State of Independence Read online

  We open a third bottle of wine. Justice calls for pizza. The interlude is quiet as we mull over all that has been said.

  I shovel down three slices of supreme, finding the taste like nothing I have ever before. Is it the fact that doom looms on the horizon? Or just that I’ve worked up an appetite from an afternoon of deep conversation?

  After we clean up our pizza mess, Justice adds more wood to the fire, and Glory plays some Fleetwood Mac through a portable speaker - a favorite of all of ours.

  I sit back and kick my feet up, watching twilight.

  Glory’s favorite comes on. “C'mon, let’s dance!” She pushes her chair far back to make herself a dance floor. Her moves are classic kick-ball-change with a little hip-wiggle and ending with a spin.

  “That’s not how you do it!” I laugh, and stand, making my own space on the ‘dance floor.’

  Justice does the same. We dance to this song, and the next.

  Enjoying the movement, the fire, the cold air. Stomping our feet, spinning around, throwing our hands up to the sky. I’m lost to guitar strings and drum beats.

  I spin. And spin. And spin. With the wind. With the magic.

  It’s rising. The moon, magic, and music.

  It stops. I stop. Breathless with my sisters in a circle around the fire. Face warm from wine and exertion.

  The simplicity of the moment swells with expectation. Glory smiles at me and lifts both arms - one in each direction to Justice and I.

  I grip her hand, and lift my other to Justice. The instant our hands connect, a bolt of lightning shoots down from the sky and pierces the top of the not-so-distant mountain.

  I laugh, feeling static electricity rise along my arms. I feel, also, a pull in that spot on my low right shoulder. Is it Grayson getting closer?

  “What should we do now?” Glory asks without letting go.

  I squeeze her hand and then let go at the same time I answer with a smile.

  “Run.”

  I pull my hoodie off, lift my shirt over my head and jump over the railing of the balcony.

  Through the meadow, I lose my bra, my shoes, my jeans, and I embrace my nature. Still, the transition is slow. When I am fully re-formed into my other self, I see that both Justice and Glory are in their wolves, waiting on me.

  Justice’s pure white is blazing in the moonlight. Glory is camouflaged pretty well with her gray and taupes.

  The dark, the light, the inbetween.

  Damn. The prophecy has new meaning. I lift my head and give a howl. It starts low and pitches higher. It feels good. My sisters join in.

  Far in the distance, I hear two cars coming down Locke’s mile-long drive.

  Nick. Locke. Maybe Grayson.

  I’m not sticking around to find out. I won’t have them ruining our fun.

  I burst into a full gallop. Across the meadow to the mountain.

  My sisters, my pack, spread out on either side of me.

  My four feet take me one mile, two.

  Wind blowing my fur, cooling and bringing with it scents of magic and night.

  I notice that Glory drops back first. I keep pushing forward, at the base of the mountain, Justice is overtaken by another white wolf. He herds her to some tall grass, where they roll and stop. Behind him, a large dark gray wolf is coming fast.

  Too fast.

  Grayson.

  I’m climbing rocks and sand now. There’s trees growing here at the base. I keep pushing forward, hating that I have to pick my way over the terrain. We’ve left behind the smooth grass meadow. It’s slowing me down, but my animal brain knows only the predator-pray game. And I want to win.

  Run. Run. Run.

  The distance is closing between us. I can hear his footfalls behind me. I give one last explosion of energy and muscle, scrambling over rock, my feet sliding out from beneath me.

  His teeth pin my shoulder. His body over mine. Time freezes. I’ve lost, but I will not submit, pushing against his canines in an effort to stand.

  He growls.

  I growl back.

  He does not let up, and I feel the slide of those teeth into my skin painfully. I stop pushing against him, but I don’t lay down.

  I. Will. Not. Submit.

  We are locked in a standoff. Who will capitulate first?

  Minutes pass. The air is charged with electricity. I feel the ends of my fur lift.

  It pops with an extraordinarily loud crackle of lightning from the sky to a tree a hundred feet from us. The tree is eviscerated, shrapnel wood chips flying at us like bullets fired out of a gun.

  We both move at the same time - scrambling away from the danger swiftly.

  I end up leaning against a large boulder - catching my breath as large fat drops of rain began to fall.

  One minute the large gray wolf is standing across from me, and in the next flash of lighting, a perfectly muscled wild man. On his side, the tattoo that I had yet to view fully. I devour it with my eyes. I devour him with my eyes.

  Holy Guacamole. At the center of Grayson’s tattoo, along his rib cage and under his arm, is a beautifully drawn sword. Around it, symbols, rune-like.

  He runs his hands back from his forehead through his hair. His eyes breath veritable fire.

  His chest is heaving, his abs cut and tense.

  Between his legs, that magic part of him, that I’d yet to have my fill of, swings heavily, half-erect.

  Rain drops pelt against his chest, running rivulets of moisture over the ripples of his muscle.

  The sight is primal. My wolf retreats in the most seamless re-transformation I’ve ever had; she knows she is no match for this human predator.

  I know it too. My adrenaline squelches out in a nervous eek from my lips. My feet pivot in the dirt, and I burst on the balls of my feet getting three steps, four, five, before he tackles me from behind, dragging me to the ground and a small patch of grass and sand.

  I might have felt the coarseness of the earth beneath me, had it not been for his dick landing, pressing, squarely - and hotly - on my butt. The sensation steals my breath and I hiss at the inferiority of being pinned to the ground.

  I scrabble to pull myself out from underneath him, but he captures my hands above my head.

  From chest to groin he is pressed against my back and the heat of him is blazing.

  I buck my hips in an attempt to throw him off, but he breathes heatedly in my ear. He drags his tongue from that sensitive spot just behind my lobe, down my neck, changing his caress midways to a suck and nipping a path down my skin.

  The contrast of warmth and pain sends my body into an ooey-gooey languishment. He uses my capitulation capitulation against me, happily thrusting his member against the roundness of my derriere.

  The action blasts panic and excitement through me, and I once again fight against him. Lifting and pulling my hands, while I attempt to buck him off my back.

  I only succeed in raising my hips a few inches, pressing myself more fully into his groin.

  His mouth has descended to my shoulder, that same spot his wolf had pinned me with. His tongue laves the small wound there, soothing the sting I hadn’t paid attention to before.

  He releases one of my hands to run his own down my side to my hip. The rough callouses of that palm drag against my skin pushing pleasure through my core.

  More. More. More.

  Pinning my hip in place, he drags himself over my most sensitive flesh to my opening. I expect him to thrust, to claim, to punish. But he holds himself there, just a bare inch of smooth, round phallus at my slick entrance.

  Moments pass. No words are spoken.

  He pushes in just a half-inch more. The anticipation builds. It feels damn good.

  The fat sprinkles of rain that pummeled us before have stopped and the wind swirls, cooling my overheated face. Grayson, on top of me, is a burning mass of flesh at my back.

  Another slow sink in. Just an inch. Then he drags himself out. Poises his head again at my entrance, teasing me with what’s to
come.

  I buck my hips wanting him to complete the act, to forfeit all his teasing. He sucks air between his teeth and pulls all the way away. His hand at my hip squeezes and his teeth drag across my shoulder, reaching my ear and nibbling the lobe. His cock brands my ass cheek.

  He wants me to know who is in control.

  He wants me to submit.

  I stop pulling against him, and wait with bated breath for him to give me that magnificent feeling at my core once again.

  He slowly, slowly, lowers the head once again to my entrance.

  Just one glorious inch of fleshed roundness.

  I exhale, slowly allowing the tension in my shoulders and legs to release. I’ll give him what he wants, so I get what I want.

  I can barely believe it when he only enters another half-inch. He is panting like a winded racehorse, and so am I.

  I want so badly to scream at him, claw the earth and thrust myself back.

  Involuntarily, my muscles tense to do just that, but in the moment I think it, he withdraws in a torturous slow repeat of before. This time he leaves the head just a millimeter from my flesh. I can feel the heat and moisture of it, a teasing echo of what I could have if I just submit.

  Another squeeze of my hip. A warning bite to my shoulder. I feel the flexing of his abs and legs and glutes, and that divine rod is once again there.

  I know what you want, Grayson Faolain.

  But I don’t think I can give it to you.

  It’s not in my nature to completely give up control.

  An inch. He’ll give me what I want if I give up that sacred power.

  I feel a quiver in the arm holding my own down. I give the barest test against it.

  He pulls back once more.

  Who has the most control here? He comes back inside me, the time between leaving my body and returning within seconds.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating all my power, all my focus to the point at which we are joined.

  Another inch. I breath out, feel his heartbeat thrumming at my shoulder.

  Another inch. Another minute.

  Another inch. I can’t stop my inner muscles from tightening, gripping him inside of me now.

  He groans, strokes smoothly all the way in, and holds.

  I explode in convulsions. Enjoy this monster-man and this exquisite feeling. So full, so satisfied.

  “Ughnnn.” Is the groan that escapes from between my lips as I come down from the orgasm.

  Grayson has ridden it out without moving. But as I relax inner muscles, he strokes. Slowly.

  Holding me down with his arms and chest. Pulling all the way out and seating himself fully back in. It doesn’t take long for his pleasure to come. My own has been building back up, but when he explodes, I enjoy the feeling of his liquid blazing and marking inside me.

  Still, he stays there, breathing heavily at my ear.

  My heart rate slows, and I start to take note of the gravel digging into my side.

  “You’re mine, Independence. Don’t ever run from me again.” He pulls out.

  With promises like that, I just might have to.

  Chapter 32

  We walk back to the house, across the meadow and I am able to find my clothes where I dropped them.

  Grayson, with a stern order to meet him in the kitchen, veers off to the side of the house to collect his own attire. Someone, probably one of my sister’s, has hung my t-shirt and hoodie on the railing of the stairs up to the deck. I pull it over my head shivering a little in the night air.

  I climb the deck to find the fire glowing a orange-red in it’s bowl, and Glory on some dude’s lap.

  “Indy. I’d like you to meet Nick.”

  I’m keenly aware of Grayson’s scent on my body, so I give a quick wave and side shuffle to the back door. “Nice to meet you.”

  Glory has a slight questioning frown, but I don’t linger to supply an answer.

  In the kitchen, Locke and Justice are wrapped up in each other, as she feeds him a piece of leftover pizza.

  God, my walk of shame is surrounded by family; could anything be more embarrassing? I give a small wave when their eyes land on me, Locke’s eyebrow winging up in a not-so-subtle curious tilt.

  “Good to see you, Lockewood.” I call him by his full name out of habit and keep going, heading straight to the guest bathroom I had used earlier.

  I wash hands, face, nether region and feel less conspicuous. I mean, it’s probably obvious to my sisters and their boyfriends just what happened out there, but this way I can at least retain some of my dignity.

  When I come out of the bathroom, the house is full. And five pairs of eyes seem to look upon me with charged expectation. Justice, Locke, Nick, Glory and Grayson lounge at different points in the kitchen.

  “What? Is this an intervention or something?” My words illicit a mix of reactions.

  Locke and Glory smile, Nick and Justice’s faces remain sober, while Grayson is still holding onto a face of stone while leaning against the island.

  Guess it’ll take a while for him to get over me stealing his car.

  “Right. Independence. We have something…” Glory trails off looking to Nick in expectation.

  He clears his throat and waves to an object on the table encased in a thick jersey-like fabric. “We recovered this at extreme cost and personal sacrifice. It is the weapon Nevaeh Henries covets more than anything else in our two worlds.”

  My heart hammers in my throat. I step to the table, placing my hand on the wood, but not reaching for it.

  “Not to ruin the surprise or anything - but it’s a sword - isn’t it?” I can feel the vibrations from here.

  Curiously, there’s a small hum from the scar on my back, like it knows this blade. That time the blade was a dagger, and from the shape and length of cloth here, I know this is no dagger.

  Locke comes to my side then, and pulls the cover off. I never knew him for patience.

  What's revealed is neither short sword nor great sword. And in-between blade, still longer than my arm and double-edged.

  Startling shiny with runes etched right onto the metal. I am really going to have to get a book and learn to read runes. Something tells me the material this blade is forged from is nothing found on this side. It is something alien, otherworldly.

  And it’s twin has pierced my flesh.

  Locke holds it out to me, and I freeze for a moment not entirely sure I should take it. “Legend is that this sword was wielded by the valkyrie Sigrdrífa. She plunged it into the heart of a dragon to give it strength and make it lethal to all Othersiders.”

  Nice. Heart of dragon. Can’t get any more badass than that. I’ll add Valkyries to my encyclopedic list of the othersiders.

  I take the hilt and wrap my fingers around it…

  Nothing happens. No bolts of lightning, no magical vortexes of wind or light. No ominous god voices shouting down from the heavens. Nothing. Huh. I had at least expected something.

  I laugh a little at the relief coursing through me. The blade is incredibly light for its length.

  “Very nice.” I hand the blade, hilt first, back to Locke.

  He takes it, slides it back into its case and sets it on the table.

  I turn, noting that the suspenseful air in the room has gone out. “So what’s the plan? Are we going to lure Henries here and -” I make a slicing motion across my neck.

  “It wouldn’t be that simple.” Grayson says from his post. His arms are crossed over his chest and I can’t get a read on his mood. Contemplative maybe.

  “No, of course not.” I take a seat at the bar next to Justice. “But, you and the council have been working on some plan to make sure the Otherside doesn’t come through?”

  “The council’s ‘official’ position is not to interfere with what the Otherside is doing.” Locke motions with air quotes.

  Politics. It always comes down to politics.

  “But they know about Nevaeh Henries and what she’s done in Scotland?
How she came over and enslaved thousands of humans? How she plans to do that here? Or worse?” I ask the room.

  “They know. But…” Glory grimaces.

  “What?”

  “The growing of magic. They don’t want to shut it down. Last week a wolf at headquarters came to me. She’s almost sixteen weeks pregnant. Cadence.” Justice tells me.

  I connect the dots. The council wants the Otherside to come through. They believe it’ll pull us off the endangered species list. Glory’s exclaims, “Who’s the father?”

  They banter back and forth about managing and delivering and what’s it mean, etc. for a few minutes.

  “Are the guardians operating outside the jurisdiction of the Council then?” I look straight at Gray.

  His lips make a feral smile. “Haven’t we always?”

  Chapter 33

  After a little more discussion, Locke offers the use of his guest rooms to us. I climb the stairs after receiving his directions to which room I can use.

  The expectations from my family are just...crushing. This prophecy business - even though everyone claims to not believe it, or claims that we don’t understand it - is a strange burden.

  I can’t help but stack up how it’s shaped everyone’s actions. First, being manipulated to train under a sword master, then that damn tattoo of Grayson’s. I back up. Actually, Neveah Henries has been fucking with things in my life long before that. The challenge from Emily, her most likely having that dagger. Glory marrying Grayson. Maybe the only person operating under the premise that it’s not a freakin’ sure thing is Justice. She’s been out researching, learning. Doing.

  I’m proud of her work at the council headquarters. She’s turning a doomsday hideout into an actual community. Went to Scotland to find out just what was going on, and took steps to close the gate there. At great cost to herself. Without any support from us.

  I step into the shower, wishing I could wash all the swirling questions and doom away. Just be a normal girl in a normal world living a normal life.

  A part of me can’t even imagine what that would be like. Would I have gone to college? I can’t think of any one career path that would have made sense for me.