need to join the pack. You want me to fight Raf and lead the compound to ascendancy over the other compounds. Then you want me to take on the colonies, to steal the elixir, to change the world as we know it. To reshape our entire Wahya way of life. And if that doesn’t work out, you want to eat a whole buffalo at night and sleep all day, except, of course, when we are having sex. What else? Am I missing anything?” “You forgot the part about you bedding me.” She sat down next to him, put her arm around him, one firm breast pressed into his side. “No, that was first on the list.” “It’s worth listing at least twice if not a few times,” she said, nuzzling his neck and running her hand up along his thigh and under his robe, working her way to his erection, which despite himself, was growing hard. “It’s so good. You know I’m right. Yes, I can see that you know.” She grabbed him, and he sighed, wondering, as usual, how to find a middle ground between throwing her out of the room and sleeping with her. Sika made happy noises in her throat, stroking him with increasing pressure and speed. He knew he didn’t have long before the answer would be clear, no matter how he tried to hide it. For centuries, it had been easy to give in to her first request. Bedding Sika was pleasurable and kept his raging want for sex at bay. She was feral in bed, her animal side unleashed, ravenous, feisty. At times, even during the day when she was a woman, a beautiful woman with Jessica Inclan

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long black hair and eyes as dark as mystery, she seemed to be more wolf than human. Sometimes when she smiled, he was surprised to not see her fangs. And to tell the truth, he was always surprised that she hadn’t taken over the compound completely, leaving all the alpha males behind in her wake. She could take on any of them and win. Sika did not know this about herself, but she didn’t need Kaherdin, she didn’t need Raf. She didn’t need any man. She needed only to take the first step alone, and she would have everything. When Kaherdin looked at himself in the glass after a day of sex with Sika, he was covered in red scratches and welters of bite marks, the evidence of her ecstasy. Or her irritation and impatience with him. It was hard to figure which. But he knew he’d give up all the times with Sika—all the heat and sweat and passion—for a minute with Talaith, even if she was only a figment of his deluded mind. “Not today,” Kaherdin said, shoving her away from him and covering himself with his robe. “I’m tired.” “Do you have a headache, too?” she asked. “Are you feeling a bit menstrual?” Her voice turned sour, mean, ugly, and Kaherdin wanted to push her off the bed and lie down and fall into forgetting. But she wouldn’t let him. “I’m not sure how you can sleep when you are just going to wake up to more of the same. How can you live with yourself? How can you not fight for what we could have? How can you sleep when you know all you have to do is break Raf—“ “Sika,” he said, his voice sounding tired, distant, almost not his own. “I don’t want to go over this again. I am not interested in leading the pack or the compound or the entire world. I’m not

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interested in leading the rebellion against the colonists. Regardless of your tempting and sogenerous offer, I want to sleep. And then I want to get up and eat. End of story.” For a moment, her disappointment and irritation moved across her face, and then both feeling disappeared, her sarcastic smile a hard, red line. “You are turning into Boren. Full of ideas but weak. Someday, you will just wander off into the sunrise like he did. And I’ll move in here and take over your quarters. Who knows why Raf lets you have them.” Kaherdin turned from her, swallowing down his urge to morph and attack, her, press her against the floor, his teeth at her neck. She didn’t know anything about Boren. She had no idea how the older man’s advice had kept Kaherdin going, all these centuries after his disappearance. “I’m not going—“ he began. Sika laughed, the sound full of scorn and hurt and even desire, her words cutting off his own. “If you would only do what you are called to, we could have different lives. We could have the magic the colonists possess. We wouldn’t have to live like . . . like this.” Something in her voice made him turn to her. For a change, her sharp eyes weren’t on him, and she was staring at the wall in front of her, her face slack in a despair of the history they had and would continue to have unless they found the magic to change everything. But hadn’t they tried? Hadn’t they fought the colonists for century upon century? And hadn’t they been beaten down and back and away by the colonists’ advanced technologies and hate. They were The Others, the ones no one wanted, the ones no one wanted to save. And really, Kaherdin thought, now that he and his kind had evolved into a hunting, scavenging, bloody tribe, who could blame the colonists? Of course they wanted to protect the careful world they’d managed to create after the world’s poisoning, keeping what they could Jessica Inclan

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wrest away to themselves. It was the ugly side of human nature. He could hate them for it, but Kaherdin did not blame them. The Wahya would do the same thing. And given a chance, his kind would destroy anyone or thing in their way. But if he had the magic, he could try to find Talaith, who might be a woman living in the colonies. He could present himself as almost a person. Not as a creature who needed to constantly kill to live. “Sika,” he said. “I’m not the man for that job.” Her face still open and vulnerable, she turned to him without her guile or manipulation. In her glance, he saw that she, in fact, thought he was that man, despite the fact that he’d never done anything besides sleep with her and then say no. But after a second, she drew the veil across her emotions and shook her head, her dark hair swinging. “Seems as though you are not the man for anything,” she said. “Not a damn thing. Maybe not a man at all.” Standing up, she walked away from him without a backward glance and left his quarters, slamming the door behind her. Kaherdin stared at Sika’s absence, knowing that she was right. He wasn’t the man for anything. Not for bedding her. Not for fighting for the good of his kind. Not for leading a pack in a hunt. Not for taking down a wild, untouched human much less a buffalo. He wasn’t really even a man. He was alone, a loner, a man in a tribe but without one. A man who was one tiny slip away from having nothing at all. Outside, the sun tried to burn through the constant haze, the light beating against the drawn shade. Kaherdin lay down on the bed, stared up at the ceiling, thinking as hard as he could about

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absolutely empty space, gray space, the possibility of something not yet seen. And finally, he fell asleep.

Just around dusk, Kaherdin awoke, his mind filled with the last bit of his dream. What was it he was still holding onto? He could almost breathe it in, the smell of lavender and vanilla. He could see it, too, a whisk of long golden hair. White flowers. A meadow full of tall grass. And it was sunny. He was in the sun as a man, standing outside with clothes on, something he rarely did because the moment he transmogrified, he was trapped by his pants or robe or shirt, struggling in his wolf body to free himself of the confining clothing. And then when he loped off, the clothes were gone, left in a puddle somewhere. But in this dream, it was sunny, warm. A woman stood by him, her hair long and soft. She said something, pointing, and he turned to her, seeing it was Talaith. In the dream, he couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he knew it was important and necessary and the idea filled him with hope. The wind whipped gently around them, and they stood together in the meadow looking toward something, and Kaherdin realized what she had been pointing at and what they were both facing was a ridge of mountains lightly snow capped, a dinosaur silhouette of rock in the distance. They were going to go there, wherever there was. She reached out for his hand, and then he was awake, the sound of howling in his ear. He wanted to howl himself, but not out of blood lust or excitement for the hunt to come. Not out of the lure of the pack. Not even out of hunger. But out of frustration and loneliness and

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regret, regret that he was still alive here. That another relentless day had come and gone and it was night again. When he pushed open his door and walked out into the dusky, darkening light of the compound, he saw that the town had burst into its normal evening life. Trades people were selling the things they all needed—robes, ceramic pots, soap, lotions. In the buildings, lights had come on, and the business of the evening had begun, the ones in charge discussing the workings of the compound and the purported order of things. Children ran in circles, turning from wolf to human to wolf form, laughing, rolling around with each other in the dirt. Kaherdin wasn’t sure how anyone brought a child into this life, but every year, there were more and more, little pups, more people to train into this life, even as their food supplies dwindled. Life less sustainable day after day. “Kaherdin,” a man said, and Kaherdin took in a breath, not wanting to turn to face Raf. These discussions never went well, involved a lot of posturing on both their parts, and left Kaherdin wanting to bite Raf in the jugular. Of course, since Raf was alpha as wolf and compound leader as human, such an act would be counterproductive. So Kaherdin had no choice but to turn toward the man, listen, and try not to cause a fight, the chances of which were running about fifty-fifty. Turning, keeping his head down a bit, he nodded. “Good evening, Raf.” Raf stood maybe an inch shorter than Kaherdin, but what he lacked in height, he made up in brute strength. His arms, chest, and thighs were powerful, muscled, ready to work at a moment’s notice. He had the look of the very well fed, the pack giving over human or animal catch to him first, as he was the pack leader, the one they all bowed down to. Because Kaherdin didn’t run

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with the pack, he didn’t have to go through this nightly indignity, but because he avoided hunting with Raf, he also avoided the food that made this man so strong and fierce. Raf’s dark eyes stared at him, and in a weird twist of vision, Kaherdin saw the man as his wolf self, the sleek gray and black animal he became. “You can no longer avoid your compound duties,” Raf began, moving slightly closer, Kaherdin able to feel his breath on his shoulder. “You can no longer avoid being part of the pack.” “The pack doesn’t need me,” Kaherdin said. “For many decades, you’ve all been eating just fine without my help.” “The same cannot be said of you,” Raf said, and he gave Kaherdin the once-over, seeing, Kaherdin knew, his thin, muscled shape, no extra fat, all muscle and bone, his hard nights of catching what was small depicted in his very lack of flesh. Kaherdin shrugged. “It’s my choice. I’m not hurting the pack by going off on my own.” “There, my friend, you are wrong. We are slowly losing our prey. In fact, there is talk of moving the compound. There is talk of going back to fighting those who would have us die. With you among us during this battle, we would be stronger.” At Raf’s words, Kaherdin felt a strange pull of fear. If the compounds decided to return to their war against the colonies, Talaith might be in harm’s way. If she actually existed. The compounds had fought against the colonies for centuries, but they’d done no more than break down the barriers a few times, snatching up a lone colonist here and there. By the time they’d figured out how to break through one way, the colonists would put up another defense. It was a losing battle and always would be.

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“Why bother doing that?” Kaherdin said. “Why try to win against those who have always beaten us. Beaten us back. Why don’t we move? We can find more food elsewhere. Maybe find a place where there are no colonists.” “That’s the coward’s way out,” Raf said. “Move. Run away. Don’t try to battle against those who have subjected us to this life. Just let them live when they should be punished for what they have done to us.” Kaherdin knew that Raf was right, at least in terms of the colonists. They had kept Kaherdin and Raf and all of them from a more normal life. But what could those of the compounds use to break through the barriers that had thwarted them for decades? Why bother? Why not leave and start a new life? In a flash, Kaherdin saw his dream, the mountain, the meadow, the woman. A new life. “I’m not interested in fighting,” Kaherdin said. “I’m not interested in the pack.” Raf moved closer, his breath quickening, his eyes slit, his wolf self just under the human skin. “Coward,” Raf said. “Very likely,” Kaherdin said, thinking of Talaith in her colony, safe behind the barrier. Keeping her from him but also from those like Raf. “You have no shame?” Thinking for a second, Kaherdin realized that he didn’t. He’d long ago given up trying to prove anything to anyone. He had this life, his life, the one he despised. He could slowly starve himself, he supposed, venturing off into the wilderness to see if the elements would do him in, just as they must have done Boren. Kaherdin imagined that immortality would just bring a longer, wizened experience of death, death while alive. So this was who he was, where he was, what he was doing. This life was his, and he’d made it as bearable as possible. He wouldn’t let Jessica Inclan

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Raf or anyone else—not even Sika—shake him out of it. And maybe, if he kept to his patterns, he would find Talaith again, and then everything might change. And then maybe, he would find those he remembered from so long ago, that long ago pack that disappeared before he was old enough to remember it. Who had the pack consisted of? His parents? His brothers? He didn’t know. “No, no shame. None at all,” Kaherdin said, and instead of moving forward and taking a bite out of Raf’s neck the way he could envision and even taste, he looked down, backed up, appeasing the man, appeasing the wolf, acting beta until proven otherwise. “You will one day regret your decisions,” Raf said. “One day you will find yourself in the middle of a wolf circle, and you won’t have to ask yourself why you are there. You will know it is because you are weak. A coward.” “Everyone will understand,” Kaherdin said, knowing that the quick attacks of angry wolves would lead to a fast, honest death, one he would not regret, one that would surely be better than trying to starve. “You disgust me,” Raf said, turning away. “You are less than the lowest.” Kaherdin stood there, watching Raf walk away into the growing darkness. The moon was rising, and soon, the most of the population of the compound would transmogrify, all turning into their animals bodies and roaming the sad remnants of the planet those so long ago had almost destroyed. Who were Raf and the others—even the colonists—trying to fool? They were all lower than the lowest. There was nothing left to really rise toward or for, except for dreams. Kaherdin closed his eyes against the sounds around him and pulled back his dream. His constant dream. The dream of a woman. A dream of a mountain, snow, a clear blue sky.

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FIVE

When she awoke, Talaith realized that she was alone. The heavy pressure of Liam’s body had lifted at some point, and the only noise she heard was the constant, rhythmic lap of the water on the shore. Night was turning to early morning, the sky a luminous gray at the edges, and she blinked into the gloam, wondering if any of what she remembered had truly happened. Maybe she’d fallen asleep on the log, drifting into a horrifying nightmare. Maybe she’d slipped and hit her head, all of her memories simply the result of a concussion. But then she tried to move, her shoulder a pulse of constant pain, the waves of ache and throb matching the water on the banks. Vomit churned in her stomach, her throat, and she closed her eyes in order to breathe back the disgust and discomfort and cold that pressed on her as thoroughly as Liam’s body had earlier. He’d thrown her down and raped her. And then he’d left her here alone. To die? To imagine that she’d conjured it all out of thin air? To be found by . . . whom? How had he thought he would explain her absence? Or maybe he believed she wouldn’t wake up. Dead. Drowned. Gone. Opening her eyes again, the pain mitigated and barely tolerable, Talaith sat up and tried to cover herself, but her dress was ripped open from top to bottom, her under things gone, ripped off her and likely flung somewhere in the grass or brush, she supposed. In the lightening air, she looked to see if her shoes were nearby, but there were nothing but stones and small branches near her. Somehow, she would have to make it back to her house without shoes or, really, clothing, but she didn’t really care about that. Actually, she didn’t know what she should do. Go home? Jessica Inclan

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Go to Seth’s? Go to her father and report Liam? Go straight to Akla so that her almost-mother could make this go away? The feel of Akla’s warm arms around her might be enough to help Talaith stuff this experience and go on. As she held her arm close to her body lest she jostle her shoulder, Talaith didn’t know what to do and that indecision made her start to cry. Who she wanted right now, this instant, was Kaherdin, the imaginary man who had been her constant dream these many years. Just looking at him would solve this problem. And Talaith knew that if she ever got into the gray space again, she would stay there. Together, they would find a way out and through it into a world neither Other nor Colonist. They would leave and never come back. What was there to come back to? A place where she could be raped by one of her own Council members? A place where her father trusted a man who wanted nothing more but to own her? No, to subdue her. To hurt her. Through her tears, she started to laugh at her stupidity and naïve hopes. She was trying to live in a dream world, a place that didn’t exist. How many years had she waited for sleep and then a vision of a man who didn’t exist—or, at least, couldn’t exist here? What did exist was the fact that Liam raped her. That she was injured. That she needed to figure out her next move. Taking careful, slow steps up the path, Talaith held her arm and forced herself to move up the bank of the lake and onto the worn, smooth path. She walked this path so many times before, she could navigate it with her eyes closed. But she was tentative, afraid that Liam might be hiding somewhere in the brush. Maybe he’d come back to finish the job, knock her senseless, put her in a state where she could not tell a soul about what had happened. So with as much stealth as she could manage, Talaith walked the way she had come hours ago. But those hours felt like years. Everything had changed since she’d first left Seth’s house Jessica Inclan

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and the party. She’d been a different person only hours ago, a slightly bored and periodically restless but happy person who’d walked onto the porch and then down the steps, turning right toward the lake instead of left toward home. At that moment, Talaith had not known she would touch and talk to Kaherdin. She hadn’t even known his name. She hadn’t known that she’d be ripped out of that connection and pushed wide open and violated. “Don’t do it,” she wanted to tell herself, that optimistic woman who’d smiled as she walked toward the lake. “Stop. Go home. Don’t ever go out at night alone.” But would she really say that? Would she give up the chance to touch Kaherdin’s face and body? Would she pass up the look he gave her, the way he seemed to see her more fully than any other person had? Would the rape be worth those few seconds? Talaith didn’t know. But none of that matter. It had all happened, and there was no changing anything. The night grew light, the air powder soft. Her shoulder throbbed, her insides burned, the softest parts of her feeling ripped and pummeled and broken. Her torn dress flapped around her as she walked, and dirt caked her feet, her ankles. Talaith took her steps, looked around, kept going. Pound, pound, pound, her shoulder beating to her every move. Soon, she’d be at the road, and she knew where she was going to go.

Her father and Akla were staying with Malcolm, not because they didn’t want to stay with Talaith but because Malcolm’s house was more of a mansion and had space enough for both of them and their retinue of assistants, scribes, and advisors. “Your minions,” Talaith had once said, and her father had smiled, but just barely. Jessica Inclan

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Sometimes during his visits, Talaith would stay at Malcolm’s herself, put up in a room on the wide, sweeping main floor, six bedrooms in a row connected by a large hallway. “If you would find a bigger house,” Akla would start. “You know how your father needs his people around him.” And not his daughter? Talaith would think, suppressing the thought as soon as it formed lest Akla find it in the air and need to talk about it. “You need to move,” Akla would say. “You only come to visit once a year,” Talaith would reply, and nothing ever changed. Talaith loved her little two bedroom house, built of reclaimed wood and stone and glass from houses in The Time Before and only a few new boards from trees harvested carefully in Uveris. To Talaith, her little wood house reminded her of something from an old story, a cottage surrounded by trees, the kind of house a fairy or good witch would live in. Along with The Untouched who had worked by her side for years, she’d planted flower beds and vegetables gardens, trying out the various seeds that came her way. She’d designed paths to meander the small yard, and in the far right corner under the limbs of a large pine tree, she’d had a bench— now the fifth one since her yard was completed—built. She often sat there in the evenings and looked back at her house, this structure created from the leftovers of an earlier time. Most houses in Uveris had been built with reclaimed and reused parts and pieces and materials as there was so little forest left to them. And wasn’t the profligate waste of new and raw materials one of the factors that had led to The Poisoning? At least the colonists had learned something from all the destruction. So of late, she’d visited her father and Akla at Malcolm’s like a guest, and then gone back to the solace of her own house at night. Jessica Inclan

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Maybe that’s what she should have done last night. Turned left. Gone home where it was safe and known and warm. Talaith shook her head and kept moving. Tonight, this early morning, she was going to go to Malcolm’s and tell her father what happened, not caring about his feelings for Liam. She would tell him once and for all that she would never be with Liam because he raped her. Raped her. Left her out on the bank of the lake as though she were nothing more than refuse. He’d dislocated her shoulder, torn through her clothing, and took what was never to be his. Jodoc would see him for who he truly was. Jodoc would punish him. After all, Talaith was his only daughter. His only child. Passing Seth’s house, one yellow light gleaming through a bedroom window, she clutched her dress to her chest, while protecting her shoulder, each step a wound. Hoping she would miss any early morning citizens out for a walk or headed to work, she skirted the edge of the road, ignoring the rustlings of creatures in the hedges and alleys and pretending not to see the still dark shadows in her peripheral vision. But nothing could really frighten her now, not after what had happened at the lake. Even an attack from The Others would seem as just the next thing in a list of horrors, and she could imagine herself standing still letting it all happen. At least this pain would end. She would be gone. She would never have to tell a soul what happened. The houses closer together now, the sky opening up to the faintest white, the sun a tiny slit of yellow above the mountain range, Talaith walked as fast as she could without jarring herself into a swoon of pain. She wanted to get to Malcolm’s before she could no longer hide in the gray edges of the landscape, before she would be recognized by people going to work. Jessica Inclan

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Struggling to keep her dress on her, she turned right onto Pine Street and then left on Center, Malcolm’s house in the center of the residential part of Uveris. As she approached the building, she saw that the lights were on in the lower floor, ad she headed around to the side of the house, wanting to enter through the kitchen to avoid waking up anyone other than her father. Talaith almost held her breath, not wanted to disturb even the leaves on the bushes growing on either side of the stone path that led to the back of the house. She hoped she would find her father sitting at the breakfast table, reading a book or talking quietly to Akla. The thought of Akla’s smile and her kind eyes almost made Talaith’s knees buckle, so keen her urge to let this pain and ugliness out of her body. But what if it was Malcolm and his small daughter there eating porridge? Or Malcolm’s wife Isi? Worse, what if for some reason Liam were there? Even though it hurt to stop moving, Talaith did so, leaning against the clapboard of the house. How could she find out who was there without giving herself away? In an instant, she thought of the method she used to contact her father. Of course, she wasn’t at home with her pillow and the serene calm of her bedroom. She wasn’t focused or engaged or calm. Her mind was ragged and sprung, nothing but anxiety and nerves jangling her heart and blood and thoughts and bones. But that connection would be the way to find her father now, talk to him, show him where she was so he could rescue her. That’s how Talaith could do this without giving herself or her troubles away to the wrong people. Liam, for one. Standing up straight, closing her yes, breathing in, Talaith centered herself, trying to find her core, her middle, her solid self. When she looked into herself, though, all she saw at first was the reenactment of Liam’s attack. There, she’s pulled out of the water. There, she’s flung flat on the bank of the lake, coughing up sand. There she is under him, staring out past his shoulder into the Jessica Inclan

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night sky, praying that it would be over soon. There she is hobbling down the dark street, wanting no one but her father. Her father. Strong, capable, caring, warm, wise. Jodoc, the man who knew how to keep them all alive and well and healthy. Jodoc, the leader of the three colonies, the one to whom they all turned. Jodoc would know what to do now. He would have the answers. He would save her. With these thoughts, Talaith opened up her mind, felt herself still and calm, and she moved through the space around her and into the house, circling until she could sense her father. Just as she was about to breach the space and time and air between them, she heard him speak, as if her conduit was suddenly a connection, like those telephones from The Time Before, only her father didn’t seem to realize she was on the other end. “I’m glad you could come so quickly,” Jodoc was saying. “I didn’t want Talaith to know you were here. And she should soon be coming to meet us for the morning meal.” Talaith heard a chuckle, her heart skipping a beat, one, two, as Liam spoke. “I don’t think that she’ll be here soon this morning.” Jodoc matched Liam’s chuckle with his own. “Don’t tell me you two have finally had a meeting, shall we say, of the minds?” There were sounds of movement, a chair scraping across a wooden floor.” Let’s just say that Talaith won’t be looking at me in the same way anymore. Things are going to be different from here on out.” “Finally,” Jodoc said. “What I’ve always wanted from the moment you both came of age.” There was a pause, and Talaith cringed as she imagined her father’s smile and the pat on the back he might give Liam. Her body curled inward at the thought of Liam glowing with pride and satisfaction. Jessica Inclan

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Now I’ve got her, he must be thinking. Now I have what I want. After a beat, one, two, Jodoc cleared his throat. “Now we must continue. There are other more important matters to discuss, more of what we’ve been in communication about this past year.” Talaith was almost jolted out of her trance, and she had to breathe into and hold onto her father’s words. She had to keep herself open and sustain the space in order to hear more. What was her father referring talking about? What was he saying to Liam and not to her? She was the Council chair. She was the one to whom all inquires should have been directed first. “I’ve been thinking about your plan,” Liam said. “It was the second thing on my mind.” Jodoc chuckled again. “It’s going to have to be the first for a while. We have need of more space, now that the world seems to be headed toward healing. We want to grow our colonies, and that means finally putting an end to The Others.” If only it were that easy, Talaith thought. If it were, why would they have faced all those centuries of attacks? Why would they have worried each night about a visitation, a wolf at the window, a steel trap mouth on their necks? “They’ve been quiet for so long,” Liam said. “You dangled that promise so well.” Promise? she thought. To The Others? “They grow weary,” Jodoc said. “And they grow hungry. There is only so much time before their kind is starved to a point where we can go in and kill them all. Making contact with their leader will be the first step of many. But eventually, they will never be a threat to us again, ever. Though they have fought for centuries to obtain it, they will never have access to the elixir.” There was another pause, the sound of slight shuffling of objects on top the table.

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Then there was a bang—the slap of a hand on wood—and Jodoc said, “This is what I want. This is what I demand.” “Of course. Of course,” Liam said, his voice now lightening, trying to find the air to ask a hard question. “What do The Elders say about this plan? They are behind it?” “As always,” Jodoc said, his voice strong and clear and firm. “They are the ones who created it. I simply do their bidding. They are the wise ones who have guided us thus far, and they are the ones who will guide us all through our long history here.” “So we will finally be rid of The Others. The Elders have spoken,” Liam said, his voice full of the reverence that this revered, wise group always inspired. “Yes.” Jodoc was firm, clam, confident, and cold. As she sat in the space of her open mind, Talaith felt the completed jigsaw puzzle of her world crack and fall to the earth. She felt that she was full of air and full of holes that let the air escape. Maybe she would float away and into the air itself, leaving this conversation far below. She wanted to because she could not believe what she’d heard. All these many decades, she’d thought that it was The Others who refused the elixir. They were the ones who turned their backs from the cure in order to lead their savage, bloody lives. The Others clung to their violent inheritance because it suited them. But if she could possibly believe what she’d just heard her father say, it was The Colonists who’d held back the very thing that could have made this life, this existence, peaceful and healthy for all. By holding back the elixir, it was The Colonists who kept the poor unpoisoned, Untouched humans outside the Colony boundaries in harm’s way for centuries. They were responsible. Jodoc was responsible. And in a sense, because she was her father’s daughter, the leader of Uveris, she was responsible, too. Jessica Inclan

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Her mouth open slightly, her eyes wide, Talaith knew what she had heard was true. Why would anyone choose the long, harsh life The Others endured? Of course they wanted a cure. Of course they hoped for an easier life. No one would ever choose the live they had been given when another, so much simpler one was right next to them. What had Kaherdin conveyed to her? No, he had thought. No, I don’t hunt people. Her heart seemed a long way away from her body, beating in a skitter, her breaths small and fast. She hung in the small gray space between her body and this conversation, knowing that nothing would ever be the same again. Once back inside herself, once the sun rose completely, she would have Day One of this new life, a life with the truth. No. How could it be? How could it not? How could her father have done this? Talaith thought for what seemed like minutes but must have only been seconds. Jodoc? How and why? She tried to find the answer but none came and she breathed back into the scene she was listening to. “I long to complete this,” Liam said. “Only when they are gone will we have the world the way we want it. With them gone, we can spread out and increase the production of the elixir. Our colonies will thrive, and eventually, their boundaries will touch. It will be we who rule this new earth. We who take over and make it ours, giving The Others the only fate they deserve.” “Whatever you want me to do, I will,” Liam said. “I can gather forces to raid their compounds during the day. They are vulnerable then. With a combined army from all three colonies . . . .” Jessica Inclan

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Liam trailed off, and it seemed to Talaith that perhaps someone else had entered the room. There were more shufflings and the movement of bodies and chairs, and she knew she had to leave. She couldn’t stay here any longer. She had to leave the conversation, and slowly, she reeled herself in, back, back, back, until she was again in herself, standing on the path next to the house. Disgust and anger filled her mouth, and again, she felt nauseated, her stomach prickling with spines of anxiety. She clutched her dress against her body and blinked into the lighter sky of this new day. This first day of the truth. She looked around her, no one coming down the path in either direction. In the house next to her, she could hear the inhabitants coming to life, water running through the pipes, a fire started in the kitchen. And the morning had bloomed in the west, everything turning to the hazy yellow of day. How could she get home without being seen? How could she get back without anyone noticing her ripped dress and probably bruised face and body? She healed quickly, but she was sure her bruises and wounds would not be gone for a few hours at least. How to get out of here? How would she be able to do what she knew she had to? Turning toward the street, Talaith looked around once more, carefully. So far, no one seemed to be moving past the house, the morning still young. If she could do this, she would have a chance of making it home without being noticed. Now, she wished she’d listened to Jodoc more carefully, but she knew enough. She’d seen him and Akla move from place to place—or, rather, she’d seen them emerge from the movement of time so often, it should be second nature to her. How many times had she listened to her father try to explain the process—or at least start to—before she told him to stop. All of this should be natural for her. It had to be, right now, here at the side of Malcolm’s house.

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Even if everything else had just changed, like that, like the worst black magic, she was her father’s daughter. She could do this. She had to. Closing her eyes again, Talaith pictured herself as she was now. There she was, disheveled and cold, standing on the path at the side of Malcolm’s house. She could see her body, her face, her hair. She could see herself completely, and then she lets go. Slowly, she moved her view up, and up, taking herself with her, following the streets and roads through downtown Uveris to the road that led to her house. She pulled herself over that topography, seeing her colony like a map, and then she spotted her house, the street that led to it, the path from street to porch. There was her door, the front door. Talaith opened her eyes, breathing hard, her heart now as fast as a morning bird scared from the brush. She was home. Not bothering to contemplate the fact she’d done something she had been afraid to do for centuries, something beyond amazing, Talaith pushed into her house, wincing with pain as she did. The beat of her shoulder was a constant sure thing, but she had to keep moving—she had to pack. She had to get out of here before her father managed to find her with his mind—before Liam realized she was no longer on the bank of the lake. Or worse, before he became worried that she would let others know what he had done. Walking into her bedroom, she shuffled off her torn dress with one hand and then walked across the room into the bathroom. She needed to bath, but quickly. Talaith reached for the spigot on the tub, and while doing so, she caught her reflection in the mirror, almost jumping when she did. “No,” she said as the water filled the tub and steam filled the air. “No.” Jessica Inclan

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Moving closer to the mirror, she looked at herself, seeing the dirt and sand in her hair, the bruises blooming on her cheek in the palest purple, the ring of blood cupped under her eye. Even hours from now, maybe a day, Liam’s treatment of her would be still be visible. And from the pain on her face—evinced by the furrows between her brows and the anxiety in her eyes—her shoulder injury would be hard to disguise. No artful lie could explain any of this. And no lie would explain what had happened at the lake. No lie would explain Kaherdin appearing to her, touching her. No lie would tell the story right, any of it. Talaith had no choice but the choice she was making.

Later, clean, dressed, and packed, Talaith stood in her kitchen, looking out to the pine and cedar trees that surrounded her house. How she had loved it here. She couldn’t believe that just yesterday, she’d complained to herself about being bored, about the scant prospect of love or a man. All the days, years, decades, centuries of her life seemed to have ended last night at the lake for so many reasons, and now there was no way to get back to the hazy, long days of sameness. As she stood there for a moment, listening to the distant sound of a bird in the high branches, she wondered if she would change the last few hours of her life. Would she have made the left instead of the right when she walked down Seth’s steps? Would Talaith have missed the moments with Kaherdin, his hands on her, his face next to her own, his body pressing hot next to hers? To miss Liam, she would have to miss Kaherdin, and nothing, really, would be worth missing that. The good had its twin bad. Love had its equal hate. To feel the joy, she had to feel the sorrow. Jessica Inclan

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So be it, she thought. She picked up her bags with her good hand, and slung them on her shoulder, though even that move made her feel a slight ting of nausea. Using the skill she barely had and knew could disappear at any moment, Talaith closed her eyes and imagined her next stop, a place she’d only been twice, a place no one else but she and Jodoc had stepped into, ever. But the imagining this place was difficult, the room shadowy, plain, indistinct. She knew how to get there from the street, so in her mind, she began walking in her mind toward the building at the center of Uveris. There, was the open market. There was clothing and dry goods store. There the office of citizen affairs. Benches, trees, a stone pathway leading to a performance space in the park. And then there was the large building Jodoc had built first, before any other edifice was raised in Uveris. This was the building that held the elixir. This was the building that held all their lives. Once a year, the entire Colonist population would be dosed, one by one, the Council members and then the rest of the Colonists. The elixir was life, a life without a degradation into animal needs. The elixir was what let them live life like The Untouched, though The Colonists lived so much longer. And Talaith was going to steal some. It. The elixir. Focusing, concentrating, and yet, letting go of all around her, Talaith thought her way into the room. She pictured herself already inside the locked space where Jodoc kept the elixir, the protective magic, the deadbolts, and the alarms not a problem for her with this new spell, or so she hoped. Opening her eyes, she blinking into the pitch black of the room. She hoped she was in the right place, because in a moment, she was going to light the candle she’d brought with her from Jessica Inclan

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home. If she’d managed to move herself to Liam’s coat closet or Seth’s bathroom, she’d likely surprise not only herself but perhaps someone else. So she listened to the sounds around her, hearing nothing but the quick beat beat of her own terrified heart. Talaith carefully put down her bags and took the candle and the matches from her pocket, she fumbled with them a bit in the darkness and then managed to strike the match, light the wick, and she held the lit candle up in front of her, breathing in the smell of sulfur and wax. She shivered from cold and excitement. She was here. Turning around in the small room, Talaith stared at the rows of metal drawers, the sleek cool storage spaces her father had ordered up from Untouched metal workers. The drawers held the Colonists’ most prized possession, this fragile potion that brought them what their genetic makeup could not provide—a normal life. The elixir brought them what the Colonists—no, Jodoc—would not share with the rest of this awful, horrible new world. Without this sharing, there would never be peace. The candle in front of her, Talaith walked up the bank of drawers closest to her, and put her hand on the drawer, the cool metal shooting stabs all the way to her throbbing shoulder. Slowly, she opened the drawer, hearing the back and forth of glass and plastic clicking together. Holding the candle over the drawer, she saw five rows of ten, the elixir in small tubes, the tubes that would be given to each and every Colonist later this year. Glancing around her, she wondered how many tubes were in the room. One hundred drawers times fifty tubes? Enough for the entire colony of 5000? It seemed fair to take hers, of course, but by taking one more, she was leaving another colonist in a dire predicament. Of course, there was more elixir in the other two colonies, but that would involve travel and time, and who knew what would happen if the dose

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was delayed. It had never happened before. Because of Jodoc’s careful planning, no one had gone without, no one had ever turned wolf, not once in all the years Talaith could remember. Staring into the drawer, the candle light reflecting in fifty little glass tubes, Talaith wondered who she would give up to the turn, the turn to the animal side. Who would have to wait, anxiously hoping the traveler to Naruci or Zadne would make it back before the night came and he or she began to transmogrify in the one of them. The thought caught her breath, the sudden intake of air echoing in the room. Of course. Liam. If he were left in charge, it was he who would be forced to make the sacrifice. His generosity and selflessness would be expected. Let Liam worry for the time it took. Let him imagine what it feels like to be out of control, something else taking control of his life. Let him feel what it was like to have his life and health in jeopardy. With a quick and careful hand, Talaith reached into the drawer and plucked out two vials, looking at the swirling opalescent liquid inside each, both reflecting the glittery light of the candle. If nothing else, she thought, Liam owes me this. And because of his debt, he would change more than just her life. Talaith put the vials into her pocket and closed the metal drawer, the sound a clang in the cool room. With her good hand, she picked up her bags and then blew out the candle, breathing in the smoke that must be swirling around her. Closing her eyes, she thought of her last stop in Uveris, the place she would go until she took the trip that would make all the difference in the world.

“Tally! My god,” Rachel said. “My god. What happened to your face?” Jessica Inclan

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Talaith stood on Rachel’s porch, Rachel holding open her door wide and staring at her, seemingly unable to move. While Talaith was listening in at Malcolm’s house, packing up at her own, or stealing the elixir, she hadn’t felt the terror that her actions should have produced. But now as she looked at her friend’s familiar face, noting the worry and compassion in Rachel’s beautiful gaze, Talaith suddenly felt all that she should have earlier. Images of the rape flickered through her body in a scattered, electric current, Liam’s voice in her memory, a rasp on metal, finger on broken glass. What had happened these past twelve hours? What was she doing? “Tally,” Rachel said. “Are you—what’s happening?” Talaith couldn’t find the words that would work. It was all she could do to keep herself standing. “What happened since the party last night?” Rachel went on. “Tell me. Why did you leave? Where did you go? Where have you been?” “Please,” Talaith said finally, her tears starting despite herself. “Please.” Rachel moved to take Talaith’s arm, but Talaith flinched, Rachel holding still, allowing Talaith to walk inside the house. Rachel closed the door and turned, the morning sun illuminating the hallway. Even in her pain, Talaith noticed the way the light made Rachel’s red hair seem like fire, something sleek and burning and alive. “You need a healer. Now.” Talaith put down her bags and shook her head because she couldn’t find the words yet, couldn’t pull forth the words to explain to Rachel the events of night and morning. In fact, she might not be able to tell her anything at all, for in doing so, she’d have to describe the meeting with Kaherdin. And if she told Rachel her story, she would put Rachel at risk. Jessica Inclan

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“Yes,” Talaith said, finally, taking a breath, letting the calming movement take the place of the pain. “I need some help. My shoulder. It’s dislocated. I can’t move it.” Rachel didn’t take her eyes off Talaith’s face, searching, it seemed, for more explanation for the bruises and scratches. “If I tell you what is going on,” Talaith said. “You could be in danger. I think—I think it’s best if you don’t know.” “I don’t care!” Rachel said. “Whoever did this to you needs to be punished. There—I . . . .” Rachel shook her head, her eyes wide open, watching Talaith. “No.” Talaith looked at her friend, keeping her eyes on Rachel’s. After hearing Jodoc talk so confidentiality with Liam, Talaith knew she couldn’t put Rachel in danger, too. “All right,” Rachel said. “But let me summon Util. He knows—“ “No,” Talaith said. “You have to do it. It’s not difficult, but it’s going to hurt. Me, not you.” “Tally, I can’t do that. I can’t even tie a bandage.” “You have to,” Talaith said. “Because I need to leave. As soon as night falls.” At that, Rachel seemed to stop, staring at her. Even though the last one hundred years had been safe ones, years of night after night of no intrusion nor attack from The Others, they had all lived too long to view night without some fear, some trepidation. The word itself meant going home, staying inside, locking the door. A night inside, safely tucked away, meant warmth and safety and a fire. Night meant staying put until the sun cracked the horizon. It didn’t mean leaving. It didn’t mean anything but home. “What are you saying?” Rachel said. “Please. Let’s just do this thing.” Talaith looked into the kitchen, seeing a wooden chair with no arms, perfect for what needed to happen. Jessica Inclan

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Rachel shook her head again but then followed Talaith into the kitchen, not saying a word as Talaith sat down on the chair. Talaith sat up straight and bent her elbow, then pressing her arm against her belly. “Okay,” she said, already feeling the heavy beat of her injured muscles. “I’m going to rotate my arm out, and you have to grab here.” She indicated her wrist and her other arm. “Then you have to push up. Push my arm bone back into the socket. It might take more than once.” Rachel’s eyes widened, but it seemed that she’d accepted what she had to do, despite the pain it was going to cause. She moved close but then stepped back. “Do you want some wine? Something to relax you?” Talaith almost laughed. What she would really like was utter unconsciousness, but she had to pay attention. She had to keep herself aware. At any moment, Liam could come looking for her. Worse, at any moment, her father might try to contact her. She had to keep both of those things from happening—or, if they did, she had to make sure she could escape or, at least, shut down communication. “No,” Talaith said. “It’s okay. Just give it a try.” “How do you know how to do this?” Rachel said as she took off her sweater. “Was this part of your extra-curricular activities when we were supposed to be studying history?” Talaith wanted to shrug, but she knew it would hurt. “One of the books Jodoc had in the house when I was growing up. An old medical manual from The Time Before.” “Well,” Rachel said, coming closer now and gently taking Talaith’s wrist. “At least they knew how to do something.” Jessica Inclan

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Rachel took hold of her, and even the slight press upward made Talaith want to scream. Her shoulder and arm muscles ached and throbbed, the pain intense, almost enough to put her into that unconsciousness she sought. Rachel kept pressing though, not giving up, even though Talaith moaned, and wanted to pull away and forget about the entire process. But after another slight thrust up, there was a pop that Talaith imagined everyone in the neighborhood must have noticed. She sighed, leaned back in the chair, felt the sweat pouring down the side of her face. She closed her eyes and realized how much pain she’d been in because of its sudden absence. After a moment, Rachel pulled up another chair and slumped down. “I never thought I’d have to do that in this lifetime, and this lifetime is long.” Talaith took in a long deep breath, and felt herself smiling at Rachel’s words, the first tiny slice of happiness she’d felt since Liam ripped her out of the lake and Kaherdin’s arms. The smile felt strange on her lips, though, because it didn’t belong there. Not now. Not for a while. Rachel rubbed her forehead, sat up straight, and then stood up. “If you’re not going to tell me what happened, at least let me feed you and get a bed ready. You need sleep in order to heal. A good rest. I’ll give you a sleeping draught and you can rest before you go wherever it is you are going to go. Nodding, Talaith realized that she was hungry, the dinner that she’d eaten at Seth’s house was long gone, her stomach raw and empty, the nausea subsided, at least for now. “That sounds perfect,” she said, knowing that the word perfect was a far from being true.

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“So,” Rachel said, passing Talaith the cream for her oatmeal. Talaith took the pitcher, and poured a swirl of the rich cream on the porridge. Then she poured just the tiniest bit in her tea. “Yes?” Talaith picked up her spoon and started eating. She’d already gone through a bowl of strawberries, Rachel’s greenhouse-grown fruit large, red, and juicy. “Tally, is it a man? Any part of this? The good or the bad?” “Both,” Talaith said. “Bookends. Good and bad.” Rachel sat back and picked up her cup of tea, blowing on the hot surface. “Do you need me to give you any stock advice? You know how well I’ve done with men, managing to fall in love with those who can’t last based on their own biology. I’m the real deal in terms of relationship know-how.” Again, Talaith felt a zing of laughter, smiling as she sat over her cereal. She wished she could tell Rachel everything. During Talaith’s long life, Rachel had been her closest friend, the person she’d talk to if Akla wasn’t available. Rachel had likewise told Talaith her stories, about her grief over her lovers, especially Stephen. Talaith knew that the moment Rachel heard the story about Liam, she’d find a pitchfork from her garden shed and race over there to impale him. Or she’d behave and march him in front of the Council to tell the story and demand punishment. But about Kaherdin, Talaith was unsure. No, that wasn’t true. She was absolutely sure that Rachel—whose parents had not made it through early battles with The Others—would not be sympathetic to his kind or Talaith’s plans. In fact, she might find the pitch fork she used for Liam to walk Talaith to the Council. No, Talaith knew, that would never happen. Rachel would stand behind Talaith no matter what. And that’s why Talaith had to keep her as far away from what happened as she could.

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She should never have come here. All of it was dangerous. Even through her fatigue and hunger and pain, Talaith was surprised why Liam hadn’t found her already, bringing Jodoc to Rachel’s house to do damage control. How he would explain the night before might even be worth the price of staying put. But Talaith knew she had to leave, as soon as night fell. She had to leave and she could tell no one of her plan. “If this works out the way I’m hoping, you won’t want to know,” Talaith said. “Either way.” Rachel nodded, sighed. Outside, the sun was rising higher in the sky, the air the hazy, usual yellow. Talaith could hear people out on the street, headed toward downtown and their daily work. It was as if nothing had happened out of the ordinary, the day turning into another one in the long string of days since The Poisoning. It went on and on and on, the blip that was last night already being smoothed over, hidden, soon to be gone. “You need to follow your heart.” Rachel put down her cup. “I’m not saying that it is wise to do so, but if you don’t, you will always regret it.” “But doesn’t it hurt?” Talaith asked. “Don’t you wish sometimes that you had never met Stephen?” “I had forty years with Stephen. That doesn’t sound like a lot to us, but from the time he was twenty-five until he died, I was able to love and be loved. I learned things about myself I couldn’t learn by staying alone, apart. Maybe I won’t find it again, but I went toward love and it answered back.” “What did it say?” Talaith asked. Rachel smiled. “Love always says ‘Yes.’ That’s the only answer it ever gives. Yes, yes, yes.”

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In that instant, Talaith was swept back to the moment of Kaherdin reaching toward her—to her own reaching toward him. That was yes, even when it should have been no. They both reached toward and through and over a huge hurdle—their separateness, their battle with each other’s kind—and said yes. What Liam had done, was no, and Talaith knew that she never wanted that in her life, ever again. Like a curtain, fatigue fell on her, and she put down her spoon, sat back against the chair. “You can’t tell anyone I’m here,” she said. “And when I’m gone, you can’t tell them that I wanted to be gone.” “You’re leaving,” Rachel said, her face calm, her eyes on Talaith. “I am,” Talaith said. “And no one can know. Even though you think I’m crazy or worse, you can’t say a word.” Rachel seemed to think about what Talaith had said, nodding slightly, agreeing with something in what Talaith was doing. Finally, Rachel smiled again. “Hello! Tally, I know that. What do you think? I was born yesterday? Let’s get you to bed. You and your secrets will be safe here with me.” They both stood up, and Talaith followed her friend out of the kitchen, knowing that this last sleep in Uveris might just be her last.

In her dream, she is not with Kaherdin, but she can see him. Or the animal she imagines he is. It’s as if she’s hovering over him, flying alongside him as he runs through a meadow of tall grass. It’s night, the meadow a field of gray, the moonlight flickering on the blades, illuminating

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the night with its white glow. They are traveling so fast, the wind in his fur. He’s so beautiful, so sleek, and for the time that she is watching him, Talaith feels free and strong and true. But then she’s no longer watching him. Instead she is him, she’s the animal. She’s slowly creeping toward an animal, a deer, in front of her. All she wants is to eat. But to eat, she must kill. She has to kill, and she pounces, her whole body aimed for attack. Her jaws are on the creature that struggles, kicks, fights against her sharp teeth. She never lets go through, even though its hooves are sharp and strong and aimed at her body, the blows painful. Food. She will eat. She must eat. She holds on tight, and the deer stops struggling. In a flash, she tears its throat, and then, she eats. She eats until she’s full. She eats until she can’t eat any more.

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SIX

The moon held tight and pale in a seamy sky, the night full of clouds and pollution, a strange warm breeze pushing wafts of darkness across the wide, white orb. In his human form, Kaherdin sat on a hill overlooking the meadow, the grass a swaying sea of gray, the rustle of the large, wild field below him like the ocean, a sound he could almost imagine. If he closed his eyes, he might find himself immersed, cleansed, reborn, the waves taking him over and under, around and into the splash and keen of the breaking water. Kaherdin might even want to stay there, not returning to the land above water, needing the push and shove and cleansing of this cleaner place. But he couldn’t close his eyes. He was hunting, looking for his first kill of the night, his body tense and rippling with anticipation and hunger. When he first loped away from the compound, he’d been stuck in thoughts of Talaith, his hunt thwarted by repeated and constant images of her hair, skin, mouth, face. Her words repeated in his mind, her voice like something sweet, a taste of a candy he’d never eaten, though he could almost imagine it now. However, his hunger won out, pushing aside his fantasies, and he knew that the lone animal was out there, in the meadow, unaware he sat on the hill, waiting. And Kaherdin knew he would wait all night for this kill, something large that he could feast on. Satiation might take away thought of Talaith, the feeling of fullness giving him the only satisfaction he would ever find in this lifetime. The breeze blew a breath past him, the meadow swayed like music. And then there it was, a movement, a step on a dried leaf, a snap of twig, and Kaherdin felt his body change without him Jessica Inclan

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even thinking about it. When he was younger, he used to watch himself transform in the mirror, amazed at what his body could do, though the trick grew old after a few years, nothing he could see that he couldn’t feel inside himself. So he knew what he looked like as his long dark hair became black, silver-tipped fur, green eyes moved into an intense wolf face, his nose now long, breathing in the smells of the animal below him. His head down, he nosed his way down the hill, into the grass, his body barely skimming the long blades, his ears and nose leading him to the subtle shifting in the grass. Food. Without a kill, he might go hungry the entire day. Maybe the animal would be large, something greater than a possum or rabbit. Maybe he could make do with only this one creature for the evening. And after he was through, he wouldn’t have to feel so wolf, for at least a while. Kaherdin could be a man. He could go back to the compound and try to live like a man, for just a few hours. With stealth that came from some deep, imbedded code, some strand of information in his twisted genetics, Kaherdin wended through the grass, the shape of the creature in front of him starting to form, a dark shadow against the moving whorl of meadow. He slowed, moving steadily, head down, eyes up, and then the growl was at his ear. The sound was a call he knew in his blood, and without even wanting to—his human thoughts making him want to spin and snarl, making him want to stalk toward the animal who dared growl at him—his wolf knew better, but maybe not better enough. He turned, his ears back, his teeth bared, his tail wrapped around his left leg. His human thoughts left him, leaving him alone in wolf. The silver wolf approached, baring his teeth, his ears pulled forward, his tail raised high. It was Raf, glowing in the moonlight, his eyes blazing.

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Kaherdin felt a noise escape his throat, and in a second, Raf had his muzzle in his jaws, seconds away from clamping down. Already, Kaherdin could smell the ting of his own blood in the air. Without making another sound, Kaherdin slowly lowered himself to the ground, his legs and belly on the grass. And then as Raf let up just slightly, he turned a little on his back, exposing his belly. He knew that in an instant, Raf could eviscerate him, leaving him prey for the morning vultures to swoop in for their meal. But instead, Raf let go, his ears still forward, and then walked away and then he raised his leg and urinated, the sound shocking in the night air. Just like that, the animal they’d both been hunting fled, hooves on dirt, and Raf and the two other wolves Kaherdin now saw behind him ran to follow. In seconds, they were swallowed by the grass. And then only seconds later still, Kaherdin heard the cry of the creature they’d caught, a deer, its scream echoing until there was no more scream at all. The night swallowed up the kill, and Kaherdin stood up as a man, wiping blood from his face, his belly full of nothing but hunger, his mind roiling with anger. He let his hand fall to his side, felt his breath in his body, scanned the darkness that he knew all too well. They would be occupied with their kill for awhile, and if he hoped to hunt for himself, he needed to go. Turning back into his wolf, Kaherdin loped away, wanting to get as far away as he could from this scene, one that had played out time after time after time in his life. He wasn’t the Omega wolf, the one shunned and excluded, but he wasn’t the Beta wolf either. He was really nothing to the pack, nothing at all, extraneous, extra, useless. He was the one whose finds would be taken, whose food would be confiscated. He would be the one who got the scraps, and if he were Jessica Inclan

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a good wolf, he’d be sitting at the edge of the kill, waiting for whatever was leftover. Kaherdin would be nothing more than a vulture, a scavenger, an outcast, shunned. He wasn’t a good wolf. He didn’t want to live this life, so he ran despite his hunger. He ran to get away, pushing through the tall grass, his nose telling him where to go. He ran out of the meadow and disappeared into the forest, the smell of moss and dirt and dark, heavy trees surrounding him. Kaherdin ran and he ran, knowing that no matter where he went, he’d always be here, in this life. He could never run to where he wanted to get to. Ever.

Deep in the forest, his stomach twisting, his tongue hanging out, Kaherdin stopped short, his ears up. Not far away, about two hundred feet, he heard the careful, small steps of something afraid, something moving tentatively through the darkness. He turned his head, listening for anything that might be behind him. But Raf and the rest of the hunting pack were far away, gorging themselves on his find, their muzzles deep in the animal, their thoughts no longer on Kaherdin. Putting his head down, his nose alert and taking in the smells of dirt and flesh and blood pulsing in that warm body, Kaherdin moved slowly forward, all his senses bursting alive. He would eat tonight after all, able to get back to the compound and sleep away the rest of the miserable night. Maybe he would dream of Talaith—but he couldn’t think of that now. No, he needed to focus on the step, step, step of the creature. He needed to listen to the cracks and snaps of leaves and twigs, the in and out of the creature’s breathing, the pauses and the movement forward. Kaherdin moved slowly around the creature—probably a deer, maybe a lost

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fawn, the shape forming as he moved closer—his body slowly moving closer to the ground, his muscles contracting, everything in him ready to pounce. His hunger pushed everything out of his mind, nothing there but the wolf that needed to eat. He was not a who but a that. He was blood and fur and bone and teeth and jaw. Nothing mattered; everything was about the creature, who was closer, closer, the smell of it—what was the smell? His nose full of the forest and the strange flesh in front of him, a whiff of something floral, something sweet. He didn’t dare think about it, his prey so close, only seconds away. Saliva poured from his mouth, his whole body waiting for that first death grip. Kaherdin was almost there, ready to pounce. His muscles contracted in one last pulse, and then he was springing toward the animal. As he leapt, the moonlight spilled through a sway in a branch, the forest opening an eye and then closing it. But in that white glimmer, he saw what he was jumping at, could see where he was aimed and what he was about to kill and then eat. It didn’t matter. He was filled with a red haze of hunger and need, and he was one bite away from fulfillment. Kaherdin didn’t care that he was about to do something he’d always abhorred. He needed, he need this. So hungry, so needful. Yet. .yet…He needed her. And it was her. Her. Talaith. She was here. How was she here? With all his strength, he tumbled mid-air, pulling away from her body, falling flat and hard on the ground, hitting his head, hearing the sound he made, the wolf in him in pain. Her scream clanged through the woods like a sudden bell, Kaherdin hearing it even as stars filled his vision, the cold forest floor hard against his chest. As he lay there for a second, trying to find breath, body, mind, panting hard because of the exertion and then fall, he heard her Jessica Inclan

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running away, the branches cracking and breaking, the sounds of her rustling a call out to all his kind hunting in the forest. In a matter of minutes, more than Kaherdin would know what was in the forest. “Stop,” he tried to yell, though the only sound that came out was a howl. So even though his pain, he felt his body transform to human. And then he found his voice, low and caught in his lungs emptied of air. “Come back.” Struggling to his feet, Kaherdin ran after her, his eyes so used to the forest, even when he was not wolf. He scrambled around branches and bushes, logs and rocks. He tracked her, seeing and hearing her wild flail through the bracken. Every step she made was a call out to Raf and others like him, the Wahya who would find Talaith and see her as nothing more than a meal. Kaherdin had to stop her, now, before it was too late. Before the miracle of her arriving here turned into the nightmare of her death. So as he ran, he brought forth the way they’d communicated all these any years, through dreams, through thoughts. Knowing the forest so well, he almost closed his eyes, finding her in the rush of movement around them both. Talaith, Kaherdin thought. Talaith. It’s me. It’s Kaherdin. At first, they both kept moving, running. He tried again. Stop. It’s me. I won’t hurt you. I’m here. You came to find me and here I am, right behind you. Running right behind you. In a second of suspended thought, he felt her hold still, feel him, know that it was his voice and his body behind her. All of him. Kaherdin. How? Is it you? Jessica Inclan

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Yes, he thought. It’s me. Don’t move. Stop making noise. Don’t take another step. In that second, the forest fell over them, the silence of the night woods, nothing but the singular cry of an owl and Kaherdin’s almost imperceptible steps toward her. He needed to get to her and then take them as far away as he could, hiding them both the same way that those poor, scraggly humans did night after night. Are you—she began. Stop. Don’t think. Stay still. I’m right here. I’m right here, he thought, gently taking her arm and turning her toward him. In his embrace, her knees buckled, and he grabbed her more tightly, pulling her close. She was breathing fast, sweat at her temples. She made a slight, invisible moan, and he grabbed her up again, hoping she would not faint. She smelled as she had in his dreams, his thoughts, but he had no time for this right now. They needed to move. We need to go, he thought, not daring to speak, knowing that their footsteps would be sound enough. Can you run? I have two bags. Things. Important things. She seemed to be unable to finish her thought, and Kaherdin picked up an urgency in her thought, a sharp, hard edge of need. Bending down, he picked up one of her bags, wondering what she might have brought on this journey, a journey she might not have returned from. A journey she still might not survive. What do you being with you when you are trying to change your life? If he had gone to her— brave enough to try—he knew he would not have brought anything, his life so small, nothing of importance to carry with him, not even after all these centuries.

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Something crackled in the brush, and he knew he had to get her out of here. In his mind, he saw the wolf pack, a circle of teeth, muscle, and hunger. Kaherdin took her by the waist, holding her against him. Follow my body. Do what I do. Whatever you do, don’t stop until I stop. Don’t look around. Don’t make any more noise. Do not cry out. Let’s go. Next to him, Kaherdin felt her start to move, her body strong and lean and supple, her muscles well conditioned and ready, he hoped she would make it over the long distance they needed to go. If she were a wolf, she would be a tawny, supple female, her coat smooth and soft, her eyes sharp and focused. Alpha. Talaith was a leader where she came from. Kaherdin could sense that in her stride. Where are you taking me? she thought as they ran. They pushed past the night, through the dark forest, the final stands of trees so close, the hills surrounding the compound and separating them from the colony on the horizon. Where are we going? she thought. Tell me. Kaherdin wanted to tell her that he was taking her somewhere safe, but he didn’t want to lie to her. He hoped he was taking them both to a place where they could be safe for what remained of the remaining night. Once hidden away, all he had to worry about was the daylight, the sun’s sharp morning rays. But the ragged, sinewy humans wandering the land around the compound might present another danger. They would love the chance to give back to Kaherdin the pain the Wahya had inflicted on them since the ugly beginning of this new world. They would carry rocks and spears and crudely fashioned knives, the things they used to attack the Wahya just before they were killed and eaten. How they would love to sink a knife into Kaherdin over and over again, killing Jessica Inclan

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him until he was finally dead. And then they would start in on Talaith, even though her kind helped the humans, let them live their short, pathetic lives inside the colonies. But Kaherdin couldn’t think like that. It was not time to complain about fair social order and common decency, when both sides of the equation had so little of either. What mattered now was getting away from Raf and getting there before sunrise. He first needed to urge Talaith forward. I’m taking you to a place where I can look at you, he thought, not lying now at all. I’m taking you to a place where I can touch you. If blushes had words, Kaherdin thought he might have heard hers, her body moving to his thoughts even as something excited and nervous fluttered through her. Touch, she thought. Yes, he thought back even as he pressed her forward and on and through the woods, even as he worried about what was behind him. What was ahead.

Hours later, the night now pewter except for a slice of the palest white on the horizon, Kaherdin and Talaith climbed up the last mound of the hill, the sandstone soft and slightly slick under his feet. Talaith was tired, her hair in front of her face, her body ragged with exertion. He turned back for a moment, the forest far below them. But more importantly, he’d heard nothing. No howls into the night, alerting the pack to Kaherdin’s and Talaith’s location. Now, moving steadily up the hills, he heard no evidence of any human group. He smelled no smoldering fires, smelled no human detritus or waste. The still, almost morning air brought with it no whispers,

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no cries. The only sound Kaherdin heard came from the woman next to him, her breathing hard but strong and steady. We are almost there, he thought, realizing that they might actually speak to each other now. But he’d wait until they were safely in a cave, a few of which he remembered were just a bit further to the east. They kept climbing, and he moved behind her, keeping up the rear, turning every so often to check for movement behind them. Then he moved his gaze ahead, watching for anything to catch his peripheral vision. But there was nothing; the world could be theirs alone. This new day that was going to crack into being might be the first day of a new world, new way of being. Kaherdin laughed to himself, shaking his head as he walked behind Talaith. New way of being. He was still a wolf. A hungry wolf. And she was a colonist out of her element. Between the pack and the starving, crazed humans on the run, they had one, two days tops. Two days if he ate in the evening to come. If he didn’t, he would have to leave her. He’d have no choice, hunger turning him into something he never wanted to be around her. He’d have to tell her to go back however she managed to come in the first place. He wouldn’t be safe to be around. He wasn’t safe to be around now. There. What’s that? Talaith thought, stopping and pointing into the gray landscape ahead of them. Kaherdin blinked, focused, followed her finger, seeing the caves, three of them like small eyes in the hill, about a half a mile ahead. Because he was always on his own, he had traveled more land than the rest of the compound pack. He’d touched up against the perimeter of the colonies, at least two of them. To keep his mind off of his hunger, at night he’d roamed, and

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he’d seen these caves from a distance before. Kaherdin just hoped no other wolf, no other member of the compound, had as well. Those are the caves, he thought. Let’s get there. Daylight will soon be upon us. I need to get indoors soon. She nodded, looked at him quickly, and then walked on, one bag banging against her body, the other satchel heavy in his hand. So many needs wrestled within him. Hunger. Sleep. Need to pull Talaith to him and hold her tight. Hunger. Hunger, Hunger. He knew she wouldn’t have packed him up a nice fat rabbit in this bag, though the stupid thought crossed his mind. Kaherdin looked around the hill, noticing a crevasse between this hill and the next, the indentation springing with foliage. There had to be something there. A small animal ready to give itself to him. He would make it quick and painless and fast. Looking up one more time to the sky, he knew he had some time. He had to get Talaith into the cave and then hunt, now, or he would not be able to endure the long day with her, a day he wanted to be alert and awake for. Hurry, he thought. Kaherdin grabbed her elbow, and she was tired enough that she didn’t shake him off. Together, they pushed up toward the caves, and when they were about fifty feet away from the entrance to the first cave, he pulled her to a stop, leaning her gently against a tree trunk. For the first time in over an hour, she really looked at him, but he couldn’t read her face. In this real, true life, he didn’t know her well enough to understand the pattern of her emotions, even though he’d been looking at her for years. Was she tired or angry or sad? Or all of the above? Jessica Inclan

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Kaherdin didn’t have time to figure it out. He needed to make sure the caves were safe, and then he needed to hunt. His stomach tightened, and he knew he didn’t have much time. I have to change, he thought. And I have to check out the caves. Stay right here. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. Her eyes widened, and she stepped back. But then she nodded her assent, and he backed away, turned, strode into the darkness, hoping to hide some of this change from her. As he moved, Kaherdin felt himself do what came so naturally to him, a shift as natural and true as breathing. He did what he’d seen others do his entire life. Yet for the first time, he wondered what this transmogrification looked like to her, this woman from the colony, this woman who had been lucky enough to live her life as a human. As hair turned to fur, hands and nails to paws and claws, teeth to fangs, Kaherdin hoped his transformation didn’t make her want to run away. If she did flee, he’d understand. If she did, he knew that she would never be able to live with him, much less be with him for one night. But when he was the wolf, he flicked his gaze to the right, and Talaith was still there, watching him, her face still impossible to read. Without looking back again, he loped off, his nose to the ground, trying to sniff out a pack, human or wolf. At the entrance to the first cave, he stopped to listen, his ears alert. Nothing but the hush of almost dawn. He walked in, taking in the cold, quiet smells of an empty cave. In the middle of the cave near the opening, there were the remnants of a long-ago fire, but there was no evidence of recent use, no smell of skin or blood or flesh. No human hiding in the back of the cave, waiting for them both with a spear, a rock, a group ready to kill them both, not that he actually blamed them for trying to do so. All here was safe. Jessica Inclan

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Running out of the cave, he checked the other two the same way. At some point, each had housed humans, but they had moved on or been killed off, all three safe for at least one long day of rest. Before turning back to his human form, Kaherdin decided on using the cave far to the left, as there was a tree in front, a bit of camouflage, and perhaps it would be an intruder’s last choice. It also was narrower and thus darker, and in the back had space that curved around, a pocket, a place to hide if someone tried to surprise them. Kaherdin loped toward Talaith, who stood stock still against the tree trunk, just as he’d left her. Pushing back to human form within the curtain of darkness, he walked to her, and for some reason she smiled as he approached her. “It just occurred to me,” she said. “What?” he said, using his voice for the first time that night. “That you’ve been naked all this time.” He shook his head, knowing that he wanted to laugh. But his stomach would not let him. His stomach didn’t want him to do anything but hunt. “Come with me,” he said. “I want you to wait in here. I need—I need to hunt before the sun comes up.” Talaith moved along with him as he led her to the cave farthest to the left, and took her silence as disgust. What else could it be? What else would a woman like her think? He had to go and kill a creature in order to keep him sated, make him worthy of her company. “I’ll be right back,” he said, leading her to the cave entrance. “Sit here. If you see anything. If you hear anything, follow this wall.” He patted the side of the cave. “Follow it to the back and then turn into the pocket. You will be hidden from view. Don’t move. Just sit tight.” “Oh,” she said, a world of fear in that sound he was so familiar with. Jessica Inclan

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“You’ll be fine,” Kaherdin said, knowing that he was protecting her by hunting now, even if it seemed as though he were abandoning her. “There’s nothing and no one out here. It’s too late for the pack and too early for the humans. But just in case.” “All right,” she said. “Hurry.” Kaherdin nodded and then turned, walking away fast and then morphing when he felt that he was far enough away from her that his change might not be as noticeable. But that seemed unlikely. He was a man who turned into a wolf. That was something that was hard to hide. In the gray, turning to misty white morning, he stood still, listening. Everything in the world was waking up or at least, moving. Nocturnal animals would head toward sleep. Diurnal creatures would stir, the pangs of hunger rousting them into daily movement. All he had to do was ignore the electric strings of hunger and focus. Listen. Focus. Wait. Listen. And without him really knowing how, he was all wolf, the human parts of life dropping away. Even Talaith was just a beat at the back of his mind. And in the distance, he heard the rustling, the skittering of leaves as something jumped and jostled through the brush. With stealth and concentration, Kaherdin moved toward the sound, seeing the humped shape of the animal, and within seconds, he was upon it, grabbing the rabbit by the neck and shaking it once, twice, until it was limp. No longer a man, the wolf ate.

As he approached the mouth of the cave, Kaherdin finally heard what Talaith had said earlier as they’d headed up the hill. “…you’ve been naked all this time.”

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He looked down at himself in the almost light, seeing that, of course, she was right. And not only was he naked, but he was dirty, as he always was after a night hunt in the forest. Somehow, he wondered why dirt couldn’t just stay on his wolf form. But no, he carried it all home, each early morning spent in cleaning himself. Yet there was no water here. No way of making himself presentable. Worse, Kaherdin had no clothing with him, nothing to cover himself with. It was one thing to be naked in front of her in a grainy, gray, make-believe world where being naked had seemed like the right and perfect thing. It was another to be naked in a dark, cold cave, with a woman who was likely scared out of her mind by him and by what he was. Taking in a breath, Kaherdin kept going toward the cave, as he had no other recourse. He was naked and dirty. That was that. At least he wasn’t hungry. But as he approached the cave, he noticed a glow coming from the entrance, and his heart and lungs stumbled, stopped, started up again. Why was there light in the cave? He began to run, feeling his wolf pushing to be set free, to fight, but he stayed a man. When he got to the mouth of the cave, he stopped still, unable to compute the scene. Talaith was sitting in the middle of the inner space, around the place where earlier inhabitants had once built fires. That’s exactly what she had done as well. Her two bags were open, and she’d arranged an area of blankets to sit and perhaps sleep on. When Kaherdin approached her, she glanced up, an almost smile on her face. But then seeing what must be his expression, she closed down, grew defensive. “You said no one was around now. So I made a fire.” Keeping his eyes on her, he walked toward the crackling, hot wood and stood over her. He wanted to stomp out the flames, douse the embers. He wanted to cover himself. No, he didn’t Jessica Inclan

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want to do that. He wanted to pull her up and kiss her and make her naked, too. But no one thing seemed the right thing, so he just stared. “Did you—were you . . . are you still hungry?” He shook his head. “No.” “Are you cold?” “No,” he said. He looked at her, the light giving him the glimpse he needed and wanted of her. She was more beautiful than he’d believed, but there was a shadow on her cheek, a light, almost invisible dusky smudge and thin, red scratches on her forehead. “Where did you get that bruise?” he asked. Without even looking at him, she brought her hand to her cheek and seemed to think for a moment. Then she glanced at him, shrugging a little, an unconscious, nervous tick. “I had some trouble on my way to you.” Kaherdin waited for further explanation, but when none came, he put his hands on his hips, hoping that she would tell him, trust him with what had happened. When he didn’t sit, Talaith stood up, their eyes level. “I have some clothes. Pants. Do you want them?” What he wanted, he realized, was shelter, a bed, and Talaith. Even now as she stood by the fire, the exertion of the journey to the cave and the wild forest marking her clothes, her face, she was beautiful. Her hair flowed around her, glinting like the gold he had only read about in forbidden books. Why was he here? He wanted that other world where they’d been before, a place where the realities weren’t. No need for food or shelter or clothes or fire. Here in the real world, nothing Jessica Inclan

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seemed like it had then, though he knew that he longed for her, with the deep need he had since he’d first seen her centuries ago as she stared out the window at him in his dream. But now, instead of moving toward her, sliding next to her as he actually could because they were together, here, now, truly, Kaherdin was going to be squatting by a fire in women’s clothing, waiting for either a plan or for night to come. He nodded, and she turned to her bags, pulling out a pair of pants that he knew would fit but strangely. It would be better than standing here naked. She handed them to him, and he looked down as he slid them on, tying the tie at the top. Kaherdin looked up. “Do they fit?” she asked. And then, when all he did was shrug, she said, “Good enough.” “Thank you,” he said, looking around the cave. In the light, he could see the evidence of the long ago inhabitants. Maybe it was from hundreds of years ago, right after the poisoning. Maybe it was from only a year earlier. He could change into his wolf form and sniff it all out— the story a whiff in his nose--but he didn’t want to do that here, now, in front of Talaith. The fire crackled, hissing from the slightly damp log Talaith put on the blaze. The air warmed, just as the sun broke free of the horizon, spilling light that bounced in from the cave's mouth. He blinked, backed up a little. Talaith noticed and stood, going to one of her bags to pull out a blanket. “The opening is small,” she said. “We could cover it with this.” She held out the blanket, and Kaherdin thought of his room back at the compound, a room he now wished they were in, warm and safe from the slicing light of morning.

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“The fire,” he said. “Let’s let it burn and then we can cover the opening. I’ll sit back a bit. I’ll be fine.” “What—what happens . . .” she began, stopping, her face flushing but not from the heat of the fire. Talaith looked down and then sat down again, poking at the fire with a long stick. Kaherdin found a spot near the fire but away from the daylight, sitting down and looking at Talaith keep busy to avoid all the conversations they were going to need to have. Why have these conversations? he thought. Why not just go to her, touch her shoulder, pull her to standing and kiss her. Bring her back to the bed she made from blankets and love her in the way he’d dreamed of all these years. He longed to taste her skin, to kiss the line of her collarbone. To pull away her clothing and lay himself on top of her, put himself inside of her, rocking them both, long and quick and fast and slow, all day, all day. Suddenly, Kaherdin was glad he was constrained by the pants, and he sighed, breathing in the smoky air. The fire burned hot, and he leaned toward it. Where would he start the story? Would he go back 1000 years to the time before the madness? Would he say he remembered an escape, another pack, some kind of family? Would he tell her about Boren and his words, the only truth Kaherdin had to cling to? Would he talk about fending for himself in the pack? How they fought against the colonists in order to first build the compound? Or would he reveal their plots to raid the colony in order to find the elixir that would fix their genetic tragedy? Would he talk about the things that happened at night, the deaths he’d watched, year after year? Could he even begin to show her the images of the poor wretches he’d seen scrabbling up hills, screaming into the darkness as Raf and the pack attacked them? Or what about the way that he and his kind

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seemed to be giving up, turning more and more to the animal than the human, growing less willing to fight a battle for a past that no one could really remember any longer? Talaith put down her stick and leaned back, her hair a smooth, silky flow down and over her shoulders. He reached out his hand to touch a loose strand, and then he stopped himself. Unlike all the times in the dream world, the gray world, the imaginary space between them, he didn’t know how to touch her here out in the open. No, this early morning was not like the last time they were together, and he felt that their embrace, their kiss was the only thing that had ever come naturally to him. When they’d been together, everything had moved, the way the grass moves in the wind, the way the river flows through the forest, the way blood moves in veins. Normal, natural, the way so much of his life did not. “Talaith,” he said, and she turned, her eyes on his, serious and slightly sad. “Where did you go that last time we were together? The only time we were really together. It seemed that you were yanked away.” Her mouth opened, a word, a phrase in the space between her lips. He leaned forward, moving closer to her, but then she closed her mouth, looked down, picked up the stick and turned back to the fire. “I—I don’t know. Suddenly, I was back in my world.” She banged the stick against one of the stones in the fire ring, sparks flying. “Our worlds are the same,” he said. “We both exist here.” She nodded, her back toward him. “I know. But I was back where I’d been before I saw you. And . . .” “And what?” he reached out to touch her, and this time he did, putting his hand on her arm, softly. He tried not to feel her flinch, but it was there, a shudder of nerves. A shudder of fear. Jessica Inclan

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“You were just gone. I was standing in the lake.” For a moment, Kaherdin felt as though they were both in that lake, the world wavery and moving, nothing set, firm, clear. He’d never felt that they’d been anywhere but in each other’s sights, embrace, touch. And then she’d been gone, all that warmth vanished in an instant. “I couldn’t believe how wonderful that was,” he said, his voice low, mixing with the sounds of the fire. “I wanted more than anything for you to stay.” “I wish I could have,” she said, her voice so low, so quiet, he wondered if he was imagining her reply, hearing her repeat what he’d said. “More than anything.” Kaherdin felt something else in her words, a story under the dialogue, a story she was holding back. Standing, he stepped closer to her, sat down so that they were shoulder to shoulder, the energy between them the same as it had always been, even through the window glass, even in a dream. “How did you get here?” he asked. “How did you find me?” Talaith shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “I don’t really know. My father travels like this. As far as I know, he and Akla are the only ones who can. Or the only ones who do. They move through—through whatever this is made of.” She lifted her hands, indicating the air around them. “He tried to explain it to me, but I didn’t want to hear. It seemed frightening, moving through something I couldn’t even see. He told me that there were dangers to it. Turns, junctures, spots in the matter where you could be abducted. But meeting you all these years in a place that didn’t exist made it seem more possible to me.” A strange, dark feeling filled Kaherdin, and he found a question that he needed to ask but didn’t want to. “Who is your father? She looked at him and then turned back to the fire. “Jodoc Rikala.” Jessica Inclan

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Jodoc. Jodoc Rikala, a name he’d heard for centuries, the name Raf used as an insult, a curse, a warning. The man who kept life from them. The man the Wahya wanted dead so that they all might live. And even though Kaherdin didn’t want to kill a human being, he had often thought that if he made such a kill, Jodoc would be his first, his only, his best. Jodoc was the man who kept them enslaved to the genetic experiments done onto them by a wasteful, greedy, stupid people, bent on trying to survive at any cost. There was an answer to all this suffering and death. A cure. But not for them, these others out in the world. Jodoc wanted to kill them off so he could rule everything. How could Jodoc’s daughter be here, with him? How could he be sitting here in a cave with her? How could she have left the cozy comfort of her colony to be with him, here, in a place she would never be safe, not even for one minute? Not even, sometimes, with him. Talaith was shaking her head again, and then she brought her head to her knees, her back moving to her sobs For a moment, Kaherdin let her cry, but then he put his hand on her back, slowly stroking up and down, feeling the tender knobs of bone under his hand. He leaned into her, knowing that no matter who she was, she was here with him, because of him, for him. She’d been meeting him with her mind, reaching out to him with her thoughts, touching him even though it was impossible. “I know,” she said. “I finally know what he has done.” “What do you mean?” he said, pulling her closer to him. “How he’s kept the elixir from you. Kept you living like . . . like this.” The elixir. The cure. His sanity. But what did she mean, she finally knew? How could she have not known?

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“He told us a story. He told us a lie,” she said, seeming to hear his thoughts again. “It was always said that you--The Others--wanted their way of life, despite being given the chance to convert. That you refused it. That you fought us to take control, to wipe us out.” Pulling away, Kaherdin shook his head. “How could you have thought that? Why would anyone want to live like we do? Do you know what it is like?” He stood, feeling the wolf in him want to snarl, to howl, to run out of the cave, no matter the sun that would beat down on him and turn his blood to poison. Were the colonists all fools? Where they all as power hungry and amoral as Jodoc? Why had he been living his life to some code when no one else was? “No,” Talaith said. “No, I don’t. I don’t know. All I know is that I never knew. Not until yesterday.” Turning toward her, he wanted to fight back, feeling an anger he’d never had before. All his life he’d known the colonists were holding back the one thing that could change everything. But this had been a fact of life. It’s what was. They could fight or they could not. But now? Here was the truth in front of him, for the first time. Someone who knew why but did not. And yet—and yet. He couldn’t bear to see her so sad. She was his talisman, his hope, his dream. And did it matter, really, that she’d been unaware of the truth? Was he going to ruin this small, amazing time they had before them, angry over a truth neither of them could change? Remember that time in the gray, he thought. Remember how she was ripped away from you. It could happen again. At any moment. With that thought covering all the other feelings—the anger, outrage, disgust with the colonies and Jodoc—he walked back to her, sitting down, putting his arm around her. He

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breathed in her, her smell of the forest, the fire, and their exertion, but also of lavender, vanilla, things soft and beautiful, just like her. Lifting her chin, turning her to him, he kissed her and she kissed him back, despite her tears, despite the heavy truth sitting between them. Despite their differences and the centuries of fight. They kissed like people who knew each other, like people who were meant to kiss. And kiss. Kaherdin brought his hands to the sides of her face and pulled his face back, looking into her open eyes, knowing that she saw him. Man and wolf. All their differences. And yet she was still here. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”

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SEVEN

What had Rachel said to her? Talaith wondered as she felt Kaherdin’s lips on her own, felt him put his hand around her waist and bring her closer to him, their bodies touching. “Love always says ‘Yes.’ That’s the only answer it ever gives. Yes, yes, yes.” Yes is what Talaith felt right now. Yes was what radiated inside her. Yes is what she wanted to say as Kaherdin stood up, taking her hand and helping her to her feet. But no was inside her, too. How could she be with Kaherdin after what Liam had done to her? How could she invite Kaherdin into this ugly mess that she was, this hurt and bruised person, hurt on the inside and the outside, body and soul. He deserved to have all of her, and she couldn’t give that to him until she could find herself on her own, pull herself back into her own story, her own life. Yet how good he felt. They were both standing, pressed against each other. His arms were around her, and he was gentle but so strong, his muscles tight and hard, his entire body ready for the struggle, the journey, the adventure. She let her hand run from his shoulder to the small of his back, loving the way his body moved like a river. No waste, just flow and energy. Despite the memory of Liam on top of her, she could feel her body responding to Kaherdin’s touch and excitement. She noticed—as if she were watching from a distance—the way she tilted her head back to his kiss, held him tight, her hands like starfish on his back. She saw herself pressing her breasts and stomach to him, the same way he was pressing his body against her. Ohh, she thought. Yes, he thought back. That’s the sound I’ve longed to hear. Jessica Inclan

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And for a moment, Talaith could believe that this embrace was the reward for all those nights of dreaming. How many years had she waited at her window for him to show up? How long had she waited to merely see him? But here he was, next to her, holding her. She was breathing in his scent, his fine, lovely skin, his hair that smelled like the forest and of night. But this kiss was a lie. She wasn’t who she’d been all those nights at the window. She wasn’t worthy. Talaith was a lie. He deserved more. He deserved the her that had existed before Liam’s touch. What? he thought. “What?” he said, his mouth an inch from hers. He lifted her chin, looked into her eyes. “What’s wrong?” Of all the things wrong in her world and his, this very second seemed to be the worst of all. Finally, they were together, here, right now, ready for each other. But she wasn’t ready. She was wrong. Soiled. Broken. “No,” he said, catching, it seemed, a part of her thought. “It’s all right.” No, it’s not, she thought to herself, tucking her story inside herself. It will never be all right. Kaherdin kissed her fingertips, her palm, the pulse on her wrist. “You are tired. Let’s rest. Let’s sleep. We can figure out what we are going to do when we wake up.” Just over a day ago, if Talaith were here, now, she knew she wouldn’t be waiting for anything as ridiculous as sleep. She’d be touching this man in the way she’d wanted to for so long. She’d be running her hands along his beautiful body, feeling at the notches of muscle and bone, feeling his smooth skin. He was the man she’d waited for without knowing she was waiting. Every other man she’d kissed and touched had simply been practice. Talaith would open herself up to

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him as she had to no other, not just her body but her heart and mind. If this had happened that night before Liam, Talaith would take in all the ecstasy as if—as if she deserved it. Now, it seemed something out of reach. She knew why and she didn’t know why, and all she wanted to do was shut her eyes and go to sleep. Nodding, she watched as Kaherdin picked up her makeshift bedding and walked around to the dark pocket of the cave. He came back and stomped out the fire, not hanging up the blanket she’d offered for that duty before. “It’s a sign that someone’s here,” he said, looking at her with his steady, blue-eyed gaze. “You know, blankets don’t often grow in the wild.” At his words, Talaith imagined the wild blanket plants that grew in the forest, but her response was stuck in the deep sadness in her heart, so she simply smiled instead. “We’ll sleep back there for a few hours and then decide what to do.” He took her arm. “And nothing will happen unless you say yes.” “I do say ‘Yes,’” she said, her words slipping out of her. “Say ‘Yes’ and want ‘Yes,’” he said. “Both. And nothing more until you do.” Kaherdin looked back at the mouth of the cave, and as she watched him, she saw the final wisps of smoke glowing hazy and yellow in the morning light. This light couldn’t be good for him, for whatever reason. He needed the dark and sleep, and she needed to forget and then to remember why she’d waited for this moment since forever. Talaith needed to imagine what she would be like if she’d met him before Liam had—had raped her. She needed to try to feel as she had before that moment in the lake when she was yanked out of what was perfect into what was so wrong. But now, right now, she could not. Jessica Inclan

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“Let’s go,” he said. Nodding again, she followed him. He had found a smooth part of the pocket, and they lay down together on the blankets, his body right behind hers, his arm around her waist. Part of her wanted to notice how perfect he felt behind her, this embrace something she could almost remember, though that made no sense, really. In a dream, she’d felt him like this, but this was real. A real man. Kaherdin, in the flesh. In the dark, the smoke swirling out of the cave, the sunlight hidden behind a wall of stone and dirt, they curled into each other. Kaherdin kissed her neck, and she could feel his erection through the silly pants she’d given him to wear. How could she relax into his excitement and want to pull away at the same time? Her body and mind said yes and no all at the same time, this back and forth never a part of her thinking before. What should she do? What if he tried more? Should she run or turn to him? Should she clamp her legs together or throw wide open her arms and pull him close? Her eyes open, her heart pounding into the smooth earth under her, she waited. And then waited some more. But Kaherdin did nothing else than kiss her again, his hand stroking her hair, and then he was asleep, holding her tight, the darkness of the cave swallowing them both up into sleep.

The day had turned to late afternoon by the time Talaith awoke. The light filtering in through the mouth of the cave had lost its brilliance, now a barely yellow reaching toward the pocket they hid in. Behind her, his arm still wrapped tight around her, Kaherdin breathed deeply, sleeping

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breaths. But at her movement, he awoke, and she could almost feel his senses key immediately into his surroundings, the wolf in him so strong, even when he was a man. “You’re awake,” he said. “Just,” she said, turning onto her back, the ground hard and cold beneath her. “How did you sleep?” he said, his voice low in the darkness. “Deeply,” she said. “And no dreams for some reason.” She almost could feel him smile. “Strangely,” he said. “I didn’t dream either. Most likely because my dream is right here.” He lifted his hand, stroking her face, and she closed her eyes, swallowing back the sadness that came back along with her consciousness. “What are we going to do?” she said. He laughed. “That’s a very good question. If I dreamed, I think I dreamed only of that question. But I have a couple of thoughts, none that are going to be easy or possible.” She lifted a hand to touch his arm. He was so warm and solid, real. But soon, she knew, he would have to turn back into a wolf to eat. And when she thought that, Talaith realized that she was hungry, too, glad she’d brought supplies with her. “What do you have in mind?” she asked. He was silent for a second, playing with a strand of her hair. “Well, I’m sure your people have the theory of the world beyond.” “Beyond? Beyond here?” “Yes,” he said. “Beyond here. Beyond the colonies.” “The Out World,” she said. “The world beyond this place.” “Right,” Kaherdin said. “Wherever that is.” Jessica Inclan

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“I’ve thought about that,” Talaith said. “Going where none of this exists. Us, we, this fight-it can’t exist all over. The Before People can’t have done the same thing everywhere. Somebody must have made a right choice at some point. Somebody must have done something with a smart, true intention. Some experiment must have gone right.” Kaherdin laughed. “You would think. But there had to be other mistakes. We could end up in a situation even worse than this. We could find a place where people fly and eat bats. Rabbits with fangs. Frogs with deep, baritone voices and the ability to tunnel underground.” They both laughed, but then stopped, breathing into the dark cave. A shimmer of electrical current, a surge of excitement, hovered over them and then disappeared. “There’s no guarantee things are better anywhere else,” she said. “I’ve seen the map, though, the map of the whole planet. My father and his wife Akla had one at their house, something The Elders had given them as a gift. This planet is huge, with large oceans separating everything. Maybe there are places where only The Untouched live. Where we could pass for The Untouched.” “How big is the world?” he asked. She held up her arms, using her hands to create a round space in the air. “Huge. We are on a very big piece. They used to call it The United States. But there is so much more. Other big masses of land. Little islands. Ice. Places where we can’t all be the same.” “The United States?” he said. “Yes.” “That’s a little ironic, considering how un-united we’ve been living for all these years. Trying to kill each other off. United isn’t quite the word I’d use for it.” Talaith smiled. “You’re right. Un-united. Disunited.”

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She turned to him, noting his smile, his gaze, the way he made her skin hum, and then remembered that they were dis- and un-united as well, just like the land they were on. He played with the strand of her hair, brushing his cheek with the tip. “So you think we could just show up on one of these other land masses and pretend to be normal?” “I hope so.” Talaith paused, knowing that hope was the only thing she was relying on. Hope that wherever they went it would be less dangerous, less violent, less isolated. Yes, the poisoning likely affected everywhere else on the giant map but with different results. It had to be true. She felt him shake his head. “I think passing for anything but who I am would be a bit tricky. I have this habit of turning into a wolf and hunting.” Talaith’s heart stopped, skipped a beat, thumped on. Her secret was still in her pocket, the two vials of elixir. She could give him one, and if she could do it all again, they could travel the way she’d gotten here to someplace else, a place where they could try to live a normal life. At least until the elixir wore off. And then what? What then? “Talaith? What are you thinking?” He brought his hand to her cheek, stroking it with soft fingertips. She didn’t flinch, and she wished she could let him touch her like that all over. His touch was so kind, so warm, so gentle. He would never be like Liam. Talaith knew completely that he would never do to her what the other man had, but the thought—she couldn’t bear the thought. Even though she wanted him, she couldn’t move toward that want. Not yet. She sighed, moved a little, and he dropped his hand. “I did something before I left. Something I should not have done.”

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Talaith felt his questions in the air, and though she wanted to listen in to his thoughts in this strange way they could, she did not. He might be wondering if she was referring to the thing that kept them apart now, that kept her from turning to him right now and kissing him. If only it were that. “What?” he said. “You can tell me. Anything.” She knew he was telling her the truth, and the two stories were on her tongue, both so important, one so hard to say. Taking in a breath, she looked back at the cave’s ceiling, avoiding his gaze. “I--I stole two vials of elixir.” “The elixir,” he said, his voice flat and monotone, repeating only what she said. “The elixir?” “Before I left, I traveled into the place my father stores it for our colony. I took two vials. One for me. And one for you.” Outside the cave, the sky was darkening, and she couldn’t see his expression when she turned to look, and could barely his outline. Again, Talaith wondered if she should listen to his thoughts, but that was cheating. She needed to endure this conversation, the good and the bad of it. Maybe he’d tell her he didn’t want any part of who she was or the elixir that kept her that way. She could travel home and throw herself upon her father’s mercy. But could she go home again after what she knew? Did she even want to see Jodoc again after learning how he kept the cure from so many? “You stole the elixir. For me,” Kaherdin said. She nodded, hoping he felt her assent. “I can take this elixir and after almost one thousand years, my body will convert to almost human. DNA strands adapting? What? Just like that? No more wolf. No more need to hunt. The magic so powerful I will be able to eat the food you grew up on and have eaten for Jessica Inclan

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centuries? I don’t know if I can even chew in my human form. All of the sudden, the wolf will be gone?” His voice was tight, tense, flint edged, and humorless. He shifted away from her, sitting up in the darkness. A coolness whisked around her, and Talaith sat up as well, facing him. “I don’t know much about how it is made,” she said. “My father told me that it converts or mitigates the genetic mistake inside of us. I’m not sure on what level it works—DNA, genes, hormones? I’ve never been told and I never asked. We just take it. We have been doing so— once a year--since the time when The Elders gave it to Jodoc. As far as I know, no one other than us has taken it. But I’ve been living in my colony for a long time. I don’t know everything. Or anything.” “Who are these Elders?” Kaherdin asked Talaith thought, looking at Kaherdin’s outline, listening to his breath, hearing the shiff shiff of dirt as both of them moved. The air around them grew colder, and her stomach rumbled with hunger. Soon, he would leave her again, and they had nothing settled, no plan. He wanted to know things she didn’t have the answers to. All her life, she’d wondered about The Elders. Jodoc had used them as reference for everything. “The Elders say we should expand out colonial territories,” he had said. “The Elders want us to continue our battles against The Others,” he had also said. The Elders had something to say about everything, but nothing was written down; their dictums passed on by Jodoc to all three colonies. Once when she was in her early years, Jodoc had promised Talaith she could meet one of The Elders, a woman he called Ethne. He explained how she had survived the time before The Poisoning, how compassionate, clever, and kind she was. On the day of the big summer festival Jessica Inclan

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when Ethne was to be introduced, Jodoc had come into the house, telling Talaith and Akla that Ethne had had to postpone her visit. “When will she come?” Talaith had asked. “When they believe it is the right time,” Jodoc had said, but the time must never have been right. Neither Ethne nor any Elder ever came to visit, and Talaith had long ago given up imagining that they would. And no one ever seemed to call for their presence, Jodoc and his translations of their commands enough. Of course, every colonist knew the names of The Elders: Modvon, Danuta, Ethne, Rhaab, Nastas. As they grew up, Talaith learned the history of The Elders and how they saved Jodoc and brought forth the Colonies. They all learned to whom they owed their lives and salvation. But The Elders were not people she could explain well to Kaherdin because she didn’t know more than the basic history. “They found Jodoc, my father, after The Poisoning,” she said now. “They gave him the elixir. They help him rule. They gave him his wisdom.” Kaherdin made a low laughing sound. “Silent partners in crime.” For a second, Talaith felt defensive, wanting to tell him that The Elders kept them alive and well and safe. She wanted to tell Kaherdin about how Jodoc had protected them all from Kaherdin and his kind for centuries. But she knew now that in order to do that, The Elders and Jodoc had put The Others in peril because of their selfishness. But Talaith still not must really believe that, even though she’d heard the truth from Jodoc’s own mouth. Part of her was still her father’s daughter. Part of her hoped that she’d misheard, even though she had heard, with her own two ears.

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“At least you had elders. We really didn’t, our laws coming from ourselves. We formed our government, our pack, in ways that seemed part human, part animal. I was lucky to have someone to talk to those early years, but most of us—we learned as we grew more ignorant.” “Who taught you?” Talaith asked, wanted to know the history of this man, his story so different from her own. “His name was Boren,” Kaherdin said. “He was older and not related to me in any way, but he like me because he stayed away from pack life. But he knew more than anything what it meant to be Wahya. He knew about how to listen to what was around us.” “What do you hear now?” she asked. He smiled, put his hand on her arm, took in a breath. “I hear you.” All Talaith could hear was her heart beating in her body. “What do I sound like?” He shook his head, closed his eyes, seeming to really listen for her, to her. “You sound like a river,” he said. “A slow, peaceful river.” For a second, she closed her eyes, too, hearing that sweet sound, the flow of a river slowly downstream. But then her stomach rumbled again. “That doesn’t sound like a river,” she said. “More like an earthquake.” “You need to eat,” he said, standing up and holding out a hand. “And I think both of us could use a little time outside the cave in private, yes?” Nodding, Talaith took his hand, feeling the strength even in his fingers, even in his palm. His warmth radiated into her, and she knew that if she could just relax, she could melt into him. All this struggle and horror and upset could disappear for a short time in his arms, the two of them so different but so right for each other. Impossible but true. And yet it was impossible for her to move toward him, the truth about Jodoc and the truth about Liam holding her back, keeping her Jessica Inclan

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separate even as she longed to run her hand up his arm to his shoulder, to turn him toward her. To kiss him on the mouth. “I’m sure you couldn’t have brought too much with you,” he said, not feeling or hearing her thoughts but leading her into the main part of the cave that was dim with evening light. “The good news is that you and I do eat the some of the same things but with a slightly different preparation.” She stopped, looking at him, realizing that he was right. What did he catch out there? Rabbits? She’d had rabbit often enough but stewed in a delicious sauce and served over Akla’s homemade noodles. Different preparation indeed. “I guess you’re right,” Talaith said. “But I don’t think you hunt for oat cakes often.” “Like blankets, oat cakes are hard to find in the wild.” As they walked to the mouth of the cave, Kaherdin smiled. Talaith stared at him, her dream man right in front of her. He was the same as he’d been in her dreams, but now he was real, flesh and blood, whole and true. He smelled of pine and cedar and the wet, clean water on ferns; his heat radiated off him in waves. How different being with him in the real world, the real time was than the time in the gray. That kiss had been so real, but now, it would be a burst of sensation, going from dull to brilliant color, all in one touch. “I’ll wait here. But don’t go too far,” he said, pointing into the dusky space around the cave. “That bush. Don’t go anywhere else.” Talaith found herself fluming with heat, embarrassed by this ridiculous but necessary intimacy. She did what she had to and was glad when both of them had returned from their little sojourns, returning to the inside of the cave and the fire pit.

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Kaherdin bent down over the remains of the fire from the day before, moving around the dead embers, getting ready to lay another fire. She bent over her bags and pulled out an oat cake and a pouch of water. She sat down to eat and to watch him work. “Do you have any family?” she asked. “My pack,” he said, stacking up the kindling and then a couple of logs Talaith had found the night before. “Do you,” she began, feeling her face flush. “No you have a—a mate?” He looked back at her and then back at the fire pit. “No.” “Then what about people that are related to you.” He didn’t answer for a moment, striking the two rocks together to form a spark. In a minute, the kindling was lit, the cave opening up into yellow, the glow brilliant against the growing darkness outside. “We won’t be able to keep this going for long,” he said. “Enough to warm you for a bit. But you are going to need to bundle up and keep in the dark. Soon, it will be the time the pack roams, and you can’t have a fire going then. And I think we were lucky that no—as you call them—untouched found us, either.” He stood and then walked to her, sitting down and leaning his back against the back of the cave. “Family?” she asked again. He looked at her, his eyes the color of nothing she’d seen in her life. Maybe the color of the green Akla dyed a dress years ago. Maybe the green of a paint she’d used in her younger years during an art class. His eyes were green of her imagination, a green of The Time Before. A green she’d never thought she’d see. Jessica Inclan

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“You mean as in mine?” “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know, really,” he said. “I have a memory that is so old it might be a dream. But there were two adults. Three children, all of us male.” “What happened to them?” she asked, feeling the loss of the mother she’d never known. Kaherdin shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s why I think I might have made it up. This memory is no more than an image really. And then, here I am. Everything else is the pack. And Boren. Those early years were so long ago, in a time that seems to have disappeared from me. My beginning slid into my middle, slid into now. The days are days, all the same. The nights are nights full of hunting. That’s it.” They were silent for a moment, and then he said, “So your plans?” She bit into her dry oat cake and chewed, trying to swallow the dry food. She took a sip of water, all her eating and drinking sounds seeming to echo in the cave. “I didn’t really have one in mind, but it’s been coming to me,” she said. “It involves that elixir, though,” he said. She took another bite of the cake and then put it in her lap. “I can get us somewhere. Somewhere else. I think. I hope. If not, we go as far as we can on foot. And then—you take the elixir.” Kaherdin nodded and then put his hand on her knee, his solid warmth moving into her skin, her bones, his heat radiating up her thigh. “And if it works and doesn’t kill me or turn me into something worse, I live like you do. Until you need another dose or I do.” “I have two vials. That’s it. Then we have to go back.” Jessica Inclan

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“Don’t you think,” he said. “That your father will make note of the theft and hide the elixir elsewhere? Clearly, he’s not a stupid man.” Talaith had thought of this, but the next dose wasn’t supposed to be administered for a couple of weeks. Jodoc wouldn’t think to check for a stolen elixir until he noticed the two missing vials. He wouldn’t, she thought, imagine her capable of such a crime, just like he wouldn’t imagine she was able to travel as he did. Theft and the ability to move through space were two behaviors even she didn’t think herself capable of. Or, at least, she used to think. By the time he realized her theft, she and Kaherdin would be dosed and gone. And she knew that Liam was likely making up a story for her disappearance, his body a jangle of nerves because for all he knew, he was the last person Talaith had seen. Maybe he made up a story of intrigue and murder or one of abduction by The Others. He fabricated a story of ransom and threats. More than likely, he was thrilled that Talaith was gone, no longer taunting him with her denials, no longer around to be the evidence of his crime. But her father did not know she had heard the truth, and he and Akla would be filled with the unknown story of where Talaith had disappeared to. Daughter, she could imagine her father thinking as he helped searched Uveris. Daughter, where are you? Talaith closed her eyes, knowing that even now, even knowing what he had done didn’t make her heart still yearn for his presence. How could these two things be true? Her love for her father and the knowledge of what he’d done, the evil he had perpetrated on The Others and by so doing, on the Colonies, making Naruci, Zadne, and Uveris complicit in all this suffering. Taking in a breath and opening her eyes, she thought of the plan that she and Kaherdin were creating. “I think we will have a year from the moment you take the elixir. We have time for Jessica Inclan

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you to adapt and time for us to find a place to live that’s different from all this.” She waved her hand, indicating the cave and then let it drop as she realized that maybe this was nothing that Kaherdin wanted. She was asking him to leave behind everything he knew. Maybe how he lived was brutish and long, but it was his life, known and understood. And what would he get in return? A damaged woman? A life on the run? “Don’t,” he said, taking her hand. “Don’t imagine that this isn’t what I want. I’m here because I want you.” He wants me, she thought, even when I can’t give myself to him? Talaith turned to him, looking at him, his face resolute, the lines etched fine and strong, his eyes steady and true. No lies there. Nothing hidden. She thought once more of Liam, the way his eyes seemed to lie, the way he’d held back truths. The way he’d never really seen who she was. “Nothing is the way either of us want it to be,” Kaherdin said. “But I’ve known you so long, Talaith. In my dreams, in my heart. I’m committed to this adventure, whatever it involves. Like, for instance, hanging out in a cave. I’ve committed to you.” She smiled, knowing that even one day before, she’d never have imagined she’d be sleeping in a cave and then sitting on the dirt eating a hard-as-rock oatcake. Talaith never would have believed she’d be using the great outdoors as a bathroom or sitting alone all night in a dark cave, The Others just outside. “I’m committed to you,” Kaherdin repeated, and he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. Talaith kept her eyes on him as his lips touched the top of her hand, pressing down in warmth. With that kiss, she could imagine a time when she would be able to really feel that gesture for all

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that it was. Now, all she felt was guilt and fear and nerves, her blood racing from the spot he pressed on still, moving all the way to her heart. “All right,” he said. She nodded and then he let go of her hand and getting to his feet. Kaherdin held his hands out to the fire and then looked out of the cave, the night just settling, the air dark blue. She could imagine the howls already. “If we do this thing, I have one more night,” Kaherdin said. “One more night as a wolf. I’m going to hunt, and I’m going to bring something back for you other than an oat cake. And tomorrow morning, we start this journey, whatever it may be.” Talaith nodded and then stood to join him at the fire. For a few moments, they warmed themselves, their shoulders touching, their hands brushing, their breaths in quiet unison. The logs crackled, embers flying up into the air and then flickering as they burnt to ash, leaving nothing but a trail of gray smoke. Talaith felt the tiny hairs on her hand rub against his, the energy between them crackling like the fire but not burning out. They pressed the backs of their hands together, heat rushing up her arm to her shoulder, almost taking her breath away. After all these years, she couldn’t believe that the most sensuous experience she’d ever had would be touching hands with a man she could do no more with. Who knew that this simple act would make her want to pull him to the soft earth and kiss him and press him to her? Made her want to do that and more. But not now. Not just yet. Liam was still there, just under the surface, like a bad smell, a cold wind. Every time Talaith turned her head to look at something new, she saw Liam first, felt his big hands on her face, shoulders, legs. Even now, she could hear him at her ear, feel him rip into her. Jessica Inclan

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“I need to put this out,” Kaherdin said, and for a second, Talaith wondered if he meant her desire for him or her revulsion over Liam. “All right.” She pulled away from him as he stomped on the fire and then threw ash on it, the smoke pluming up and into the cave, the air hard to breathe. Both of them coughed, waved their hands, continuing to kick ash onto the fire. As the firelight died, the flames now only embers in the burned wood, Kaherdin took her hand and they walked to the edge of the cave. “I’m going to hunt in the same place I did last night,” he said, pointing to a copse to the right. “I won’t ever be far. If you need me, you can think me home. We can communicate like that. Whatever you do, don’t cry out. Don’t make a sound. Call me with your mind.” Talaith nodded and he took her hand, squeezing it. He stared at her, his breath on her face, his body so close. “You promise? You won’t have a chance if they find you. And I wouldn’t go out unless I had to. Both of us need nourishment.” “I know.” She pulled back a bit and stared at him in the dark, his profile so elegant, so much like what she always imagined her true love would look like. If only she could reach out and touch him. “And I won’t stay out too long. Just go to the back, to the pocket. Stay there. Be quiet. Don’t light the fire until I get back this time, all right?” Again, Talaith nodded, and without notice, he bent over to kiss her cheek. Then he stepped away from her, moving into the darkness, his body probably already shifting in the dark night, moving from upright to loping, two footed to four, and then he was swallowed into the brush and was gone.

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Talaith wasn’t sure how long Kaherdin had been gone. She didn’t have a time piece, and if she did, she wouldn’t be able to read it here in the dark. Every second seemed like a century, a century in Uveris, where every century felt like her entire life. The cave was cold and quiet, the air still. Every so often, she heard a rustle outside, either the wind blowing something or an animal skittering by. When she heard the sound, her heart pulsed as if toward exploding, her arms and limbs tingling, her mouth going dry. But then nothing and no one moved into the cave, and Talaith breathed out, staring at the dark wall, thinking about as little as she could, keeping her mind clear and open for Kaherdin. The dark, the sound of nothing, her body against the wall. Nothing, more nothing. Time not moving. No sound. The wind. No sound. Daughter, came her father’s thought. Daughter, I hear you. As she did with the sounds outside the cave, Talaith’s heart beat hard against her ribs. Daughter, he thought. Where are you? Why have you left us? Holding her thoughts tight in her own mind, Talaith felt her old self wanted to fling her thoughts into her father’s, tell her about what Liam had done to her. He raped me! she wanted to wail. He raped me and he flung me onto the ground and he left me alone in the night. But while she knew that her father would not let this act go unpunished, she also wanted to scream, You lied to us all. You made up the war with The Others. You are letting people suffer. Daughter, her father called again. Come home. I promise all will be forgiven, no matter why you fled. Akla is so worried. Don’t let her suffer in this way.

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Akla’s image filled Talaith’s mind, the soft, comforting feel of her almost-mother’s embrace. Talaith felt her strength starting to flag, her mind bending toward her father’s call. But she couldn’t. She had to stay in herself, with herself. Her father had lied to them all, and Kaherdin was suffering because of him. How different all their lives would have been had the elixir been available to all who needed it. How could he have been so cruel? Daughter, come home. Liam is waiting for you. We are all waiting for you, though it’s too bad about Rachel. Her heart, the barometer of her fear, jumped again. Her lungs tried to pull in air. What had they done to Rachel? And as if hearing her, Jodoc went on. We’ve had to send her to Zadne for punishment because we know you were there. She says she knows nothing, but she’s lying. We can all see that. It’s unlikely she will ever be released unless you come home to clear her name. Talaith felt herself begin to breathe in slight, hard breaths, her body trembling. Jodoc was using Rachel against her or he was threatening to. Poor Rachel. All she had ever done was support Talaith and her choices. And for what? To be punished for her kindness? I know she’s your best friend, so who else would we go to? Who else would we ask? We know she knows. For an instant, Talaith flashed on Rachel as they sat at Rachel’s kitchen table eating oatmeal. Rachel was nodding, listening, considering her response to Talaith’s obvious distress. Rachel pushed her hand through her fine red hair, nodding at what Talaith had to say. And all the centuries that Talaith had known her, Rachel had been that exact solid, steady presence. Steady

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even when she lost that which had been so important to her, steady when Stephen died in her arms. Holding her thoughts tight, Talaith shut down every single avenue of conversation. She couldn’t hear any more of this. She had to think. She had to focus. Maybe she and Kaherdin wouldn’t start their plan until rescuing Rachel. But maybe nothing had even happened to Rachel. Maybe her father was lying. Maybe he was baiting her, goading her, tricking her to come home. He was treating her the way Kaherdin might treat a rabbit. Clenched tight, her head feeling as though it would explode, Talaith stood, leaned against the wall and pressed, pressed, pressed away her father, her world, Uveris, the other Colonies, everything. Gone, gone, gone, gone. She would think about it later because if she thought about it now, she would go crazy here, alone in the dark. She would know what to do then. She would talk to Kaherdin, and they would figure it all out together. Her thoughts calming, her mind clear, Talaith breathed in, a few more deep, regular breaths, and then opened her eyes into the darkness. And that’s when she heard it, a sound that made her heart pound, pound the same way it had as Liam wrenched her out of the water and into his terrible arms. It was the sound of something wrong, the way a tree sounds before it falls, the way someone takes in a small breath before he lies. It was the sound of hate before a word is spoken, the sound of death before a kill. Talaith waited, her body filling with heaviness, lethargy, the kind of immobility that often comes with a catastrophe.

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What did she hear? She waited, tried not to breathe, tried to stop her heart, if only for a second. There it was. The movement of an animal, of a wolf creeping into the cave.

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EIGHT

It wasn’t a thought but a feeling that pulled Kaherdin up short, his ears twitching, his nose pulling the smells around him. But what he’d heard, what he’d felt, wasn’t close enough to smell. Dropping the rabbit between his teeth onto the dirt, he waited, listening, and then it came again, a shudder that made his body tense with nerves, the fur on his back prickling alert. Talaith, he thought. What is it? What is wrong? Again, Kaherdin paused, but there was no response, and he picked up the rabbit and ran through the brush, feeling nothing but Talaith, feeling nothing but the need to get back to the cave. Around him, the night sang its dark song, other animals scurrying out of his path, branches whipping at him, the moon an arc of light behind him. He kept running, making it to the slope that led to the cave, the dirt suddenly sandy beneath his paws, now feet, the rabbit now in his hand not mouth, his legs pumping as he burst into the dark cave. Talaith? he thought again, wondering what he was doing and how he could have seemingly forgotten his wolf sense in an instant. His thoughts, full of rage and fear, had overridden his long honed practice of stealth. If there were someone or something here in the cave with Talaith, he’d forced the battle to come. Whoever or whatever was in the cave could see him, right now, the blare and blue moonlight framing his silhouette. He was blinking into the darkness, knowing that he was naked, obvious, vulnerable. The laugh rumbled from the back of the cave, and Kaherdin tired to find his breath to control his panting, tried to calm his heartbeat. One by one, the pack emerged from the pocket of the cave: Raf, Sika, Jordan, Leif, and Hong Jessica Inclan

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He couldn’t truly see his pack in front of him, only their shapes. But they were approaching slowly, steadily, as if they were still wolves, as if he were an injured elk. Slowly, his eyes adjusted, and there they all stood before him, their eyes glinting in the darkness, waiting for him to make his last move. Kaherdin tossed the rabbit aside, backing up a bit, knowing that the fight he had long tried to avoid was finally upon him. “Are you here looking for your little friend?” Raf said. “Are you concerned for her well being? How sweet.” Kaherdin didn’t say anything. He was finally focused, finally alert, watching for what he could see, breathing in for what he could smell. But then he heard the words with his human ear. Little friend. Things inside him pounded, his ears ringing at the sound. “Yes,” Raf continued. “You are so disturbed. Your poor little friend. But it is you I was trying to find. Who we were trying to find.” “Why?” Kaherdin asked, shaking his head. He’d never understood the pack-thought, packmind. He’d never wondered why they all did what they did, together, in unison, or with permission. He thought that if he’d disappeared one night, they assumed something had happened to him or that he’d done what terribly injured Wahya over the centuries had done: wandered away into the dark night to meet fate head on. But this search for him? One they didn’t care about or need? It made no sense.

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Raf ignored his question, taking time with another thought. Then he laughed again. “Did you think you were traveling without scent? Did you think we wouldn’t want to know where you went off to? Sika, especially, was so concerned for you.” Kaherdin glanced at Sika, but she ignored his look, keeping her focus on Raf, waiting for the pack leader’s cue, his command. And the command would only be one to kill, to attack. It would come as a motion, a flick, a thought that the entire pack would hear and see and smell, and they would know, just like that, to change and move in for the kill. “Do you really need me in the pack?” Kaherdin asked. “You’ve made it clear I’m not that important.” Raf laughed, the sound grating, making Kaherdin want to attack preemptively, just to get this conversation done, make it so that he’d never hear that laugh again. But he couldn’t do that. He had to find out what they’d done with Talaith. “Where is she?” he asked. Raf laughed again, the sound always having the exact opposite effect that laughter was supposed to have. Instead of making Kaherdin smile, commiserating on what was funny, the sound made the hair at the back of his neck rise and prickle. “Oh, we’ve taken care of her” he said. “It was such a pleasure. What a delicate morsel.” Taken care of. That could only mean one thing. Talaith had not made it through his night hunt. No, she’d waited here for him, waited alone in the darkness, without weapon, without any power. All the parts of him that could hate, hated, and he knew that he’d turned wolf just as he was leaping toward Raf, his teeth barred.

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But Raf had sensed the attack, and he was now wolf as well, both of them in the fight that had been brewing for centuries, since the time Kaherdin pulled away from the pack, became the lone wolf. Kaherdin thought to strategize the fight, his moves, his attack, but his wolf sense took over him, the world all about the senses, the body, the smells of fear and anger and revenge and hate. The fight about teeth and jaws and claws. There was fur and saliva and deep, low growls. They twirled around each other, teeth barred, paws one, two, one, two in the soft earth of the cave. He had Raf by the neck, and then Raf had him, both of them suddenly flung back, panting, until they lunged at each other again, the rest of the pack watching, all of them changed into their wolves. The bold, burgundy tang of blood filled his nostrils, and Kaherdin didn’t know whose blood it was. But it didn’t matter, really. Death was in the air as well as blood. The pack drew closer, closer, waiting for the sign Raf would give them to help, to lunge forward, to end it all He heard his whine, his growl, and then they were apart, both circling each other again. If Talaith were dead at the back of the cave, it didn’t really matter what happened now. He would fight for her memory and he would fight for her death. And then, he would fight for himself, giving everything over to this one last fight. What was the point of living, really, if all that he had waited for these long centuries was gone? Talaith gone. Adrenalin coursed through his entire body, filling his muscles, his mind, and as he stepped back, ready to take that final, last, lunge, something was on him, something holding him, and then he heard, Think with me. Think with me.

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And what he saw was a place he had only seen in a dream, a place with a field, a mountain, a sky that was not dusky hued but almost blue. This was a familiar place, a place of light and hope and freedom, a place he longed for in those seconds before he fell asleep each morning. Think with me. So Kaherdin thought, focusing on the field, the mountain, the blue sky, put as much attention as he could on that feeling holding him, holding his wolf self. He let go into the embrace, somehow understanding that this dream must mean he was already dead, bleeding out from a wound he didn’t know Raf had inflicted during the fight. It had been his blood in the air, the smell of his death all around him. So this was how it was going to go. At least it was pleasant. Kaherdin was sailing through, floating in gray, holding onto the thought that seemed to pull him forward. Think with me, the thought came again. Maybe the ideas about a heaven were true, he imagined. For all his life, he believed that the tales of an afterlife were simply sad myths the people in the older times told each other to keep life bearable. How hard it must have been to believe in anything when death was always imminent, possible, expected, and, finally, unavoidable. And how lovely this! As he floated in the gray, the vision of the mountain, the blue sky, the deep green field in his mind’s eyes, he thought that the only tale before Talaith that would have made him happy was one that involved his death, the story of it finally ending. Of him, ending. Now that Talaith was gone, his ending seemed natural. Perfect. There was a symmetry to this sadness, a perfection of despair and he was ready for it. This was his new story, his final myth, the one he would take nowhere because when he bled out his last ounce of blood, all of this, everything, would end. Jessica Inclan

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A story ends in fluff, he thought, holding on to whatever was carrying him along. A story ends with softness. But then he hit ground, dirt, earth, the thud of his bones and body echoing in his head, his mind. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see before there was nothing to see was that the gray was gone. There was only darkness.

“Kaherdin?” the voice said, the soft, insistent tones cracking through into his thoughts. “Wake up. He felt something pushing him gently, his shoulder moving back and forth. His entire body ached, and there was a sharp pain on his wrist and his arm. But he was so tired, so cold. It felt better to keep his eyes closed and just let the rest of this death happen without him. “Please,” the voice said. “I think—we need to get out of here.” Here, he thought. Where was here? And if death was a place he could escape out of, then maybe he wasn’t dead at all. “Wha….” He tried to say, his voice stuck somewhere low in his throat, his voice all rocks, gravel, broken glass. “We—we’re at. . . the spot. This place. But I don’t know anything about it, and we are in the middle of it, wherever it is. Out in the open. Listen, wake up.” Kaherdin felt something move his shoulder again, this time with a little more force, and he pulled his eyes open hard, using all the energy he had, his eyelids feeling as though they were stuck together with mortar. But then he was blinking against brilliant light, white beautiful light, and he gasped before he could even take in a breath. Jessica Inclan

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“Where?” he said. “Who?” “Me,” she said, this luminous gold figure standing over him. The stories must be true. They were true. Where else would this gold, this blue, this whiter than white exist, unless he was dreaming. Only in death could he be sitting out in this light, unconcerned about the effect on his body. The only place he’d ever imagined such beauty was in his imagination, and even then, he’d discounted everything. But then Talaith had come true. So why not this? Why not this? This? There was no such beauty. He was either dead or he was dying. There was no brilliance like this in the world that the people in the old times left for them. But the sun’s rays felt real, pricks of light shooting into him. He’d never felt so much sun on him, and even though it warmed him in a way he’d never been warmed before, he knew it was doing something bad to his body. He could feel small things sizzling inside him, his blood working the wrong way. “Kaherdin,” she said. “Please. It’s light out. It’s too light. It’s dangerous. Maybe. I don’t know. Just sit up.” Her voice was so familiar. And he blinked against this glow, this glimmer. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was sitting on a field in the broad beautiful light. He was in the light, and he shouldn’t be, not even if this were a dream. “Is it—is it you?” he asked as she pulled him up. “Of course it’s me,” she said. “Who else would it be?” “Are you alive?” And there, in the middle of a strange field full of deep green grass—in the middle of the day, in sunlight he’d never seen before—he heard the only news he’d ever wanted to hear. Jessica Inclan

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“Yes,” she said, pulling him toward a grove of trees and darkness. “Yes, of course I am. All we have to do is get to the trees. We can think about what to do. And I can tend to your wounds.” Kaherdin moved, he walked, but he was a contradiction of emotions, the urge to laugh and cry both powerful in his chest. She’d survived the pack. She’d escaped and come back to rescue him from a certain death, a certain and true as the wolves encircling him. And now they were in heaven or something like it. Maybe now Talaith would tell him what had happened to her back in her world. Maybe now, she would accept his touch, his embrace, without fear. “Just a little farther,” she said, the shade from the tops of the trees now hitting him, the stillness of cooler air enveloping them both. “Why—why don’t you just take us to the dark middle with your fancy trick?” he asked. “Save us at least 500 yards.” Talaith looked at him, her face not full of his jest but of concern. “You can make it? It’s not too far.” “No,” he said. “I wasn’t serious. I’m okay. I’m feeling better.” And Kaherdin was feeling better, the wounds on his legs and shoulder no longer throbbing, his body recovered from the strange trip and the dose of sunlight. In the forest, the air was cool, the light dampened and then completely blocked by what looked like an enormous pine forest. He breathed in the smells of dirt and wet leaves. Under foot was a thick carpet of needles, the brush thick amongst the tree trunks, which were covered in moss. When he looked up, he only saw pinpricks of light, as though he were looking up at the night sky full of stars. In a very dark spot in the center of the forest, Talaith stopped, looking around, looking up into the canopy for any breaks in the limbs that blotted out the sun. Jessica Inclan

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“Here,” she said. “We can build a shelter. And I need to look at your injuries. I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner. In a way, I think I was lost for a bit.” Kaherdin nodded, smiled a little, knowing that he had been lost for centuries. He was finally not lost, finally found, even if he was hurt and even if he’d been in the sunlight too long. He was naked and found. He was bleeding and found. Talaith had found him. Twice. She’d come for him, bridging everything to bring him here, to bring him to himself. To bring him to her. They walked over to a large tree trunk, and Talaith took a blanket out of one of her bags, spreading it out and then helped him sit down. She covered him with half of it, and he realized he never had considered nakedness before, a natural state for himself and the Wahya. Not until Talaith had come into his life did he realize that it was somehow odd. She dug in her bag, pulling out things she looked at briefly before digging for others. She placed bottles and a shirt and what looked like shears on the blanket. She turned to him, sighing. “When they first came in the cave, I didn’t know where to travel to. I wanted to find you, and I thought to call out to you. Just like you said. But then I wondered if they would hear me. So I just knew I had to go, and this dream of mine, this place, popped into my head.” “You had this dream, too?” he said, settling against the trunk, wishing he had his clothes, even the pants that Talaith had lent him. “So did I. And—you were in my dream. It was always you I turned to at the end of it, both of us looking toward the mountains.” They stared at each other, and she blushed, a red he could see even in the dark of the forest. A lock of fine gold hair fell over her shoulder, dangling in the space between them, and he wanted to tuck it behind her ear. He wanted to pull her toward him as he had done in the gray, kissing her and holding her next to him. The thoughts he had made him even more clear that he was exposed and naked and with a woman who, for some reason, was afraid of his touch right Jessica Inclan

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now. An erection wouldn’t make matters better, so he breathed, closed his eyes, waited for her to speak. His excitement faded, as did his memory of their kiss. Another breath, and Kaherdin was all right, needing the conversation to continue. “What does a shared dream mean?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he said, moving toward her and then wincing. “Don’t move,” she said, taking another bottle out of her bag. She dabbed a towel with the liquid from the bottom, gently pressing the towel to the wound on his shoulder. The pain was immediate but felt cleansing, right, as if her ministrations would take away the fight with Raf, the mystery of where they were and how they got here. She dabbed the towel again, and he closed his eyes, leaning his whole weight against the tree, letting her clean the wounds from the fight. She moved to a wound on his chest, and he focused on his wounds and not her touch, willing himself away from excitement and desire. “You are healing already,” she said. “So much faster than we do.” “Part of the super wolf powers,” he said, opening his eyes. “By the time we leave, I should be just fine.” “That’s amazing,” she said. “So if I take the elixir, I will heal like a normal person,” he said. “Whatever that is.” “No, we still have that power to heal faster than The Untouched, and I guess they are the only normal people around. We don’t heal quite like you.” She looked up from her ministrations, and he saw that the bruise that had hung under her eye like a thumb print was completely gone. Talaith noticed his gaze, and brought her hand to her face, briefly before working on him again.

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She blotted his wound, examining the blood flow. “And while we may get ill now and again, we get well soon. I suppose I don’t know what average is.” Talaith put down the towel and nodded. She looked up at him, her smile wide, and he knew that he couldn’t help himself. Kaherdin couldn’t stop what happened, the way his hand reached up to find that lock of hair, the way he let his fingers slide down the smooth, soft strand, following its length, lingering on the delicate curl at the end. “Kha—“ she began, and he dropped the lock, moving his finger to her upper lip, placing his finger gently in the notch between her lip and nose, sliding it down to her bottom lip. He brought his other hand to her jaw, running his hand along her smooth, beautiful face, feeling the softness of the tiny blond hair near her ear, hair that had sparkled in the time they were in the sun. “I—“ she started again, and then he put one hand on her shoulder and leaned into her, bringing his lips to hers, replacing his finger with his mouth, gently, gently kissing her. Unlike in the cave, she moved toward him without pause, her mouth under his own opening. He breathed her breath, felt her tongue, kissed her in a way he’d never kissed a woman before. It was a kiss with conversation, with words unspoken. This kiss said yes. This kiss said what his body was feeling, the heat and the need and the longing of centuries. He pulled her closer, moving them both down onto the blanket, bringing her on top of him, loving the weight of her body on his. Underneath him, Kaherdin felt the cool earth, heard the rustle of pine needles and leaves as they moved together. Part of him waited for her to stop him, to pull back, to move away as she had before, but Talaith let one hand slip behind his neck, her body warm, still full of the sunlight they’d just been in, her body and her face and her kiss like that sun, like that sky, wide open and full of light. Jessica Inclan

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Kaherdin let his hands feel her, roam over her body, touch the strong muscles of her back and shoulders leading to the slim curve of her waist, the flesh under her shirt warm as the rest of her. As he kissed her, his heart pounded so hard, he imagined that she could feel his nerves, his body afraid of the same thing his mind was—that she’d pull away. That like before, she would bring all that space back between them, the space that hadn’t existed until the night she appeared in the forest. Whatever had happened to Talaith in her colony had been bad enough to keep her from him; he knew now that holding herself distant was not what she really desired. How could it be? Now she was giving her mouth, her body, her hands to him. She was pulling him toward as much as being pulled closer. “Oh,” she said, but he heard her thought, the sound of her yes the sound that had always drawn him to her Oh. Her body was a metaphor for her mind, her thoughts, her soul, all saying yes to him, all wanting the connection that the flesh could bring them, all wanting the tangible and intangible twined in one action. Yes. Rolling on top of her pressing her now against the blanket, he pulled back from their kiss, looking into her face, her eyes, asking the question he was afraid to ask but needed to anyway. “Are you sure?” he said or thought he said, his voice nowhere in his throat, everything about him ragged and hoarse and over eager. Everything in him wanting her answer not to be no. Everything of him wanting this to be the beginning of something and not the end. Yes. Jessica Inclan

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Oh, he thought, breathing out, bringing one hand to her shirt, slowly pushing it up and off with her help, her beautiful body now before him. Yes. Oh. Kaherdin brought his lips to her collarbone, to her sternum, hearing and feeling her heart against his cheek, his lips, knowing that her nerves matched his own. But as she said yes to him again with her movements, and his own nerves started to leave him, this thing they were doing became memory or re-memory, this embrace an embrace from dream, her scent of lavender and vanilla known, her softness, her muscles, the line of her fine bones a line he’d known since forever. She shuffled off her pants, and then he laid his full body on top of hers, the warmth that warmth he’d needed and known he’d needed. It was the warmth he’d longed for each morning as he lay in bed at the compound after a long, cruel, cold night of hunting. He hadn’t been insane to want it after all because here she was. He wasn’t crazy for dreaming of the woman with the long blonde hair and blue eyes because here she was underneath him. You are so lovely, he thought, kissing first one breast and then the other, her skin soft and sweet. Oh. She parted her legs, and he moved into her, again guided by a memory of being here before. He closed his eyes at the burst of beautiful pleasure, the way she fit around him, the way she moved in small, gentle movements with him. Yes. And she was holding him, stroking him, kissing his face, his lips, letting herself feel him as he felt her. They were in this, and everything, together, both of them making love and making a life Jessica Inclan

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in this new place, a place with no rules. They were on the forest floor, their bodies joined in the way that they had to be joined, and it was amazing. For once in his life, felt all the parts of him—his man and his wolf parts—join in an action. All his strength, his senses, his muscles, his heart, his thoughts were unified in this one thing he was doing, that they were doing. He didn’t feel split or half or un-unified. He felt of one mind, one body, and all of him was here with Talaith on this forest floor. He was inside her and moving, and she was moving along with him, as if they were running side by side, as if she were the companion he’d imagined not only as a man but as a wolf. Oh. They moved together, she holding his face, he holding hers, everything working toward this feeling they’d waited for, waited too long for, longed for. And even though he had never felt so much himself, so complete, as they moved—faster now, harder now--he lost the sense of himself, he could no longer feel the fine line of where he ended and she began. They were moving together, and it was bliss. Yes. Oh, yes.

Later, they lay on the blanket, the forest still and quiet save for the occasional bird fluttering high in the tall boughs of the trees, cawing out to its mate. The air was getting cooler now, the afternoon edging toward night, Kaherdin supposed, though it was hard to tell, the trees so dense that night and day were merged in the same way they had just been. Her silky, soft hair was on his chest, her head tucked under his shoulder. She smelled as she always did of lavender and vanilla, but now there was also the scent of their skin and sweat and Jessica Inclan

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lovemaking. They were pressed close, warm and tight. And since that first moment of moving toward and not away from him, she’d not cringed or closed her eyes or turned her back. He wanted to ask her what had changed, but they were just so barely touching the ground of this newness he didn’t want to blow them off the path. This was where he’d always wanted to be, even if he hadn’t had the words for it before. Something had hurt her and scared her and kept her from him. And then it didn’t. He wanted to take yes for an answer and let the doubts disappear like morning fog. Seeming to sense his thoughts, Talaith shifted against him, looking up at him, a small, happy smile on her face and in her eyes, nothing between them. “Hi,” he said. “I think you fell asleep.” “Maybe,” she said, leaning up on one elbow. “And when I woke up, I hoped that what happened hadn’t been a dream. You’ve always been a dream to me, and I couldn’t believe we’d finally had a little bit of real.” Kaherdin touched a lock of her hair, little bits of leaf and needle twined into the gold. In fact, they were both covered with bits of the forest floor; Talaith had a smudge of dirt on her cheek, her hair a wild tussle around her head. He was used to roaming in nature, part of the forest, the trees and dirt, but she didn’t turn into a wolf when needed, didn’t show up at her colony home covered in dirt and blood. “It was no dream,” he said. “I think this is about as real as it gets. Dirt, cold, no food, at least not for you.” This wasn’t really what he wanted to be talking about, and he thought of how to steer the conversation back to their love making. He wanted to tell her how something inside of him just

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cracked wide open and also how his whole self came together. He wanted to tell her how it was because of her and her alone. But the moment seemed to have passed, and there were other things to think about. Like food and water. They needed to figure out where they were and what they should do next. They needed to decide what to do with the elixir, which could change everything. And he had no clothes. “So,” Kaherdin said, touching her shoulder, wanting to pull her back on top of him. He felt like a scavenger and not a hunter, a creature that survived on remains. A scared, tentative part of him worried that they would never be in this spot again, naked, vulnerable, open, and ready. He wanted to stop everything so they could stay right her and make love over and over again because the world they lived in did not allow for such happiness. He felt greedy and needy and he sighed, pushing the feelings away with his breath. “We need to decide what to do. We didn’t exactly figure out our plan before Raf and the pack showed up.” Talaith nodded, pushing some feeling of her own away, and he hoped that it was the same as his. He hoped she wanted more of him, now and always, but knew—again as he—that they needed to make some decisions. “It’s going to be night soon,” she said. “At least I think. And then I think we should travel.” “You don’t want me to take the elixir,” he asked. A strange defensive, slightly angry emotion flicked at his heart. “Of course I do,” she said. “But I think we should hold off for as long as we can now. Things have changed. Literally. I only have two vials. And we don’t know how long we will have to travel to find where we are going. We might have to leave this place and aim for Jessica Inclan

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another. I don’t know where to take us, so I think we need to travel the only way we can otherwise. On foot.” “It would be a lot easier to go the way we came,” Kaherdin said, smiling, knowing now that she did want him to change, to become like her. To stay with her. Talaith nodded and sat up, clutching a little of the blanket to her breasts, and he found his eyes resting there, knowing their softness, their warmth. Stop, he thought. Not now. “I know it would be easier,” she said. “But I have to be able to picture some place, I think. Even though I had no idea where we were going literally, I had my dream in my mind and just held onto to it. But I don’t know how it works, really. It’s not as though I know what I’m doing yet. But I have so few places in my mind. The three colonies. The forest where I found you. The dream of the field just beyond this forest.” “There’s the map of the world that you saw,” he said. “All the world is pink and blue and green like a child’s drawing,” she said. “I could remember it, and we’d end up in a vat of paint.” Kaherdin sat up, putting his arm around her, knowing that things would stay as they were for a while. They would travel in this new place and see what they could find together, for however far and for however long they could. He didn’t know how dangerous it would be. He didn’t seem to be able to smell what was in front of them, ahead, in the distance. This was a new place on this planet, one neither of them had ever been before, everything a mystery. The people here —if there were people here--could be worse than he, monsters of a darker sort. Or they could be the only true, healthy people left. There was no telling. There was no way to find out but to go through and into it all. Jessica Inclan

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And they would go, and then one day, soon, he would take the elixir. Sometime soon, Talaith would take another dose. Maybe they’d have a year before they would have to go back and confront the colonies. But for now, Kaherdin was still the wolf, and the wolf was going to have to hunt for them both. “We’ll start here, just like you said. We will travel at night, but first I’m going to have to hunt. And we are going to have to eat and find more water. Then we will do what we need to, for as long as we need to.” At his words, Talaith seemed to relax, letting her body lean against his, moving closer to him, heat between them. “I’m just so glad,” she began. “Yes?” “You,” she said. “So glad to have found you.” He nodded, pulling her closer, and they leaned against the tree. There they were, two people brought together impossibly, a coupling that should not exist. But neither of them should exist, and yet, they did. Nothing should have survived the poisoning. Nothing should have survived the thousand year war between their two people. The world should have ended in either fire or ice or something larger and worse. But life clung on, mutated as it had become. Despite everything, here life was, all around them, in the trees and birds overhead, in that wide blue sky and brilliant sun. All these years of quick visions of each other, here they were—Kaherdin and Talaith—sitting under a pine tree in the middle of nowhere known or understood. Somehow, they clung on to the dream of the other, and now they had to cling onto the facts of what they had to do. But they would do it all together.

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Kaherdin kissed her head, held her close, listening to his own heart, the wind in the trees, the birds calling out as night fell in the forest.

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NINE

As if the afternoon had been as much of a dream as all her other encounters with Kaherdin, Talaith was dressed again, the blanket shaken free of needles and dirt, her bags packed and in her hand. Kaherdin stood beside her, still naked and so very beautiful, so she knew that maybe it all had been real. She had a hard time keeping her eyes on his face because she wanted to let her gaze and her mind slip back to just minutes ago, when they lay on the blanket together. Breathing out into the quiet forest air, she couldn’t imagine how it had happened. Talaith hadn’t thought herself ready to be touched, feeling herself recoil even from herself, wanting since that night to get away from the dirty, horrible feeling of her own body, the body that Liam had damaged, taken, used. She hadn’t thought herself worthy of his embrace. But for that long, beautiful hour of time with Kaherdin on the blanket, she’d not thought once of Liam. It was as if the rape hadn’t happened at all. No slamming down on the hard shore, no renting of fabric, no ripping of flesh. And because the rape hadn’t happened, neither had the subsequent hours, the ones where she heard how both Liam and her father had betrayed everyone, all of the Colonies and all The Others. There had been no escape from Uveris. There had been no threat to Rachel. She had not had to steal the elixir and run away from everyone and everything she had known her entire life. No. None of that was there. The hour in Kaherdin’s arms had been only about him. And her. Together, their movements and kisses and sighs the story of that hour. A very good story, one with joy at the end, one with love. Jessica Inclan

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But as they had pulled away from one another, the coming night urging them off the blanket, Talaith had remembered Liam and his dark shadow of a touch, the bruise of his angry assault. She remembered her father and his arrogant, angry words. Worse, the thought of Liam now seemed like a lie, as though she were keeping something from Kaherdin, something he needed to know. Now, looking at his strong profile, his long, beautiful dark hair, his contoured and muscled body, she didn’t know when Kaherdin needed that part of the story. Delivering that information would be like bringing him a basket of rotten fruit, something inedible in so many ways and spoiled. “Are you okay?” he asked now, taking her free hand. “Are you ready for this? To see it all?” Because he was talking to her, she felt she could relax into his gaze and take him all in. His face—at her window so many times—was now in front of her, and she lifted her hand to his cheek, feeling the prickle of beard, the contours of bone and skin, the way his smile felt under her palm. She was enthralled by his collarbones, his rounded, strong shoulders, the strength in his neck and abdomen—and everywhere else. Blinking, taking in air, Talaith nodded. She had to be ready. This was the next part of the story and there was no stopping what they had to do. “I’ve never done this in front of you,” he said. “Yes, you have,” she said. “That first night. And then all those times in dreams. I’ve seen you change.” He leaned over and kissed her on one cheek and then the other. Then he kissed her on the lips, and she let one bag drop to the ground, putting her hand on his waist. “Oh,” she sighed. Jessica Inclan

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“No,” he said. “Don’t tease me with that sound. You know what it’s always done to me. It’s your call to me, and I can’t listen to that right now, no matter how much I want to. And I want to.” He kissed her next to her mouth, on her nose, her chin. “I want to change, but in the way I can as a human. I want to change and move inside of you.” Kaherdin seemed to breathe her in, take in her scents, just as his wolf would. But it was the same way she wanted to take him in, like the true animal she felt she was, so connected somehow to herself. All her parts seemed to fit together for the first time in her life: head to neck and body to arms, body to legs to feet, all of her one sharp, solid moving part. Lifting his head, he whispered, “We have to move into the night.” “I know,” she whispered, not wanting to move away from the spot. “Do you really?” He pulled her closer, kissed her again, harder, his mouth warm. “Do you really know?” “No,” she said. “I’m lying. I don’t know, and I don’t want to leave here. This is the best spot in the entire world.” Kaherdin kissed her a last time and then he pulled back. “We don’t know anything about the world. That’s part of our problem. We don’t know where we are going.” Talaith wanted to argue with him because she knew where she was going. She was going wherever he did, into whatever world they were in. Her direction seemed clear even in the middle of all this confusion. His hand brushed a leaf or twig off her coat, pushed a lock of hair behind her shoulder. “We have to go. We’re both hungry. And who knows where we are or how far we need to go.” Talaith picked up her bags, nodding. “You’re right.” Jessica Inclan

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She looked up into his face, seeing his smile, his teeth white even in the grainy light of evening. She thought of those teeth as fangs, what they turned into when he turned into a wolf. She wondered why this transmogrification never surprised her, not even when she was little and the thought of The Others was new. Maybe she understood somehow that one day, she’d be standing in the middle of a strange forest with the man who loved her, a man who was a parttime wolf. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to change. You need to follow me, until I turn around to you. When I do that, you need to stop and say put. Stay right there. Stay still and quiet. And then I’ll be back.” “How long do you think we will walk?” “As long as it takes,” he said. “Hunting isn’t like farming. The food isn’t just there, and it certainly doesn’t come forward and offer itself up like a potato.” “You know about potatoes?” she said. “How do you know about potatoes?” “I know about a lot of things,” he said, touching her sleeve. “When I can, I read. And when I can’t read, I imagine. That’s how I found you.” “So, I’m a potato,” she said, laughing. “A very rare and luscious potato,” he said. “My little blond goddess potato.” “Oh,” she said. “I told you, don’t start with me,” Kaherdin said. “Please. Let’s start the night, or we will end up starving to death while making love. It will be a first. A sad first.” Nodding, she sighed. The night had to start. They had to start. “Okay,” he said, turning away from her. The first night she’d been with him, Talaith had watched him change twice, but he’d moved away from her each time, his transformation from Jessica Inclan

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man to wolf hidden in the darkness, unclear to her due to the buzz of fatigue that had filled her head. Now, Talaith was truly watching. And then the most amazing thing happened, more amazing, in a way, than the births she’d seen, and she’d seen many, The Untouched continuing to breed in relentless generations. As she stared at him in the dark, his profile and form barely visible, she saw him seem to shrink, to bend over, but he wasn’t bending over. His tall, straight spine was now hunched over as if he were picking up something off the forest floor. But he stayed hunched over, his legs shortening, bending, his long hair no longer dangling in front of him. He had no hair. He had black fur and paws and a tail. She wanted to laugh and to shout, this change a miracle, an abomination, a joke, a magic trick. For a moment, he reminded her of the animals that The Untouched kept, those creatures who looked at their masters with adoration. But how short they lived, how quick that affection, a blink in Talaith’s life. If Rachel thought that loving an untouched human was dangerous, how dangerous this kind of love, fleeting and ephemeral like smoke. Yet without thinking about it, she dropped her bags again and fell to her knees, her face next to his wolf face, and without thinking, she reached out and stroked him head, his smooth, soft animal body. Kaherdin was a beautiful wolf, and she had not grown up thinking that wolves were beautiful. In fact, she’d seen them as evil, horrid, wretched ever-hungry creatures. But he —as an animal—was gorgeous, almost regal. He allowed the caress, though he stared ahead, his animal mind already focused on what he was going to do. He was still, quiet, accepting the touch, his tail up, his ears pricked, his senses likely deep into the forest, the field where night animals moved in the bracken. But after a moment, Kaherdin turned to her hand, licked it, and Jessica Inclan

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then trotted off. When she didn’t immediately follow, he stopped but did not look back, the sign for her to come along. Her heart beating fast, her breath shallow, Talaith knew he was right. She stood, picked up her bags, and followed the wolf, her love, into the forest.

They walked for what seemed like an hour, maybe two. They’d moved out of the forest onto a wide, open plain, the grass a moving gray landscape. The air was still and mild, a tiny chill whisking past her face at times. Talaith couldn’t see more than the vague outline, but she thought that the mountain that had so often appeared in her dreams was to the right. Her bags banged against her thighs, and every so often, she put her hand to her pocket to make sure that the elixir was still there, still safe, this part of their plan so important. She was so far from home, and yet, she didn’t know where she was. All she knew was that she was in a place that was cleaner than The Colonies, cleaner than the area around Kaherdin’s compound. Finally, she was in The Out World, that imaginary but true place. Here, the very air was thinner, sweeter, filled with smells she’d never encountered before. The forest was full of birds and creatures and plants she had never seen in her entire life. As she walked on, step after step, she thought of the map that Jodoc had shown her all those years ago. Was she in the land of blue? Or the land of pink? Had she crossed the wide ocean or an entire piece of land? The mountain top to the right had been covered in snow, snow that didn’t fall to the ground slightly dirty.

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What had happened here? Or what had not? Had people not made it to this spot after The Poisoning? Or was there a huge group here, ready to defend themselves against those like Talaith and Kaherdin, ready to kill off their kinds, mutants both. And if Jodoc had had the abilities that she now possessed, why hadn’t he found this place for his people, a place where they could live without the fear of The Others? But then she remembered that the fear they had of The Others was manufactured. It was a fear that could have been solved with a dose of elixir once a year. In front of her, she saw the swift flick of Kaherdin moving through the grass. She followed his thin trail, imagining the way his wolf body felt as he moved through the tall, slightly sharp blades. Whisk, whisk, whisk, the sound containing the same rhythm as her steps, one, two, three. The night light around her, the land so quiet, so still, nothing but their movement forward, Talaith felt herself grow sleepy, tired, ready for rest. But then something startled her out of her stupor. Looking up, she saw Kaherdin staring at her, his eyes glimmering. Without even remembering what to do, she did remember, stopping up short, looking toward him. He seemed to nod, and then he turned around, moving back into the grass and disappearing. She was alone in the field, the moon edging up over the horizon. The mountain began to shine like a jewel in the night, the air wrapping around her, the sounds of the life in the field echoing in the dome of sky. Somewhere, she thought she heard a slight sound, a yelp, a whine, a cry, the grass moving in a wild foment. Then there was nothing for a while, but as she listened, all her senses wide awake, she heard movement, something coming toward her. And then, there was Kaherdin, a creature in his mouth. He dropped it in front of her, the body landing with a light thump on the earth. She Jessica Inclan

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hoped that he would change back to his human form, but then she realized that he would not be eating at “home.” His “meal” might go on for hours, the wolf in him needing more than one rabbit to satisfy him. He couldn’t add on an oatcake or piece of dried fruit to his meal. She was on her own with this rabbit. The wolf, Kaherdin, seemed to look at her for a moment and then turned to walk toward a darkness to their left, a grove of trees. He disappeared between two trees, gone back to his hunting. As long as she could, Talaith tried to follow him with her eyes, but he was soon swallowed up by the night. At her feet, she saw the small dead body of the creature that would be her meal. She could not, actually, believe that she was here with her eventual meal on the ground. And yet, at the same time, she could not believe that she—a grown woman—did not know how to prepare her own food. Without help, she was useless, someone who needed others in order to stay alive. Certainly, she had seen the way that food was produced. She visited Untouched farms and seen the evidence of how animals gave up their lives for them all. She’d seen butchered cows and pigs, and every day, she’d paid attention to the food that she either picked up at market or took out of the basket that was delivered to her or that she or Rachel grew in their backyards. Mostly, though, there the food was, ready to eat, the carrots cleaned and chickens dressed, everything ready for her to simply bake or steam or sauté. She was the spoiled, privileged daughter of Jodoc Rikala, and she’d never had to fend for herself. She’d been tended to and cared for, even during the long years of her life. Scores of The Untouched had helped her live all these long years. They’d used The Untouched as servants, letting them take over the farming and animal husbandry. Why? Maybe The Colonists thought they had better things to do, like decide who could erect a damn building by the river. Jessica Inclan

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Why hadn’t they learned how to do these essential things? Why didn’t they know how to raise and slaughter a cow? Why didn’t she? She had no skills to survive, and no skills she could even trade for other skills. She was helpless, and the fact of her ineptitude made her feel a coward, a fool, useless. She had to live, so she had to eat. But a rabbit? Kneeling, she felt the small, still warm body, the soft, soft fur. What was she going to do with this? Without bidding, quiet tears fell from her eyes. Why was this stopping her? From the moment she’d walked out to the lake and met Kaherdin in the gray, nothing had been ordinary. This was one of just many things that had been difficult. This seemed different, though, a step once taken would lead her nowhere close to back, to home, to normal. She was truly gone from Uveris and her old life when she picked up this rabbit from the forest floor and made a meal from it. It had to be done. She had no choice. Talaith Rikala stood up and took in a deep breath of night. Somehow, she was going to eat. And she was going to have to eat this rabbit.

Aside from the crackling of the fire and the occasional hiss of fat dripping into the flames, the night was silent. Now and again, she was sure she heard something, and once or twice she stood up, looking out into the night, thinking she saw something just outside the ring of light. But then nothing would come forward, no large, angry wolf or horde of wild, Untouched humans, finally getting their revenge. So she’d gone back to tending her fire, poking at it with a long stick, moving the red orange embers under the cooking meat.

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Talaith had moved closer to the forest and managed to find small rocks and large stones for a fire pit and sufficient kindling and logs to make a fire big enough to cook over. Pulling from some memory of a story book she’d read as a child that involved what was called “camping,” she’d remembered the way the campers had used a stick to cook a rabbit—a stick supported by two others that held the rabbit over the flame. Before she’d left Uveris, she’d packed up so many things that seemed useless now—two bracelets she imagined she’d never be able to live without, a headband for her hair, a small bottle of lavender perfume—but she had managed to bring cutlery and a very sharp, heavy knife, which would now prove to be very useful. But she had to see. Talaith held the rabbit by the back legs, gathering the skin around the tiny ankles, the fur so soft in her hand she almost wanted to drop it. But this was food, so she had to go on, or it was oatcakes and dried fruit, both of which were going to run out soon. She could feel how loose the skin was, so she twisted it, noting how it pulled away from the muscle underneath it, and despite herself, she could help but thinking of Rachel’s current cat Mo, tiny, soft, and black, with a penchant for weaving in between Talaith’s legs. “Stop it,” she said to no one, closing her eyes and sighing. This rabbit was not Mo, despite the similar softness under her hand. Her eyes almost closed, Talaith pulled the loosened skin off one leg and then the other, tears in her eyes as she did. When the skin was off both legs, she yanked it quickly up over the poor creature’s hips all the way to its head, the fur hanging like a ghastly cape. Holding the rabbit in one hand, looking up into the forest, Talaith realized that this was not where she ever imagined herself to be. Somehow, more than traveling through matter or being in The Out World, this moment, this grizzly one right here, seemed weirder than anything else she’d ever experienced. Jessica Inclan

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Talaith knew what she had to do now. She bent down, placed the rabbit on a large, flat stone and picked up the heavy knife. For this act, she couldn’t close her eyes. For this, she had to be focused, deft, and clear. Laying her right hand on the animal’s skinned body, she put the knife edge on its now hairless neck and made one, two, three, four interminable, horrible cuts. In her long life, she’d cut apart hundreds of chickens, but she’d never had to deal with a rabbit eye, that little black shiny button, dead now to everything. But Kaherdin’s kill shake and twist must have broken its tiny neck, and within seconds, the head was off, on the ground. “Oh,” she cried, wishing she could close her eyes. Quickly, she cut off the creature’s little rabbit legs. “Ugh!” she cried. “Holy Hannah!” Breathing out heavily again, Talaith shook her head. In the days of The Before People, people though rabbit’s feet brought good luck. They carried them around, little dried out bones with fur on them. Talaith knew from stories that these tokens had been favorites of children. But the little icky sticks on the forest floor were nothing but carnage, and the carnage wasn’t over. But she was hungry and growing irritated with her feelings, and she knew she had to get this over with. She made one long quick deep cut along the rabbit’s belly all the way down through the pelvis. With nothing but determination and hunger guiding her, Talaith opened the belly, grabbed the innards and pulled them out. There, she thought. Done. Burying the offal and then rinsing her hands in some of her precious water, she set up her cooking contraption, dropping the rabbit not once but twice into the fire before getting it Jessica Inclan

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balanced. Now and then, Talaith turned the rabbit, letting all sides roast, and now—despite the fact that she’d skinned and gutted the creature, despite the fact she’d been forced to bury the offal at the perimeter of the firelight—her stomach rumbled, the rich, roasted meat smell pulling forth her hunger. Despite the gory work she’d had to perform, she couldn’t wait for the rabbit to be ready. Finally, she stood and pulling her sleeves away from the fire, she poked at the rabbit, trying to feel for doneness. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel in terms of doneness; she was not a good or thoughtful cook but one who simply needed to eat. But as she looked at the roasted animal, she noted that skin was a deep brown, crisp and crackling. Talaith wasn’t certain how long it had been since she put it on the spit, but her stomach said it was time, so she took the rabbit off the stick, laying it on top of two stones she’d rubbed clean with the towel she had packed. She shook her head, wondering why she hadn’t had the foresight to pack thyme or rosemary; somehow, she should have known that outdoor cuisine would have been on the list of activities when she was on the run. As she waited for the meat to slightly cool, she thought she heard more movement in the night. Something in the brush seemed to rustle, and she thought she heard the crunch of leaves under foot. Or under paw. Her body tensed, her mind focused, she listened and then thought. Kaherdin, is that you? She waited, hoping for his human thought to come back to her. Maybe she didn’t know what to listen to for, the wolf thought maybe something like: Grass, trees, fire, human, she. Maybe his wolf thoughts would be a scent, a sound, rather than words, a message she would not know how to hear. Jessica Inclan

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But after holding her mind and body still for another minute, she heard nothing but her stomach—no return message no more crunching of leaves. She picked up the knife and cut into the meat, pulling up a large, juicy, perfectly cooked piece. Who knew how good this would taste? she thought while chewing. And then she didn’t think anything but about eating, the way the rich flavor spread over her tongue, her eyes and mouth watering. This was, she was sure, the best thing she’d ever eaten. And she couldn’t get enough, eating more than she had ever seen herself do. She wondered what Jodoc or Liam would have said if she’d ever sat at a table and gone through an entire chicken in the way she was going through this rabbit. Maybe even Rachel would have raised an eyebrow, wondering if it was time to have a talk with her friend. And despite herself, Talaith finished up the entire rabbit, even pulling at the “drumstick” with her teeth, the bone in her hand just at the moment Kaherdin came back into the light of the fire. He strode forward as a man, and then when he saw her, he smiled, his face glowing, his hair flowing behind him. For a second, she saw him as his wolf and as a man, both parts of him so intense and focused. Before she could even put down the tiny rabbit bone, he stood over her, naked, strong, beautiful, still smiling. “So that worked out?” he said. Talaith nodded, chewing, the flavor overriding her need to talk to him. Kaherdin watched, her, clearly enjoying the sight. “I guess there are many ways to skin a –“ Waving her hands, she tried to get him to stop, not wanting to think about the before part of the meal, just the meal. “Cat,” he said, “though I never actually have seen a cat. Too tasty to have as pets.” Jessica Inclan

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She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then found the towel and tried to do a more genteel job. “Um,” she said, her mouth slightly full. “Stop. This is delicious and I want it to stay that way.” “Good,” Kaherdin said, sitting down next to her. “Hunger never makes a good travel companion.” Talaith nodded, pushing the bones into a discreet pile away from the fire. She swallowed down the last delicious bite, and wondered what she must look like. Slightly greasy, fire blown, red in the face, dirty. All he dreamed of all these long years. You are, he thought. You’re listening? I had to keep my thoughts open to you while I was gone, he thought. I heard all the fun you were having while you cleaned the rabbit. “But I tried to contact you,” she said, ignoring the notion that he’d heard her ineptitude. “I thought I heard something.” “I know,” Kaherdin said. “I heard you, and I checked it out. For all I can tell, we are alone. I do think I saw where there might be a settlement of some kind. There seemed to be lights—a light source about 15 miles to the east. We can look tomorrow night. But soon we have to think about finding a place to sleep, preferably away from this fire and the evidence of your feast.” Talaith blushed. “I didn’t know how hungry I was.” Kaherdin shook his head, looking into the fire. “Hunger is constant and must be tended to. Otherwise, it does things to us, turns us into more of the animals we wish we were not.” “Did you . . .” she began. Jessica Inclan

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“Yes,” he said. “All is well until tomorrow when we will be hungry again. The tyranny of the stomach.” He sighed. “I used to think that life was relentless. A vicious mistress. There is never a break from it, especially when it is hard to die and easy to heal. I should have been dead countless times, but I managed to come back. I should have starved, but something in me forced me out to the hunt. Maybe I was simply trying to stay alive until I met you.” Though Talaith never had suffered in her quest to stay alive, she’d known the relentlessness of life’s long length, the way it seemed to smother her, press on her with its insistence. “Another day,” life said. “Live through it.” He turned to her, his skin warm and the color of caramel in the light. “I know this will sound ridiculous, but meeting you was the same as seeing that bright day, that warm sun. I can’t believe that you are finally here with me. I look at you, and it’s as though we are in the dream but not. Even out in all of this, being here with you is what I’ve always wanted. Now I actually want to live. I want to be alive so that I can be alive with you.” Kaherdin leaned forward to kiss her, his lips soft on her own. He pulled back, looking into her eyes, his gaze the gaze she would recognize anywhere. “And now that we are finally here, together, we are in more danger than ever.” Talaith reached up a hand to stroke his face, his hair, knowing that this one small second was worth years, decades, centuries of her lifetime. “At least we’ve had this. At least we know that it was possible and true and that it happened. That we were real. That our dream was real.” Kissing her again, he smiled. “This is true. But we are back to living through this. We can’t just stop.” She smiled, leaned against his shoulder. “Okay, that does seem important.” Jessica Inclan

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“Glad we agree on that one. So we need to bury this fire and find someplace more secluded to sleep. If we cover a few more miles while doing so, all the better.” “I wish I could get us there, wherever there is,” Talaith said. “It would save us a lot of time.” “You’d have to know it, wouldn’t you? Before you could take us there? And I’m not even sure where there is,” Kaherdin said. “Though I agree moving through matter and space in an instant is a great deal easier than hiking through the dark. But at least I won’t be a wolf this time. We can walk together.” The image of them walking together made her smile and then laugh. “What?” “Oh, I was just picturing your naked butt in the forest,” she said. “My naked butt is in the forest. Right now, as a matter of fact.” Standing, Talaith moved to one of her bags and dug through, finding yet another pair of pants, these even less attractive—for a man—than the first she’d lent him. “How about these?” she said. He stood, walked to her, took the pants from her outstretched hand. “I guess you’d rather see me looking like an idiot than naked.” “Oh, no,” she said. “Don’t think that. But maybe you’d be more comfortable when we walk through brambles and stinging nettles and poison ivy. Maybe when you aren’t bleeding and itchy and full of hives, you’ll thank me.” He looked at her, letting his hand that was holding the pants fall to his side. He slid closer to her, pulling her to him with one arm. “I’d be most comfortable back on a blanket with you. Naked as a jaybird.” “I’ve always wondered,” she said. “What is a jaybird? Do you know? Have you seen one?” Jessica Inclan

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But Kaherdin didn’t answer, kissing her instead, kissing her so hard that she forgot her question, her thought, leaning into him and letting the kiss take over. “Maybe we can hold off on killing the fire for a few minutes,” he said, his hands going under her shirt, his flesh so warm. “Only a few minutes?” she whispered into his neck. “But whatever you do, don’t kill the fire.” “This is one fire that will never die,” he said, or, at least, Talaith thought he said. But how could they even be talking when they were kissing, when they were kneeling on the forest floor, when they were together, their bodies finding that new place that seemed so known, so perfect. The fire crackled, the forest swayed above them, and Talaith held onto her love, her man, with her arms and hands and heart. Moving like this, they were part of this natural world, both of them this, now, here.

Later than they had planned, Talaith followed behind Kaherdin, the forest opening up in front of them and then closing down behind them as they moved past, little spaces of story holding them and then letting them go, each twenty feet something new and potentially dangerous. Her eyes had adjusted to the light, which seemed to be slowly lightening, though it was hard to tell through the canopy above them. She breathed in deeply, slightly wet smells of dirt and moss, and now and again, imagined she breathed in Kaherdin’s scent, his smooth skin, his light, salty sweat, his forest smells. She knew she was reliving what had happened before they’d set off, their lovemaking that was so new, so fresh, that she wanted to always be in the midst of it. That, of course, would be counterproductive as they needed to continue on, finding a place to sleep for Jessica Inclan

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the day time. But as they walked, Talaith wanted to stay in his scent, be encircled by it, reveling in the smell that reminded her of them. Despite herself and even though she was looking at him as they walked, she pictured his face, his body, the way his arms looked as he held himself over her, the way his face looked as he came, that wild free true sense of abandon and joy. If she were back home and waiting for yet another day to pass, she imagined she could spend an entire morning contemplating his hands, their strong, solid strength, the fingers supple and yet so in control, the skin smooth, the palm firm. What next? His whole body might be a yearlong project. What a project. She tripped over a root, and Kaherdin turned almost before she did, reaching out to steady her. “You have to stay just a bit focused,” he said, kissing her hand as he set her right. “Otherwise, we won’t get very far, and I’ll have to join you in your reverie.” “You know what I’m thinking about?” “It’s hard to miss, even if I’m not in your thoughts,” he said. “I’m picking up the signals. I am a wolf, after all. Your thoughts smell like heat.” He kissed her hand again, and then they both started walking again, Talaith following behind him. The forest made dark, leafy noises, soft and persistent. Overhead, a bird sang one morning call and then stopped, as if realizing that it was too early for praise. She thought about watching Kaherdin turn into a wolf, the way his body morphed right in front of her eyes. “How do you do that?” “Do what?” he asked. “Change into the wolf.”

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He didn’t say anything for a moment, both of them still walking. She almost repeated her answer, but then he started to speak. “It’s probably the same way that you fall asleep. It’s just something that my body can do. I go from one state to another by willing it. Asking for it. Allowing it. When I do, there must be some chemical, physiological response, something that the DNA experiments from long ago made possible. I don’t really know the entire reasons for it all, though we have tried to understand it in order to teach the young. We didn’t really come with a manual when we escaped with our powers. It took us a long while to figure out how we functioned.” “Does it hurt?” “No,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt, though I can understand why you think it might. It’s just a change. A shift. Suddenly, I’m something else.” Branches swished against her hand as she followed him. “But do you know who you are when you are a wolf?” She heard him laugh. “My thought process changes a bit, but I still know who I am and what I am doing. But everything becomes more sensory. I am more of the earth, part of the scenery. More of nature. I can smell things that I don’t when I’m me. Hear things. I have a better sense of where things are located in space, seeing what I missed in human form. It’s like putting on not only another skin but another brain, and I’m sitting behind all that as my human self, watching.” They walked in silence for a while, the path soon opening up to field again. The sky opened up above them in a lovely grayish dome. On the horizon, the sky was peeling off its nightgown, everything a slight white at the edges. And in the distance, on the horizon Talaith saw a twinkling band of lights. Jessica Inclan

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“That’s where we go to tomorrow after I hunt,” Kaherdin said. “Friend or foe, there are people over there.” She moved next to him, taking his hand. “Will you miss not being able to be a wolf? You don’t have to give it up.” He looked at her and squeezed her hand. “I’m not sure. I’ve hated so much of my life, but I’m not clear on what I hated. Maybe it was that I always saw you and never could be with you. Maybe was that I was lonely and alone, even in my pack. Maybe it was that Boren left, and from that time on, I had no reference point. Maybe it was the constant and unrelenting hunger and hunting. But no matter what it was, I know that having a life with you that somewhat resembles normal sounds perfect. Whatever we do together sounds exactly right.” “But—“ “I want to give it up. I want you,” he said, kissing her on the forehead and pulling her close. “And it’s not as though you aren’t giving up a lot, too. Both of us are going to have to change. We already have.” Holding hands, they both stared at the lights again, looking out to the distance that would become their future. Kaherdin was right. She had given up the safety of the Colony and her tidy, ordinary little life. No more days, months, years, decades hat were predictable and ordinary. No more house. No more Council meetings or Council discussions. No more morning chats with Rachel at her breakfast table. No more father, really, or at least, no more believing in Jodoc and the history that he’d presented as the truth. And if there was no more Jodoc, there was no more Akla. For a second, Talaith felt the jolt of that loss, her almost-mother in her mind’s eye, the hug that was opening and releasing her, the arms that were pulled away, the laugh that was silenced. Jessica Inclan

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So much to lose. Talaith was dirty and tired and almost hungry again, food a long way off, food that once it arrived she would have to butcher and prepare herself. She didn’t know where she was on the planet or if the future out there on the horizon would welcome her in or run her off with swords and spears and fire. But she felt the same way Kaherdin did. Not for one second had she regretted emerging into the forest around the compound to find him. Not for one second had she wished she’d never brought them here, to this new place, this place of both their dreams. All that mattered was that they were together and that they would find their way to a new life. Talaith knew that the change would be painful and hard and frightening, but with this man next to her, anything seemed possible no matter how impossible it really was. She pressed her side against Kaherdin’s, feeling his body move to breath, his body circulate with blood and energy and love. Together they were stronger. Together, they might be able to do anything. Her word now seemed to be yes. She never wanted to be in no again. Her life would always be yes. Yes to love. Yes to Kaherdin. Yes to forever and ever with him, however long forever was.

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TEN

While hunting, Kaherdin had felt his wolf slip away from him at times, a dangerous thing when in a strange forest. He was not the animal looking for prey, but a man trapped in a body he didn’t want to be in, a man wishing he could eat the way that Talaith did, both of them sitting around the fire pit, watching the rabbits sizzle in the flames. They would have prepared the meal together and eaten together, like the true, real humans Kaherdin had imagined all his life. But no, he was out in the forest, trying to focus, trying to find what Talaith needed. What he needed. Now, sunrise a half hour away, Talaith’s body was curled up against his, his arm around her, both of them on the blanket in a dense copse, hidden by brush. He knew that what he wanted was to be like her. She’d asked him what it was like to be a wolf, and what it was really like was to not be normal. Yes, the elixir only dampened and hid the effects of that long ago, desperate DNA experiment, but she ate a cooked animal. Her body did not spasm and flex into another creature. Yes, she could travel in a way that was not normal, not like anything he’d ever seen, but it didn’t involve fur and fangs and tails. With her, he was ashamed of what he was, even though she did not judge him, even though she seemed to appreciate everything about his transmogrification, asking him a question no one ever had before. Why would they? Everyone he’d known turned into a wolf. But rather than turn away from his difference, she’d moved closer. She’d stroked his animal body as he’d stood as a wolf in front of her, but he’d wanted only to be a man, a real man, a man Jessica Inclan

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she could be proud of. She wanted her touch only when he was who he was, who he knew he could become. But only if he had the elixir. Only if he took a dose and kept taking a dose for all the years to come. They had talked about him changing, but that had been before they’d appeared here and had to travel and hunt. She seemed to already be adapting to this new plan, but it wouldn’t work if they wanted to interact with the people in the town—or with others should the townspeople not let them in. They might be on the road for days and months, and his ability to hunt would always keep them with food. But he knew they’d have to try to meet with whoever lived just miles from where they were now. They couldn’t stay alone forever. What would these new people say when he and Talaith walked into town? Would they even be able to show their faces, the two mutants, one with a habit of turning into a wolf in order to eat? Maybe neither he nor Talaith would make it to the gate of this city or town or compound. Maybe they would feel compelled to watch through the trees, realizing that there was no place for them—no place because of Kaherdin. Maybe this would be their life, traveling by night, sleeping by day, never having any place to call their own or any home where they could settle and live for the rest of the years that stretched before them like the imaginary miles of the map of the world. In her sleep, Talaith murmured, pressed herself against him, her back smooth, her rear and thighs giving. Dipping his nose to her hair, he breathed in the lavender that seemed as essential to her as her breath. She reached back with one hand to grab his, pulling him against her. She was warm and so vulnerable, offering herself up to sleep while in his arms. Not once since she’d Jessica Inclan

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shown up in the forest—since he’d almost attacked her—had she backed down or given up. She’d come back to rescue him and take him to safety. She didn’t think twice about the ferocity of Raf, Sika, and the rest of the pack. Talaith didn’t let the possibility of being attacked stop her from swooping in and pulling him to a place that neither of them knew but in dreams. Twice, he’d left her alone in the dark, and twice she’d taken care of herself, letting her hunger teach her how to skin and gut an animal. And more than all of that, from the very first time he’d approached her, she’d only said the truth, even if she didn’t speak in words. She’d been afraid of their connection for awhile, but whatever had pushed her so far away had always led her back to his arms. Nothing had ever meant as much to him as that second of her yes to him, her yes in words and the yes in her body. She had given him the gift of herself, a gift he still couldn’t believe was his. In his mind, he could see her as she was when he looked down at her while making love, her smile her eyes for him, on him. She stroked his back, his face, pulled him close and shuddered into his body. She cried out into the night with such joy that it took him a second to realize that he shared that joy. That he felt joyful. That her pleasure was his to have and savor. And when he came inside her, she pressed him close and made a sound that he’d never heard, something low and lovely and accepting. She took him in and wanted him there, despite what he was. How could he just lie here and let her change and grow alone? He had to do something, now, without her having to watch. He had no choice. It was his turn to do something for her. It was his turn to be as courageous as she was. When her breathing became even, regular, and deep again, Kaherdin slowly backed away from her, letting at first a slim slip of night air grow between them and then more until they were no longer touching. He waited after each move, listening for her to awaken, but she was Jessica Inclan

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exhausted, the journey and her hunger forcing her body to take all the sleep it could. All he could hear was the wafts of wind in the canopy above him, the slight and careful rustle of creatures in the bushes, creatures allowing themselves to move because they did not know what he was, a wolf ready to spring. A wolf: what he hoped to never be again. Quietly, he sat up and then looked around their meager site, made up of her two bags, her coat, and the blanket they slept on. They hadn’t built a fire, knowing that it was late, the air warm enough, their bodies the only heat they needed to keep comfortable. Talaith hadn’t put on her coat, using it instead as a pillow. And as Kaherdin’s eyes adjusted, he saw how she’d been careful to keep part of the coat away from her head, one hand carefully placed over one end. That was it. There it was, hidden in plain sight, in her coat pocket. Standing, he walked around her sleeping form, and bent down, sliding his hand quickly into the pocket and feeling what he imagined he would, two vials, the glass thick and smooth and slightly cold. With little movement, he pulled at one vial with his fingertips, and then as it emerged from the pocket, he put his hand around it and pulled it free from her coat. As he did, she breathed in more deeply than she had been, and he froze, not wanting her to see what he was doing. Not wanting her to stop him. Not wanting her to know until it was over. Hovering over her, he didn’t dare move. But then after a few seconds, her breathing went back to her calm, even, sleeping rhythm, and he lifted up the vial, trying to make out the elixir itself. Even in the darkness, he saw the way the elixir seemed to glow, opalescent, luminous, a light from within the liquid itself. What would it do, he wondered, as he swallowed it? Would it seconds, minutes, or days? Would he have to run into the forest to convert at some point tomorrow? Or would it happen

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immediately like a charm, a spell, a magic incantation, something from one of the fairytales he’d read so long ago before the Wahya decided to burn it all into fading memory. Kaherdin sat down, looking past the vial into the darkness he could not see. He couldn’t know the answer until he tried, until he swallowed. Until he had faith and courage. Until he was as strong as Talaith. For a moment, he wondered if he should feel something about the life he was giving up. Was there anything from his nights as a wolf that he would miss? He thought of Boren saying, “Listen.” And he had been able to when he changed, hearing and sensing things that as a human were impossible to take in. More than just listening, he’d enjoyed running through the night landscape around the compound, coming up upon a hill, the moon casting a white blanket of light that illuminated everything. Bats flew in the sky, the clouds whisked by, dark fingers against the light. If he were honest, he would also miss the way it felt to run after an animal, one giving him a fine chase. It wasn’t always about food, either, and sometimes, he chased and followed, allowing the rabbit or deer to escape, but just barely, feeling his human laugh in his wolf’s throat. Kaherdin would miss those sights, those feelings, that freedom. But all of that was nothing compared to even this moment, sitting next to Talaith as she slept. In the languid shape of her sleeping form, there was the promise of so much more in the years to come, so many of them if they were careful. If he changed now, if he became as she was, they could go forward into this new human world together. As equals, as partners, they could walk down into the valley, through the town gates, and tell the same story to whoever would listen. The vial of elixir in his hand, Kaherdin stood, his eyes still on Talaith. He wished he could wake her, to tell her of his fears. He wished he had the time to tell her the long centuries' story Jessica Inclan

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of his life. But morning was almost here, and he needed to take the elixir and deal with what would happen. She would listen, and she would convince him to not take the elixir. She would say that she didn’t mind this life, this way of being. And she wouldn’t even know she was lying to herself. With one more look at her, he walked to the edge of the camp site and then moved forward into the forest, moving past trees and brush, looking up to gauge the sky that seemingly still held onto its darkness. He stopped, looked at the vial, watched the slow swirl of blues and pinks in the liquid. A new life in one swallow. A new beginning. Popping off the lid, he put it to his nose, breathing in, smelling nothing that he could understand—it was chemical and hard and metal, a bouquet of disquieting things, ingredients he could not imagine understanding. But he had no choice but to understand them intimately, and without thinking about any of it again, he lifted the vial to his mouth and poured the liquid in, allowing it to pool on his tongue. At first, the liquid felt like any other that he’d put in his mouth, water the thing he could take in as a human and a wolf. He thought of the way blood tasted, the way it was thick and full of metal tastes. But this was light and tasteless, and he waited for something horrible to happen, the elixir in his mouth as he did. Nothing. Nothing in his body told him to spit it out, so slowly, he let his throat relax, and he swallowed it down, the liquid at first feeling just the same as it had in his mouth, inert, innocuous, empty. Walking on a few steps into the growing gray light, Kaherdin imagined what his whole life would be like in just a few moments. He would walk back to Talaith and rouse her. He would lean over her and kiss her awake, even though it would be time to hunker down away from the Jessica Inclan

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sunlight. She wouldn’t understand at first that it didn’t matter anymore. She wouldn’t know yet as he pulled her into his arms that things would never be the same again. But before he led her out of the forest in the middle of the daylight, he would do more than kiss her. He would meet her in lovemaking as a new man, quite literally, a man who would not have to fun around at night while she stayed scared and quiet by a fire. Kaherdin would be a man she could walk with into any town, both of them looking just like any other human being. Then, later, he would pull her to standing, kiss her quickly, hold her hand, and walk toward town, both of them ready for whatever would come next. She would be proud of him, not ashamed. Talaith would be able to turn to him in the morning light and smile. He smiled to himself, took another few steps, but then something seemed to pull at him from the inside, a pain yanking him down to the ground, pulling at his insides with a hot gloved hand. He would have screamed, despite his desire not to, but his throat was constricted, tight, hot, and he could pull in nor let out any air. Then his legs went weak, numb, and he fell to the forest floor face first, his eyes and mouth full of dirt he could not remove because he could not move at all. Every single muscle in his body was contracted, spasming, aching with long knives of pain. For what seemed like days, he was held rigid, but then without wanting to, he slowly curled into a hard, tight fetal position, his forehead pressing against his knees. He felt a breath, a scream, a cry inside his lungs that could not escape. He tried to pant, to pull in some air, and he knew he must be or he would be dead. Maybe he was dead. The world around him seemed to shift and slant, time grew strange, slow, different. He knew he should be doing something, and what he’d always done was hunt. He needed to hunt, he knew that, and he tried to move his body so that he could leave the forest and burst out into the wide open field.

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As his body squeezed him tight and flat and still, he saw himself as though from a bird’s eye. He was running through the forest, his animal body moving fast and strong and free. From above he could see the muscles, the way he moved, every part of this animal a single concerted effort towards ahead, faster, now. Back, shoulders, hips, legs all moved in a loping stream of forward motion. And then, he was in that body, seeing with those eyes, stopping at the crest of a hill, the dark night behind him. The air whipped around him, running slim fingers through his fur. Kaherdin felt his breath, his heart beating in his body in the way it knew to, the way it had for centuries of this. Below him in the moving ocean of grass was his next meal, a meal he would hunt down and kill. That’s when he howled, pointing his muzzle into the air, but it wasn’t his muzzle, it was him, the man, on his knees, but these weren’t his knees. He wasn’t a man. He looked down at himself and saw that he was a beast, a man, parts of both, fur and arms and paw. Kaherdin reached for his head and tried to scream, but it wasn’t his head he felt but fur and long ears. Staggering to his feet, his paw, he turned back to where Talaith slept and knew he had to get away, now, before she saw him like this, before she saw the worst of him. Before she saw that not only was he a monster, but that he’d stolen from her and made the worst decision of his life. He had done all this without asking, and how he’d only succeeded in ruining everything. Another spasm gripped him, and he wanted to yell out but then he’d awakened Talaith and she’d know. Pain ripped at his body with metal claws. After a moment, he found his breath and started to move. Hobbling on foot, paw, hunched over as if he were about to morph into the wolf, walking as though he were still a man, Kaherdin made off into the deepest part of the forest, hoping, praying that he would change soon, fast, now. He grimaced against the pain, the

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throb of something pulsing right under his skin, the aching tug in his stomach. He prayed that he would live through it. He prayed that he would see Talaith again. As the sun lit up the forest, hazy lines of sunlight through the tree bows, he moved on to where it was darkest, to the inside of the forest where he belonged.

When he awoke, Kaherdin wasn’t sure what day it was or if it was day. Instinctively, he put his hand to his eyes, blocking out a sunlight he realized wasn’t there. Maybe it was night again. Or maybe only a few minutes had gone by. Maybe an hour. But he knew that couldn’t be true as he’d dragged his carcass as far as he’d been able to, through maybe a mile of trees and forest before falling back down to the forest floor in exhaustion. Before trying to move, he spat out dirt, blinked, clearing his eyes of debris. He took in a long breath, seeing only the angle of earth from his position on the ground. It wasn’t night, as far as he could tell. While it was dark on the forest floor, when he gazed upward, he saw small patches of blue in between the trees branches. In fact, the forest wasn’t as much of a forest but an orchard, overgrown, the trees ancient. He blinked again, seeing fallen fruit all around him, the smell tart in his nose. Kaherdin breathed again, checking out his body before looking down at what he thought was inevitable. He knew he was not a wolf, at least in terms of his face. He was seeing with human vision, things not quite as clear and focused. And he was hearing with human ears, the noises dampened and quiet, though he did hear the wind above the trees and birds calling in the distance. But what was below his head, he was scared to discover. It would be better to just

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close his eyes and go back into unconsciousness. But he had to get back to find out who or what he was. Slowly, he moved his attention through his body, feeling for his arms first. Yes. They were human and were followed by his hands and fingers. Not paws and claws. With deliberate focus, he clenched and unclenched his fists. Kaherdin knew now that at least he could pull himself up with these hands, these arms, these shoulders. Redirecting his attention, he moved down his back, his pelvis, feeling for hip bones, femurs, quads and gluts, muscle and bone moving in his daytime way. Yes, all human. He pressed down with his knees, felt his shins, and then moved his feet and toes. Human all. Taking in another big breach, he moved his hands to his sides, and pushed himself up, looking down at his body as he did. Somehow, he still had on the ragged remnants of his pants, but he only had one leg in. He reached up to touch his hair, afraid that he might find fur, but all he found was his hair, full of leaves and twigs and dirt. As he sat, he ran his hands down his torso, reassuring himself that he’d turned back into himself. Or maybe he really wasn’t himself any more but an improved self, one who didn’t need to turn to wolf at night, eat the flesh of creatures, stay out of the sunlight. He wouldn’t know that until he tried, though, and even though he wanted to head back to Talaith right now, Kaherdin understood that he should have an answer before he told her what he had done. Pushing himself up, standing and then letting the pants fall off, he closed his eyes, went into the space he always did before morphing. Changing to a wolf was the same as breathing, the same as keeping his heart going—no effort at all. He was in one space and then the next, without stress, without strain. And the same was true for turning back to human. One second he was standing on all fours, the next upright, looking at the world from a higher plane. Jessica Inclan

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And he was now in that space, waiting for the change, anticipating that slight shift of feeling that would overtake him, a tingle of nerves and cells recreating themselves out of the miracle and nightmare of genetic science, that long ago mistake. But there was nothing. Around him, he heard the sounds of nature coming back to life. Birds. Animals moving in the carpet of fallen leaves. In the distance, something else, a sound he could not place, something mechanical, a roar of nothing human. But then that fell away, and he was back in his mind. He opened his eyes. He closed them. Kaherdin conjured the shift, could almost imagine he was standing on paws, his nose picking up the morning scents of wet grass and the kiss of fog on the leaves. He opened his eyes again, still human. Blinking, Kaherdin breathed out, tried again. Nothing. Then something came over him that he’d only felt rarely, and most frequently in the past two days. Joy. He’d felt it while holding Talaith, pressing her to him, and he felt it now. He had changed. He was as she was. He was healed. Bending over to grab the pants and put them back on, he started walking, then running, leaving the abandoned orchard, moving back into the forest to find the place where he left her. She had to still be asleep. Not much time had passed, he was certain. One hour. Maybe two. The sun was still low in the in the western sky, so he had time to get there before she even stirred, before she even had time to notice he’d left. Kaherdin ran as fast as he could as a man, only for a second wishing for his wolf body, that sleek, muscled body so fleet. But he wouldn’t give up this human-ness, this being a man all the time. This ability to be a man with Talaith, Talaith’s man. Always. Jessica Inclan

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He reached the middle of the forest, his breath ragged, his feet tingling from the rocks and sticks he’d stepped on. He looked in all directions, searching out something that he would remember—a certain tree, a shift in the earth, a particular copse. But it had been dark when they’d made their camp, and it had been still dark when he’d taken the elixir. Kaherdin hadn’t been paying attention either time, and now the vision that had seemed to carry over from his nights as a wolf seemed gone, as if the world were suddenly flat, everything just scenery, not something he had to go run through. Almost as a reflex, he sniffed in air, imagining that he’d still be able to track a body, a person, a creature by smell alone. But all he breathed in was pine and cedar, dirt, morning air, moss. Kaherdin could sense nothing other than the bit of space he was in. For what seemed like forever, he moved from the place he had stood, walking into the forest, circling the trees, the bushes, the slight rises in the terrain, and then coming back to center before moving off to search another part of the forest. At one point, he thought he’d found their camp, a slight depression in the soft bed of needles, but there was no evidence except that indent. No long strand of hair, no piece of clothing, no bags. Nothing. He kicked at the earth, needles flying upward, and yelled out, his voice echoing in the quiet morning. “Talaith?” he cried, and then he silenced himself, knowing that he couldn’t predict who would come out to find him. Maybe she’d been abducted by these very humans they were hoping would help them. But he’d only been gone an hour, two at the most. How could all this have happened in the early light, just like that? Talaith! he thought. Talaith! Where are you? Where did you go? Are you all right? Jessica Inclan

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Love, he thought. Oh, my love. He tried to relax, to feel for her, to bring her mind to his, but nothing answered him except the forest. His great present, his great gift to her, had turned into his biggest mistake. Now when he needed to be a wolf more than ever, needing his nose and eyes and four strong, swift legs, he was a half dressed stupid human, running around the forest, unable to find the very person who made living even possible. After searching every part of the forest, circling and circling, walking back and forth, his eyes on the ground, his eyes on the branches, the brush, Kaherdin walked slowly back to the orchard, trying to keep his mind from going where it did the moment he relaxed. You’ve put her in danger, he thought. This is your fault. You left her alone, again, and this time, you weren’t so lucky. Talaith, he thought, his thought as heavy as his body. Talaith. Where have you gone? Who took you? Help me find you. But again, there was no answer, no reply, only the thud of his beating heart. When he reached the orchard, the sky a blast of barely blue, the sun now high in the sky, his whole body accepting the rays that hit his shoulders, face, arms, he knew what he had to do. He had to go into the town, find the people who had taken her, or find people who would help him discover who had. It wouldn’t be easy to convince anyone to listen to him. Kaherdin wasn’t even sure that they knew how to speak his language or if they would even give him the chance to say one word. He knew he must look more like an animal than he ever had as a wolf. His hair was wild, his body covered in the forest, his pants ripped. He might end up strung across the town square, but Jessica Inclan

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he had no choice. His only choice was to find her. His only way to live with himself was to save her from the danger he’d put her in. Looking back toward the forest one last time, he took in a deep breath, and looked back at the direction he had to go in. If he’d been able to find her through his imagination, through his dreams, he should be able to find her here, now, in a place that was tangible and real. Somehow, he and Talaith had traveled through the very air to find each other, traveled through matter to end up in this place that neither of them had seen before. Anything was possible. It had to be. He was going to find her, no matter what.

At the edge of the orchard before it opened up to grass and then the smoothed, cut grass of some public space—a swath that skirted a circle of what seemed to be houses—Kaherdin tried to order himself. There was nothing to do about his pants except stay in them, and he had seen no water to drink much less bathe in. But he smoothed his hair away from his face, pulling a long strand from the front to tie the rest back. He brushed off his cheeks and neck, feeling the flecks of dirt and leaves whisk away. Then he brushed off his shoulders, licked his lips, and ran his tongue across his teeth. As he did, he realized that he was almost giddy with hunger, tingling from thirst. Now that the fear and panic of losing Talaith has lessened to simply a dull knife edge to his heart, Kaherdin could feel his stomach contract and pulse in need and want. How long had he been unconscious, asleep on the forest floor, transforming? Had it been an hour or maybe it had been 24 hours. Maybe more? In any case, he hoped that the people weren’t talkative or afraid and that they’d hand him something to eat the minute he asked for it. Right, he thought. As though that will happen. Jessica Inclan

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Looking one more time toward the houses, he realized that he didn’t even know what he would eat. What would his body do now that it could metabolize food stuff other than protein? Maybe the transformation hadn’t worked all the way. He was no longer to hunt as a wolf, but he could only eat protein, raw protein. That would make him one popular visitor. But his desire to find Talaith and his hunger pushed him past this train of thought and with one more glance at the houses in the distance, Kaherdin walked out of the orchard, onto the field, and toward whatever he would find.

“Stop,” a voice cried. Kaherdin almost did not, caught up in a whirl of thought full of Talaith, hunger, thirst, and fatigue. “Stop!” the voice said again, and this time, Kaherdin felt his body slow. He looked up, realizing that he was close to the houses, knowing he’d walked the distance in almost a trance, each step only a step nearer to Talaith, or so he hoped. But he didn’t see anyone, and that’s when he thought that he must be hallucinating. He was in the field, the trees far in the distance, the forest even farther away. No one seemed to be calling from the houses, and finally, he looked up in the sky, half expecting someone hovering over him. But, of course, there was no one there. He took another step but then pulled up short when the voice rang out again. “Stop.”

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The sun beating on him, his stomach curled into a hard fist, his mouth dry, his chest and lungs beaten with sadness, Kaherdin stopped. He didn’t run. He didn’t even wish he could morph into his wolf and take off, rushing back to the forest where he was safe. “Who are you?” he called out, surprised by the tightness of his voice. “Where are you?” He watched, looked, hearing nothing but the hum and buzz of insects in the grass, the whirl of air through the field, his blood pounding in his ears. “Where are you?” he repeated, and then, as if in a dream, three men and two women appeared out of nowhere, walking toward him as if they’d been there all along. They seemed to travel like Talaith could, appearing out of nothing from somewhere else. The men and women were men and women—meaning, he realized, they were human. Or in human form, as opposed to being something else, as he had been. They didn’t have goat or sheep heads or feet. They didn’t jump like frogs or crow like the scrawny chickens he sometimes found, thin, straggly birds with no meat on their bones and fewer feathers. At these thoughts, he started to laugh, and he saw them all looked surprised or quizzical, and that made him laugh even harder. One woman smiled a little, and that made him lean over, put his hands on his thighs, laugh some more. This was absolutely ridiculous, and it was all his fault. If he had simply waited for Talaith to awaken, if he’d only told her about his plan, Kaherdin would not be half naked in front of five people who probably wanted to stab him dead instead of feed him. “Who are you?” the smiling woman asked, her language his own but somehow different, the words known to him but hard on his ear, forcing him to listen hard to what she was saying. He shook his head, tried to stop laughing, knowing that if he did he might start to cry, something he had not done for centuries. He’d never lost anything as important as Talaith. He’d Jessica Inclan

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never felt as bereft, not even when Boren disappeared from the compound. Kaherdin was acting and feeling in a way he could barely understand, but he had to snap out of it or neither he nor Talaith would have a chance at all. He closed his eyes, breathed in, and then stood up straight. They were all still staring at him, and the smiling woman was no longer smiling. “My name is Kaherdin,” he said. “Where do you come from?” one of the men asked him, a man with dark skin and even darker eyes, bands of skin art around his wrists, designs that looked like vines or was it a twisting rope of lizards that moved up toward his arms? Kaherdin thought about what to say, knowing that he was ignorant of the world they all were on together. Talaith had seen the map, the world of pinks and blues, but he only understood what he knew about his tiny portion of the world, and knew it in no relation to anything but the colonies. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “A woman brought me here. She travels the way you do, I think. And she was taken. Or lost. Is she here?” “You aren’t really sure where you come from,” the formerly smiling woman repeated. “No,” Kaherdin said. “I live in a part of the world—well, it’s where the woman and I come from. Her name is Talaith.” The people in front of him kept looking at him, but they seemed to be immersed in some kind of interior dialogue, the way that he and Talaith had spoken through their minds. Somehow, the things that had seemed miraculous to him were ordinary here. Moving through matter, speaking to each other through thoughts. But if they could do this, maybe he would be able to move into their minds to find out if they knew anything about what might have happened to Talaith. Jessica Inclan

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So as they thought, he calmed his thoughts, relaxed, keeping his mind and eyes open. He imagined the feeling that he had when he and Talaith communicated and let that feeling fill his body. For one brief glimmer of time, he dropped into the current of their talk, a busy river filled with thoughts about who he was and where he might have come from. We’ve been told to look out for his kind, came one thought. The wise one told us they might come. What woman is he referring to? came another. But then the river seemed to stop, as if it were unexpectedly frozen, Kaherdin a boat caught in the cracking, solid water. “So you have this ability,” said another man, one with long reddish hair and the same kind of art on his wrists as the other men had. Kaherdin shrugged. “Only recently,” he said. When I met the woman. Or when I met her in my dreams. “Who is this woman?” the red-headed man asked. “She is from the part of the world I come from, but not of my people. She lives in a colony, separated from those not poisoned and—and us.” “What are you?” the second woman asked. “I am Wahya,” he said. “Or was. Or will be again.” At the word Wahya, the five of them stopped, their held breath at the same, still moment. Kaherdin waited, his own body stilled, even his hunger and fear on hold for a flickering moment. He thought to move into their thoughts, but then decided against it, knowing they would be looking for him to, knowing it would not make the situation better. Jessica Inclan

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So he waited as they took in the word that encapsulated what he was. The sun beat down on him, the air grew warm. Kaherdin wasn’t sure how this group would have heard the term when they seemed so surprised about to see him in general. But after trying to determine what their knowledge could mean, he realized that he was barely standing straight, his body like a candle just blown into darkness. “Hold him,” one of the men said, and Kaherdin felt a strong arm gripping his. Wahya, he heard or thought at the moment his eyes closed, his mind shut down, his body slipped into unconsciousness. Wahya.

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ELEVEN

When she awoke in the arms of the quiet forest, Talaith had forgotten where she had fallen asleep. For a single slip of a second, she’d imagined she was at home in Uveris, in her bed in her little house, waking to the sun shining through the window and hitting her face, her body warmed from her blankets. She almost smelled the tea she would make, could taste the yogurt and fresh berries she would eat. In fact, she could even feel the hot water of her bath, the silky sheen of the soap on her legs. For the remainder of that slice of time, she thought about the day she would have, the days all similar to the ones that preceded them. Council meeting, redundant tasks, discussion groups, visits to homes of The Untouched. She felt the sigh in her chest as she imagined her day, but then she heard a bird call, felt the cool air on her cheek. Then as her brain began to pull the web of the past few days into a coherent pattern, she realized that she was on the forest floor in a forest in a land she’d never been to. And she realized she was alone, without the one true thing, person, who made her feel better than any house or bed ever could. The person who took away the punishment of time. Sitting up, she turned to the other side of the blanket, the fabric mussed but empty, Kaherdin nowhere in sight. Blinking into the morning light streaming through the branches above her, she looked around the campsite they’d landed in the night before, only hours ago. Her sleeping pattern was so disturbed, she wasn’t sure if she should be awake or asleep right now, but her heart was beating too fast to allow her to sleep. Of all the times that Kaherdin would not wander Jessica Inclan

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around was during the daylight hours, and something must have happened. Something must be wrong. Standing, she walked toward the inner part of the forest, wanting to call out. But she wasn’t sure if she should do so when they were so close to the town. Who knew who might hear her? Who knew who might come after her? Kaherdin? she thought. Kaherdin, where are you? Where did you go? Talaith walked the other way, peering in the direction they’d come during the night. Kaherdin? she thought. Kaherdin? She stood waiting, her body and eyes filling with sadness, with tears. Where had he gone? Why did he always have to leave her alone? And why would he have left her alone here, in this place where she was a stranger? Where there were dangers she couldn’t even imagine. She could barely bring herself to think this, but maybe he had given up on her, on them. Maybe it was just too much, and he’d gone off to be alone, the way he’d lived before. Maybe he didn’t want to give up being a wolf. Something moved on the forest floor, a whoosh of needles, and she turned, ready to cry and smile and yell, angry and joyful at his return, but it was only a bird, a large blue bird with a pointed hat that flew away once she moved, squawking as he flapped. The forest was silent again, so quiet she imagined she could hear the sun heating the trees and branches and fallen needles. She could almost hear the trees growing, the nascent needles emerging from the wood. Kaherdin, she thought. Please tell me where you are. I’m here, came the reply. Over here.

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Her heart in her throat, her thoughts a jumble, she ran back to the blanket, expecting to find him. But the blanket and her bag were gone, the place where they had been smoothed free of leaves and needles, but empty. Talaith turned round and round, knowing that he was here. But where? Why was he teasing her now? Show me where you are, she thought. Stop playing games. You’re scaring me. I’m not playing games, he thought, his voice in a whisper in her mind. I’ve never played games with you. You are the one who plays games. You are the one who doesn’t play fair. Cheating and stealing. Withholding and lying. Her heart a heavy, rhythmic bass drum in her chest, she turned again, running a little toward the forest’s center and then stopping. I never played a game with you. I’ve never lied. Not once. Maybe not with him, he thought. But you have a different story with me. I’m going to change all that. As this thought entered her mind, Talaith knew she was not talking to Kaherdin. Talaith knew whose voice was in her head. She heard his hatred and need for her; she felt his desire for revenge. So she ran. She ran as fast as she could, feeling the ache in her thighs and lungs, but she wasn’t fast enough. Before she could even begin to think about making it to the orchard, he gripped her in that grip she remembered from the night on the lake. Liam held her hard and rough, wrenching her still. Talaith looked up into his face, and saw all the feelings she’d heard in his voice. His mouth was set firm, ugly in his desire to stop her, hurt her, make her pay. His eyes were dark blue angry slits, his hands so strong, so painful, squeezing and pulling. Jessica Inclan

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“Why?” she whispered. “Why?” he said, shaking his head, his long blonde hair falling around her. “How stupid can you be?” “If I’m so stupid, why are you here for me?” she asked. “Why bother? Why don’t you just let me go? Tell my father you couldn’t find me. That I disappeared.” “You can’t just leave,” he said, ignoring her. “You need to come home and be my partner. My wife. My stalwart companion on the Council. You need to listen to your father. You need to behave for once.” Blinking as she looked up at him, hating every aspect of his face in a way she never had before, she wondered what they planned on doing to her to turn her into the compliant, accepting woman. They both knew she would never accept Liam this way, and yet, he was talking as though it were a fait accompli, a done deal, as though Talaith were detached from her past feelings, perfectly at peace with a man and life she hated. Maybe there was something they could do to her she didn’t know about. She knew about so little, it seemed. Since the moment Kaherdin appeared to her at the lake, she knew that anything was possible. “How did you get here?” she asked, trying to stop the journey home she knew was inevitable. Maybe if she slowed him down, Kaherdin would come back to her. Save her. He’d turn into his wolf and rip Liam off off off her. Where was he? Why had he left her? She wanted to call out to him in her thoughts, but she knew that Liam would intercept her thought and turn it against her. She needed to slow him down, keep him talking, stall until Kaherdin could get back.

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“How did I get here?” he said, repeated. “Do you think you are that special that this skill is for you alone? Did you imagine that you could disappear without leaving some evidence? Don’t you know that wherever you go, no matter how far, you leave a trail I can follow?” Finding her breath somewhere high in her lungs, Talaith took in air, realizing that she knew nothing about the skill she’d learned improperly from her father. What had she imagined? That she could just leave, escape, ignore her past? That it wouldn’t follow her like a bad shadow? “You have only ever thought about yourself,” he said. “You have always thought yourself above everyone else. Walking around Uveris with such—such pride. Such arrogance. No one was good enough for you.” “That’s not true, Liam. I just wasn’t sure about you. About us. I had to make sure.” “Make sure for hundreds of years,” he said, his voice hard, hurt, and sharp. “No, I’m not inclined to believe that. And it doesn’t matter. I will take you home, clean you up, and let your father deal with you first. You will have to do so much to earn back his respect. It’s possible you won’t.” “I’ll tell him what you did to me. I tell him that you raped me.” She spat out her words, hoping they would sting and slap, but he laughed. “Do you imagine after what you did that your father will believe anything you say? You ran away from Uveris. You are clearly distraught. Mad, actually. Your clothes are ripped, your hair filthy. You’ve lost your mind, and I’m going to help you. Can’t you see? I’m the one who will make it all so much better.” All his words came at her like snakes, and he pressed her down on the hard ground again, just like he had done on the lake. She felt his erection under his clothes, his anger turning into desire. No, not desire. Need. Need to control. To punish her for all the no’s she’d ever given him. Jessica Inclan

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“You smell like dirt,” he said, the word a curse in his mouth. “You stink like the forest and too many days without water. You are an animal, just like the beast you are with.” Without moving a muscle, a hair, an eyelash, Talaith looked at him, not wanting to give him the information he was clearly trying to pull from her like bad teeth. He didn’t know she was traveling with Kaherdin, even though Liam had said “him.” He was guessing, and she knew that. She just couldn’t let him know what was true, or he’d never let her forget it. Ever. He squeezed her again, pinching her tight on her shoulders, her exhale almost a moan. “I’ll take you home and turn you into who you should be. Nothing will stop me now, not with your father on my side.” All around her, the forest began to disappear, the same way it had appeared to her this morning upon awakening. But now, it was fading slowly, as was everything she’d gone through. Gone was her escape into the compound forest. Gone was her trek to the cave with Kaherdin, their night there and their night and day in this new world, this place where she had found love, discovered the miracle of being with him in a way she’d imagined was real and forever. Finally, forever had seemed like a blessing instead of a curse. Time was no longer her enemy but the friend she wanted by her side, Kaherdin on the other. But it was all going, going, the forest gray, blurry, indistinct. And then there was nothing but darkness all around her, nothing but the memory of pain and her cry for Kaherdin.

Before she fully awoke, she heard a whoosh of whispers, small, slim threads of words whisking her ears. It was as though she was in a dream, not really any one place but many, her consciousness long and thin, taking in so much but nothing whole or intact. Jessica Inclan

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As she hung for what seemed forever in this thinness, she felt the world slowly become heavier, deeper, the voices fuller, the words clearer. She felt the four walls of a room around her, the stillness and weight of heated air, and the smells of other people—soap and oils and fabric. She felt something soft underneath her body and her head, even though she somehow felt confined and still. As the minutes passed, she listened, and heard familiar tones, her father’s steady, constant voice. Liam’s clear, tight replies, the obsequiousness in his words. “She was where we first determined we could locate her?” her father was asking. “Your determination was almost absolute,” Liam said. “It wasn’t hard to locate her from that landing point at all. She was calling out to someone.” “To whom?” Jodoc asked. “Did you see anyone else?” “It was an empty forest. Nothing there but Talaith and her belongings. If there had been someone there, he or she or it had long since left. No sign of life near her at all. And from how I found her, well, she’s been mad for some time. Since the night she disappeared, it would seem. She was speaking nonsense, and I feel that she needs to be sequestered. She needs to recover from whatever has taken her mind away.” At those words, Talaith hid her thoughts deep in her mind, wanting to cry, but not wanting either her father or Liam to know she was awake. But she couldn’t hide. Liam’s words punched through her mind. There was no sign of life. No one near her at all. Keeping her eyes closed, Talaith repeated the truth over and over in her mind: Kaherdin left her. Kaherdin left her. Despite the fact that she was in a strange, unknown place, he moved away from her sleeping body and walked away, into the deepest part of the forest, disappearing Jessica Inclan

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from her life. He didn’t wake her, he did gently shake her awake and lean over and kiss her cheek. He didn’t explain. Kaherdin left. “I had such hopes for her. For you both,” Jodoc was saying. “Together, what a fine pair you would make. How wonderful for Uveris.” There was some shuffling, some movement. Then Liam said, “It’s still not impossible. Once she gets over this madness. You know that she’s always wanted to serve here.” Her father didn’t say anything in response, and she must have dosed for a while, the world outsides her going on without her noticing. But then she was yanked away, her exhale almost a scream. Talaith blinked, looking up into her father’s face. For a moment, she wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him everything, starting with her dreams of Kaherdin so many years ago. She wanted to tell him about the lake and how Kaherdin reached through the protective shield around Uveris and consciousness itself to find her. She wanted to cry into his shoulder and tell him the story of how Liam raped her and left her for dead on the shore. But before she could open her mouth to say any of this, she thought of the words she’d heard him say at Malcolm’s house. Now she knew that he had kept the elixir from The Others, who weren’t all bad. The Others who had been driven to kill because they had no choice. Even though Kaherdin’s pack had tried to kill him and would have killed her, centuries of withholding the very thing that would make them almost human had led to that attack—to all the attacks. Now they killed out of conditioning and habit and need, all of that Jodoc’s fault. Her father, Jodoc Rikala was the architect of all the suffering in this tiny part of the big, wide world, and she couldn’t trust him with any part of her story, with any of her knowledge. She Jessica Inclan

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couldn’t trust him with her worst and her best stories, both of which happened at almost the exact same time. “Daughter,” he said, his eyes locked on hers with the same steady gaze she’d grown up with. “I’m so glad you are back with us.” Closing down her thoughts, keeping herself tucked in and protected, she attempted a smile, hoping it would suffice. “Yes,” she said, trying to sit up, but she realized she was tied to the bed, both arms and legs wrapped with tightly bound fabric. “We aren’t sure about your condition,” he said. “We didn’t know who might have taken you or what they might have done to you. So . . . “ He indicated the restraints, looking almost innocent as he surveyed her trapped body, confused in a way at how this could have happened. Talaith wanted to scream at him. She wanted to repeat the words she’d heard him say to Liam. She wanted to be let go so she could find Kaherdin, but then she remembered that’s he’d left her. He didn’t want her to find him. She had nowhere to go. “And we’ve had to put you in this fortified space at Liam’s house. One, I’m afraid, where you can’t easily use the technique I you’ve clearly become proficient in. There’s no travel from here, my dear.” He smiled at her, but his eyes suddenly seemed closed off, his gaze distant. “I—“ she began, but he shushed her, cut her off, put a finger on her lips. “Whatever has happened to you, you need to rest. To sleep. And then you can tell me everything that happened.” “But—“ she began, and he touched her hair, his fingers soft on her forehead. Gently, he pushed a strand away from her eyes, smiling and nodding as he did. Jessica Inclan

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“You need to sleep. To rest. To get better. You need to accept your life here and live it in the right way, my love. You can’t imagine that you alone can change things or make things better. You need to look for what you want right here in front of you. It is here. I promise you that. You need to see it and stop looking anywhere else. You need to listen to me.” Sadness welled in her throat, her heart, sinking all the way to the marrow of her bones. Even if she wanted to, she could never look at him in any way but as he appeared to her now. She would not be able to go back to the morning her father arrived in Uveris with Akla. She could never again be that faithful, happy daughter, one overjoyed at seeing her father step into the matter of Uveris. Casting farther back, she would never again be the child who listened to Jodoc’s stories and history lessons. In the past four days, Talaith had grown up in a terrible way, in the country of her own life, far, far away from the disappearing island of childhood. It had taken hundreds of years, but it had finally happened, all in the whoosh of matter and in the arms of a wolf. Nodding back at her father and closing her eyes, Talaith Rikala knew what she had to do. She had to pretend. She had to tamp down her feelings and keep her mind closed, no longer allowing the familiar no-spoken communication to pass between her and her father. She had to understand who her father was and what her life in the Uveris cost so many others, The Others, actually, their lives nasty, brutish, and so very, very long. She had to hide her love for Kaherdin, a love she knew would exist even though he was no longer in her life. As she slowly started to drift, she knew that the gem of her whole life would consist of four days, the days since she stole the elixir and escaped from Uveris. The days of being with Kaherdin, both of them on the adventure of their lives. From now on, that was all she had to hang onto. If she was lucky, she mused, the world shutting down all around her, she would be Jessica Inclan

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able to return The Elixir, no one noticing a thing. If she had to, she would tolerate Liam courting her, keeping him on a string as many decades as she could, time now her allied instead of her enemy. She wouldn’t think of Kaherdin any more, accepting that love was not for her. Love was a thing that walked away in the middle of night into a dark forest. Instead, she would polish the gem of her life and put it in her pocket. She would behave herself and shut down, spending the rest of her life alone, holding deep inside her the nice story of the time she left home and found exactly what she wanted. Her father’s voice lulled her as it always had, but it no longer caused joy or brought comfort. All his sounds were simply noise, empty noise, a constant, dull, heavy pulse that brought her into a thankful, heavy sleep.

When she awoke, her heart was pounding, her hand under the blanket, in her coat pocket. Outside, the sun was low in the sky, the room filled with dusky light. Without knowing what Talaith was doing, she seemed to be hunting for something, her fingers scrabbling for—for what? She blinked, breathed in, looked up at the ceiling, and continued to search for . . . The elixir, the two vials that were no longer in her pocket. “I believe you are looking for something,” Liam said, and he leaned over into her vision, his mouth smiling but his eyes hard and cold, his gaze as sharp and clear as river ice. She formed a sound, but did not speak, letting her hand fall still. Liam had found the elixir, and now she would be punished. Or now she would owe him something, and she knew what that something would be. Jessica Inclan

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Turning her head, she looked at him as he sat in the chair by the bed. Liam wore an expression she wished she could rip off his face—smug, satisfied, almost sated. It was the look he must have worn the night he raped her, though it had been too dark for her to see it then. But both then and now, she had no ability to make him feel or act differently, no way to make him look afraid or humbled or even sorry. Both times he’d had her pinned. Both times, he’d had all the power. Liam held up the vile, the elixir luminous and swirling in its tube. “I bet you thought you’d be in The Out World long enough to take this. What I can’t figure out is why you took only one vial. You’d have to come back in just over a year. And then what? We would have noticed its absence by then. You would have had to live as the animal you would become.” Talaith’s heart pounded in her ears, the sound crashing like waves in her head. One vial. One vial? Had she dropped the other one as they ran through the forest? For a second, she thought about the moments of the night before, and a few of them involved her reaching into her pocket to touch both vials, a habit she’d begun from the moment she’d stolen them. Daily, she rubbed the tubes, letting them clink and click together a little bit, the sound reassuring her they were there. She’d done just so last night before she fell asleep, slipping her hand into her pocket to run her fingertips over the small glass bottles. And then she’d done the same thing even as she’d fought Liam, knowing that the two vials were her only hope, imagining that Kaherdin would bound back into the scene and save her. But she’d not remembered the click and clink, her focus distracted by the chase, the fight, the escape she could not make. Kaherdin. She took in a deep breath, her heart slowing for a second. She hadn’t dropped anything. Sometime in the night, Kaherdin had taken one vial and gone off to swallow it, leaving the circle Jessica Inclan

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of the camp in order to let the potion do its work. They’d never really talked about what the process of the change would be like, mostly because Talaith had no idea what was going to happen to him. Whatever biological magic the elixir wrought was wrought in the dark. He’d been all alone, changing or not changing, becoming or not. And he’d never come back. Maybe he had died by himself, trying to become like her. With a feeling so heavy she wondered how she hadn’t sunk to the middle of the earth, Talaith knew that he might be dead. She’d brought him the poison. It was her fault. “So,” Liam continued, not seeing the horrible thoughts run through Talaith’s mind. “We are going to have to keep an eye on you for a while.” With some kind of knowing, she breathed in something that wasn’t in this room. Pine needles. Earth. Morning air. It wasn’t her breath and it wasn’t anything that she could smell in this room. Trying to keep her emotions still, she realized she might be hallucinating, all of these smells an olfactory memory from her time in the forest with Kaherdin. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t. She was going to believe it because believing was better than the alternative. She was going to see him opening his eyes to the sun, taking in his first conscious breath as a man who no longer had to turn into a wolf to live. He was alive. Using all of her abilities, she calmed her heart, her lungs, her emotions. Her father had taught her how to be still and wait, to be open and take in the messages all around her. Blood stilling, breath a steady one, two, one two, she waited for whatever Liam would say next, knowing that she would hate whatever it was but she had to be smart. Liam looked down at her again, his face hiding so much. Anger. Lust. Hate. Need. Everything contained behind his smile and his flat blue eyes. Jessica Inclan

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“Okay,” she whispered. Okay because she would pretend, but this time with only one goal. To get out. Liam almost started but then contained himself, nodding. “Good.” Talaith tried to lift her arms, indicating her bonds. Liam smiled, but the look she’d seen in his eyes since she’d awakened returned. She had so much more work to do before he’d trust her. “Oh, no. You aren’t quite ready for freedom. You won’t be leaving this house for quite a while. But I’ll move you in a bit. I know there are things you need to do,” he said, indicating the door to the room and presumably other rooms that she knew she’d want to visit. Soon. She let her arms go limp, and then looked up at him, trying to show how trustworthy she was. She was nothing if not a good, obedient girl. With all her mind, thoughts, feelings, she tried to radiate her full acceptance of his ideas. Of him. “Your father will be so pleased,” he said, his own pleasure evident. “He has been hoping for us to, well, unite for such a long time. Your acceptance will go a long way. I will tell him immediately.” Talaith beamed her message to him, broadcasting in a smile, wide, trusting eyes, and a limp, passive body. Every message would be a lie, and she’d make every lie count. “Let me get my woman to come help us,” he said, suddenly almost human. He stood and turned toward the door. “I’ll be right back.” I won’t go anywhere, she let fly out, and he looked back at her, hearing her thought, smiling. In that smile, she could see his relief, his pleasure, his greedy joy that she was behaving. Everything that Uveris had to offer would soon be his, and she saw him ticking off what he would have: power, attention, glory, and her. Children. Lots of children. Talaith tried not to shiver. Jessica Inclan

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“I’ll be right back,” he said again, and then she was alone in the room, one minute into her new plan. As she lay on the bed, she let all her thoughts go, the ones about Kaherdin and love and hope and a new life. She replaced them with a good Talaith, a woman who did as she was told. She found a place to hide her anger and fear and upset and smiled up at the ceiling above her. When Liam’s woman came in—an Untouched girl, really, of less than two decades—she was nothing if not serene. “Hello, miss. The master, he told me to start taking off the bonds,” the girl explained. “then he’s going to come back and we will help you to . . . .” The girls stopped, and Talaith could see her confusion. For her whole life, at least, Talaith had been someone to respect and fear or at least regard with some measure. And now, here she was tied down to a bed. Talaith wondered what horrors Liam and her father would do to the girl to keep her quiet, and along with the thoughts of punishment or worse came a huge wash of fear for the girl. Talaith knew her plan came with so much danger, but she tucked that away, too. “What’s your name?” Talaith asked. “Sumi,” the girl said. “Sumi, don’t worry,” Talaith said, her voice a harsh whisper, a croak that echoed in the small room. “I’m just going to do what I need to, and then I’ll be back here in no time. I won’t make this any harder for you, I promise.” Sumi smiled, her nerves still making her lips tremble a bit. She looked at Talaith and then nodded. “Okay,” she said, bending down over the bond on Talaith’s wrist. Just then, Talaith noticed Liam in the doorway, and at the sight of him, she smiled and locked her thoughts down hard and Jessica Inclan

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fast. As Sumi worked on freeing her, she thought of only things that would help her exude calm and project her new docile self. The plan seemed to be working because Liam was beaming, Sumi even less nervous, her hands quick and dexterous as she pulled the bonds off Talaith and then helped her to sitting. Liam walked over and grabbed on to Talaith, he and Sumi helping her to standing. She’d only been in the bed a short while, but she felt weak and frail, and then she realized she hadn’t eaten for a long time. The world whooshed a bit, gray and white dots flicking through her vision. Even though she had the deep, keening urge to shrug off Liam’s grasp, she allowed it, leaned into it. “Just remember,” he said quietly in her ear as they walked out of the door. “This whole house is protected. Fortified, like I said. With the same protections as our whole colony. And I’m watching you. The girl will be in the bathroom with you as you clean yourself. There is no way out. There is only this. Here in my house. Me.” Talaith nodded against the side of his face and walked down the hall, each step a step closer to her leaving, a step closer to what she wanted. She needed to take all these steps, one at a time, experiencing each one. Because she knew Liam and his need and greed, Talaith understood that some of the steps would hurt and humiliate, but she was ready. She let herself be completely supported, knowing that one day, soon, she would break through the jail they had suspended her in and everything would be different. But now, just like Liam said, she would only be doing this. She would only be here. And she would be so clearly here that no one would think otherwise.

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Later, as she sat up in the bed, a tray on her lap holding a bowl of steaming soup, her hair wet and clean, her body rinsed free of everything she wished she could hold onto—Kaherdin’s scent, the deep, earthy smells of the forest, the sweet odor of her brief happiness—her father came into the room, Sumi scooting out with a deferential bow and a hurried shuffle before closing the door behind her. For a moment, the air between them was still and silent, no charge between them. No lies or blame. No hording of a cure that could save thousands. No manipulation. No house arrest, her prison looking like a visit but really, the bonds were still on her despite the fact that she could move her arms and legs. But then she breathed out into what was true. Her father was unknown to her. He had always been so. And she could never, ever forget that. “Daughter,” Jodoc said, standing next to the bed, his hands clasped in front of him. He didn’t even notice Sumi’s exit, and for the first time, Talaith wondered how her father viewed The Untouched, his inability to see Sumi somehow startling. “I am so glad that you are feeling better.” Putting down her spoon, Talaith looked up, finding that open and hallow look she’d adopted with Liam. “thank you, Father. It was—I don’t know what came over me.” With a solemn, wise nod, Jodoc pulled up a chair and sat down, watching her. She could feel him trying to move around in her mind, searching for an answer to her flight and her theft, but she’d already clamped down, protecting herself in the only ways she could. Sighing, he leaned back. “Your disappearance was a surprise to us all. But now that you are back, we can try to help you find your true course. I have some ideas what that course might be.” Jessica Inclan

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Talaith nodded, even as her food threatened to come back up. She knew what her father was alluding to—marriage with Liam. “Yes,” she said, picking up her spoon and dipping into the broth. “I understand.” “When did you learn to matter travel?” he asked. “You never showed an inclination nor a desire to learn.” Swallowing, she gave him the answer she had prepared. “It was an accident. I had seen you travel so many times, I must have simply watched and known. I don’t think I could do it again. Once I was in the forest, I was stuck there.” He stared at her, still trying to pull her thoughts from of her head like a piece of yarn from an incomplete sweater. “So you only went to the forest where Liam found you?” “That’s all. I was there in the forest for days.” At that comment, her father smiled. “Yes, you brought a great deal of the forest home with you.” Again, Talaith mourned the loss of the dirt and pine scent that had lingered on her. Never in her life had she allowed herself to get even remotely dirty, but for once, she’d had evidence of experience, of life, of joy. “I must have looked quite the wreck.” She took another sip of the soup, a deep rich chicken soup with orange slices of carrot, chunks of yellow potatoes, celery half moons. This soup was the most normal thing in the room, something she could understand. If only life were as easy as soup. “You have been through an ordeal, and we are going to watch you. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you to stay here for a while until you . . .” Jodoc paused, looking at her, his eyes searching her face, his mind beating against the door of her thoughts. She hoped he was only Jessica Inclan

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finding her compliance. Her hope that she was forgiven for her flighty and stupid escape from Uveris. All Talaith wanted was her father to see that she was a good good girl. “I know,” she said, sipping her soup, feeling the steam flume up into her face. “When you are feeling better,” her father said, the emphasis on better, better meaning fixed or normal or not what she was now. “When you are through all of this, I may have you come to Naruci to live with Akla and me for a time. It will be as it was when you were a girl.” “Who will—“ she began. “Liam will take care of things here,” Jodoc said. “And then when I know that you are back to your old self, you may return to Uveris.” Talaith nodded, smiling, trying to look like going home to Naruci was exactly what she wanted to do. She made it appear that living in her father’s home was the exact and perfect thing for her. Her father kept talking, and she sipped her soup, replying when appropriate but her brain was whirling under its protection. She could not leave Uveris. She would not. If Kaherdin were to search for her, he would have no idea where Naruci was. And even though she did not want to guide The Colonists in Uveris, she couldn’t bear to see Liam in charge of them. But that was a pride, a vanity she needed to let go of. However, she had to stay here until she could escape or Kaherdin could discover her. “You are done with your meal,” he father said, standing up from his seat, looking down at her again with his fatherly gaze. “I'll call the girl to come get your tray. And you need to sleep and rest and get better so I can take you home.” “All right, Father,” she said, nodding, allowing him to kiss her cheek and touch the back of her head, his fingers warm and strong. “That sounds perfect.” Jessica Inclan

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Jodoc walked out of the room, and Talaith let herself fall back against the pillows, realizing how tense she had been the entire visit. Sighing, she closed her eyes, trying to find the way to Kaherdin. Once, she’d been able to pull him to her in her dreams. Once, she’d conjured him out of matter, touching him in a place that wasn’t even real, a gray of matter and imagination. Find me, she thought. Find me before it’s too late. Holding her breath, she wanted for a response. But there was none, no sound at all, only the dull thud of her heart. It took all her strength of mind to not imagine him dead, the elixir proven too strong, too powerful. So she pictured him in a field, standing in the middle of the daylight, the sun shining on him. He is alone, looking toward the mountains, his eyes wide open, his mind on her and her alone. Kaherdin, she thought out to him again. Find me. Come to Uveris. Now. And with that thought, with his name on her tongue, in her thoughts, she closed her eyes and slept again.

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TWELVE

When he awoke, Kaherdin was in darkness. Because he could see nothing—not even a glint of light slipping through a blind or doorjamb or keyhole—he imagined he was on a boat, one of those vessels Talaith had told him sailed the big blue expanses of water that almost covered the unknown world. He could be on the ocean right now, sailing somewhere, maybe back toward the compound, where Raf would shred him alive. Then Kaherdin’s story—his and Talaith’s— would be over, just like that. Slowly, the cool but not cold air wrapping around him, Kaherdin’s eyes adjusted, and he knew he was not in a boat but rather sitting in a chair in a room. Outside, it was still light, a tiny line of yellow around what must be a window. He was unsure if he’d been asleep for a minute or an hour, everything since he’d taken the elixir a blur of time and memory. How many hours or days or weeks it had been since he’d last seen Talaith a mystery. But he knew that he felt better, even if he was still hungry. The sleep had revived him, probably in time to get killed right here by these people who would have every right to do so— especially if they knew what he was underneath the “cure” of the elixir. He relaxed into his chair, knowing he could not stand up or move. What held him still and tight was not a literal but a magic thing, something keeping him from any movement other than a turn of the neck, a lift of chest to take in air. All he could do was wait, so he waited, the memory of Talaith stealing over him like a dream. In all his imaginings, in all his encounters with women over the centuries, he’d never thought of sex as something beyond that physical at that could bring him a moment, minutes, maybe Jessica Inclan

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hours of physical relief. It was like scratching an itch or being full. It was physical and physical only. He hadn’t wanted any of the entanglements that seemed to come with putting a part of his body in a woman. He hadn’t wanted to sleep with a woman every day and hunt with her every night. No, Kaherdin had acquiesced to his body when he’d had no choice and then regretted it almost always. No, always. But Talaith was something, someone else. She was not just sex, though his body reacted to her as it had with no other woman. Yes, he craved her skin, her hair, her scent, her wetness. Yes, he wanted to kiss every part of her, his mouth of cheek, mouth, nipple, sex. Yes, he wanted to be inside her over and over again. But it was how he felt in his mind that made their union what it was. They came together, and they came together. When they touched, there was a bringing together of every single part, body—and if he could believe in this—soul. Talaith, he thought. Are you in the forest? Can you hear me? He waited, listening. I don’t know if I will make it through this, he thought. I just want you to know I love you. He waited in the darkness, listening for her reply, any reply. For the first time in his life, he wanted to say the words he’d never spoken to anyone; words no one had ever spoken to him. I love you, he thought again, hoping to hear them one time before he left his long life, left this sad body that for so long had been in thrall to the mistakes of others. But all he heard was the pounding in his ears of his anticipation. Finally, there was only silence. Breathing out, he felt the seat against his back and thighs, and then there was a noise outside the room, the sounds of footsteps, conversation, the clanking of things he imagined might be used against him. His heart started to pound, his dormant wolf reactions making him tense his thighs, his biceps even against the invisible bonds that held him in his chair. Jessica Inclan

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The noises quieted, and then a door opened, filling the room with soft, yellow light that made him blink. He heard the clanking again and tensed, anticipating something painful, something final, surprised really that they’d kept him alive this long. But then something distracted him, and it was the smell of something warm and savory, a smell that reminded him of the fire that Talaith had built to cook the rabbit he’d caught for her. In that second of recognition, he understood that the smiling woman he’d encountered in the field wasn’t holding a sword or other heavy painful weapon but a tray of food. She wasn’t going to decapitate him but feed him. “Sorry this took so long,” she said, putting the tray on a table. “I know how hungry you must be.” What she didn’t seem to be saying was that they’d had to decide to kill him or keep him alive. The idea was in the air, though, and Kaherdin nodded. Two men who had been on the field as well came in the room, one make a motion of some kind and Kaherdin felt his invisible bonds disappear. They stood in front of him as the woman indicated that Kaherdin should stand up and come to the table. Slowly, he stood and walked to the chair she offered, feeling light-headed and shaky as he did. As he sat down, he stared at the plate of food: a piece of cooked animal, long green pods of some kind, things he’d seen growing in fields or at the sides of abandoned structures. Seen when he was a wolf. There was a lump of something white, and there were the small silver things at the sides of the plate that looked sharp and that had clanged when she’d walked into the room with the tray. Utensils. These were the utensils he’d never had need of before. The knife he recognized. The others had never been necessary.

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He sighed, shook his head. How to tell them that this would be his first meal eaten like a human? How to tell them that his inclination was to bend his head down and rip into the cooked flesh? But he’d read enough of the literature of the people who had lived before him. Boren had taught him enough to know what real humans did, how they ate, how they lived. Carefully, Kaherdin picked up the utensil with the sharp prongs and then the knife. He knew about utensils and implements for cooking from the books he’d read, but they had not been necessary in his life, and he wasn’t sure how to proceed. His stomach ached and burned with hungry rage as he contemplated how to cut, and he wished that they’d leave him alone for five minutes. That’s all he’d need to eat the animal. The pods and the white glop he wasn’t even sure he could digest. The smiling woman was smiling again. “I have a feeling that you’ve never eaten like this before.” “You have no idea,” Kaherdin said. “Actually, I think we do,” said one of the men, who pulled up another chair and took the utensils from Kaherdin. Pulling the plate closer to him, the man positioned the utensils over the meat. “This is a fork,” he said. “It holds everything down and then shovels it in. The knife does all the work and then you cast it aside.” The man made several quick cuts on the animal flesh, and then dropped the knife and plunge the fork into one succulent bite of meat. “Magic,” he said, pushing back the plate to Kaherdin and handing him the fork. “Have at it.”

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Kaherdin needed no more encouragement. He put the meat in his mouth and pulled it off the fork. He wasn’t even sure he was really chewing he was swallowing so fast, but he did taste, felt the flavor of the meat spread over his tongue in a way no food ever had. It tasted warm and rich, the meat more alive to taste than it ever had been while literally alive. He forked another bite and then another, picking up the knife when he had gone through what the man had cut for him and made his own ragged pieces that he ate as fast as he could. When the meat was gone, Kaherdin speared a pod and then looked up at the people around him. “What is this?” he asked, the limp green thing hanging in front of him. “A bean. Green beans,” the other man said. “They won’t kill you, though I’ve had to convince all my children otherwise. Eventually, they all believed me.” Kaherdin looked at the limp dangling green thing and then put it in his mouth, this time chewing carefully. His tongue registered the shock of such a new taste, a vegetable taste, a plant taste, but cooked or boiled or whatever they did to it, the taste in his mouth deeper than any smell he’d breathed in from the field. It wasn’t, he thought, half bad, though his stomach hadn’t gotten to it yet. For a second, he thought of the children who had grown up with such tastes, the children here and the children in the colonies. How could explain to any of them that his DNA didn’t require what theirs did? That he was made to survive and to survive on those creatures that could not outrun him. But he’d taken the elixir, and now, for a year, he would be like a child who grew up here, eating green beans and using utensils. He ate another few beans and then stared at the glob of white. He poked at it with his fork. “Potatoes,” the woman said. “Mashed.” Jessica Inclan

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“This is a potato?” he said, thinking of how he’d last used that word when talking to Talaith. His luscious potato. “Mashed?” Kaherdin said, thinking about the tubers brought up from the rain, those small brown roots that those untouched gobbled up in their cold caves. “Mashed up with a fork and mixed with butter and milk,” she added. “Some people think it’s as good as dessert.” “Dessert?” he said. “Okay, let’s go back to vegetables. Potatoes are a vegetable. No, a root. Cooked and mashed. A lot of people can’t get enough of it because it’s so creamy. So, dessert.” Kaherdin nodded, knowing about milk and butter from tales, knowing about cows from the very early years of his life, so many centuries ago. He had loved to come across those large bovine creatures, such easy targets, now all gone—at least around the compound. He put a bite in his mouth and sucked more than chewed. Definitely better than the beans, but he was full now, and he put down the fork and looked up at his captors. He felt steadier now, ready for whatever might come next, even though he had no idea what it might be. It would be an odd kind of people indeed to feed someone well and then kill him. But compared to what he was and how he had lived his whole life, who was he to judge anyone. And if he did what they asked, maybe they would help him find Talaith. “We’ve told of your kind,” the smiling woman said. “The Wahya.” The map of the world Talaith had explained to him popped into his mind, all the land masses, all the water, all the space and time between himself and everything. He wondered where he was now and how these people before him would have known of his people. But he was afraid to

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ask, not wanting them to find out the full extent of Wahya life if they didn’t know. The less they knew, the better. “Oh,” he said, trying to figure out how to discover more without giving out more. He hoped his mind was closed to them, and he imagined his thoughts tamped down by something heavy— iron or steel. “Who told you about us?” The group looked at one another, the man who’d cut his food turning back to speak to him. “One of your kind came here years ago. Hundreds of years ago. Many generations of our people have known him, and he’s become our most important leaders.” “So you die,” Kaherdin said. The smiling woman stopped smiling. “We die. Like people do, usually. Like we did before the Reckoning. Before the experiments.” “The Reckoning,” Kaherdin repeated, knowing that Talaith called it The Poisoning. His people just called it The Beginning, the time when their time started. The smiling woman nodded. “When everything changed.” “But you have skills that the people before The Reckoning did not,” Kaherdin said. “You can travel through matter. You can read minds.” She nodded. “We’ve learned a great deal since then. We’ve been taught by many, not just by the Wahya who came to us.” “There are others,” he said, knowing that of course there were. If there were Wahya and colonists, there would be so many different types of people left after the worst of all cataclysms to human kind. “So many,” another man said. “The world split into new parts after The Reckoning. We all were just trying to survive. There are some parts of this world where the survival is ugly.” Jessica Inclan

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At those words, all of them looked at him, their eyes keen, their mouths pressed together. So they knew about the wolf, about the hunt, about the human hunts at night. Kaherdin nodded. Survival was always ugly, even when it didn’t seem so. Today, for instance, he’d been fed killed plants and animals. Cows had been put under human control in order to provide milk and butter. Life was not without a price, but the price was on a scale, moving from drastic to minimal. His life had been drastic, and here he knew that the price was softer, easier. Better. “So what are you going to do with me?” he asked. “I’m Wahya, but—“ He stopped, looking at each of the people in front of him. Kaherdin couldn’t not tell them what he was now and what he would become if he couldn’t get back to the colony for more elixir. If he were going to stay here and ask them for help finding Talaith, they had to know who he was. If they could accept him, they could plan. If they could not, then they could kill him fast and quick, ending it all, finally. It wasn’t easy to kill a Wahya, but looking at them again, he knew they would be up for the task. They wanted to protect their way of life, this very good life. “But I have taken an elixir and will not revert to animal tonight. Or any night for a year.” “You’ve found the elixir?” a voice said at the doorway. “You’ve broken into the colonies?” Everyone in the room turned toward the doorway, and Kaherdin saw a figure, a man, backlit against the light from outside, a man coming in from the light to the dark. If Kaherdin had been a wolf at that moment, the fur at his neck and along his spine would have raised, each individual hair quivering. He would have barred his teeth for potential attack. As a man, he felt his quadriceps tense, his hands clench, sweat prick on his forehead. His heart pounded in his ears, but then as he thought about the man’s words, he recognized something, remembering the past, remembering stories from long ago. Jessica Inclan

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“Did you find the elixir?” the man asked again. “Answer me.” The figure moved closer, his shape and form and features all becoming clearer as he drew closer. “A colonist stole the elixir, and I stole it from her,” he said, the thought of Talaith a dark, deep well in his chest, his act against her a permanent scar. “And I took it one or two days ago. I don’t exactly know how long it knocked me out. But I didn’t turn last night. I didn’t hunt. And here today, I’ve eaten in a way I never have before.” The man came closer, and Kaherdin felt his own breath halt, his heart pounding even harder. “Oh,” he said, feeling his eyes and mouth open wide, feeling an empty place within his heart and soul fill, finally, with the answer to the question he’d been asking for centuries. “Yes, my son,” Boren said. “It’s me.”

Kaherdin wasn’t sure he was awake or asleep, nothing since leaving the compound area truly making chronological or logical sense. Things that never should have happened had—Talaith had appeared out of nowhere, they’d escaped Raf and the pack, they’d traveled through matter to an unknown land. And now, Boren, the man who disappeared so long ago, was standing in front of him, helping him to his feet, smiling at him in the way he always had. That’s why Kaherdin wasn’t sure he was awake—this was the dream he’d had for so many years in his younger years. Boren would come back. Boren would find him. Boren would help him explain the things he hadn’t been able to before. Boren would tell him who the woman was that Kaherdin saw in his waking dreams.

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But even later, as the long years passed, Boren only a memory to the entire pack, Kaherdin had so often imagined what Boren would say or think or do at any given event. As he’d watched Raf act out or Sika stroll into his room or the pack’s plan to herd the remaining humans together and force them to breed, he imagined Boren’s reactions. He imagined Boren’s indignation, outrage, and horror. He imagined Boren and himself striking out on their own. That’s all he’d been able to do. Imagine. Now, though, Boren had his hands on his shoulders. Boren was hugging him, patting his back, laughing. This was not a dream. Boren was here. This was real. “Young one,” Boren said. “How have you done all this? How have you gotten here and managed to get the elixir as well?” Swallowing, finding his voice, Kaherdin smiled. “I think I need to ask you the same questions.” Boren looked back to the people behind him, nodding. “You may leave us. This one is well known to me.” The smiling woman and the three men waited for a second, trying to determine whether Boren was under thrall or some kind of spell. But then they nodded back, and one by one, they left the room, the smiling woman closing the door behind her. The room grew dim, and Boren reached over to flick a switch, the light casting a brownish and the whiter light. Boren turned back to Kaherdin, looking at him closely. In the years since he’d last seen Boren, nothing had changed in the man, though his skin was darker than it ever had been, small lines now crinkling at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. The Wahya came in all different shades, but whatever shade it was, it was the lightest the shade had to offer, as no lick of sun hit any part of any body. Jessica Inclan

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But Boren had walked in from the sunlight. Boren had gained the ability to absorb light as had Kaherdin. “How?” Kaherdin asked. “Let’s sit,” Boren said, pulling up a chair and sitting down. “I can explain.” “Didn’t you always,” Kaherdin said, smiling but still shaky. He sat down, crossed his legs, and waited for what would likely be the best tale Boren had ever told. “You asked so many questions,” Boren said. “If I left you for three hours, I’d come back to about a day’s worth of grilling. ‘What is this?’ and ‘What is that?’” “And then you left,” Kaherdin said. “I had to answer the questions on my own. And to tell you the truth, I haven’t been doing so well.” Boren shook his head and breathed out. “Trust me, I did not intend to leave. Don’t you know I would have said goodbye if I had?” This seemed true. Kaherdin and Boren had spent so much time together, it made sense that Boren would have tried to explain, even if Kaherdin hadn’t wanted to hear the story of his departure. And beside the amount of time they’d spent together, there had been more than simply the constant, daily interaction. There had been affection and the simple knowing of each other that had been such a rarity in Kaherdin’s life—and in Boren’s, at least back then. “Yes,” Kaherdin said. “Of course you would have said goodbye. I know that now, though it took me a few decades to figure it out. But what happened?” Boren smiled. “Same Kaherdin. Always a question, but now clearly you have some answers.” He paused and then began again. “I had long believed there was a way to travel, to move through matter. I knew that it had to be possible because already, my mind was able to

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move from my thoughts to others. If I could throw my thoughts forward and out and through, my body was simply the next step.” Kaherdin shook his head. “No wonder you always knew what I was going to do.” “I didn’t know how to control anything at first, but then I thought that if there was a way to move my thoughts, to hear the thoughts of others, all I had to do was wait and listen and the answer would come.” “You were trying to tell me about it once,” Kaherdin said. “You wanted me to open my mind.” Boren nodded. “I’m glad you didn’t take my advice right away. I didn’t even know what I was doing. It was a shock. One early morning just before sunrise, I was headed back to the compound. I’d seen you flash by, alone as usual, headed home for rest. In the distance, I heard the pack howling over a kill. Nothing was out of the ordinary. But just before I arrived in the compound perimeter, just before the sun was about to creep up over the mountains, I saw something. A waver of light to my left, an opening that wasn’t an opening.” “It was a trap,” Kaherdin said. “No,” Boren said. “I assumed it was, but just as I was about to run past to warn the compound, I noticed that I could almost see through it. I stopped in my tracks and turned, walking up closer to the waver of air that was round, like a tunnel. And then I saw that it was not air but matter that was moving, opening. It was a hole in the world itself.” As Boren spoke, Kaherdin thought of the way Talaith had grabbed him out of the middle of his battle with Raf. It seemed to him then that she was following a tunnel through the world as he knew it, dumping them into the forest. She’d been the only one to see the beginning and end

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of that tunnel, but if Talaith and these people here and now Boren had seen such gates, portals, so could anyone. That had to be true. “So you stepped in and found yourself . . . here?” “Not here exactly,” Boren said. “But on this continent.” “Continent,” Kaherdin repeated, again seeing in his mind’s eye the map that Talaith had explained to him, the chunks of land in primary colors, the vast blue oceans. “Part of the world —but not the part the compounds are on.” “Yes,” Boren said. “I arrived here naked, exposed to a midday sun, screaming from the terror of the journey. It was not my most dignified moment.” Kaherdin smiled, knowing that despite the lightness of his words that the experience had rocked the older man. If Talaith had not been with him on his journey, Kaherdin would have felt the same scream in his throat. “I understand,” Kaherdin said. “I’ve traveled this way and it’s not for the faint of heart. But what did you do? How did you find shelter? How did you become tolerant of the sunlight?” Boren shifted in his chair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “It was a long few months. I ran to a grove of trees, burying myself under leaves until night fell. Then I did as I had always done—I changed and hunted, traveling as far as I could each night. Every day, I found a place to hide from the light. Eventually, I knew I’d find other humans or they’d find me. The first few groups weren’t as amenable to me. In fact, I was driven out with flame and weapon. I became the thing that was hunted not the hunter. But finally, after almost a year, I arrived here.” “And they speak our language?”

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“Apparently, by the time of the reckoning, most of the world spoke or understood the language we have always known. They have other languages, languages they often used in the beginning to keep me from understanding them. But, eventually, they learned to value what I had to say and spoke only so that I could understand and contribute. Eventually, I learned the other languages, generation after generation teaching me.” “But what about the sunlight? About the nightly change?” Kaherdin asked. “They certainly couldn’t have understood that.” Boren shook his head. “You are right. My little bit of sad biological magic was a shock to them. In fact, it’s a miracle that they let me live after that first night. But these are a tolerant, good people. They first kept me much as they kept you here. But after listening to me, they allowed me freedom. And after I explained more about my situation, they began to create a cure. It took many of their generations—so many of them have come and gone since I arrived. But over a hundred years ago, one of their finest developed what can only be the elixir, a genetic potion to combat our own DNA. It works, as does the elixir the colonies use. With it, we lead human lives. Without it, we are the animals we’ve become.” As Boren spoke, Kaherdin found himself angry, his body feeling with heat, his words an angry backlog in his throat. Why hadn’t Boren come back to the compound to free them all? Why had he stayed here with the cure all to himself? He wanted to stand and walk out of the room, knowing that now he could, even though the sun was high. He was as free as Boren, while back in their sad part of the world, the pack led animal lives. The colonists kept them so. Boren had kept them so. “They would have taken me anywhere. And they tried,” Boren said. “They hadn’t opened the tunnel that I’d taken here. But until I learned how to travel that way, they would have Jessica Inclan

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dropped me in any part of the world. For many decades, I tried, finding a place on the map that reminded me of—of home. Of you. We ended up in so many places. I saw so much of what the world had become. I saw great horrors and great beauties, but never did I see the landscape around the compound—the forests and the lakes and the certain sky. I couldn’t go home because I did not know where it was. I could not find it in my imagination, and I could not find it on a map. Eventually, I stopped my attempts. I failed you. In that, I failed.” For a moment, Kaherdin’s life at the compound flickered through his mind, shot after shot of his life before meeting Talaith. There he was: Hunting, fighting, surviving. Often cold, often wounded, always alone. There had been no emotional place to land, save for brief moments with women. Of all the people in his life, Boren had never failed him. He’d simply disappeared. And now Kaherdin knew that was by accident. “You didn’t fail me,” Kaherdin said. “I was still listening to you, all these years later. You’ve been with me on this journey. In fact, I can almost hear what you’d have to say about this conversation.” Boren smiled. “I’m smarter in retrospect. That me could likely have gotten me back to the compound.” “Talaith would know,” Kaherdin said. “She would be able to get us there and back and there again.” “Talaith? The woman you told the others about.” “Yes,” Kaherdin said. “Is she your woman?” Boren asked. “Is she from the pack? And how does she know how to travel like this?”

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The question stung and burned. If Talaith was his pack, then he’d done a terrible job protecting her. As usual, he’d failed in his pack duties, his pack responsibilities. He’d wandered off and left her to fend for herself in this strange new part of the world. “I don’t know how she can travel as you do. And she’s not from the pack,” Kaherdin said. “She’s from the colonies.” At this statement, Boren sat still and quiet, looking at him for a moment. “How,” he asked finally, “did you meet?” Kaherdin shifted on his chair and shook his head, remembering the way he looked through the window at Talaith’s sleeping form. Seeing her sit up in her bed, look at him, her hand flying to her mouth in horror. Later, how she walked toward him, sought out his gaze, and then later, his touch. How he finally was able to pull her toward him and breathe in her lavender scent. “It wasn’t a formal introduction, trust me. I saw her first in dreams. Then I began to find her in our, well, our joined imaginations. Our minds. This went on for centuries. Then . . . one night we connected in a place that wasn’t a place but a space. It was like this matter that we’ve traveled through. A place out of the ordinary.” Boren sat silent, waiting for more. “One night, Talaith just was there. I thought she was prey, and it’s a miracle I didn’t hurt her. Kill her. But there she was, looking for me, traveling all the way to me. She’d stolen two vials of elixir and packed up what she could. She found me.” Kaherdin wanted to say that she also seemed to be running away from something in the colony, something she’d never told him about. But even now, he wasn’t sure if this was true. And the truth was, he hadn’t pressed her for her secrets.

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“All I know,” Kaherdin continued, “was that there she was, in the forest by the compound, where she imagined I was. She also managed to pick me out of a fight with Raf and bring us to this place, a place we’d both dreamed of.” “You’ve dreamed of this place? Here?” Kaherdin nodded. “Not this settlement but the field about twenty miles away. The mountain range. I’ve seen it in my dreams, and she was always with me. We were together, standing in the sunlight, holding hands.” “Where is she now?” “I awoke after taking the elixir, and she was gone. I’d left her sleeping in the forest, and by the time I returned, there was nothing but a shuffle in the pine needles. I didn’t know it would take so long for me to recover, and she either went looking for me and got lost or was taken. I tried to find her,” Kaherdin said, feeling the weight of his failure. His neglect. His terrible mistake. Pushing back his chair a bit, Boren stood and walked to the window in the room, pulling open the shutters and looking out to the sunlight that so many years ago would have pained him. Kaherdin watched him, transported for a moment back to the days when he was learning, desperate to figure out how to be alive and stay alive. How to fit in. He hoped Boren would have the answers once again, a suggestion on how to find Talaith. A suggestion on what to do next. “What are your plans now?” Boren asked, turning away from the view at the window. At that, Kaherdin wanted to weep and laugh, so he laughed, a simpler alternative. “I need to find Talaith,” he said simply. “If she’s not here, she must have gone back to the colony.” Jessica Inclan

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“Or she was taken there,” Boren said. “By force.” Kaherdin breathed in, realizing that he’d not thought of this. Of course her people would have been looking for her. Of course they’d try to find her. Her father was the leader of all the colonies, and she would be very important to them all. If she had the power to travel as she did, so must others of her kind. Boren paced the room a bit, his clothes making quiet, shiff shiff noises in the quiet room. “We might have a chance now to do more than reunite the two of you.” Kaherdin’s head buzzed with Boren’s words. Was there anything other than reuniting with Talaith? All the while he’d been walking and then waiting in the dark room and now talking to Boren, he could do nothing but think about finding her, bringing her back here, to this place where they could live, together, in the sunlight. Here, they would never have to think about the compound or the colonies. They could be cured by the very same potion that Boren took. They didn’t need to steal or lie or cheat their way into health via stolen bottles of elixir, and they could live their lives into eternity together. “We bring her here? We find her and bring her back?” Kaherdin said, standing up, ready to go now despite his bedraggled state and awesome fatigue. “No,” Boren said. “We go back to the compound and to the colony. And we set everyone free.”

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THIRTEEN

The next few days took on a quiet routine that reminded Talaith of the meditation retreats some of The Untouched held, meditation a practice they thought helped them stay in the present moment. When she went to her one and only mediation retreat (run by Rachel’s love Stephen), Talaith felt impatient with the idea of being in the present because she’d had too much present. The present was always, well, present, and she wasn’t sure why anyone would want to be more into the moment as the moment seemed to go on forever. In fact, the moment was forever. But The Untouched had such a limited amount of time, of life, and she knew their need was greater than hers, as she was floating in the river of always. Now, though, at Liam’s house, each moment felt new, a second, a minute, an hour closer to when she would be able to escape. She moved slowly and quietly through each day, focusing on her tasks: getting out of bed, eating meals, helping Sumi with the household chores, talking nicely to Liam. She focused on each step, each word she said, each facial expression. She was in a play entitled “The Good Girl,” and she was playing her role to her fullest extent, waiting only to take her curtain call. Now, she sat at the table in Liam’s kitchen, Sumi at the stove preparing the evening meal. Liam was out doing Council work, and Jodoc had left for Naruci, taking, she assumed, Akla with her. Talaith had not been allowed to leave the house or talk to anyone other than Sumi. Kaherdin had not answered her calls out to him through thought and neither had Rachel, so Talaith knew that the house had been well protected, sealed off and trapping her body and her thoughts within these walls.

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“Do you want some tea?” Sumi turned toward Talaith from the stove, a spoon in her hand. “A biscuit? It will be a while until dinner.” “Thank, you,” Talaith said, putting down the book she’d been reading. “I would love that, though I haven’t moved enough today to deserve even one meal.” Sumi laughed, and Talaith was struck by the girl’s easy beauty, her dark glittering eyes and glossy hair. How did she find her way into this job? Talaith wondered. What did Liam promise her or do to her to keep her here? “Please join me,” Talaith said. “You could use a break after all the work you’ve done today.” Sumi blushed then nodded, turning back to the stove to start the kettle. She bustled around the cupboards, pulling out the biscuits and sugar, taking out the creamer and filling it with cream. After the water boiled, she poured it into the tea pot, the tea leaves letting loose their minty scent, the smell reminding Talaith of Akla, the memory sharp and sad. If only she could bury herself in Akla’s arms and tell her the truth about what had happened. About her father and Liam. About Kaherdin. She wanted to tell Akla that the fight against The Others could have been over centuries ago, if only her father had given over the elixir instead of hoarding it. So many people would be alive now if he had shared. So many of The Others would be living what passed for normal lives. And she would tell Akla how her father had her trapped her and forced her to live with the man who raped her, the man who nightly knocked on her door, waiting for the moment Talaith would say, “Enter.” So far, she’d managed to feign sleep, but it was only a matter of time before he did what he had that night at the lake. He would take what she would not willing give. He would open the bedroom door and Talaith’s role is this play would get more demanding. Even now as she thought of it, she felt herself reach for a knife she did not have, search for the rock Jessica Inclan

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that would knock him unconscious or worse. But she could not react. She had to bide her time, waiting for the right moment. “Here we go,” Sumi said, bringing over the teapot on a tray full of tea things and biscuits. How normal, Talaith realized, this would all be if it were simply normal. A tea party in the middle of the afternoon. But it wasn’t normal in any sense—she was in prison, Sumi her unwilling guard. “This smells wonderful,” Talaith said, taking the full, steaming cup that Sumi offered her and warming her hands as she waited for it to cool. Steam wafted up into her face. “Thank you.” Sumi blushed again, shrugging a little. “It’s nice to have tea.” For a moment, they were both quiet, sipping the hot tea, crunching on the slightly sweet biscuits. After a while, Talaith put down her cup and looked at Sumi. “So how did you come to work for Liam?” she asked, carefully to keep her question light and innocuous. But despite her care, Sumi burst into a red blush, her eyes growing slightly wet, glassy and full of emotion. The girl looked back into her cup her head bent over the table. “I’m sorry, Sumi,” Talaith said. I didn’t mean to pry.” Sumi shook her head, but she didn’t look up right away, and Talaith decided to let her question drop. Picking up her tea, she blew a little on the hot tan liquid and waiting for Sumi’s embarrassment to pass. It was clear now what was going on, and it was clear that Sumi was not an equal partner in any part of it. “Do you live in the village proper?” Talaith asked. “Or toward the river?”

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Though Sumi blushed again, she looked up. “My family lives close to the river, just by the farmland. My family has been there since about forever. My father works the mill, and my sister has her own farm.” “And you mother?” Talaith asked. Sumi took in a breath, her body slumping slightly. “She died three years ago. That’s how I met Miss Rachel.” “You know Rachel?” At that question, Sumi sat straighter, her face not rose but blanched white. “I—I know the council members from my work for Mr. Liam.” She scooted her chair back and then stood up, moving back to the sink with her cup. She resumed her tasks there, and Talaith wondered what she’d just stumbled upon. “Rachel has loved Untouched men, you know. Her true love was named Stephen,” Talaith said, watching Sumi’s back as she said the words. At the name Stephen, Sumi seemed to react, the name moving through her body as the sound moved through her ears. “And Rachel is my best friend,” Talaith said. “Rachel has always been there for me.” As Talaith watched Sumi at the sink, she thought she saw the girl lift her shoulders, just begin to turn back to Talaith, and there was a sound in the front hallway, a movement, and then there was the sound of the footsteps on hardwood. Liam was home. Sumi’s expansiveness seemed to collapse, her body shrinking almost in front of Talaith’s eyes. If she’d been able to fold herself up and slide into a crack in the wall, Talaith imagined that the girl would. “There you are,” Liam said, striding in, his long blonde hair flowing behind him, his face full of the brisk air that must be outside. “How was your day?” Jessica Inclan

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Pulling in her irritation, her upset, her small hope that Sumi might help her, she returned to her role, her good girl role. “It’s been very pleasant,” she said. “Sumi just made me tea.” Liam didn’t bother looking at Sumi, the girl moving away from the sink and then out of the room without him even looking up. He probably didn’t even notice that she’d been there—or that she was now gone. He only noticed her when he noticed his own need, using her as he would a bowl or cup or spoon. “Wonderful.” Liam pulled out a chair and sat opposite Talaith. As he beamed at her, telling her news from the Council, keeping her up-to-date on Uveris news, she wondered how he actually went about his life. How did he keep someone incarcerated in his home and go out and about, living his life as though nothing were out of the ordinary? How did he keep a girl in his home—Sumi—and use her in more ways than one? She cleaned his house, watched over his prisoners, and did what he asked. Liam was fucking Sumi, that ugly word the only word that would work. Maybe it had first been a rape, just as he had raped Talaith. Now, Sumi knew that her life and her families’ life depended on her acquiescence. Talaith knew that every time she didn’t scream when Liam touched her meant that her family could have the life down by the river and on the farm. Talaith nodded as he spoke, wishing that she could turn into a wolf, lunge at Liam, take him by the throat and press down with her teeth and jaw, slowly, feeling the moment when breath stopped. Feeling that moment and liking it. “Your father will want to have a report tonight,” Liam said. “He’s taught me how to communicate with him.”

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“Oh, that’s good,” Talaith said, the betrayal of her father’s sharing their mind-to-mind connection another deep pain. But she nodded and smiled, as if she knew this sharing would— no should—happen. “That way, you are able to keep him informed.” Liam fiddled with the plate of biscuits, looking behind him briefly, acknowledging Sumi for the first time by making sure she was gone. “I want to talk about the night at the lake, Talaith,” he said, his gaze fastened on the plate of biscuits, the food skating across the ceramic, crumbs skittering over the wooden table. Talaith thought he might say something further, but he didn’t, looking up finally at her with the look he’d given her forever. All that need, and now, all that need was backed up with power and the knowledge that he could slake that need with impunity. “Yes,” she said. “I—I do, too. But I think it should wait until I am fully recovered. I’m still feeling so exhausted. Then . . . then we can talk about what happened between us.” She felt the air and light and hope in her words, letting the sentences flow out of her with a calm, even flow. She was hoping he heard, “Liam, as soon as I’m rested, you are going to be in my bed, giving you exactly and only what you want. Every night. Day, too. So don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” After a pause, he nodded, smiling a little and then looking up. He had heard what he’d wanted to. “So be it. And—and take your time. I want you to be completely rested.” “Thank you,” she said, sipping her tea, swallowing the acid nervous bile that rumbled in her throat. Liam stood and then put his hands on his waist, his chest puffed, his arms flexed. He actually turned, giving her a profile shot. His long blonde hair flowed down his back.

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You will never, ever get me to appreciate you. Ever, she thought, her ideas curled into her own head, her disdain still a secret. “As you know, it will be time for the yearly dose next week. You won’t have to take it out there in the wild without us,” Liam said. “You can perform the ritual with us. Of course, I will have to make sure that you are on the right course. I will have to be very, very sure that you are really with us.” Talaith nodded, understanding what Liam’s vetting process would be. But she had to be out of here before he forced her into his bed, before the Colony knew that there was a missing vial. Before Liam tested out her true and honorable intentions of staying here, with them. She would find a way to leave here with a vial of elixir and without having to touch this man one more time. Again, she smiled. “Of course, Liam.” She said his name like a kiss, and he watched her, trying to listen for a thought, trying to find the one lying bone in her body. Still and focused, she gave him nothing but her acceptance, beaming out her trust and hope and adoration of him. “Good,” he said, giving her a little nod, and then walking out of the kitchen, taking all his need and arrogance and evil with him. Listening to his footsteps down the hall and then hearing the door open and close, Talaith slumped in her chair. She had a week to figure out what to do. She had only a week before the doors of her old life clanged in front of her, locking her with Liam, with her father’s lies, locking her away from Kaherdin forever.

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That night, Talaith lay in bed, the moonlight streaming in through the window. Earlier, she’d stood in front of the glass, calling out to Kaherdin, hoping he would answer. Come to me, she’d thought. Please, come find me. But after minutes of trying to think her way through the protections around her, the magic wrought by her father and Liam, she’d come up with only the night sky in front of her, dark and quiet. She would have been happy with what had earlier in her life not be enough—his face at her window, his dark hair gleaming in this same moonlight, his eyes so green, so wide open and taking her in, his smile slowly forming on his face. But after a half hour of looking out onto the shining canopy of leaves around Liam’s house, she’d gone to bed. Sleep, however, was like a far off land, her mind whirring with her plans, which, of course, seemed pathetic because she was hidden here, alone, only the glimmer of Sumi’s interest to give her hope. Shifting in bed and turning on her side, she pulled up the covers, trying to find a place that would lull her into sleep. As she arranged herself, she stopped her heart and breath stopping when she saw what could only be the shadow of feet outside her bedroom door, illuminated by the candle that burned in the hallway all night. Liam. He wasn’t going to wait for her, as he’d promised in the afternoon. He was going to take her by force. And what could she do but take it? If she didn’t, he would know that she was not to be trusted. Talaith swallowed, breathe din, relaxed. She would do what she had to. For Kaherdin. For them both But even as she waited, she saw the feet slowly leave from behind the door, taking the horrid person they were attached to with them. She sighed, relaxed, but then she thought of Sumi, the poor girl behind another door, hiding in likely the same way Talaith had just been. Jessica Inclan

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Pushing aside the blankets, Talaith stood and walked to the door, pressing her ear against the wood. Down the hallway, she heard footsteps, and then a door opening. There was no knocking for Sumi, just an entry; an answer but no question. Talaith heard the door close, and then she opened her own, wanting but not wanting to hear exactly what she knew she would. As she walked down the hallway in her bare feet, she heard the sound of Sumi not resisting, the sound of a bed moving under the weight of two people, one moving to his own rhythm, thinking only of himself. She didn’t want to hear it; she would have done anything not to hear it, but she heard Sumi cry out. This was not a cry of pleasure, but of pain, and then there was a harsh sound, like a slap or a curse. Oh, she thought. What can I do? What should I do? She started to pace the floorboards but stopped, not wanting to give herself away. She thought then of breaking in, using an excuse of why she was there. She needed—she needed what? Another blanket. A hand opening the window. No, she wasn’t allowed to open the windows. What then? What if it was too late? What if Sumi were hurt, beyond hurt? Talaith knew that doing nothing was worse than anything else she could do. She understood that what happened in the room behind the bedroom door was her fault. On all sides, there was so much to lose. On one, her cover, her manipulation of Liam, her plot, all of which led to Kaherdin. On the other, the life of this poor girl. She started to cry silently, moved to the door, ready to push into the room and deal with the ruin of her plans later. But as she pressed her palm on the wood, she heard Sumi’s low voice, Liam’s reply. Sumi was all right. Alive, at least. Jessica Inclan

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The bed moved again, the sound not of sex but of a body leaving the mattress, the wood slats creaking. Talaith moved away and ran back to her room, her feet light on the cool floor. Behind her closed door, she listened to Liam leave Sumi’s room, closing the door behind him. Waiting for him to come back toward her room, she moved to the side of the door where she would be hidden if he should open it. She reached for the lamp, knowing that this time, she wouldn’t think about what to do to him. She would hit him, grab Sumi, and they would run. But where? And more importantly, how? Waiting, her body trembling, Talaith stood still and rigid, knowing the sounds that would precipitate her attack. She’d heard Liam’s stealth before, seen the way he moved toward what he wanted. But the footsteps never came. She was safe, for now. Trying to find her breath, she walked back to the window, the night an ocean of moonlight, the wind throwing the shine over the branches and toward the hills. Oh, Kaherdin. So much is at stake. Find me before I have to sacrifice someone else. Please.

After Liam left the next morning, Talaith walked to the counter where Sumi was doing the dishes. Without asking, she picked up the dishtowel and began drying the bowls from breakfast. Sumi glanced at her and said nothing, though her faced flushed as it did when the girl was paid any attention. “It looks like a lovely day,” Talaith said. “The farmer’s market probably has the tangerines that my father always loved so much.” Sumi nodded, putting another bowl in the wooden drying rack.

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“I know Rachel loves to shop at the farmer’s market. She’s always looking for the odd thing. A nectarine. An eggplant. Something from The Time Before. What do they call those old plants? Heirloom vegetables and fruits? Or is it historical?” Sumi looked at Talaith and smiled. “My mother called them ancient. ‘The ancient ones,’ she said, making sure I knew them all. But I don’t like eggplant.” In that second, despite the fact that Sumi was literally an adult in Untouched time—21 years —she saw the little girl that she must have been, wide smile, freckles, her hair a glow of auburn. How naturally she would live in the world without the Colony and the Others. She and her family would farm and grow things, living out their life cycles, passing on their property as it was passed to them without worrying about the council or power-mad people like Liam ruling their lives. Talaith had never really seen The Untouched except as people she needed to protect and preserve, as she would do any species that had survived The Poisoning. Everything left after that disaster was precious and sacred. And yet, what did the Untouched do but work for the colonies that supported and protected them? Talaith had never had an Untouched friend or colleague or intimate of any kind, nodding politely as they cleared her plate or brought her food or cared for her as Sumi was doing right now. But she’d never really known an Untouched person as she knew Sumi, thinking of them as a flicker of time, 60, 70, 80 years, and then they were gone. Her life had gone on so much longer that she’d never bothered to learn their ways, their loves, their needs. Talaith had taken them for granted, imagining that this was the way they wanted to live. She’d been dense and unfeeling, and now Talaith recognized how amazing Rachel truly was, learning The Untouched’s ways, moving in the sphere, liking them, loving them. Rachel had merged her life into their, giving her heart to men—Stephen especially—who died in her arms. Jessica Inclan

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But look at what Talaith had missed. If Sumi was any indication of how The Untouched were, Talaith had lost so much, wrapping herself up in her quiet, regular, safe life, her work and her family and her house her only focus. No wonder she’d been bored, exhausted, and weary. No wonder time seemed like a cruse rather than a blessing. She’d ignored half of what was available to her. What must they think of me? she wondered. Of us? If they didn’t have to worry about being attacked by the Others, they wouldn’t need the protection of the Colony. They would have no need of Uveris, Naruci, or Zadne. There would be no one to do this work, this hard, daily work that they did. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that kept Jodoc hoarding the elixir. Everyone —The Colonists, The Others, The Untouched—would be free to live their lives in ways that none of them could imagine. They could travel that map of the world Talaith had seen all those years ago. They could find the places that suited them best. All of them could start over, trying not to make the mistakes that The Before People had. If that was possible. If The Others were given a chance to not transform each night, they’d all have a chance. But how to make it happen? First, Talaith had to escape, find Kaherdin, bring the elixir to whoever would take it. And that plan started right here. Sumi sighed, clearly thinking of the farm, her family. And then she shrugged. “Miss Rachel wasn’t around for a while. I don’t know if she’s been to the market recently.” Talaith remembered what her father had thought to her while she was away, threatening Talaith with Rachel’s harm. Rachel had been in danger, but maybe now that they’d caught Talaith, she would have been forgiven and released, none of it her fault.

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“Maybe now she’s back,” Talaith said. “Maybe now she might be shopping for some eggplant. She would love to talk to you, I think, about what you’ve been doing recently.” Sumi scrubbed a fork, her gaze focused on the tines. Talaith wasn’t sure if Sumi knew what she was trying to say, but if there was, hope, it hung in these seconds as Sumi washed the dishes. Please, Talaith thought. Go to the market. Please find Rachel. Tell her that I’m trapped here. I don’t want to put either of you in danger, but I need to leave. I need to find a way out of this house and out of the Uveris. Sumi rinsed the fork and then handed it to Talaith who smiled as she took it, carefully drying every bead of water. Sumi looked at her with her large, not-quite brown eyes, the color more of a wash of green flecked with amber. “If I’m going to go to the market, I better go now. I need to let Mr. Liam know what I’m doing. He will have to know that I’m going to the market.” Talaith nodded. “I know. He sends that guard to the house. I’ve seen him from the window.” “His name is Paul, and he never comes in the house,” Sumi says. “He just comes when I have errands. But he watches real careful.” “I’m sure he keeps things very safe around here,” Talaith said. Sumi took off her apron and wiped her hands, hanging up the towel. Talaith wished she could tell the girl everything she needed to know, but she wasn’t sure what she could say, who was listening, what Liam or her father might here. “Rachel is my best friend,” Talaith says. “She knows a lot of things about me. I’ve known her for hundreds of years. She knows everything.”

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Sumi nodded again, gave Talaith a little wave, and then left the room. Talaith sat down at the kitchen table, and put her head in her hands. She wasn’t sure if Sumi knew what Talaith was asking her to do. She wasn’t sure if Sumi heard her thought or was alert enough to hear the message between Talaith’s sentences. Maybe both were true. Yet maybe they were connected by the pain they’d both suffered under Liam’s body, in his hands. Maybe Sumi sought the freedoms that Talaith also sought. Maybe Sumi had a love in town, a man who yearned for her but a man she could no longer see because of her virtual enslavement to Liam. Like Talaith, Sumi wanted the freedom to live her life with the man she loved. That’s what Talaith wanted, along with a new way of life for them all. She wanted to have the freedom to love Kaherdin, even if he was a wolf. Or had been. Or might be again. Her heart wanted to love what it wanted to love. Time was all she had, and now, she wanted to live fully in each and every second. Sitting up straight, Talaith stared out the window, watching a small brown spider fall from the rope of her web toward the sill. The morning broke orange and hazy, the day promising a small, quick heat. For this second, the world seemed right, opening up, providing life, the spider doing exactly what spiders do during daylight--trying to stay alive. Trying to thrive. In moments, Sumi would go to the market, and all Talaith could do was hope that she’d heard the message, would find Rachel, and that Rachel would know what to do.

The afternoon was long and slow and warm, the hours as thick and slow as dried pine sap. Every few minutes, Talaith would look out the large front window, expecting to see Sumi walking toward the gate, a basket full of fruit and vegetables in her hands. But for what seemed Jessica Inclan

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like hours and hours, all she saw was the guard Paul sitting on the stoop. Sometimes, he sang a little, the sound off-key put not really unpleasant. He would pause, and then start up another tune, no seeming connection between any of the tunes, and none that Talaith recognized. Now and again, Talaith saw someone pass in front of the house, but she knew that the person would never be able to see Talaith, even if Talaith jumped up and down naked in front of the window. Liam’s house was too protected and concealed. Likely, a passerby wouldn’t even see Paul, everything obfuscated, the house quite and serene, no hostage in sight. Finally, Talaith saw Sumi walking down the street, turning into the path that led to the house. She nodded to Paul, and then Talaith heard the door open and close, the clack, clack of Sumi’s shoes on the wood floor. Talaith didn’t react, didn’t jump up, didn’t run to the door. She kept her eyes on her book, though she didn’t read a sentence much less a word. In fact, she didn’t know what she was reading, and she flipped the book closed, looking at the cover, the title something from The Time Before, a story about a prince and a grail, the prince wanting nothing more than to find what he thought would make him whole. Talaith opened the book again, and she let Sumi pass by her on her way to kitchen, and then waited to hear the sounds on cupboards and the cooler door before standing up and walking toward the kitchen. Outside, she saw Paul walk down the path and head up the street. For now, she and Sumi were alone, at least in terms of bodies. Who was listening to what and how was still unclear. “How was the market?” she said as she walked in, her eyes widening at the pile of orange and green and red and yellow fruits and vegetables. “I guess I don’t need to ask. You have a bounty here.” Jessica Inclan

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“The farms are producing this year like no other,” Sumi said. “My oldest sister told me today that it was unlike any year on record. Our records, that is.” Again, Talaith felt the separation between her and these people she’d been living with for so many hundreds of years. She didn’t know them. And mostly, they did as they were told. They must hate us, she thought. And why wouldn’t they? “You saw your sister?” Talaith said. “At the market?” “Yes,” Sumi said, piling fruit in bowls on the counter. “My brother Neil. And—and a friend I’ve known for a while . . . .” Talaith’s heart pounded. She wasn’t sure she wanted the moment to move on as it might not move the way she wanted it to. Here, right now, there was some hope. But Sumi didn’t stop. “I told my friend that I had met someone new. One who likes to drink her tea with just a little cream. I told her that my new friend was used to running things, but now was a little bit bored.” Sumi looked at Talaith as she put a few ears of corn into the cooler. “I told her that my friend would like some company.” “That sounds like a very nice visit,” Talaith said. “Maybe your two friends will get together.” “I hope so,” Sumi said, using the word that had been on the tip of Talaith’s tongue all day. Hope. And she could tell that Sumi meant it, her face determined and grim, full of whatever happened to her at night, in that bed with Liam. “Sumi,” Talaith said, her voice light. Somehow knowing what the softness in her tone meant, Sumi stiffened, moved away from Talaith. “I have to think about the evening meal,” she said, putting away a few dried goods and then walking into the main part of the house. In a moment, Talaith heard her footsteps on the Jessica Inclan

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stairs that led to the second floor and the bedrooms. Then she heard a door close, Sumi needing to be alone, away from all that Talaith’s incarceration meant. Talaith turned to the kitchen window, the sun now low in the sky, the wind swirling through the bushes, the trees, leaves floating past the window, taping the pane with delicate tips. Rachel, Talaith thought, knowing that her friend would not get this message. They’d never communicated this way before, and with all the protections, would not communicate this way now. But Talaith felt the need to call out to her old friend. Rachel, she thought, you have to get me out of here. I know it’s not easy helping me. You are put at such risk. But if you succeed, we can change everything. I promise.

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FOURTEEN

“I’m not sure I can do this,” Kaherdin said. “I know I have to and I know I want to. But I just don’t see it. I don’t see the tunnel. I don’t see anything at all.” Boren smiled. They were standing outside Boren’s house, the second day of practice. Yesterday had not gone well at all, though at first the training was promising. Kaherdin had taken Boren’s arm, and as with Talaith, they’d jumped through this type of worm hole to a place Kaherdin didn’t recognize. The weather was warm, a turquoise body of water lapped on a topaz shore. The sky wasn’t as clear as it was where Boren lived, but nothing like the haze of the compound. His body took in all the sensation as if he were in his wolf body—his skin reacting to the soft air, his ears filling with sounds he’d never heard before, his tongue tasting salt in the air. Turning from the water, Kaherdin had seen a few human structures, and he wondered what these people were like. He wondered if they were people. He wondered what they turned into at night. “From what I know,” Boren had said, “very few cultures went to the extremes that ours must have. Yes, things are convoluted elsewhere, people living strangely savage lives. But in most cases, the survivors built what they could, living often just like this.” They’d traveled to other places, Kaherdin getting more of a feel of how the process felt. He saw a flattened, broken, unused city, the tall building crumpled, as if they had melted. He saw mountain ranges. He saw vast, empty plains, one lone large animal wandering through the grass, an animal that he knew he would have wanted to chase in his hungry, wolf days. Jessica Inclan

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The world was big, just as Talaith had told him, and now he’d seen parts of it. But the only part of the world he wanted to be in was the part where she was. Dark room, cold forest. It didn’t matter. All he wanted was her. In the back of his mind, he kept hearing her call. She was begging him to find her, and even though he knew this was his imagination, he felt an urgency, a need, a drive to get to her and take her away from wherever she was and bring her to him, finding a home, any place where they could be together. But now, he was stuck in Boren’s backyard, no tunnel appearing. No space opening up for him as it had for Talaith, for Boren, and just about everyone else he’d met since arriving here. “It’s not about seeing,” Boren said, his arms folded in front of him. “It’s about feeling. It’s about opening up what’s in front of you. It’s about seeing the potential and the potential will make itself available for your use.” “I need to talk to the air.” “If that helps, why not?” Boren said, smiling. “How can you smile about this?” Kaherdin said. “It’s like when I was young and didn’t know how to bring down a mole.” “You learned,” Boren said. “Eventually.” “We don’t have ‘eventually’ here,” Kaherdin said. “We have ‘now or never’ at this point.” “True,” Boren said. “But I can’t rush you and you can’t rush yourself. We’ve tried having you think about the compound and the colony and my tapping into your thoughts, but that hasn’t worked either. We just have to wait until you are really to feel your way home.” Boren finished talking and then looked at him, the gaze Kaherdin had known so many years ago. Boren was a teacher, a person who would finish the lesson even as the forest was burning.

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He would conclude a lecture, even as the Colony was attacking. The process was always more important than the outcome, though he wasn’t adverse to the right outcome either. Even now, Kaherdin was impatient, a bad student, even after all these years. “Why don’t you try on your own for a while? Maybe my gaze is upsetting your ability.” “What ability?” Kaherdin said, his voice full of his failure. “You will find it,” Boren said, turning and walking through the grass toward the house. “You will find it when you are ready.” Kaherdin sighed, watching Boren walk away, the man strong and fit, ready for the battles they both imagined would happen at the compound and the colony. Boren was ready to engage completely, and yet, not in any rush to engage. He would do what he needed to when the time was right, and that fact alone was as amazing to Kaherdin as moving through matter. Patience and traveling through matter were not Kaherdin’s strong suits. Turning back toward the open field behind the houses, Kaherdin sighed. How to feel instead of see? How to sense instead of know? Kaherdin walked to a fence and leaned against it, keeping his gaze to the horizon, focusing on the wind blowing through the grass, the outline of the mountain in the distance. For a second, the memory of being in the sun, in that field, in the shadow of that mountain brought him back into Talaith’s arms. For that shard of time, he breathed in her vanilla lavender smell, still there despite a night sleeping on a cold cave floor. He could touch the soft hair on her arm, feel the way sunlight brought her even closer to him, her warmth moving into his own skin. Kaherdin could see her eyes, that deep blue the color of the body of water he’d just seen on his journey with Boren. Her gaze went beyond color though, moved into him as her scent and touch and warmth had. Unlike anyone else in his life, she’d seen him, at that moment, took him in. Jessica Inclan

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Understood him. And more than that. She wanted him. Not just his body but him. His innerness, whatever that was. The part of himself that he’d never really shown anyone. Maybe not even himself. As he leaned against the fence, the wind blowing through his dark hair, the sun gently touching his face, his arms, his closed eyelids, he brought forth the whole of her, Talaith, his woman. His woman. The woman he loved. He remembered then together in the forest, her soft, full voice, so constant, so true. “What do you hear now?” she asked. He smiled, put his hand on her arm, took in a breath. “I hear you.” “What do I sound like?” He shook his head, closed his eyes, seeming to really listen for her, to her. “You sound like a river,” he said. “A slow, peaceful river.”

With her voice in his ear, he concentrated on her mouth, her face, her body. And then in his mind’s eye, she was standing in front of him, encouraging him to come forward, hurry up, find her. Her long blonde hair flowed behind her, her face full of her delight in seeing him, smiling at him the way she did when she was under him, staring up at him as he pressed inside her. But then the picture began to change, shift. She was saying something to him, something urgent, her eyes narrowed, her body tense. As she spoke, she looked behind her shoulder, as though someone were coming for her. When she turned back to him, her face was less urgent than terrified. She looked at him, finding his gaze the way she had for centuries, back when he was staring at her through her window. Come, she seemed to say or think or feel. Find me. Jessica Inclan

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Her image began to waver and then disappear. Kaherdin struggled to pull her back into his vision, pull her back into his view, but all that was left was the waver of—waver of matter. His eyes still closed, he pushed to standing, focusing on the matter that opened and moved and grew. Inside the matter, he suddenly could see a place, forested, green, a lake in the distance. Hoping that he wouldn’t lose the thread by doing so, he opened his eyes because this had to be real. This had to be something that he could move into not just in his imagination. Slowly, Kaherdin let the light pour into his eyes, and he blinked, at first despondent that the waver was gone. But it wasn’t. No, there it was, right in front of him, the place he had seen in his imagination, the place he had been with Talaith in their combined imaginations—the lake where they had first touched. First kissed. The young person inside him wanted to turn and call for Boren to come look, come see. The scared man in him wanted Boren to come with him to scout out this tunnel in order to determine if this is was the right place. But the man who was Talaith Rikala’s lover knew that it was his responsibility to find out by himself if this was the path he would lead them on. He found the way and now he needed to follow it. His eyes open, his body alert, Kaherdin walked forward and pushed into the matter, the tunnel swallowing him up, the air around him gray and fuzzy and ill defined. He kept his eyes open, and walked forward to the opening, the place where he could see the trees, the lake, the orange, hazy sky. He breathed in air that was familiar, hot and heavy. He smelled pine and cedar and the dry dirt between the trees. He could almost feel his paws on the soft earth. He could almost feel these certain branches rub against his animal body.

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Thinking only of Talaith, he pushed out and into the sunlight, suddenly in this place he’d only tangentially been before, the matter closing up behind him, Boren and his world hopefully a thought away but no longer simply a step to the right. Once he recognized that he was, in fact, here, Kaherdin tensed, turning around, making sure he was alone and unseen. But there was no one else at the lake front, no one around to spot him. But what would the person think? Not much. He was a man, not a wolf. He wasn’t Other, at least right now. He could be simply a man out on a walk on a sunny day. He could be one of those unpoisoned, untouched by the world’s ills, a man who needed a stroll out on a sunny afternoon. Kaherdin stood on the edge of the water, this place he’d seen as though it were a mirage the night Talaith reached out to him and her pulled her close. She’d walked out to the lake, was alone at night, and then she’d disappeared, wrenched away from their embrace. And it seemed as though that was what kept happening. They’d not made it to a place of being together in a constant, even half normal rhythm, though Kaherdin had no idea what a normal rhythm would feel like. Where did a former wolf and an outcast colonist set up house? Whose family would accept whom and why and how? Boren’s people would take them in, but that would mean that both of them would give up everything, not that Kaherdin felt he had anything to give up. He’d managed to find the one person he’d ever felt connected to, and the only other person who mattered was Talaith. And more importantly, was Kaherdin the type of person who could set up anything with anyone? He’d failed at being a pack member, always on the edges. He’d spent only a few days with Talaith, and he’d failed at keeping that together, too. He’d been alone so long, he might fail

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at the one thing that people had always done together, even though that was the one thing his heart longed for most. He couldn’t think about that now. Taking in breath, Kaherdin looked down, hoping that none of the clothes Boren had given him to wear would cause distraction. The loose, dark, cotton pants and shirt looked average and normal to him, but they were not of colony craft, and he hoped no one would take notice of the style or weave or fabric. He hoped that his dark coloring, his long hair, his anxious, alert eyes wouldn’t show him for the stranger he was. But he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to find what he could and then get back to Boren so that they could decide how to proceed. Turning away from the lake, Kaherdin followed a small path that wended toward a grove of trees, past a house, and then out to a dirt road. To the left in the near distance, he saw more houses; to the right, the road curved and then disappeared into a dark turn. Somewhere out there was the protective field that had kept his kind out and separate—the barrier that stood between his kind and the elixir that would have changed everything. The elixir Jodoc held over their wolven heads. He turned left and walked down the middle of the road, hearing as he did birds and then with more frequency, the sounds of living—metal on metal, an axe splitting wood, a child’s laugh. He kept his face and gaze up, and when the first person passed him on the road—a woman carrying a basket—he nodded and walked on as if nothing were amiss. Then a man with a push cart of some kind went by as did a group of children carrying books. None of them did more than look up, smile, or nod. He must not look like a person in wolf’s clothing or a wolf trying to sneak in for the kill. And soon, he was closer to a town center, and people stood in front of store fronts, making their purchases and talking. Jessica Inclan

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It was hard not to stare at this place he’d imagined all his life, the place he’d thought of as heaven or perfection, the nirvana to his constant, relentless hell. As Kaherdin had run around the perimeter of perfection, trying to find a way in, he’d thought that if he only lived inside the protective barrier, he’d be safe and happy and fed, full, content, and at peace. But inside perfection was just life. Life. Not perfect, not beautiful. Just a place to live and people to live with. There was food, but at the time he was trying to get in, carrots and potatoes and green beans were not what he’d wanted. He’d wanted meat, but these people would not have been his target menu despite their fears. But they could have been. They might have been. And they would have had no way of knowing he’d eat their pets instead of them. And if Kaherdin had gotten through the barrier, others of his kind would have. Most of them, he knew, ate whatever had a beating heart, ate what gave them life. The colonists had a right to be afraid of an invasion, but they wouldn’t have had to be afraid if they’d only had a leader who shared what would have made them all whole. At an intersection in the middle of the town, he stopped, leaning against a post, staring at the comings and goings of the townspeople. There was one very large building down the road on the right, this one made of stone and metal. As he stared, he started to notice things about the way these people lived. Based on their clothes and their activities, he understood the differences between the long-lived colonists and the ordinary humans who did their bidding. The colonists seemed to be less busy, strolling and chatting, moving through at a leisurely pace to whatever thing they had to do. The untouched humans were the ones who pushed the carts and carried the baskets, the ones who sold the food and grew it, too. They sold the fish, the meat, the fruit, the vegetables. They moved the boxes, dug the soil, sold the fabric.

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The colonists didn’t seem to use their hands but their heads, moving into buildings in a relaxed way. As he watched the workings of the town, he saw a tall blonde man moving toward the intersection, talking to two other men as he walked. The blonde man seemed to be in charge, or at least very important, the other two just a step behind him, listening intently. All three men wore robes and seemed important because some of the people stopped to watch them as they walked by. The tall blonde man seemed to fill up the space with his own importance, and Kaherdin looked down the road from which they came. Since Kaherdin was trying to appear as one untouched, he knew that he needed to keep moving, to avoid the appearance of leisure. Pushing away from the post, he turned down the road and continued walking, nodding to people as he did. At first, the houses were crowded together, small wooden structures with flat roofs, children running in the yards, playing on structures. But then the houses and the spaces between them grew larger, the importance of the people who lived inside them growing with the size of their dwellings. There were fewer children, and then, none at all, the yards quiet and orderly, the occupants either not at home or tucked away inside. Kaherdin walked for a mile or so and then he rounded a turn in the road, and on the left hand side of the road, he saw a large house, full of windows. At the compound, glass was a precious commodity, something to be parsed out, bargained for, fought over. His own lodgings had only contained one small window, but as the sun was not a friend, he’d never minded much, though the night sky behind a window was a pretty thing. But this house was like a face with many eyes, all of them watching him. But Kaherdin could see nothing moving inside, no human except for one man sitting on the stoop, staring out toward the road. Jessica Inclan

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Looking back toward the road, Kaherdin could see that it stretched on a bit, but this was one of the last houses on the road. Nothing was left at this side of town but fields and trees, and what looked like might be a river. Overhead, the sky pulled up into midday, and Kaherdin sighed, wondering what he was looking for. Did he expect a sign? Did he think that he would just find Talaith walking down the middle of the street? Did he expect that he would have grabbed her up and let the mater pull them back to Boren? No, he thought. He wasn’t that naïve. But yes. Yes, he was. He’d wanted just that. He’d spent his whole life not having what he wanted and this time, he wanted the miracle to happen. Yet, as was the way of things, the miracle did not happen, though he did know how to get into the colony, if nothing else. The man on the stoop shifted, and Kaherdin nodded and began to turn away, heading back toward the center of town. But as he did, he thought he heard or felt or saw this thought. Whether it was in his mind or heart of in the air, he did not know. Oh, Kaherdin. So much is at stake. Find me before I have to sacrifice someone else. Please. Jerked back as though someone had him by the neck, he stumbled and then bent down, trying to catch his breath. For the sake of the man on the stoop, he pretended to tighten the strap on his shoe. Talaith? he thought. Are you there? Are you here? He focused on his shoe for a moment and then stood up, his legs shaking, his heart in his ears. Talaith? he thought, focusing now, trying to send the thought to the exact spot it should go, though he didn’t want to turn to the house and bring any more attention to himself. Talaith?

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Though he had given up the right, the skill, the ability, he wished he could howl, wanting the sound to fill the air, fill her ears, fill whoever was keeping her with fear. He waited as long as he could, glancing once more at the house and its empty windows. Nothing moved nor stirred except the plume of smoke from the pipe the man on the stoop had begun to smoke. Knowing that he was leaving Talaith behind, he began to walk away from the house, headed back around the bend in the road that led toward town. This had been his miracle. It wasn’t as large as he’d hoped for or as magnificent. Of course, he’d managed to find a way to travel through matter and arrive exactly in the colony and turn down this very road, all miracles in themselves. But the real miracle had been the thought that had sailed out into the air for him, hitting him at the best moment. She was here, she was in that house, and she was thinking of him. Kaherdin would be able to find her, and even though he ached at having to leave her behind, he knew that it was best to come back with a plan and with help. He could not win a revolution by himself but he could certainly start one. After the bend in the road and before the houses began to line up one after the other, Kaherdin walked toward the wooded edge of the road and pressed into the thicket, hiding himself behind leaves and branches and closing his eyes. On this attempt, it was as if he’d been traveling this way his entire life. Without much more than an intake of breath and a quick quieting of mind, he brought forth the field behind Boren’s house, the mountains in the distance, the bright blue sky over head. All he had to do was think of the moment Boren left him and he turned to gaze at the field and the matter open up like magic. Pushing into the matter and leaving Talaith and the colony behind, he knew he simply had to find Boren and tell him what he’d discovered. Then, Jessica Inclan

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soon, very soon, he could come back, save Talaith, take her to the place where their lives could begin, and that was miracle enough.

“She’s likely being held behind some protection,” Boren said. “We will have to hope that we can break through whatever it is.” Kaherdin nodded, pushing back his plate of meat and vegetables, the shape of the fork becoming almost familiar. “There was the guard, and he must come in and out of the house. Someone has to be taking care of her inside as well.” “Taking care or keeping her still and silent,” Boren said. “She’s a woman of talent, and she must be hard to subdue.” The thought of Talaith being subdued in any way rankled Kaherdin, and he pushed away thoughts of bonds or punishments or magic holding her tight and still. “When can we go?” He needed to rescue her, now if not sooner. Though he had been hungry, he would have done without food or water or rest or anything to release her from her imprisonment. Boren stood up from the table in his kitchen, the light shining on his dark hair, his face set, the determination a feature Kaherdin remembered from the past. As he watched the older man, Kaherdin began to feel that things were not going to go as he wanted them to. “What?” Kaherdin asked. Boren walked to the fireplace, pushing at the logs with a poker. “I went on a journey today as well,” Boren said. “I used your memories, your knowledge, the freshness of your experiences to get me there.” Jessica Inclan

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Boren’s words hung in the air between them, and Kaherdin tried to figure out what they meant. Boren and he had tied their minds together as they’d traveled through matter, so the memories part wasn’t hard the fathom. It was the where of which he spoke that was confusing. But then Kaherdin knew. “You went back to the compound.” “I went home,” Boren said. “A few hundred years too late,” Kaherdin said, that old pain still deep inside him, the abandonment, the betrayal, the stark sadness of the rest of his life until Talaith. “Yes,” Boren said, not disagreeing. “And?” Kaherdin said, sipping some of the amber colored liquid Boren had given him, the taste soft and hot and prickly in his throat. And though it was a bit hard to swallow down, as it slid down his throat and into his stomach, it warmed him, giving soft edges to all the hardness around him. “We have to go there first,” Boren said. “We have to convince the compound. We have to turn them, and ask for their help to go into the colony.” Kaherdin leaned forward, his mouth slightly open, his hair falling around his face. “Why? You and I could go in and free Talaith and then we could come back with her and work the colony from the inside.” “Yes,” Boren said. “That could a solution. But the colonists would have no reason to capitulate. There would be nothing at stake except for Talaith, and we can already see that she is somewhat expendable. She’s hidden away right now, and the colony is still functioning without her.”

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Standing up and pushing back his chair, Kaherdin paced a little, the kitchen too small and frustrating him. Inside, he yearned to change, to turn wolf, to run away from this conversation and feel air and nature all around him. More than Boren’s talk, Kaherdin wanted the wind and trees and sky, movement so much easier than thought. Why had Boren even suggested this impossible thing when Talaith needed help right now? Raf and the pack would never agree to be turned. They might have claimed to be fighting the colony for the elixir, but what they wanted more than anything was the kill. Raf wanted to win, and turning into the very people he wanted to beat would be no more than failure. “They might be too far gone to want to take the cure,” Kaherdin said. “some might. Others unhappy as I was. But any of them like their lives, want the feel of the animal inside them.” “We can’t do this without them,” Boren said, his voice no more than a whisper in the kitchen, no louder than the crackling wood in the fireplace. Kaherdin felt his oldest angers flaring inside him. The pack had always come first, over and above everything. Boren had left him to that very pack, the days, months, years, decades, centuries a constant battling against what the pack wanted them to do. “Yes,” Boren said. “How they live. Think of it, Kaherdin. Think how they live.” Kaherdin didn’t want to, but in his mind’s eye, he saw the poor humans scrabbling up rocks and hills, screaming as they did. If wolves could laugh as humans did, the sound of laughter would follow them up the hills, follow them until it was too late, until there was no more scrabbling to be done. The very thought of such a hunt made Kaherdin nauseated, and he tried to free his mind of the sights and sounds and smells he had seen over and over again.

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“Yes,” Boren said. “That’s only one reason why we must do this, my son. If we start with the compound, we can begin a chain of right action that will affect the compound, the colony, and then spread to the areas around both. You’ve made it possible for it to begin, and begin it we must.” Kaherdin wanted to argue. He wanted to speak of Talaith held against her will in that house. He wanted to talk of his own longing for that short, small amount of time he’d felt whole. He already knew of his horror over the way humans were treated, and now he also knew that in the colony, humans were not living at the level the colonists were. They were not being used as food, but they were the ones supporting the way everyone lived. There was no balance anywhere, and it was only right to try to even out the world if there was a possibility to do so. That was right. He fought against it, closing his eyes, seeing only Talaith looking up at him with her so blue eyes. In his imagination, she touched his face, smiled, and nodded. She’d thought only of him, putting herself at risk over and over in order to be with him, save him, help him. Even though he knew she would want to be pulled from that house and the colony, he had to do what was right because he knew she would want it that way. What had she thought? Find me before I have to sacrifice someone else. She’d wanted to be found, but she hadn’t wanted anyone to be hurt in the process, either before or after. And what had he done? Steal the elixir and change, leaving her to fend for herself. He hadn’t asked and he hadn’t planned. Now, he needed to do the right thing. Pushing his hair off his face, looking up at Boren, Kaherdin nodded. “All right,” he said. “But we have to go soon. We have to start this process before it’s too late for her. Before it’s too late for me.” Jessica Inclan

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Boren barely nodded back, keeping his gaze on Kaherdin the whole time. “I know you want to rush this, my son, but we have to bring people with us, these people. My people. They are the ones who will supply the cure. They are our allies, and we need to tell them our plan.” “I wouldn’t mind knowing it either,” Kaherdin said, feeling no trace of humor in reply, meaning every word. “Let’s find out what it will be,” Boren said. “We can determine our actions together. We can be quick but we cannot rush this. We have one chance here to let it all unfold perfectly, and either too early or too late and it breaks.” Boren clapped his hands, and in the sound, Kaherdin saw the compound, the colony, Talaith and the house she was trapped in crumple and crack, clanking to the floor. “All right,” Kaherdin said. “Okay.”

The smiling woman was named Sterling, and she was still smiling as she listened to Boren’s talk. Kaherdin realized that this was her natural expression and not really a symptom of agreement, fondness, or positive emotion. But Kaherdin clung to her expression for she was the only one doing so—the four (check) men who’d initially found Kaherdin were not as happy nor were the others seated in front of Boren and Kaherdin as Boren laid out the plan. “Boren, you know how we respect you and your vision,” said one of the men, Ryu, said. “But you are asking us to go to a place of danger, in a land not close to ours to save people we would otherwise never have to encounter.” “Yes,” Boren said, offering no more but a nod.

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“And these people—people like you—might become enraged and begin to turn into wolves and try to kill us,” another man, Kai added, a rhetorical question because Boren had explained what might happen and how important it would be to escape at that point. “Negotiations might break down,” Boren said. “Break down and grab us by the jaws,” Oren said, another one of the men who’d watched Kaherdin eat his first meal. “Rip us to shreds. Eat us for dinner.” “Blow our house down,” said someone else, a line that jogged Kaherdin’s memory, something he read long ago. “We’d be gone by then,” Sterling said. “They could follow us,” someone in the back of the room said. “If Kaherdin and Boren and the woman Kaherdin traveled with have this skill, who is to say the wolves do not? Why should we imagine we are the only ones who posses this ability? And we know there are things people out there can do that we cannot.” Kaherdin stood and looked out at the assembled group. “I’ve been alive for almost a thousand years, and I’ve only known two people to travel in the manner of your people. I have managed to learn the skill from Boren. I know that my companion—“ He stopped, took a breath, and then continued. “My—Talaith—learned the skill from her father, but she and he were the only people in her colony who could travel that way. The Wahya do not have this ability.” “Yet,” said Kai. There was a silence, and then Boren stood up and stood next to Kaherdin. “I have a vested interest in seeing the ways of the Wahya disappear. Their ways—my ways— are natural based on genetic makeup but preventable. You all saved me from that life of hunting Jessica Inclan

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and feeding so many years ago, and it’s a cure that should be shared. The Wahya ways have made the Reckoning worse, creating a frightening landscape for the few humans who survived the poison untouched, but who now have become prey. To the Wahya, they are no more than livestock. Those who live in the colonies have done their share to maintain this unnatural balance by keeping the cure to themselves and by pitting themselves against the Wahya.” Boren paused, looking out at the people who had rescued him. “If such a system exists on this planet, this planet we all share, we need to stop it if we can.” “This is happening so far from us,” Ryu said simply. “This is not our problem.” “We don’t have to deal with these Wahya,” Oren said. “They are a world away.” “And yet,” Boren said. “Here I am. Here is Kaherdin. Wahya both. His companion may come back, bringing more from the colonies, of which there are three. It is your problem now. It is not far away at all.” With this, the room quieted, even Sterling’s smile disappearing. “If the Reckoning taught us anything,” Boren said, “it was that the world is connected. The entire planet made mistake after mistake, ignoring sign after sign. One mistake carried over to the next place, and then to the next and the next. We are all suffering in different ways from those common, constant, world-wide excesses and egregious, selfish inabilities to act. We can’t be like that again. If we can stop this one thing, it will be better for us and the rest of the world.” Boren waited, breathed out, his gaze steady on the crowd. “We are all connected.” The room was silent save for people shifting on their chairs, moving their feet. The air in the meeting room was hot, Kaherdin needing to breathe, wanting air, wanting the past to fold over him and take him away from this challenge. But he couldn’t keep the truth of Boren’s words out

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of his mind, the interconnectedness of everything ringing clear, cutting like a knife through everyone’s protective defenses, even and especially his own. “So we show up and convince the Wahya that their way of life, the way they’ve lived for a thousand years, is over, done, no good. We give them the cure, and then we all go together in a merry band to the colony and tell them the same thing,” Ryu said. “Without the irony, yes,” Boren said. “That’s what we do.” “But it won’t be that easy,” Ryu said. “Likely, it will not,” Boren agreed. “And it might not be possible to change them after all these years. But we show up and try.” Again, no one spoke, Kaherdin feeling the collective anxious, intense feelings of everyone there. “We show up . . . “ Sterling began. “And things change,” Boren said. “Maybe not in the way that we’d want them to, but one action creates another action. If we go with the right intent, then something positive will come out of it, even if we can’t see that right away.” We show up, and things change. Yes, Kaherdin thought. Action creates action. Doing nothing does nothing, and no matter how far away the Wahya were, their lives affected these lives here. Boren was right, as he had always been right. Now, though, they all could follow his words into movement. The group seemed to be communicating silently amongst themselves, and Kaherdin stood straight and still in front of them, Boren at his side. There had been many miracles of late, and one of them was certainly that this man was by his side again. As a younger person, he’d felt that Boren gave him the reasons for living and the skills to do so. Now he thought that he’d Jessica Inclan

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found his own reasons to live, but this man still cleared the path, lopped the overhanging branches, parted the brush to show the way. Finally, Kai stood and nodded. “We will do this thing with you,” he said. “We see your reasoning, even if we don’t quite know your entire strategy.” “You will,” Boren said. “Once Kaherdin and I confer, we will present our ideas and ask for your thoughts.” “We will need some time to formulate enough cure,” Kai added. A couple of days. Maybe more.” “Yes, of course. Thank you, Kai,” Boren said. “Thank you, all.” The group left the meeting hall, talking amongst themselves, giving Boren slight nods and waves, and then Kaherdin and Boren were alone, listening to the people heading home, and then hearing only the sound of the wind and birds outside and then only the wind. “I can’t even imagine what it will be like when the Wahya aren’t running at night. It will seem so odd after all these centuries.” “This is just the beginning,” Boren said. “There will be other work to do.” “What do you mean?” Kaherdin said. “There are other Wahya,” Boren said. “Of course there are,” Kaherdin said, thinking of the other compounds, the packs that ran in other places. Now and again, the compounds would share information about animal and human migrations. And on rare occasions, people from one compound came to live in another, finding mates in other groups. There had always been interaction and knowledge of each other, the boundaries between each held tight and firm. “Not the Wahya of the compounds,” Boren said. “I saw many, many things on my travels.” Jessica Inclan

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“You said that no one else made our mistake. No one else made the wolves,” Kaherdin said. “No one else was as foolish as the people who created our particular strain of madness.” “I did say that,” Boren said. “What I should have said was the Wahya traveled in the early days after the Reckoning. These Wahya never lived in the compounds that we did.” “Are there many?” Kaherdin asked. “I don’t know how many,” Boren said. “I just found a scattered few. But . . . .” He trailed off, looking down, shaking his head. “What? What did you see?” Kaherdin felt sparking wave of gooseflesh ride his arms. Boren looked at him. “I have seen your brothers. I know where they are.”

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FIFTEEN

Talaith felt the hand on her shoulder, and, in a fraction of time, she thought she knew what it meant. Liam had finally come for her. Liam was ready now, and it didn’t matter what they had agreed upon before. Growing tired of waiting, growing weary of Sumi, he was here at her bedside to rape her again. In that second, her entire body clenched, hardened, froze, and she wished she could find the way out of this room, desperately searching her mind for the gray that would take her anywhere else. “Miss,” Sumi whispered. “Miss, it’s me.” Talaith opened her eyes into the darkness of her room, seeing Sumi’s darker silhouette above her. “What is it?” Talaith whispered, sitting up a bit. “What’s wrong?” “It’s time to go,” Sumi said. “Miss Rachel is outside the house waiting.” “But Liam?” Talaith asked. “And the protections?” Sumi was quiet, even as she helped Talaith out of bed, handing her the clothes Talaith knew she should put on fast, now, immediately. “He had something for dinner that will keep him asleep for awhile,” Sumi said. “However did that happen?” Talaith said, smiling in the dark as she slid on her pants and shirt. She knew that her bas had long ago been confiscated, her father and Liam analyzing and interpreting the contents. So she had nothing to escape with but herself. Sumi moved to the door, opening it a bit, peering down the hallway. “We can go,” she said. “Hurry.” Jessica Inclan

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Talaith put on her shoes, pushed her arms into a sweater, and then walked quietly to the door, standing behind Sumi. In front of them, the hallway was empty, lightly lit, ready for their escape. Without another sentence between them, the two women walked out of the bedroom and turned left, heading for the stairs. With cautious, thoughtful steps, they headed down the steps, each tiny creak of the floorboards sending a jolt through Talaith’s nerves and bones and veins. Each sound pushed her heart into double duty, each wooden groan made her worry for Sumi. What risks the girl had taken. What pains. What consequences there would be if they were caught? At the bottom of the steps, Sumi grabbed a bag she must have hidden under the bench in the entryway during the evening, and both of them walked to the front door, staring out the window toward the road. “What will happen when we open the door?” Talaith asked. “He must have it protected. He must have it rigged in some way.” Sumi put her hand on the doorknob, waiting for something. Talaith heard her breaths, saw the circle of fog on the glass. “Miss Rachel said it would be okay. She said this time and she said go through the front door.” Rachel was as considered and thoughtful and deep a person as Talaith had ever known, and if she said go through the front door, Talaith knew that she could. And with all her heart, Talaith trusted Sumi and her interpretations of what Rachel meant. “Okay,” Talaith whispered, holding on Sumi’s sleeve as the girl turned the knob and pulled the door open. Jessica Inclan

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Talaith held her breath, and then waited. Nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen as Sumi pulled the door wide, wider, and they both slipped out onto the cool air of the porch. No clarion calls, no siren, no swooping down of Council members to haul Talaith to a tribunal, the first of any such thing held. Her father did not appear in vision or in voice to warn her back into the house. Akla did not plead with her to change her mind, to stop, to go back to Liam’s house. No there was nothing but the night sky, the moon on the horizon, the smell of night jasmine, and the distance from the porch to the front gate and then the road. Overhead, a lone bat twirled by, a flurry of wings and motion. “What now?” Talaith asked, but then her question was answered by a flicker in front of them, a visual sign from Rachel. With Sumi leading the way, they both walked down the porch steps together, feeling their way along the path that led to the gate. Around her, Talaith heard the tiny flicker of insect wings, felt the cool fingers of night on her cheeks. It was so dark in this in between place and somehow it seemed as though they would never make it to Rachel, never get from the house to freedom. As they approached the road, Talaith could see her friend standing there. Without warning, she felt herself begin to cry silent tears, the tears she’d kept inside all these long days being trapped inside Liam’s house. All her life, if she’d not been able to have Akla’s warm arms around her, Talaith knew that Rachel’s were the next, most wonderful thing, and Rachel and her arms were right here, right here, almost around her now. “Come on,” Rachel said, pulling them through the gate and rushing them into the road. “I don’t know if I was able to keep the protection broken. It was hard, and I had no idea what I’m doing. I still don’t.” Jessica Inclan

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“What did you do?” Talaith asked. “How did you break this protection?” Rachel pulled a bit on her arm, and they began to move. “I thought. I just imagined. I thought of what was holding you still and trapped, and I imagined it otherwise.” “How did you do that? What made you think that would work?” “I don’t know if it worked or not, but I thought of something Jodoc once said. We were at your house. And he said that all that exists is simply imagined,” Rachel said, urging Talaith forward at the same time. “I think he was talking about poetry,” Talaith said. “We don’t have time to think about it now, Tally. Let’s go.” All three of them ran, until Talaith remembered she was free of the restrictions of the house, able, finally, to take them where they were headed. All she had to do was think of the forest where she and Kaherdin last saw each other and they would all be free—except, of course, that Liam could find them, the way he had found her before. They would chase each other around and around the world, never safe anywhere. So where to go? What to do? “Where are we going?” she asked as they moved, their elbows touching, their breathing ragged. “I don’t know the plan.” “What plan?” Rachel said. “I don’t have a plan, Tally. I just managed to get you out of there, and that wasn’t even a plan. I don’t even know what’s really going on.” “There’s no plan,” Talaith said, not in a question but a statement. Of course, what plan could Rachel have concocted other than to get them free of the house? The where and the when were also up to Talaith, a story she had to create on the spot. If she herself had no plan, no one else would. Liam and her father were the only ones with plans. Jessica Inclan

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“My house doesn’t seem to be a good idea,” Rachel continued. “That’s where Jodoc and Liam went first last time you escaped. So I was hoping we could figure it out—maybe we need to leave the Colony. Get out of here.” At her words, Talaith felt Sumi slow a bit, Rachel’s words hitting her as though for the first time. Maybe this was this was the first time she’d realized that saving Talaith meant her life would change forever. “Leave Uveris?” she said, her pace dropping off. “I can’t leave Uveris. I will be killed. The Others will find me. We are safe here. We need to hide.” To Sumi, Talaith realized, the Colony had meant safety and life, protection from The Others. Maybe the girl had wished for a different life, but the protection of the one she did have meant something to her. Of course she would be afraid to push through into a place where danger lurked at night. “Come,” Rachel said, pulling them both onward, farther down the road, all three of them running into the growing darkness. After a while, Talaith took over, knowing a place where they could, in fact, hide. Using her memory of Uveris, a place she could walk through with her eyes and ears shut, she led them off the road and into the woods next to the road, pushing into the landscape beyond the houses, into the part of the colony that was undeveloped. There was a cave—no, that wouldn’t do. What about the hills beyond the forest? Would they be invisible in plain sight? But how long would that last? If Liam created a compelling story and the entire Colony took up the search, it would only be a matter of hours, half a day at best before they were found. For now, Talaith understood, they had to keep moving. Maybe something would come to her, some epiphany, a wondrous miracle. But until then, she had to keep them going. Jessica Inclan

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The three women covered a mile, two, moving without talking. Sumi seemed to be shaking even as she ran, the thought of The Others the nightmare that it had been for Talaith for most of her life. How could she disagree with the girl? There was really nowhere to hide from them once out of the protective colony net. The truth was, in just a matter of a few short days, Talaith was going to need the elixir, along with the rest of the colony. If they left, they had to leave now and prepare to return in order to take part of the elixir. By then, Talaith would have had to gather up an army of what? Of whom? Of two, she and Kaherdin ready to charge through Uveris, changing everything? Oh, Kaherdin, Talaith, Rachel, and Sumi, a veritable army doomed to nothing but capture. Talaith stopped running, pulling the other two women to a standstill. “There isn’t anywhere we can hide, Rachel. We are going to need elixir in just days. We can’t leave or we have to come back. If we come back, we are going to need some force behind us, and I don’t have an army out there. I may not even have one person waiting for me.” As she spoke, she felt something pushing into her mind, a call. Kaherdin, she thought, so relieved that her messages were finally heard. From the time she’d been brought into Liam’s house, she’d not had a dream or a message or even a moment of connection with him. Finally. Kaherdin? There was a pause in the struggling connection, both Rachel and Sumi staring at her as she struggled to pull the strands of the conversation to her. Where are you? she thought. For a moment, she thought she felt the answer, but then the energy grew heavy, deep, a feeling she never associated with Kaherdin’s words or ideas or feelings. When Kaherdin’s mind Jessica Inclan

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touched hers, she’d always felt joy, happiness, even in the times before Talaith truly knew him, even during her dreams. As when they touched with fingers and mouths and bodies, his thoughts brought her an electric push of ecstasy. She did not have that feeling now. No, this was not joy but dread, the anticipation of something painful, ugly, and lifeless. The person trying to reach her wasn’t Kaherdin. It was Liam. Or her father. Even though only minutes had passed, they already knew they were gone. “We’re in trouble,” Talaith said, pulling at the women again, but this time to get them moving. “They know where we are.” “Dammit! I knew I wasn’t able to figure it all out. It’s not like anyone wanted to teach me how to remove the kind of protections we have around Uveris,” Rachel said. “I should have waited. I shouldn’t have put us all at risk.” “It’s not your fault,” Talaith said. “You did what you could.” “I didn’t do anything,” Rachel hissed. “I didn’t know what to do.” “Where are they?” Sumi asked, her voice barely a whisper, the thinnest trace of a question. “I don’t know, but I think they know we are gone,” Talaith said. “I think they know where you are,” said a voice, and all three of them stopped, Talaith feeling her eyes strain against the darkness, seeing nothing but the outline of the trees in the distance, feeling only the rise and fall of Sumi’s and Rachel’s breathing. Both women were frozen, scanning for something, someone, too, but Talaith was not sure if they had heard the voice as well. “Who are you?” she said, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she realized that she was going to have no chance to finish this conversation. As her knees began to buckle, she lost consciousness and all was silence. Jessica Inclan

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“Well, you managed to mess this up,” Liam was saying. Talaith heard his voice from what seemed to be a dark pit, the air stale and thick, the walls slippery and cold. She was at the bottom of this pit, though when she looked up, there was a crack, a slit, a glimmer of light. She began to climb up the wall, everything so arduous, painful, the climb difficult. Her hands scrabbled on the slick, cold surface as she grabbed once, twice, slipping sometimes, moving up others. And it was as if she could not see at all, her eyes sticky with incomprehension. She kept trying to open her eyes wide, take in what was before her, but she couldn’t see more than the light, the brightness, so she shut them as she pulled herself up the wall. “I almost believed you, but not completely,” he continued. “I knew that your compliance was too good to be true. You never listened to me. You never listened to anyone. You have always been a selfish woman.” As she listened to Liam’s words, she looked below her, hoping to see Sumi and Rachel, remembering her companions only now. But the gloom had swallowed up the bottom, and then was no way to see if she’d left her friends behind at the bottom of the well. Liam was right. She was selfish. She’d cared only for saving herself and at their expense. “So things aren’t going to go so well for you, Talaith. And even your father won’t be able to change the way this is going to play out. Not for you and not for Rachel.” Rachel, she thought. Rachel! “Don’t try to find your friends now,” Liam said. “I’ve separated you all. And in about a day, that’s going to be something.”

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Talaith climbed, her feet on the small stone ledges, her body straining as she hauled herself up. “Without the elixir, you and Rachel are going to be quite the pair. And then we will have to do a release into nature. It will be very touching watching you two wolves go back to the wild. What a spectacle! Two untried wolves trying to find a pack. I’m sure you won’t last long, and no one will ask about you, at least. Rachel, well, I’ll figure out a good story. Maybe her despondence over Stephen finally got the best of her and she wandered out to that good night to meet her maker. That’s a story everyone would believe. It’s a love story, after all.” Talaith was almost at the top of the well, feeling the brightness, the warmth on the top of her head, breathing in the lighter air. She was almost there. She would convince Liam to let them all go. She had to. She must. “As for Sumi, well, she knows too much. She’s seen more than our average Untouched, and that, of course, is your fault, too. I’m going to have to devise a plan of some kind. Maybe I’ll let her go with you two out into the woods. It might be that you and Rachel won’t even recall your friend as a friend once you turn. You’ll see her as dinner.” Her hands on the top of the well, her head and shoulders in the light, Talaith yanked herself up and over and then opened her eyes. She was flat against a wall, blinking against a light. She tried to move her body, but she’d been chained to the wall, her wrists, her ankles, and her waist secured tight. She looked to her right and left, but she was alone in this room except for Liam who stood before her, proud as always, his long hair behind his shoulders, his hands on his hips. Even now, he wanted to show off to her. Even now, he wanted her gaze. Well, he had it, she thought. He forced it. He finally made it happen. “You can’t do this,” Talaith said. “Even my father wouldn’t go along with this.” Jessica Inclan

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“Your father is in Naruci and has left this to me,” Liam said. “He trusts me.” “Bad mistake,” Talaith said, yanking a little with her wrists, trying to find a place of give, of weakness, but there was none. Only the bonds that would keep her to this wall as she turned from woman into wolf. And even though she had seen Kaherdin shift, she was terrified of the prospect, unwilling to let her body go through that metamorphosis without a struggle. But what could she do from this wall? “Perhaps he did make a mistake,” Liam agreed. “But he’ll never find out. He’s left me in charge of giving out the elixir, but it won’t be until after it has all been distributed that you and Rachel will have escaped, taking The Untouched girl with you. Certainly, I will face his wrath over that, but my case will be compelling. In no time, I will be in full charge here, and then, well, Jodoc will have to let the younger ones take over. He’s too long run the three colonies. He and Akla might have to join you and Rachel. Sad. So sad.” “You shouldn’t be telling me all of this,” Talaith said. “You are giving up too much information that I can use against you once this is over.” “Perhaps,” Liam said again, his laughter barely contained in his reply. “But this is over, Talaith. This is how the story ends. The bad guy captures the princess and the good guy is nowhere in sight. In fact, there never was a good guy. Poor princess. Dead and unloved, up until the end.” Tucking her feelings and thoughts into a tight ball in the center of her being, Talaith stared at Liam, holding Kaherdin’s image in her mind as she would a talisman, a charm, an amulet protecting her against evil. There had been a “good” guy. There had been a prince. He turned from a wolf into a man, and somehow, despite this clear finale, Talaith hoped there would be another ending. Jessica Inclan

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But not likely. Not now, with all the protections Liam could master surrounding her. Once long ago, Talaith read about the way The Before People traveled to other lands. They got into big metal objects that flew through the air, landing on long, flat strips of land. Airplanes. Jets. Machines run on the very fossil fuels that had helped destroy their world. When the jets and planes chanced to crash into the land or sea, the wreckage would contain black boxes that were put in the machines for this very reason. Inside each black box was a beacon that sent signals to those who would find the wreckage and the possible survivors. The black box would tell those who picked up the pieces the story of the accident. The black boxes gave the history of the disaster. As she stood trapped against the wall, staring at Liam, she hoped there was a black box inside her. She hoped her heart was that box, full of energy and sound that would show Kaherdin where to find her. She hoped she was broadcasting her love and need and hope, a full, open, furious signal into the darkness, a beacon for him to hear and use. She hoped she would be a survivor of the wreckage of her own life. Sighing, Talaith looked up and at Liam, seeing only his weakness, seeing only his need, just as she always had. Not even now as he held so many people’s lives in his hands did he seem powerful. He was only and just a weak and desperate man. “The only good thing about this,” she said, “is that you didn’t rape me again. At least I never had to touch you again.” Liam flushed, stepped forward, his hand moving as though he were about to strike her. His eyes narrowed, his mouth setting into something like a grimace. Talaith could almost hear his heart beat, feel his anger like a hot wind against her face.

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But then he shifted, stepped back, breathed out. “That may likely be the only good thing,” he said. “You best revel in it. At some point in the next day or two, you may wish that your life were only about me and not what is biting down around your neck.” And with those words, he turned from her, walked to the door, flicked off the light, and left her along in that dark room, chained to the wall, full of her regrets and fear. Still holding onto that talisman, the imagine of Kaherdin, she thought hard, imagining the beacon of her love a flume of energy pushing out of her like a wide light. Find me. You did it before in dream. You did it before in matter. Find me. Find me now.

Talaith wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It might have been minutes or hours or days since Liam had ripped Sumi, Rachel, and her from the dark forest on the outskirts of Uveris. Pushing her head against the wall, feeling what she cold of the room on her skull, back, arms, and calves, she nodded off, drifting into a world that wasn’t truly in front of her. She was hovering over a couple sitting in a circle of light, a fire blazing in front of them. The night was dark, but the fire illuminated their happy faces, glinted off their white teeth, gleamed in their shiny hair. The man pulled the woman close to him, kissing her cheek, her lips, her forehead. Oh how lovely, Talaith thought, wishing she were the woman. But—and—she was the woman, and the man was Kaherdin. How could she nod see that? Sinking into the scene, she floated into the woman’s body and turned to look at him, taking in his green eyes that crackled gold in the firelight, letting her hand run along the smooth hardness of his arm. Kaherdin spoke to her, but she did not understand, wanting to hear, straining for his Jessica Inclan

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voice in her head. He reached out to stroke her cheek, but she did not feel his hand now, the scene breaking up. Whipped out of the fantasy, she choked, tried to breathe as she coughed away water, her hair and body dripping, water pouring down her front and side and pooling at her feet. “You are disgusting,” said the voice in the darkness. The door closed again, the light slamming into black, Talaith shivering in her bonds. The water slipped down her face, under and in and through her clothes. Behind her, the wall was as cold and hard as a block of ice. The firelight and Kaherdin had been a dream, again. The water dripped down the wall from above her, wetting her further, the water penetrating her skin. Time turned into the long, slow journey it had been most of her life, an endless boardwalk of hours. Sometimes, she fell asleep, and then she was hit with water again, her tongue licking what it could from her lips. She was thirsty and hungry, and at some point in the past hours, she’d lost her sense of self, letting herself urinate, and she knew the voice had been right. She did stink. She was nothing more than an animal. At some point, Talaith thought she heard a scream, a throttled, ugly cry that turned into something else, a howl, a moan, a high keening warble of pain. Was it Rachel? Was it Sumi? Or was it her own imagination crying out in the dark room? The water, the cold, the waiting. Her imagination pulling her own of reality and into something that was better. Her stomach twisted into a knot, her bones chattered against the stone behind her. But then something else began to happen, something that Talaith couldn’t explain. Inside her cells, her blood, her bones, her body began to shift and move, her breathing and heart beat seeming to accelerate. Her thirst and hunger grew immense, wide, bigger than her very self. Jessica Inclan

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All Talaith wanted was to eat and drink. In order to do either of those things, she needed to be out of this room, out in nature, outside with the air streaming all around her. Without knowing she was doing so or understanding why, she began to thrash against her bonds, her body thumping and hitting the wall wherever it could. Her wrists and ankles burned and chaffed, her body echoed with the reverberations of her attack on herself. But Talaith didn’t care about the pain, and as she tried to free herself, she felt her vision grow more focused, refined, sharp, the darkness taking on shape and form: the four walls of the room, a dresser, a bed in the corner, a small rug that smelled like an animal—a dog. This was a basement room, no windows, no leaks of light becoming visible. Just the box from which Talaith knew she needed to escape. Her heart beating fast like the caged animal she was, her body shaking, her arms and legs pulling, pulling, pulling from the wall, Talaith forgot who or what she was, only knowing that she was going to get out, leave, run, run, run away and out and through and gone.

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SIXTEEN

It was night in the land of Boren’s people, the grainy darkness lifting lightly from the land like a woman pulling up her gray skirt. Kaherdin nodded and smiled to those he’d met—Sterling still smiling—but he was having a hard time staying focused on the plan in front of all of them. If Boren and he had predicted the time change correctly, evening was only minutes away for the Wahya, and they would arrive in the compound in the time before the turning. There would be time to confront Raf and the pack, time to give them the cure before night fell and the compulsion to turn would be greater than any offer of change. Boren and he stood in a group, and for a time, Kaherdin listened to the last minute instructions Boren was giving the fifty or so people about what was going to happen the moment they arrived. Based on their calculations, they’d have a half hour, forty minutes before the argument might shift to teeth and fur and claws. Kaherdin knew that if things went wrong, he and Boren would be the only ones headed to the colony to try to find Talaith, the rest of the group headed back here. If the cure was something Raf was willing to accept, then hopefully, they’d approach the colony with more force. But all Kaherdin wanted was to find Talaith and take her away from that house and that place. “If all goes well,” Boren was saying, “we will be back here in a matter of hours.” Kaherdin nodded at Boren’s words, listened to questions Oren asked, but then his mind slid to the place it slid when dislodged momentarily from Talaith: his brothers. Boren had said the words. His brothers. His brothers? For many years, he’d had the memory of others who somehow belonged to him. Kaherdin had a sense memory, the feeling of close boy flesh, Jessica Inclan

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rubbing together of shoulders—and of fur. There was a blur of visual memory, but a longer, deeper olfactory memory, something warm and of the earth and real. This imaginary family was like the very ground he walked on. If he ever saw them again, he would breathe in to make sure it was true. The memory went on: there was play and the constant gaze of two adults, but the memory was so quick, so fleeting, that every time it came to him, he grabbed at it but it slipped through his fingers. Before telling him that he’d found his brothers, Boren had never mentioned Kaherdin’s family, and Kaherdin had always assumed that if he’d had a family, Boren would have known about it. That memory moved into one of a long journey and running and then a separation, but his mind didn’t have the full picture or any picture, really, of that. He’d imagined that it was all a dream, something he conjured in the many hours he spent by himself. Clearly, he had the ability to imagine things. After all, hadn’t he imagined a woman behind the glass, staring at him, watching him? But she had come true, hadn’t she? Talaith was real. Or was. No, was real. She had to be. They had to get there in time. “We are ready,” Boren said, turning to Kaherdin, who pulled himself out of the past and his own worry to nod, his face feeling frozen in consternation, his insides roiling with anticipation. “First to the compound,” Boren said, and the entire group picked up Kaherdin’s shared image, the description he’d drawn out for them on paper and the one he’d shared through his mind. He felt the power of the group, the shared visualization making images richer, clearer, and then there was the portal, the way in and through, the black hole of matter that would lead them where they

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wanted to go, lead them to the fight they would have to have. The fight Kaherdin knew he would have to force with Raf. In seconds—the time in the matter a whir of energy and stillness both—they were all standing in front of the compound, the sky a deep, brilliant, dusky orange. They were at the open mouth of the forest, trees behind them, buildings before. The pack was just starting to awaken, lights turning on in the rooms, children opening doors and coming outside to frolic with each other. There were the noises of the markets, the compound opening up to life after a long day of rest. “Where to?” Oren asked, looking at Kaherdin. “Follow me,” Kaherdin said, trying to force a confident tenor from his mouth. He knew where to go, but he did not want to go. Not really. But he was in charge from this moment on, and he began to walk, the group walked right into the main part of the compound. Kaherdin ignored the gasps of people as they walked past, kept the group moving in a sure steady way so that no one would sense weakness or fear or even a slight flicker of tentative thought. In the middle of the square, he stopped, and Boren walked to his side, both of them facing Raf’s quarters. “Raf,” Kaherdin called out. “Raf, I need to speak with you.” People were coming out of their quarters, all of them murmuring, unsure, though Kaherdin knew that unsurely would be over soon, the night sky opening up so many possibilities, the night making the pack hungry, eager to turn wolf. This confrontation had to happen now before the threat forced change, and change led to bloodshed. Behind him, he thought he heard the yips of pups, and the idea of the pack changing all at once kept him staring straight ahead, unable to let Boren or the group see his fear.

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After a long moment, Raf opened his door and walked out to the stoop. Sika trailed behind him, her long hair flowing, her eyes narrowing as she saw Kaherdin. Behind her came the usual suspects, Jordan, Leif, and Hong, the same people who had been there at the cave, all ready to kill Kaherdin for not being part of the pack. Seeing Kaherdin before him, Raf shook his head, put his hands on his hips. “You are the bad thought that never goes away,” he said. “And now you’ve brought some of your equally bad friends. How much more fun this will be.” Raf stepped forward, moving down the stoop and onto the steps. He glanced from Kaherdin to Boren, his face displaying his shock at seeing the older man. “Boren?” he said, his voice wavering for just a moment. “Yes, I am back, Raf. How similar you are to the pup you were,” he said. Raf’s expression sharpened, grew fierce, holding the look Kaherdin knew only too well. In it, Kaherdin could see the wolf ready to lunge. And in that recognition, he wished he still had the ability to morph, to move into that sold muscled body he’d once had access to, those fangs that had once been his, that strength, those claws. “What are you doing here?” Raf asked. “And who are these people? They are not Wahya.” “No, they are not. They come from the world beyond the compounds,” Boren said. “The colonies,” Sika said, emerging from behind Raf. “You’ve aligned yourself with the colonies.” “No,” Kaherdin said. “These people are from the world far behind this ridiculous battle we’ve been fighting for centuries. These people are welcoming. These people have cured both Boren and me of our wolf natures.” “The elixir?” Sika asked, amazed. “They have the elixir.” Jessica Inclan

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“Many generations of their people worked to help free me of my nightly need to hunt,” Boren said. It is not the colonist’s elixir but it effects the same change. Both Kaherdin and I are free of that part of ourselves.” “If you align with us,” Kaherdin said, “we will give you this cure. We will be free from the war with the colonies. We won’t have to live as we have been. We can live like the humans we once were.” Raf shook his head and laughed. “You think I want to live like those frail, pathetic things outside our compound? You think I want to live like food? You think I want to give up all that I have here? You think I want to be like them?” “But you’ve been fighting the colonies all these years,” Kaherdin said. “You’ve been attacking and plotting against the colonies. Now, we have the chance to destroy this system. To start living a whole new way. To stop living like barbarians. Like murderers.” “And you think I want that?” Raf said, moving closer. “You think I don’t like this life? Do you think you won’t miss it? The call to all that is out there? The earth and sky and the hunt of those warm, wild things?” Raf spoke softly, his voice like a hum. “Do you think we’ve really been fighting against the colony? Do you think we’ve really wanted the elixir? Don’t you think that if there hadn’t been an arrangement of some kind that the colonies would have fallen by now?” At these words, Kaherdin saw even Sika turn toward Raf in some disbelief, her face registering a brief flash of confusion. “What have you been fighting for?” Boren asked, his voice low and soft and seemingly unconcerned. “What have all these years of your leadership meant, Raf?”

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Raf shook his head, his face full of a disgust he felt for Kaherdin and the group before him as well as for anyone who did not agree with him. Something in Sika’s face went slack, Raf’s words and movement confusing her. “It means we can do as we please. We don’t have to change our ways, and we can even become more who we are. We can be Wahya” Boren stepped closer to Raf, his movements sure and calm, as always. Kaherdin wished he could mimic the same surety, but he knew he couldn’t. So he faked it, stepping closer along with his mentor. “Do you think I am not Wahya just because I don’t change at night?” Boren asked. “Do you think I didn’t bring all my many years of transformation—of running through nature under the moonlit sky—along with me into my life as fully human?” Raf laughed. “You aren’t fully human. You are simply treated. And you aren’t Wahya. Not anymore. You gave that up the night you wandered away from here.” “Does being a human mean attacking others? Eating others? Does that make you more rather than less, bigger rather than smaller?” Raf moved toward both Kaherdin and Boren, his eyes the cold, clear blue they’d always been on attack, whether as wolf or man. “You are your group need to leave here. Now. Take your non-Wahya ways are walk away while you can.” “We won’t leave,” Kaherdin said. “Not without talking to the whole pack. Everyone. Not until everyone gets to decide if he or she wants to hunt at night, tearing around looking for food, for flesh, for something alive to eat. Not until we can ask every single Wahya here if he or she would like to go out into the sun instead of hiding against the rays. Not until she can offer up what is real and true of human life and let everyone here pass on it all.” Jessica Inclan

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Kaherdin felt his body shake with passion, knowing how much the simple act of eating a green bean had meant to him. That ordinary, simple pleasure, that single, solitary vegetable had made up for a decade of hiding away from the light. Eating food not prey, living out in the bright open air had turned life from something dark and full of need to something possible. Wide open and full of potential. Turning away from Raf and Sika, Kaherdin looked out to the pack. For so many, many nights he’d run with them all. He’d seen them all do things that would horrify them in human form. They’d killed and fought—they’d torn into flesh. They’d lived like animals more than people, their animal lives taking over during the time that they were human. All of them had accepted the wolf metaphor, leaving behind the humanity that they’d been left with. “Do you really love this life?” Kaherdin asked. “Do you really love waking up now at the heel of the day and turning into an animal? Yes. Yes, it’s beautiful out there. It’s amazing at night. It’s amazing to have all that power, that fluid, strong body. But do you like the hunt? Do you like what you are doing? I know that you see your actions with your human brain. Even as you rip into the flesh of a person, you can’t forget that you are one, too.” Walking away from Boren, he moved closer to his former pack, seeing the faces of the people he’d shared so much time with—shared as a wolf. “I was always hungry. I chose to not eat of humans, and I know some of you make that choice, too. I was never alone, but I always felt alone. I felt alone and I felt hungry. I felt that I would do anything to not be in this cycle of loss and despair. Every single night it was the same, and the only thing that kept me going was the hope that one day—one day soon—we would be able to take the elixir. I dreamed of living inside the colony, safe and warm and protected. I

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dreamed of waking up in the sunlight. Of feeling full after a meal that was not blood and bone and raw flesh. I had a dream of being human.” Turning back to Raf, he lifted his hand, pointing. “And despite our differences and there were many, I trusted that this man, this leader, was going to bring me closer to that dream. But now? Do you hear that he never wanted that dream? He never shared in the vision that I used to keep myself alive all these many years. I imagined that one day I would not be hungry and always searching to quench that need. I thought that if I held on one day the suffering would end if I just held on.” “What suffering did you have? You are alive, aren’t you? You were protected. You were kept safe by the work that I did.” “We didn’t need to be protected, Raf. We didn’t need anything but the very cure that we’ve brought with us today. You’ve never been protecting anyone other than yourself.” As Kaherdin spoke, he noticed that Sika was watching Raf, her face and her voice a testament to her disbelief. She turned to Kaherdin and he saw for the first time that she had meant what she’d said all these years: that he should challenge Raf. Inside, she’d known all along that Raf was not going to bring the pack to whatever wholeness she’d been hoping for. Now, finally, she’d heard the truth from Raf himself. If Sika—one of Raf’s closest advisors, a trusted member of the pack—was doubting his words, then Kaherdin knew he must be reaching other pack members, those who had liked him feared the long nights, the long years. “No,” he said, his voice firm and calm and strong. “He’s not in it for you, the same way he was never in it for me. He wants power. He doesn’t want the life that we want. The lives that you imagined for yourselves.” Jessica Inclan

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Kaherdin stopped speaking, feeling his words more than he ever had. Gone was the weariness he’d felt every day before Talaith. Gone was his apathy. Gone was his despair. Now he was glad that Boren insisted on coming here first. “I can just tell you about myself. How lonely I was night after night. I was not part of the pack. I was not part of this life, but I had no choice but to live it, eating my way through the night. What choice did I have except to fight on for a choice, hope for a choice, pray for a choice? If you stay with Raf, this choice will never be yours. If you stay here, you can have the night, but the day will never be yours.” Somehow during his speech, his own words had carried him back into his past. He’d almost left the compound square, forced to relieve the night hunts of his life, the long, closed-up hours of his days. As he spoke, he’d felt buoyed by the crowd around him, forgetting to watch Raf, so he should have expected what happened next. Finally, he knew what it was to be one of the unpoisoned ones. In a flash, he saw a skinny, whimpering, barely fed human running through the forest, his terrified face turning to look at what was chasing it. What was behind was almost worse than the outcome. The snarling, bared fang monster behind him was worse than the sudden, sharp death. Kaherdin understood now, clear that every word he had spoken just moments ago was the truth. Raf’s wolf body flew at him, all fur and fang and hard muscle, harder bone. Kaherdin hit the ground, his mind holding only one thought, one hope, one prayer. Talaith, he thought. And there despite the hot, angry wolf breath at his face, the claws digging into his chest was Talaith. In his vision, she turns to great him, her eyes wide as the sky of Boren’s people, her hair Jessica Inclan

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blowing back behind her shoulders, her smile widening, her gaze holding, holding, holding him as nothing ever has, nothing, not once. Nothing in his life as wonderful as a glance of her. Fight, she seems to say. Fight for me. And without Kaherdin knowing how, he wrapped his arms tight around his neck, knowing the tender spots Raf would strike and seize first, knowing because he is wolf, too. He felt Raf bite down on his arms, the fangs sharp and slick and slicing. Fight for me. His arms protecting his neck, Kaherdin rolled quickly to the right, shifted, moved, tucking his face under his arms. The wolf snapped at him hard, searching for his throat. Kaherdin held tight, closed his eyes, tried to shift and move. Everything became this effort, these certain, protective moves, the wolf’s harsh, hard jabs, the tearing of his clothing, the knowledge that he couldn’t fend Raf off much longer. But he wanted to live. He wanted to see Talaith again, in the flesh, not just in his dreams, not in matter, not in his imagination. He could no longer turn wolf, but he could fight, so he did, using all his strength to keep his arms tight against his throat, kicking with his legs, using his knees on the wolf’s belly. Kicking and kicking, wanting his strength to hold, knowing that he was bleeding, Kaherdin would not give up. He fought for life and for the life that he could have with Talaith, a life they could all have if only the pack saw what was possible. And then he heard a sound he’d heard so many times before, the snarl and rush of the pack joining the kill. Raf must have signaled them to come in an end it with him. In Kaherdin’s ears was the heat and motion of multiple wolves moving in for that last lunging bite So this was how it would end, he thought, the pack giving up on the idea of a human life. He had maybe seconds

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now, and he wished he didn’t have to go out like this, writhing on the ground, subdued by the pack at last. None of the pack had wanted the human way after all, the fight against the colony not a fight but something to occupy them, something that was simply a reason to exist. How stupid he had been to hope. All those years of hope for nothing but fang at the end. The wolf bit down on his forearm and Kaherdin tensed his whole body, knowing that the deadly bite would come soon, now, right now, the fangs seconds away . . . and then it didn’t, though the snarling seemed to increase, the animals whining and moving on top of him, bodies pummeling him, pressing against him. He continued to be alive. Why was he still alive? He’d seen rogue compound members felled by a swift bite to the neck, allowed to bleed out in seconds, no amount of extraordinary healing abilities a panacea to that particular violence. Why wasn’t he dead yet or at least bleeding out onto this compound ground, leaking back into the ground that had held him for so long? And then he realized that the main wolf body—Raf’s body—was no longer attacking him or moving at all. He realized that the wolf was now a man again, Raf a dead weight on top of him. The wolves around him stopped their movement, the air stilled, the movement nothing more than so much breathing. Kaherdin opened his eyes, unwrapped his arms from around his neck, and pushed Raf off him. He felt something slick and wet on his neck and shoulders and he reached a hand up to touch it, bringing it back to his nose. Blood. It was blood. But not his. Kaherdin sat up, leaned over, saw the mortal wounds on Raf’s body. Raf had never expected the pack to turn on him, and he’d left himself vulnerable to attack, his back and neck open and Jessica Inclan

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available. Any number of these wounds could have been the mortal blow. Nothing inside him or outside of him other than magic could have saved him. And clearly, there’d been no magic offered up. Raf was dead. As his mind opened up past his own death, Kaherdin heard the noise that must have been around him all along. The pack and Boren’s people were yelling and then talking and then silent. Blinking into the growing darkness, Kaherdin saw that it was Sika who stood over Raf’s dead body, her body covered with blood, her mouth wet with it. Looking up at him, she almost glowed, and for a second, Kaherdin saw the woman he’d managed to glimpse now and againsometimes during sex, sometimes during the hunt—a strong woman who had never been able to say exactly what she’d wanted to, trapped into following a man she did not fully trust. Kaherdin had seen her expression as Raf had spoken; Kaherdin had seen her amazement slide into disgust. Now she was free. Boren kneeled down next to Kaherdin, a stick in his hands, his face beset with worry. “For the first time in centuries,” he said. “I wanted to change into my wolf. I wanted to help you, and all I could find was this stick.” Boren lifted the stick, shook it a little, smiled. “I was planning my great attack. But there was no need. You were well protected.” Kaherdin sat up and scanned his body, the bites on his arms and hands and legs already healing. “It would seem so.” He looked up at Sika and then at the pack members standing around him. “Thank you.” “We need no thanks,” she said, grabbing her dress and putting it over her blood-splotched body. With that strong, swift move, the woman who had wheedled and teased him all these Jessica Inclan

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years seemed to vanish. She stood in front of him fully herself, ready to become what she’d always wanted to be. A leader that she’d always wanted to be. “But we want what you offered. We want to end this.” Boren stood and offered his hand to Kaherdin who came to standing, his body shaky from the attack. He looked out at the group, noticing that during the fight, many of the pack had changed and were now returning to human form, putting on their clothes, waiting. Waiting to be in those clothes for good now. Not wanting the change they’d been given by people who’d had no foresight or compassion or understanding of what they were doing to thousands of people. The people before had been thoughtless and cruel; if they’d only been ignorant, they had not imagined this ruthless life, all these centuries later. Finally, this wrong would be righted. “Yes,” Kaherdin said. “It will end. And it will end now.”

It was almost morning again, the sky cradling a vague glow, the horizon striped with light. But this transitional time was no longer a warning of the coming sun, an ill-omen of the suffering that occurred from enjoying the world to its fullest. No, thought Kaherdin, this was the dawn of quite literally a new day. A day where the pack would arise and be new, different, human. He sat on the porch of his old quarters, leaning back in a chair he’d made himself with wood from the nearby forest. His body was sore from Raf’s attack, but his wounds had already healed and Boren had told him to rest. “We will need your assistance soon enough,” Boren had said. “Sleep. And if you can’t do that, sit still. And if you can’t sit still, just don’t go anywhere without me.”

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With Sika in charge, the core pack members had deliberated a strategy. A group had run off into the night to go to the other compounds, bringing the news of the cure. The rest of the pack had been organized into smaller packs to take the cure, some of Boren’s people traveling home and back with additional doses and food, something they’d neglected to realize the pack would need now that they could no longer hunt—at least in the way they knew how. Later, they’d be taught other methods, but for now vegetables and dried meat would be their first human meal. Boren was overseeing the delivery of the doses, talking with pack members as one by one, they converted. The first who had taken the cure had gone through the radical transformation that Kaherdin had faced by himself in the forest. But the younger ones had passed more smoothly into their permanent human mode and were helping those gripped by the pain of the inner body shifting and changing. By daylight, they’d have enough of the pack to take with them into the colony. By daylight, he’d see Talaith again. He would see Talaith again. He would.

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SEVENTEEN

As though she’d been born to the hunt, she waited at the door, silent, still, her eyes seeing the slight movements on the other side, seeing the flickering shadows underneath and on the sides. She’d not noticed this movement before, but once she slipped out of the bonds and moved closer to the exit, she knew there were two people on the other side of the door. She could wait. She could be still, even as every single muscle in her body quivered for release. She waited, focused, hearing the noises around her, the sounds from another room, a whine, a whimper, the deep voices of men. The floor beneath her was cold, hard, slightly wet, the air the same. Her mouth filled with saliva, her breath rate increased. She felt the prey before her and she was going to lunge, she was going to spring, but she would sit here until it was time and she would know it was time due to all this focus inside her. Her eyes would tell her, her nose would tell her, her fur and skin would tell her. Outside, the shadows flickered faster in front of the door, and then there was the rattling of something metal, something clanking, and she felt her muscles tense even further. The door opened, the person pushing it holding something metal, something hard. She noticed a hand reaching for the light, and she moved to a better place, a place the person could not see because it was dark still in the room, and then before the hand could flip the switch, she was upon the person, pushing him down to the ground, her paws holding him down, her mouth at his neck ready to bite through, taste what was hers to take. Something metal clanked to the floor, and she barely heard it, her head full of the smell of this man, knowing him before she had even leapt from the floor. He smelled of soap and smooth, Jessica Inclan

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soft clothing, and clean surroundings. He smelled like well made meals and rest. He smelled of excess and greed. She could feel his insides, his blood moving in red streams in veins and arteries, the muscle under the skin, tender and at her mercy. She could almost taste the way his flesh would feel in her mouth, and her hatred for him made her want to move past imaginings and into the truth of the kill even though the notion of touching him further, more, made her want to howl. Nothing dirtied this man and his fine, fresh smells made her angry, pushed her mouth open wide, made her ready for the bite that would be hers. Finally, she could do what she’d only imagined being able to do to this man. Finally, he was subdued, he was the one thrown to the ground. He was the one to feel the pain of being vulnerable, weaker, powerless. He yelled out, scrabbling about on the floor, his arms flinging back and forth. If she had the ability, she would have laughed. Instead, she growled at his ear, her paws keeping him supine, a victim splayed underneath her. She knew there were people rushing to the door—a great number by the sounds of their running footsteps—she didn’t care. Her animal insides knew what she wanted, and she barred her teeth, put her wet nose by his neck, prepared to bite. Something made her look up, and in that glance, she felt the man below her believe he might be saved. She stepped on him harder, but looked up. A man was talking to her. The words made sense in a dense, faraway manner, but she couldn’t really understand the meaning. All she knew was that this man was calling to her from the doorway. And as the voice took shape into a man she knew, she then felt the wolf next to her, heard the growl that made her want to turn and slink into the corner. In a new, unknown language, she heard the wolf, knew that this growl said, “This is my kill.” This growl said, “Move away now.” Jessica Inclan

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The body below her tensed, waited. She didn’t want to let go of that feeling of having such power over him. If she could, she wanted to stay right here, keep him in perpetual fear, keep him locked into so much terror that he might die without even being bit. And how it would feel to slice clean into his horrible flesh. Her mouth filled with saliva again, but the wolf next to her growled again, the pitch louder, deeper, more sure. Without her bidding her body lowered, slunk, turned away. The other wolf moved over the body, and kept the man pinned. She stared at the other animal, so black as to almost be hidden in the dark room. This wolf had no right, yet the wolf somehow did have every right. This wolf was in charge, her growl a growl of command and cunning. But he was her prey, her find, her kill! She was angry, her heart beating fast, but she knew that this was hers to walk away from. As she watched the other wolf, the man at the door began to walk toward her, his hands outstretched, his voice low and calm in her ears. At first she wanted to lunge at him, her hatred for the man on the floor, the wolf on top of the man a fierce and bitter snarl inside her. She felt her muscles contract, her lips curl over her teeth, her vision sharpened, focusing on the man, his skin, the pulse in his neck. Calm, he thought, the idea slinging into her brain. Calm. Wait. His thoughts did what he asked, his voice familiar, known. With this man, she smelled so many different things than she had with the other one pinned beneath the wolf. This man was different, a newer smell to her, but more fully known. She breathed in the forest, the smells of cedar and pine, the earth and the sky. Even from a small distance, she knew that his hair smelled of night, his skin of sun. She—she knew him, and her felt something inside her collapse and melt and shift. She was going to tell him that she would not hurt him, she would not attack, but Jessica Inclan

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she could not speak. She could not move. She was on the floor, the cold hard stone under her body the last thing she felt. Change, she heard as she floated into a sleep that clung to her like death. Change.

When she awoke, Talaith wondered if she had died. It would make sense, death, even though death had never been an option before. But in the past few days, her life had been nothing close to what she’d known before. First there had been rape, escape, Kaherdin, and a brand new land. Then she moved on to torture and then the hallucinatory moments in the cold, stone room, her body in bonds. Finally there had been those moments as an animal—or, at least, she thought she’d been an animal. She had been an animal. A wolf. She’d been a wolf. Then she froze, her breath caught in her lungs. She closed her eyes against the light of the room that seemed too bright. Of course. She had changed, shifted. She’d become a wolf because Liam hadn’t given her a dose of elixir. “Shhh,” he said, and she couldn’t bear to open her eyes, not wanting to see what man was next to her, not wanting to imagine that the wrong man had been pinned to the floor. Talaith felt her face flush, and she gripped the sheet underneath her. “Shhh,” he said again, and in that sound, she knew that it was he. Kaherdin. Turning her head, she slowly opened her eyes, and he was sitting next to her, in her gaze, in her view. To say that seeing him was a miracle after these strange days of struggle wouldn’t Jessica Inclan

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have been exaggeration. To say that seeing his face light up like the dawn wouldn’t have been more than the plain, simple truth. To say that her heart broke out of the fear that had wrapped it tight would have been the literal, fair truth. “Love,” she said, her voice a whisper, a croak, something hard and stuck in her throat. “Shhh,” he said, stroking her hair. “Don’t talk. Your body has gone through a lot. You need to let it rest.” He leaned over and kissed her eyes, her forehead, her cheeks. Then he let his mouth touch hers. And in that kiss, she felt what she’d known from the first time he’d touched her, kissed her. Talaith knew that this man was the man she could spend the rest of time with and with him, all of time would feel fleeting. Forever would never be enough. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting this kiss take her away from her tired body and her confusion, but then the images of the past days pushed into her mind and she heard the cries of her friends in the darkness. “What happened?” she whispered. “Where is Rachel? Sumi?” At her questions, Kaherdin smiled, stroked her cheek. “It’s been a long few hours here,” he said. “So much has happened. The compound has been given an elixir—a cure. I came here to find you, but we all came here to end this war between us.” Talaith heard his words, but she really wasn’t sure what he’d said. “It’s over?” He nodded. “Over but not determined. Over but still just beginning.” Still, she was not sure about what he was saying, all of it seeming like one of the fairytales left by The Before People. “Rachel?” Talaith said again. “Sumi?” Jessica Inclan

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“Both of your friends—the women who were locked up in the same place with you—are well.” “This is Rachel’s house, right?”” she asked. “That’s what I’m told.” “Did Rachel turn?” Kaherdin nodded. “Yes.” “Is she all right?” Talaith asked, imagining poor Rachel chained to a wall, morphing into the animal she never wanted to become. “She’s fine. She’s resting.” “How did we….” Talaith looked down at her body, imagining she would see fur and paws. “How did we turn back?” “It’s not a skill you’ll get a handle on,” he said. “But you have the ability within you to move shift. You’ve seen me do it. All I had to do was coax it out of you.” At his words, Talaith felt fear slip along her skin. “I don’t want to change back. I—I was scared of who I was as a wolf. I didn’t know how to control myself. I think I had the urge—I think I wanted to attack you...” “Shhh,” he said again. “It’s all right. Don’t worry. I know. I really do. It’s natural. You were an animal.” “But I was me,” she said, her sobs under her words. “I was myself.” “Yes,” he said. “But there was another instinct inside you, one that was fighting for life. An instinct that was fighting against your human life.” “I don’t know how to be a wolf. I don’t want to do that again.”

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Kaherdin didn’t say anything, stroking her arm, letting her upset pass through her body. Talaith watched him, taking in his very presence here in the same room with her. During her time at Liam’s house, while she was bound to the wall, she hadn’t been sure that she would make it to this moment. Yet here she was. Alive. A woman. Not a wolf any longer. “We gave you the elixir,” he said, taking her hand. “That’s one of the reasons you feel so tired. You’ve changed, changed back, and transformed your entire DNA structure in a few hours. I happen to personally know how that feels, and it’s not good. You need to sleep. To rest. And then--” “Liam?” she said without letting him finish. Kaherdin seemed to think she would be upset about the man she’d had pinned in the room, and his face worked itself into a concern he knew he should feel—for her. “The man on the floor of the room?” Talaith nodded, her breath frozen in her lungs. “He’s dead. I’m sorry. Sika killed him.” “The black wolf that pushed me away,” Talaith said. “Yes.” Kaherdin kissed her hand, and she shook her head, wanting him to know how she felt, wanting him to know the truth. And yet how to say she wanted Liam dead a hundred times over and sound like the kind of person Kaherdin would want to be with. How to not sound callous and cruel and relentless? But she felt cruel. She felt relief. She almost felt happy to hear the news “Good. I’m glad he’s dead,” she said, trying to keep voice hard and flat. Kaherdin blinked into his surprise. “Oh.” Jessica Inclan

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“He raped me,” Talaith explained, the truth out before she could even pull it back in. “He locked me up in his house. He hung me on a wall. He raped Sumi, too. Night after night and I didn’t do anything to stop it. And before that, for years, he plotted. He lied. He wasn’t—he wasn’t a good person.” In the midst of her words, Kaherdin’s face changed, the rage and anger and then satisfaction that the man had been killed registering on his face. She knew just by watching him that he was with her, behind her, for her. He understood her satisfaction at Liam’s death, and he agreed. “Oh, my love. When? When did he—rape you?” he said, his voice hitting the word rape like a lash. “That night you and I met. That night on the lake, in our minds, in that in between place. He ripped me away from you.” For a moment, it seemed as though Kaherdin was going to stand, his body tense, muscles flexed, but then he relaxed, his hand lifting hers to his mouth. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips on it for a long, slow half minute. The thought of losing Kaherdin was still ripe and ready in her heart, and she turned her head from his. While he seemed to consider all that she had said, she clenched again in fear. How perfect the moment had been and then how horrible, knowing that she would never be the same again. But Talaith wouldn’t blame him for walking away. How could she? She’d not told him the truth. She had kept something so important from him. She’d not been the woman she’d supposedly been when they lay together for the first time. She was a liar. She was broken.

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“Oh, love,” Kaherdin said, opening his eyes, squeezing her hand, his voice calm and soft. “None of this is your fault. None of it. I wish you’d told me.” She shook her head and looked away. “I couldn’t. I was so ashamed. I felt—I didn’t feel good enough for you. I thought you deserved more.” At that, she felt Kaherdin’s body tense again, his feelings coming through his hand. But he didn’t stand up. He didn’t leave her. “How could I deserve more? How could I find anything, anyone more, better, finer than you? It isn’t possible.” Talaith closed her eyes, felt the tears she’d tucked away since that night she awoke alone near the lake fall. Kaherdin leaned closer to her. “He’s dead. He will never do that to you or anyone. You are safe. Sumi is safe. You both survived. And you are more than good enough. You are more than I deserve. You are perfect. You are my love.” Turning back to him, Talaith saw only love in his face. Not disgust. Not loathing. Just the love that she’d always seen—in her dreams and in reality. Right now. In front of her. “It was because of Liam—because of what he did—that I didn’t . . . that I couldn’t with you right away,” she said, wanting him to know why she had said no. “It was never about my feelings for you. You’ve always been the one, even when I didn’t really know you.” “I know now. And back then, I knew you didn’t owe me your body. Your body was yours to give me when you wanted. But you’d already given me your trust, your hope, your love. You found me in the most dangerous part of the world for you. You brought me the elixir. I am the one who owes you an apology. I didn’t ask you. I didn’t tell you my plan. I left you alone to fend for yourself. And who finds you but him. That one. The worst one.” Jessica Inclan

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It was true. Both of them had withheld from the other. But neither of them seemed to want to blame the other or live in the other’s mistakes. After all that they had been through, Talaith realized that none of the past mattered anymore. Nothing but this. Here. Both of them together again. Together in the future. Together in a way she’d never been together with any other person in her life. “You saved me,” she said simply. “You are there. You brought me back.” She now brought his hand to her lips. “And as you said. He’s dead. You won’t have to save me from him again.” Her own words caught in her mind. Liam was dead. The Colony would no longer be anything more than a colony from now on, a place that people lived. A town. The Others were simply another group of people. Together, finally, they would all move into the future, no one walled away by fear or greed. No one suffering alone, no one prospering alone. With all the words finally said between them, Talaith felt the air soften, the world lose the hard edges that had hurt them both, all. Together, they sat quietly in the room, the sun warm behind the curtain, potential a feeling she thought she could grasp. Yes, terrible things had happened, but she didn’t want to dwell on them. Yes, she’d have to think about them at least for a bit but then she needed to forgive herself and move on. She might have to even forgive Liam, if that was possible, though she imagined it would be easier because he was dead. But that thought felt like she was not forgiving him, and she pushed it away, for now. Talaith would have to find her father and find out what she had to know and then forgive him, too. Without forgiveness, there would be no movement forward, and she wanted now to move through this long time she finally saw as a gift. Talaith had so many questions for Jodoc and Akla, but more than anything, she wanted to be buoyed in hope. Jessica Inclan

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She must have dosed a bit—the sunlight a darker, honey gold when she awoke. Kaherdin shifted against the bed, the slight movement jostling her back to consciousness. Talaith looked at him, his dark hair smooth on his strong shoulders. He was leaning close to her, his hand on her hair, his palm warm and comforting. She alighted on his thoughts and found the questions he had about integrating three different groups of people (three?), two of whom had the habit of turning into wolves without treatment. He was thinking of something else, too, something besides the work ahead of them, besides his relief and joy at finding her, besides the dark lining of Liam and what he’d done to Talaith. There was something heavy and full in his mind, something that beat in him like his own blood. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. “What else happened?” Kaherdin looked up at her surprised, and then he smiled, kissing her again, his hand on her face, his breath warm near her ear. “There is time to talk later. You need to rest, and there is much work to be done. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve even begun to figure out what work we have to do. Boren is with your council, and I should help him.” “Is my father in Uveris? Here?” “Yes,” Kaherdin said. “He arrived a few hours ago. He’s talking—he’s talking to people right now about . . . .” He shrugged, looked away, and Talaith could hear the words he was not saying. Talaith took in the information he did give her, knowing that she would have to find a way to approach her father, but that confrontation seemed father off, sometime later when everything didn’t seem so foggy. She still felt as though she was floating, everything unclear, unfocused, really. For instance, before he began talking about Jodoc, she thought she’d heard Kaherdin

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refer to a man she thought had died. Or disappeared. She recalled the stories of his mentor, Boren, the man who abandoned Kaherdin all those centuries ago. “Wait. Did you say Boren? The man who taught you everything?” “Yes, he is. The same as always.” “He’s—he’s back? He’s not—dead?” “Oh, love,” he said, his eyes on her. “The world is a mysterious place. Remember that town we saw in the distance when we were in the forest?” She nodded. “Don’t ask me how it is possible, but when I went there looking for you, I somehow found Boren living with a group of people there.” “Maybe,” she said, understanding that more in this world than she ever thought possible. Even with all she’d seen and done and felt in these past weeks, there was a universe of mystery, so much more than described in the books The Before People had left behind. So much more than her father had shown her. So much more than she had learned on her own. “Maybe he called you to him. Something so deep inside both of you pulled you together.” Kaherdin shook his head, breathed out, laughed a little. “It’s unbelievable.” “It is unbelievable. But you solved that mystery,” she said. “So we have to believe it.” “I don’t know if I solved anything. I’m still working on the greatest mystery of all. It really should be consuming all of my time. It’s a matter of the highest importance.” “What mystery is that?” “Don’t you know?” he said. “It’s how I chanced to find you.” Talaith nodded into his warm gaze, looking at him, and knowing that everything she’d gone through was worth this second right here. He kissed her again. Jessica Inclan

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“And you want to know what else I learned?” he asked. “It’s quite interesting.” She waited for him to tell her, taking in the solid, clean lines of his face as she did. “You are a beautiful wolf.” Talaith started. “I am?” “All white. Not a spot of color on you. All white with blue eyes. If I hadn’t thought you were going to rip my throat out, I would have wanted to pet you.” Blushing at his words and, at the same time, distressed to think of herself as a wolf and ripping out anything but a hem or some crab grass from her herb plot, Talaith found no words. Just gratitude that it was over. For now. Kissing her one more time, Kaherdin stood, stroking her hair back from her forehead. “I’ll be back soon. Sleep. Rest. I need you with me. I’ll need you with me from now on.”

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EIGHTEEN

In front of Kaherdin, Jodoc Rikala sat at a table, the rest of the Uveris council around him. Other colonists sat in chairs behind the table, one a woman who seemed to be Jodoc’s wife, the almost-mother Talaith had referred to once or twice. Sitting across the table from him, Kaherdin stared at this man, the father of his beloved. He knew he should be paying attention to the story Jodoc was telling, but he felt a disconnect between Talaith and this obviously lying man in front of him. Talaith was so good so strong, so true, and her father had wrapped himself in a story made of power and lies for so many years, he was almost impossible to see. “Tell us of these elders,” Boren was saying. Oren, Sterling, Kai, Ryu, Sika, and other members of the pack sat on Kaherdin’s side of the table, waiting for more of Jodoc’s explanation of how 1000 years went wrong. Glancing at Sika, Kaherdin wished she’d taken her dose of cure or elixir. At the compound, she’d refused the cure, saying that her abilities were needed in the colony, and she’d been right. She’d saved Talaith from committing her first kill, something Talaith might not have recovered from, when the kill was what Sika had understood for years. Talaith might have hated Liam, but she would have hated living with his murder even more. But now, Sika was vibrating with hate energy, a loud, discordant note that was visible, like heat or steam or toxic fumes. If Jodoc said one more stupid, ridiculous, insane, selfish thing, Sika might just rise up and lunge at him, ending the meeting with the end of Jodoc’s life, blood and body parts everywhere. As he thought this, he saw Boren reach out and put his hand on

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Sika’s forearm, and she visibly calmed, though even from where Kaherdin sat, he could see her slightly rapid breathing. “The Elders,” Jodoc said, looking at his own people, a group of men and one woman who were silent and distressed. Talaith and the woman Rachel should have been at this table, but both were still too weak from their incarceration and turn from wolf to attend, and Kaherdin wondered how their attendance would shift the silent dynamics here. As he looked around, he realized that those Talaith called the Untouched were not in attendance nor represented, and he wondered why. Unlike in the compound where the so-called untouched were treated like food, here they had a place in the culture, the daily life of Uveris, the day-to-day livelihood. Despite the fact that they did most of the hard, daily work, Kaherdin had assumed they had some power, some say, a half of a half of a vote. But they appeared to be as disregarded here as they were at home. Home, he mused. Where was that really? “Yes?” Boren said, his question jostling Kaherdin back to the meeting. “We would surely like to know who these people are. These people who had or invented the cure. These people who mandated the way in which we all have lived for a millennium.” Jodoc nodded and looked down at his hands on the wooden table. Kaherdin turned his attention to the other men and the one woman sitting near Jodoc, and saw them waiting expectantly for an answer to the question. There was an answer here that was rote, known, accepted. This was likely like one of those early rhymes passed down through the ages, something that all the children of Uveris could knock off before falling asleep. “Do you know?” Kaherdin asked the man closest to him. “Tell us who these elders are.” The woman looked at Jodoc and then at Kaherdin. Jessica Inclan

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“I—“ she started. “And your name is?” Boren asked. “Nasha,” she said. “I’m called Nasha.” “Nasha,” Boren said. “Could you tell us of these elders?” Nasha nodded, and she began a story that seemed truly out of a fairytale. Long ago, after the poisoning, the reckoning, the great horrible event of all their pasts, a young man, Jodoc Rikala, was running from his own nature and the wolves that chased him. He was a learned man, a man trained in the ways of The People Before, and he knew that he could help stop the madness around him. At first, he had companions on this journey, but one by one, night after night, the wolves attacked them. Eight travels started on the journey, only one remained, Jodoc Rikala, ragged, exhausted, and nearing the end of his strength. Climbing up a mountain, he found a well-guarded retreat, fortified and enclosed, sealed off to the wrecked world surrounding it. He cried out one full day and one full night until he was allowed in. Almost starving, barely alive, he recuperated for days. His first night there, he was given the magic Elixir that kept him from his own terrible nature. One by one, he met The Elders: Modvon, Danuta, Ethne, Rhaab, Nastas. Slowly, he learned the truth of the world he’d lived in only briefly and was taught the secret truths of how to live now. When he was grown, he was sent out with two of The Elders to save those like him from the rapaciousness of The Others, the ones who would eat and eat and eat until everyone and everything was gone. He founded Naruci, the first Colony. He and the Elders created a way of living that was in accordance with what had been left behind. Jodoc and The Elders found ways to battle against The Others, those horribly natured people who refused The Elixir. Through Jessica Inclan

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battle and strategy and brilliance, Jodoc founded another two Colonies, The Elders teaching him, instructing him as the years went by.. And despite the tragedy of his wife’s mysterious death, he’d led his people in to a safe way of life. His own daughter now led one of the Colonies, and his legacy of bravery continued. The Colonists prospered, and as long as The Elders were followed and paid respect, this life would be good and whole and free. Nasha’s telling of Jodoc’s tale had almost lulled him into sleep, but when she began to describe “The Others,” Kaherdin had felt as Sika had earlier, though he could no longer lunge and rip out anyone’s throat. How had this lie thrived? Despite the fact that Talaith had told him about Jodoc’s betrayal of the pack and his lies to the colonists, the story made him flush with anger. How had they believed that he and the pack wanted such a mean, brutish life? What did it take to withhold quality of life from anyone? But what would the humans his pack hunted think of him being irate over this situation? How could Kaherdin justify his anger when he hadn’t done anything to change his pack? Maybe he himself hadn’t hunted humans, but neither had he changed the way the pack lived. Not, at least, until now. Boren, though, seemed to keep his wits about him and simply nodded, keeping his eyes on Nasha. “Have you met these elders?” “No,” Nasha said. “They live in their retreat in the mountains. They do not leave it. Jodoc communicates their wishes to us.” “Where is this retreat?” Boren asked, but now, he was looking at Jodoc, who still kept his head down.

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“I—I don’t know,” Nasha said to the question. “I’ve never been out of Uveris. I can’t travel the way Jodoc and apparently some Colonists can. And I don’t think any Council members have met the elders.” She looked at the men sitting at her side of the table, but they all shook their heads, indicating that the only person who had met or seen or heard one of these elders was Jodoc. “There are no elders, are there?” Kaherdin said, his own assumption surprising him as much as the calmness in his statement. Now, the story Talaith had told him about Ethne—the elder who somehow never managed to arrive for her visit—reverberated in his mind, his declaration certain and true. “You made them all up so that you could be in charge. You made it up so that you had the power over all your people. You invented them all and put them in a faraway place so that meeting them would be impossible. After the poisoning, you managed to find the technology or the medicine to change your broken DNA. You created your colonies around that discovery. And you never bothered to help those of us who were just like you.” Now it was strange to watch the colonists find the holes in their world, the same way the pack had when Raf spoke to them, the way that Boren’s people had when contemplating the connection between all peoples. Things held and then things fell apart. Kaherdin had never truly believed in the structure of his world, so when the holes appeared and Talaith and her world poked through, it made sense. Anything was better than the pack, the compound, their way of life. He’d been prepared, or at least open, for a new way of life. The colonists, clearly, were ill prepared for a new story. “Jodoc?” one of the men asked, his statement turning into a question. “This is not true?” “How can you ask him this?” Jodoc’s wife asked. “How can you question this man who has been taking care of these people for all these years?” Jessica Inclan

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She looked to her people for support, but no one responded, all of them full of the questions before them. The others sitting with Jodoc on his side of the table began to murmur amongst themselves, their faces filled with uncertainty and a growing need to know the truth. Jodoc looked up, his eyes filled with a confusion and an anger that surprised Kaherdin, not expecting a battle when it was clear that he needed to give up. “I always did what I thought was best for my people,” he said. As he spoke, he tried to find some sense of himself as a leader, his body straightening, his head held high. “It seems that you did what was best for you,” Boren said. “It seems that you created a world with your ingenuity and skills and with someone’s technologies and materials. And then you locked yourself down and did everything in your power to keep that very power.” “I did what I had to,” Jodoc said, his voice filled with a quiver. “After battling you people. After seeing what you could do to us, I had to keep us safe.” He looked at those sitting next to him. “I always put you first. For over one hundred years, we’ve had peace. We’ve had prosperity. We were about to create another Colony, move into new territory.” “Whose territory would that be?” Sika asked. “Ours? Were you going to take over more land? Were you going to starve us out of existence?” “You only kill,” Jodoc said. “You don’t deserve to live. You are animals.” “You kept us animals,” Kaherdin said. “You weren’t listening to elders. You wanted it all and were unwilling to share the salvation that the elixir brings. If we were animals, you would have no compunction in killing us.”

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“Kill you?” Jodoc said, his voice growing louder, no one speaking except him, everyone riveted by his words. “You can’t talk to me of killing. You are the murderers. You are the killers. You hunt whatever moves.” Kaherdin noticed Jodoc’s wife’s wife had moved from insult to anger to horror at what she was hearing. Then she put her face in her hands and began to weep. “And you made sure to keep us that way,” Sika said. “You worked under your own authority and weren’t even man enough to admit your lies.” “You didn’t deserve anything better than death,” Jodoc said, the spit and scorn in his voice like a full swing of a scythe. “You all deserved to die.” “How—“ Sika began to speak, but Jodoc cut her words to the quick. “You people killed my wife. You killed Aniela,” Jodoc said, his voice full of an ancient anger. Kaherdin felt his body numb to the words. They had killed Jodoc’s wife. Talaith’s mother. “You targeted us. You hunted us relentlessly in those early days, and you took her. You butchered her. I can still hear her screams.” The room was a quiet and still as Kaherdin’s heart. He could imagine the horrible scene, having watched the pack take down animal after person after animal day in and day out. If Aniela had been in the center of a wolf circle, she would not have survived, no matter how strong her immunities and powers of healing were. She died a grizzly death, and though he despised the selfish revenge that had pushed Jodoc’s hand, now he understood the motivation. Kaherdin knew that if he were in Jodoc’s seat and the people in this room were talking about Talaith, he would have no different a story than Jodoc’s. He would be the vindictive one. He would be the one who would have made them all pay. Jessica Inclan

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“If you had only given us the elixir,” Sika said. “You did not deserve the elixir. I would have done anything to kill you all. I would have done anything to rid the planet of you people.” “You people,” Sika said. “You are ‘you’ people except treated. Who have you been fighting except yourself?” The room was silent, nothing in the room but the sound of a shock received and then thought about. And then Kaherdin heard a movement near the door. Turning, he saw Talaith in the doorway. She stood with her friend Rachel, both of them pale, linked arm in arm. She knew about her mother, Kaherdin thought. She knew what his people had done to her family. “All these years,” Talaith said. “And you never told me that story.” Jodoc’s head whipped around to look at his daughter, his mouth an O of dismay at seeing her. His wife also looked up, her face red and wet. “All these years you kept my mother’s death a secret to me,” Talaith said. “You kept all your abilities a secret to me, to everyone. All these years we’ve been battling because of our desire for revenge. You put me at risk. You put all of us at risk in your need to punish The Others for something you might have done had you not found the elixir.” “Talaith,” Jodoc began. She raised a hand, shook her head. “I have heard you planning and plotting to destroy them, and yet the answer to all our worries was always there. What a waste. What a waste of a thousand years.” Jodoc seemed filled with things to say. Arguments worked their way across his face as he stared at his daughter. Jessica Inclan

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“I never knew my mother,” Talaith said. “But if she’s anything like me, she would have not liked to see so many dead in her name. That is not a legacy I would want.” “I—“ “No, I don’t want to hear it. You can tell your story to this group,” Talaith said. “I have heard enough of it to last me another thousand years. But I say to the Uveris Council that we need to go ahead and take down the protections. We need to integrate with this compound and then the other compounds. We need to share our ways with them and learn some of theirs. We need to let The Untouched be fully functioning members of our society. We need to learn to learn the skills and trades that they have long developed. We need to protect them, and we also need to let them be.” As Talaith spoke, Kaherdin heard her words, but more than anything, he was struck by her power, her voice, her beauty. Despite the fact that each and every word she spoke must have been yanked from her, the pain of finding out her father’s betrayal the worst of her life, she stood tall and strong. Her voice was clear, her gaze constant. She was a lovely, beautiful woman, and she was powerful and kind. And she was his. “Here, here,” said Nasha, even though a couple of them men seemed a bit unsure of this new plan. “Daughter,” Jodoc said. “Daughter, I can explain everything to you.” For a moment, Talaith seemed to hag in his offer, wanting as any daughter would the explanation of such horrible action. But then Talaith shook her head, looked at Kaherdin, and then she and Rachel turned around and walked away from the door.

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One of the council members stood and looked across the table at the strangers in front of him. Kaherdin knew that a whole new way of life was flitting through his mind in rapid fire images, not of it consistent, all of it a jumble. “As you might imagine,” he said. “We—we need to talk amongst ourselves for a bit. We have had a bit of a leadership . . . problem. Two of our leaders are unable to lead at this time, and one is dead. But I think I can speak for Nasha, Util, and Seth that we know things need to change. We know we need to work on bringing our three societies together.” “Oh,” Boren said. “There are many more than three.” The man sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yes. Yes, of course. But—well, we need to determine what we can do here and now and with our people. For now, we will leave the perimeter functioning, though it doesn’t seem to be much of a barrier to many these days. The Untouched will feel more protected with it up until we can talk to them about what has happened. And if you,” he looked at Sika, “and some of your people would stay to help educate us all on the compounds, it would help. And Boren, if some of your people would also stay, we would like to be informed about the part of the world you know.” Kaherdin looked at Sika, half expecting to see her face full of scorn. Perhaps this man’s request would be met with a lunge as well. But she was nodding, serious, seemingly ready to help. Boren also nodded, and Kaherdin noticed his people doing that silent communication between them. He hoped that Sterling would stay on in Uveris, her smiling face making people trust her immediately. If she could explain what mashed potatoes were to someone like Kaherdin, she could explain anything. “All right then,” the man said. “I think we need to spend some time in private here. And then, later, we can start whatever it is we have to do.” Jessica Inclan

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“Start changing the world,” Kaherdin said. “As if it hasn’t been changed enough,” the man said. “Never an ending, always a beginning,” Boren said. A beginning, Kaherdin thought. He wondered how being at the start would feel as opposed to being in the long, stuck middle of something. He couldn’t wait to find out.

Well into the evening, Kaherdin returned to Rachel’s house, nodding to the people who sat at the table in the front room—one of them the man who spoke at the council that day—and almost ran up the wooden staircase to the second floor to the room he knew Talaith rested. Knocking quickly, he pushed open the door, anxious and ready to see Talaith and only Talaith, but she was not alone. Talaith and Jodoc’s wife were sitting at two chairs near the window, their heads close together, both of them just seconds past tears, their faces slightly pink, eyes wet, faces set in sadness. “I’m sorry,” he said, already stepping out of the room. “I’ll come back.” Jodoc’s wife, stood, walked toward him. “No, no. Come in. Talaith and I have had our time together here.” Through her sadness, she managed to smile, holding out her hand. “I’m Akla.” Kaherdin took her small, smooth hand in his and grasped it, feeling her strength despite the lightness of her bones. “Kaherdin,” he said.

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“The dream man,” Akla said, looking back at Talaith. “She tried to tell me about you, but I thought she was talking about a dream that couldn’t come true. Seems as though you actually did.” “I’m—I’m sorry about . . . .” Kaherdin began and then stopped, knowing that he was not sorry that Jodoc had been stopped but sorry that he’d hurt so many on his way. Akla nodded, sighed, took her hand gently from his. “Thank you.” For a moment, it seemed as though she wanted to say more, the seriousness of her thoughts moving across her face. But then she looked up, smiled a small smile. “It’s a very confusing time. Beyond confusing, really. So—I’m going to go to Talaith’s house to sleep. I know she has one more night here to rest. Really, I think that Rachel can’t bear to part with her quite yet.” Talaith stood and hugged Akla, the bond between them as close as if not exactly like that of mother and daughter, a family bond Kaherdin couldn’t understand, but one he recognized. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Talaith said. “I, we, will come home. To the house.” Akla kissed her on the forehead, patted Kaherdin on the arm, and then walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Kaherdin moved to Talaith and took her in his arms, kissing her neck, pressing her to him. “How are you?” he asked. “Are you feeling better?” She pulled away, looking at him, her blue eyes wide, taking him in. “Physically, I’m better. Rachel and I slept the rest of the day after going to the Council meeting. But my father. My mother . . . ” “I’m sorry,” he said again, and he was sorry for her, for her mother Aniela, for Akla, for all whom Jodoc had affected. His was sorry that he was one of the pack who had ended Aniela’s life and changed Talaith’s forever. He was sorry that their world had been split in two like this. Jessica Inclan

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He was sorry for it all, and yet, without the chain events, he would not be holding Talaith now. It had been an ugly, twisted path, but the path led to them, to this. “I wish,” he said. “I wish it hadn’t had to be so—horrible.” She made a confused, surprised sound, shaking her head. “It’s unbelievable. Stranger than anything else that has happened. This myth I believed in all these years was really just a myth. A tall tale. A legend. He made it all up. And now I don’t know what’s going to happen to him, and soon, I’m going to have to talk with him, hear his story.” “Can you forgive me?” She looked at him, cocked her head, waiting to understand what he meant. He was about to tell her, but them she saw his meaning and gripped his arm, tight. “If you need my forgiveness, I need yours. Each of us suffered from the acts of the others’ people. I don’t blame you. Not at all. I’m just so confused about my father. I hope-- wish . . .” She trailed off, and Kaherdin led her to the bed, both of them sitting down on the edge, facing the window. Outside, the sky had turned obsidian, their reflections glinting in the glass. Kaherdin put his arm around her, and they sat in silence, her warm body against his, the room seeming to close around them in a good, comforting way. A safe, true way. This time of night must have been hard for the colonists for centuries, these very hours the hours the pack awoke to their wolf selves and began to hunt and battle. From this perspective, he could imagine how it felt to hear the howls as the pack raced around the perimeter of the colony looking for a way in. And when there was a break, a rift, and shift and wolf after wolf poured into the colony, how fierce the battles, fang against metal. How Kaherdin hated the sound of it all, wanting nothing more than to be alone on a bare hill, far above it all, content—not content but satisfied—to be alone. Jessica Inclan

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Who—colonist or pack member—would have imagined that Kaherdin would be sitting with the woman who ruled Uveris, holding her tight as they sat on a bed looking out into the mystery of what would happen next? Who could imagine that Sika would be negotiating a peaceful link and connection between both groups? “Who would imagine how much I love you?” Talaith said, bring her other hand to his chest and looking at him. “Who could imagine my great good fortune to bring you from one side of the window to the other? At first I thought you were a reflection and now you are real.” You’re listening to me, he thought, kissing her on the lips. You are the only one I want to hear, she thought back, kissing him back. Kaherdin knew she was fragile, but her kiss made him want her, made him remember the way she’d given herself to him in the forest, that primeval place where they’d truly begun this journey. As he kissed her back, he felt her body respond to him, to their kiss, felt her mind respond, all of her saying yes to him, to this, to them. Slowly, he moved them to the middle of them bed, pressing her back, staring into her eyes for confirmation. All Talaith did was smile, and he knew that’s she’d agreed to this and everything. He began to open up her nightgown, the small buttons difficult to work given how much he wanted to be near and on her body. His fingers felt clumsy, too large, ridiculous. She took over, and he pulled off his shirt and pants and shoes, turning to see her lovely and naked on the bed. Talaith glimmered golden, her hair all around her, her ribs giving away her excitement as she breathed, the bones moving under her smooth skin. She held her arms up to him, and Kaherdin gently put himself on top of her, knowing that more than the body of the earth, Talaith Rikala felt like home.

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There would time to figure out the story of her father. There would be time for him to learn to live as a human 24 hours a day, finding a new rhythm to his life. There would be time to talk more to Boren about his brothers and the Wahya living lives so far from here. There would be time to unite all the separate peoples on this world. There would be time to fight and unite and learn. But now there was only his love underneath him, so warm, so accepting, pulling him as close as she could manage, wrapping her legs around his, her hand on the back of his neck. Talaith took him inside of her, closed her eyes, and trusted him. Loved him. There was only this, and this was so much more than enough.

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