“You are the epitome of strength, power, magic and family, Namir…”
She slathered her hand against his chest before sliding it down. My brows raised, stunned when she cupped him between his legs, leaving the clay dropping down towards his feet before covering his thighs.
“You will breed and bleed into your pack, carrying the next generation…and you have chosen to do the unspeakable…”
Draco nudged me as I listened, watching everyone sit at attention for this very moment.
“You are choosing to claim the one who claims death instead of life….”
She began circling him as he continued to look up at the moon now hovering over like a giant nightlight in the sky.
“This cannot be done,” the woman suddenly said. I could hear the gasps and whispers as Draco shook his head, confused. “Your mate is someone cut from your cloth. Who comes from you, not an outsider. Choose another….”
He never took his eyes off the moon, even when it fell behind the clouds, darkening the woods around us, he remained focused, possessed even. His mother shook her head with anxious fear in her eyes towards the elder who tried to calm her down. Before I could say it, my own mother leaned in to whisper against my shoulder.
“That’s his mother?”
I nodded before leaning in close. “She doesn’t like or approve of Maggie.”
For the first time, I saw her eyes blink red with fury and her jaw readjust like she was trying to keep her fangs in check, but she said nothing else. She didn’t like Namir, so they were even in my eyes.
“Namir, you cannot choose the moon…You cannot choose the girl who claims to be the moon. You must choose another… Look amongst your pack and choose your true mate…Darkness cannot tamper with the light. She is the darkness, Namir. Choose amongst your pack. The moon is not to be tampered with, Namir. The moon is dangerous…”
Namir’s body began to expand as his breathing became ragged.
“The moon is dark and full of bloodlust…”
His head twitched as his eyelids slowly pulled down. He continued to look drunk off the gaze of the moon before him.
“She cannot be your mate, Namir. Choose another. Claw and fang, heart and hide…break the tether tied inside…”
She slapped the two rocks together, creating small bursts of sparks. Drifting smoke from the flames surrounding the circle began to form a wispy image of a wolf slowly pacing the circle. His eyes were lowered, nose to the ground and teeth were drawn as he walked with the smoke only growing stronger with each step. Namir kept his eyes only on the moon. Mama Eba quietly calmed his mother down with her hand lowering in the air to silence her worries.
“What’s happening now?” I whispered towards Draco. He hesitantly shrugged.
“Maze didn’t tell me about this…”
“This looks like a spell that didn’t work,” I told him. Draco cut his eyes towards me before leaning in again.
“Like witchcraft? Inside the wolf pack? That’s not right…They have Native American traditions but not…traditional witchcraft…”
“But that’s exactly what this is…This is a fucking spell, Draco,” I hissed.
The stones slapped again as Mama Eba began stomping her feet, and chanting as more smoke began to drift up into the air, forming wolves on four legs to walk in a circle around him. Everyone began to pound the ground once more with their paws and fist as I looked around.
Something wasn’t right. It was almost as if the forest was in a trance. Everyone outside of the circle was hitting the ground in rhythmic beats. Namir’s body still convulsed and jerked with his eyes never leaving the sky. The two women that stood in the circle seemed to have their own plan as a ring of wolves made ofsmoke, circled Namir’s growing frame. He was slowly shifting as the hair thickened on his skin and his veins swelled against his muscles.
“NAMIR!” I shouted. “IF YOU BREAK UP WITH MY SISTER, MOTHERFUCKA I WILL BREAK YOU! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”
Mama Eba turned towards me with eyes blacked out as she showed her teeth with a low growl, but I bet she wasn’t going to step outside of that circle. That much I knew. She was protected as the flames grew and the smoke thickened with the wolves circling Namir. Yet, she foolishly shook her body to all fours and lunged towards Draco and I, causing the flames to seep back into the ground. Before I could react, Cynthia fucking Norwood snatched my body back behind her, moved Draco aside, and reached for the wolf. Seth suddenly darted in between, pinning Mama Eba down as she let out a yelping squeal. I grabbed my mother back as her chest heaved, wild red eyes filled with blood and fangs drawn to the point of hanging down her lower lip. Seth went for Mama Eba’s neck, jerking her body, and tussling at the furry skin until she submitted.
Everything in that moment from the pounding of the hands and feet, the rocks sparking together, the smoke, all of that fell silent. The moon appeared from behind the clouds, shining down on just how outnumbered we are. Nothing but eyes blinking between the dark shadows of the trees and branches.
“I just knew!” Raven snapped as she quickly squeezed a pair of black gloves on her hands. “I just knew it was too good to be true! Get the chirren back to the car before they get loose and tear everyone up! Bree?! Go get me some rope so we can takesome of these furry fuckas home! Might be able to throw some of them on a grill!”
It should have been a bloodbath. I had a knot in my throat, body tense, and ready the second anyone made a move towards my mother or cousins. It should have been wolves leaping and lunging to attack. Trevor would have pulled out his gun that he so obviously carried. Draco would have been going towards Maze, and I would have been pulling my mother off Namir’s mother’s body after draining her while Raven watched over her sister. We should have been tearing wolves off our bodies and fighting for our lives in order to take theirs…
Instead, we watched as the moon hovered directly over Namir who continued to only look up. Nobody, not the pack, nation or tribe. Not a single living breath from the First Family dared to speak as Namir silently let his arms hang down and his body slowly shifted into the largest wolf on four legs any of us have ever seen. The fur that should have been dark like his were form was snow white, the same color as the moon. Seth stepped back, dumbfounded as the wolf continued to look up at the moon, eyes white as Maggie’s hair. Draco quickly slapped my arm and motioned his head forward as I looked at every single pair of eyes now coming into the moon light as men, women, boys and girls, pups and wolves…. With some lowering their heads in submission. Even Namir’s mother stepped back as he began to step forward. He had to be the size of a fucking car. There’s no way he was simply just a man who shifted into a white wolf but when he lowered his head to sniff the ground, he began to mark his place.
