Fur

15 | The Ruins Left Behind

Zakai's hand is solid in mine, his grip strong yet relaxed as we walk through the night. Over the disused grassy trail, under the spanning autumn branches. The air is cool and fresh in my lungs as the gentlest breeze caresses us, crisp and playful. With each inhale my senses fill with his scent, a memory playing with every breath. I notice that our feet are in sync, our steps in consistent rhythm together.

"So what's the deal with the girl and the grandma?" He asks, flippantly, after a couple hundred meters of harmonious silence.

My elbow grazes his ribcage—though I pull away in shock when I find that it doesn't actually, that a sheet of muscle and flesh is now there to protect those ribs which were exposed for so long—a warning of the jab to come if his disrespectful attitude persists.

"Be respectful to them," I order, "Without them, I... I don't know where I would be. They took me in." My spirit falls as I realize the truth in my own words. I don't think about it often, the past nor the present alternatives, because I try not to. It incites too much worry, too much rumination on all that could have gone wrong, all that can go wrong, and just how lucky I got in having it all turn out in a way that made me end up here.

"Do they know?" He asks, except this time he's taken my advice and sounds earnest.

This causes a prick of pain as well. "No."

"So they think they've taken in a human runaway?"

I go to reply with yes, but can't seem to say it. It sounds so evil when the facts are said aloud. So deceptive. "They don't ask any questions. As long as I do right by them they don't care about my history. They know I left it behind, that's all that matters. I rent a house from them and work for them at the café. Along the way they've... kinda became my family."

"So you're living fully as a human." He says it as a neutral observation, a statement made to give me the chance to correct it if he's wrong. I don't.

"And you're still living as a pack wolf." I return his strategy with the same neutrality. I don't judge him or look down on him for his lifestyle—I envy him. He's still living the life I had to leave. He's capable of living the way I'm not.

Werewolves who live like humans are outcasts. Traitors of a sort. Pack wolves see it as betraying your kind, as forfeiting your very being. If encountered, pack werewolves kill those who abandoned pack and tradition.

I'm not sure how a pack wolf would perceive me if they knew my circumstance. If they would consider me a traitor or a disgrace with grace enough to properly rid werewolf kind of myself. I assume most would react as Konrad did: confused, investigative. That very well could be why he's so interested in solving my mystery: he's a pack wolf trying to determine whether I need killed or not. Though, by what I've seen of him thus far, I'm not so sure Konrad isn't a traitor himself. He doesn't feel like a werewolf of tradition. He's too articulated in human culture, too practiced in the art of human interaction, and not at all wild.

Werewolves who are true to themselves are all wild. They have an air of it on them, a scent of flora, fauna, and earth. An undeniable aura of freedom, a product of nature in its purest form. Zakai exudes all of that. Zakai is what I always dreamed of being.

"Does it change anything?" I ask him suddenly.

His brow furrows in the dark. "What?"

"I'm living as a human. Are you going to—"

He jerks us to a stop on the trail, using the link of our hands to whirl me around to face him squarely. His eyes bore into mine, his expression so strict and humorless that a shiver crawls down my spine.