Ekaterina Sedia - Running with the Pack

“That sounds like a fine thing,” Yuri said. “Is that what you always want to do with your life?”

He didn’t know if Anastasia’s father realized it, but that was a loaded question. To Prime, it sounded like he was asking if he intended to spend the rest of his life fucking around. Well . . . did he? Was there the immediate alternative of cruising around the country with this girl and her family?

“I’m happy for the moment, although I do understand that the nature of life is change,” Prime replied. “What do you all do?”

“We do,” said Yuri, “exactly as we please. We have a little money, and we do not have complicated needs. We have the world, and family. We have simple pleasures. Eating, breathing, enjoying nature. It is a good life.”

They kept chatting and Prime had a good time. These were good people. A little weird, but who wasn’t? He was happy with who he was, but he wasn’t normal by any means. At one point he asked about Sage.

“My friend tried to talk to you last night,” he said. “The guy in the white suit. Remember him?”

“Oh yes,” said Elena, a subliminal “tsk, tsk” in her voice. “Poor boy.”

Poor boy? Sage? The man had picked up twins at the Playboy Mansion and had a threesome in the grotto. That was no poor boy.

“Yes,” said Anastasia. “He is sad, isn’t he?”

Sad?

“He smelled of rabbit food,” said Yuri, authoritatively. “I hope your friend does better in the future. Maybe you can help him. I trust you are good to your friends.”

Okay, some people were weirder than others.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Sage said. He turned away from Prime dismissively and bent to turn on the gas fireplace.

Prime steamed. “No. I feel like I’m finally waking up. You’re not jealous, are you? Maybe I shouldn’t have told you they thought you smelled weak.”

“Look,” said Sage, standing back up, “I’ve got Sally coming over soon, so I don’t have time for this nonsense. Isn’t tonight your night with Brenda?”

“I cancelled,” said Prime.

Sage rolled his eyes. Oneitis , said that look.

“Don’t you want me to be happy?” he asked his friend.

“God, yes!” roared Sage. “And that is why you need to get back on track.”

“Are you happy with this lifestyle?”

“Of course. What more could I want? I sleep with beautiful women, live in a mansion in San Francisco, wear the finest clothes and eat the finest foods.”

Prime smiled, remembering it had been called “rabbit food.” Still, he couldn’t help but feel that he had had a peek into a simpler, more natural, and more honest life. A life with Anastasia. And he was going to take up the invitation he’d been offered.

“Well, let’s just wait until after tonight, okay?”

“More hanging out with the Monobrows? Jeez, man, it’s like a bad Saturday Night Live skit, and you’re living it.”

“I’m living life,” Prime replied, simply. “Respect that.”

Sage sighed audibly. “Fine. I do respect you, you know that. I just don’t like to see you regressing into some kind of AFC. You’ll end up broken.”

“Or changed.”

Sage nodded.

Prime met up with Anastasia and her family out at Yosemite.

They already had a more than respectable fire blazing at their campsite and were working on a small keg. Camping, fire, beer . . . not a bad start. As Prime looked at his woman, he knew what a perfect night like this also needed: sex. And it was there.

Out came a boom box. Out loud came classic rock, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising.”

Okay, everything wasn’t pure and natural, but music was good to have. Primal.

Anastasia danced with joy, tilting her head up toward the night above, the firelight dancing across her features.

Prime finished his beer and rose to join her in the stepless dance of life.

Together, they moved.

The night faded. Her family faded. Together they were only two, under the stars and the rising full moon.

His arms over her shoulders, her green eyes locked onto his.

A voice. Yuri’s.

“You want to chase real tail? You want the real thing?”

Dancing. Intoxicating smell of woman.

Yuri’s voice, still calling, but more . . . howling than calling.

“You want to live life? Howl at the moon, man!”

At least that’s how it seemed, as he spun with Anastasia.

“You want it?” she asked. “You want a natural life? A simple, honest life? A free life?”

He didn’t think too hard about that? Why should he? The answer had been hidden in his heart for years.

“For a real man, this life is the best,” she said, grabbing his head, pulling his hair. “For you, my mate.”

Who was picking up who?

Did it matter?

They danced and Prime opened his senses while turning down his analysis.

At some point the physical urges became too much and he had to have her. Damn the lack of privacy. Damn the family. Damn the world.

They ripped their clothing. Their own. Each others. It was all the same.

Words became sounds.

Smells.

Tastes.

Pull hair.

Lick skin.

Bite.

Feel the air, the moving air, the wind.

Feel the real.

Howl!

Wait, what was he doing? What was Anastasia becoming? What was the biting doing to—stop!

Stop thinking . Feel. Go with it, truth, life.

Howl!

Time for Prime to become Primeval.

Hair, sprouting. Fangs, growing. Claws, extending. Nose, blossoming. Eyes, sharpening. Ears, encompassing. Body, transforming. Becoming a better . . . being.

Time for Primeval to take his mate.

On all fours, hunching, biting, howling, coming, with the scent of blood spilled from the sex for the first time. An honest mating. The best.

Running through the night, howling again, with wind, with his true family, his pack.

He belonged. He had his place.

He had his mate.

He had his pack.

It was going to be a long-term relationship.

Primeval howled with satisfaction.

He’d been picked up.

The ghosts follow Sephie to work again that day.

They stand outside the windows of the bookstore, staring in with hollow eyes—more of them now than a few days ago. She tries to ignore them. At least they never come inside.

Most of them, anyway.

The light dims as she’s shelving books, and Sephie turns to find her ex-boyfriend grinning down at her, pink filming his long ivory teeth. He tilts his head, shows her the still-wet ruin a bullet made of the left side of his skull.

Her hands tingle with adrenaline shock as the smell of his blood coats her tongue—copper sweetness, and beneath that the familiar salt-musk of his skin.

A wink and he’s gone, and the air smells like books and dust and air freshener again. Sephie wobbles, and the stack of books in her arms teeters and falls, hardbacks and trades thumping and thwapping one by one, echoing in the afternoon quiet. No blood stains the worn green carpet.

The third time this week. Cursing, she crouches to pick up the books, and pauses as she reads the nearest title.

Lycanthropy: An Encyclopedia

Caleb always was a smart-ass—she shouldn’t expect that to change because he’s dead.

“Are you okay?” Anna calls from across the store.

No , she thinks. Not even a little .

The sky darkens as they close, October nearly over and autumn chewing the days shorter and shorter. Purple eases into charcoal, and the grinning jack-o’-lantern moon rises over the jagged Dallas skyline.

The moon doesn’t bother her, never mind Caleb and his lousy jokes.