Incarnadine

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

I'd pressed the doorbell, but I still rapped on the door. When no one answered me, I rapped on the door again. Harder, louder.

"Armand!" I called. "I know you're there!"

The door opened, but it wasn't Armand who confronted me.

"Elena?"

Officer Sanders looked strange without uniform. Kind of younger. He looked too young to be Armand's father. Probably only late thirties.

"Hello." I tried for courtesy. "Is Armand home?"

"Ah, no. He's not. Armand is out of town. Visiting a relative from his mother's side."

My guts were fading fast. He hadn't been at school either, earlier.

"Why do you need him?" Armand's father asked.

"I need help with something...a homework."

"Oh, Duane is home. Maybe he can help you. He's in the same year with you, too, right?"

The previously fading spirit built up again. I tried not to look too eager. "Yeah, well, he's not the valedictorian," I joked, "but I'll settle for him."

Officer Sanders cracked a smile at my lame joke and swung the door open wider. "Come in. He's in his room."

As I approached the door of Duane's room, I felt a mixture of giddiness and fear. Maybe, a part of my brain whispered, I was deluded after all. But if shame was the only price I had to pay, then I'd got nothing too much to lose for an answer.

Officer Sanders knocked on the door. "Duane," he said, "a friend of yours is here." There was no reply. Armand's father opened the door, practically pushed me in, and said, "So. I'll leave you two. Behave."

He closed the door behind me. Wow. Trusting guardian. Mr. Cadwell would never have let Jamie in a closed room with Nick alone.

I looked at Duane. He was standing with his arms on his sides.

"Hi," I said awkwardly.

He didn't say anything.

"I...I was going to find Armand, not you. But he's not home."

"I know." The words were quiet.

"How?"

"I heard you."

I nodded. "Part of the werewolf mojo, huh?"

It was a gamble. I held my breath while I watched him. His gray eyes revealed nothing.

But he confirmed it with his words. "You know now."

I nodded, swallowing. This was the hard part. "And I know," I said slowly, "what I am. Or was."

"And that is?"

"I'm like you. A werewolf."

Duane stared at me. I could hear my heart pound—I was sure he could too. This was it.

And then he laughed.

My heart sank. My face burned. It's all right, I told myself, it's all right. I'd accepted that if I was wrong, then I'd only lose my pride, nothing else.

He saw my expression, the hurt on my face. Something sobered in his gaze. "How," he asked me carefully, "did you decide you're a wolf?"

"I saw it." Nothing much to lose, I reminded myself. "In my dream. You're a black wolf. I'm a red one."

He shook his head. "You got it wrong, Eiko—"

"I can't be wrong."

"—you're a red fox. The Red Fox, in fact."

My heartbeat stuttered. "Red Fox?"

"A kitsune."

"What's that?"

"A shifter of a kind with the werewolves." Duane shifted his gaze away from me, his voice becoming distracted as he fingered the neck of his shirt. "Except that your natural states are human and a red fox, no in-betweens, while the werewolves' natural states are wolf and man, and an in-between in certain moons."

I could barely breathe. The back of my knees hit his bed, and I let myself plop down on it. "I'm not crazy," I breathed.

His look was a puzzled one. "You lost your memory, not your mind, Eiko."

I would have laughed at his words, were it a different time.

"Can you—" I bit my cheek. "Can you prove it to me? The dream—you know, I might just be delusional, and you're humoring me, for all I know."

Duane nodded.

Then he started stripping.

"Hey," I said, apprehensive. "What are you doing?"

His shirt fell to the floor. A chain dangled around his neck, where a small ball hung, resting low on his chest. His hands went for his jeans next. I was transfixed on him. His skin, a shade of glistening tan, holding his lean build.  The patch of hair on his chest. The deep, jagged scar running across his toned stomach, looking like something had tried to tear his intestines and he survived. The other scars. The scars that was all-too-familiar, for I had seen them in the mirror when I woke up. He had gone though them all and survived.

Like me.

My gaze flitted to his gray eyes. They were patient. Waiting for me to finish assessing him.

"Don't blink," he said.

And he turned into a black wolf before I could.

The wolf with the gray eyes—the same wolf in my dream. Or maybe I was still dreaming. It—he looked even more beautiful in reality. It didn't even register to me that I was touching him until I mulled over the feel of his thick, soft fur in my hand. Those gray eyes, knowing, locked with my gaze.

The wolf stepped back from my touch.

And then I was kneeling in front of a very naked, very tall Duane.

Cheeks heating, I stood up and averted my gaze.

"Do you believe me now?" he asked me.

Feeling his gaze boring into me, I scooted even further. "Go put on some clothes." I was glad I didn't stutter my words.

I heard a few shuffles of fabric. My traitorous eyes wandered to his body, and I prayed that my hormones didn't act against me. I had a great suspicion that he would be able to smell it if they did.

A hand slid to my arm.

I looked up at Duane.

He pulled something up from his neck—the chain I saw earlier. "Hold this," he said.

Gingerly, I took it from him.

"Touch it." He gestured at the small ball hung on the chain.

I eyed him warily.

"It's a sessho-seki."

"Say so what?"

"Sessho-seki. It'll help you remember. I didn't want to give you this before because I was afraid that it would be too overwhelming for you. But now that you've remembered the...essential parts, I think you're ready. Go on."

With one last glance at those gray eyes, I touched the ball.

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