23. Twenty-three
Twenty-three
July 2022
Connor Kelly
I can't help but grin like the Cheshire cat when I step into the kitchen. The coffee pot is still warm from when Fee made it, and there's enough coffee in it to fill my favourite bucket of a mug to the brim.
Although it's been several weeks since we made up, every morning that I come downstairs to find the coffee pot full, I'm flooded with relief. It's like a daily reminder that we're on the mend and we're going to be okay. Once I've added a splash of milk and half a sugar—I'm trying to cut down —I go in search of Fee in the living room.
“Mornin', love,” I say, pecking a chaste kiss on his soft lips.
“Morning, babe. What do you want to do today?”
“I'm plannin' to spend so long on the sofa that I merge with it.” Fee chuckles.
“Fine by me.” And then we smile at each other like the disgustingly besotted fools we both are.
Phoenix Campbell
“Do you love it yet?” Cee asks, nudging my paperback with his sock-covered foot. I’ve just started reading Wolfsong after he spent two weeks telling me it might possibly be his new favourite book of all time. I’m not a huge fiction reader, but Cee loves his books, and when I read the ones he recommends, it seems to make him happy.
“I’m only three chapters in; give me an actual chance to read some of it first,” I reply, pinching his big toe.
“Ouch! Fucker,” he whines at me. “Kiss it better.”
“You’re so annoying. Get your foot out of my face, or I’ll stop rubbing it.” He quickly puts his foot back into my lap and wiggles his toes. I go back to pressing my thumb into the arch of his foot, and he makes this contented rumbling sound in his chest.
I’ve never known a wolf that’s so cat-like. He’s practically purring at me. I’m pretty content at the moment myself, though. I wouldn’t say things with us are resolved by any stretch, but we’ve had a tentative peace for a good few weeks now.
We haven’t had full-on sex yet because every time we head in that direction, I can hear Cee's voice in my head calling it a 'bad decision', and I backtrack. Apparently, my brain doesn’t have the same negative associations with blowjobs and frotting, though, so it’s not as if we haven’t been having a good time.
It feels amazing to be back in a place where I can kiss him freely, and we exchange affection without a second thought. That said, we’re still treading quite carefully around each other in every other regard. One of the things I always loved in our relationship was feeling like we could tell each other anything. I felt so safe and secure with him I didn’t ever have to filter myself, and the last year and a half has left a mark on us both. I can tell we’re both terrified of accidentally rocking the boat, so we stick to safe topics at all times, and it’s starting to make me anxious. Our marriage won’t last if we don’t find a way to communicate without coming to blows.
How is it we’re now so bad at something we used to be so good at?
I move my hand up his leg and massage his calf muscle, earning me a satisfied little 'mmm' sound from his lips. Cee's reading an ARC of Make Me Fall on his Kindle, and it seems to be getting him a bit hot under the collar because he keeps having to adjust himself in his shorts.
“Would you ever get your dick pierced?” he asks, seemingly out of the blue. I move my hand to cover my dick protectively.
“Absolutely not. Do not get any ideas,” I tell him, and he chuckles demonically. “Why do you ask?”
“One of the characters in my book has a Jacob’s ladder. Sounds pretty hot.”
“Good for him. I’m fairly sure fictional piercings hurt a lot less than real ones.”
“Aw. Is the big bad wolf scared of a little needle?” he taunts me.
“Near my cock? Most definitely.” Cee laughs and goes back to reading. This is how we’ve spent most of our Saturdays for the past few weeks. Except usually, we sit on a blanket in the garden. However, it’s pissing it down today; can’t beat a British summer…
A soft thud against the front door interrupts our comfortable silence, and we both suddenly turn to look at each other as if to confirm we heard the same thing. We’ve quite literally had nobody except Alice, Niamh and Will come to visit the past few weeks, and they all just let themselves in. We pull the same bewildered expression at each other as if to say, ‘I’m not expecting anyone’. I tap Cee's leg gently so he’ll lift his feet, and I head to the front door to investigate. The weather is still absolutely miserable, so I don’t want to leave whoever is stuck out on our doorstep for too long.
As I open the front door, my eyes widen in shock when I’m met with a shifted wolf in front of me. His chocolate brown fur is soaking wet, and I can scent the tangy odour of blood on him immediately. His big dark eyes look at me pleadingly, and I reach my hand out to his nose so he can scent me.
“What’s goin’ on?” Cee asks as he approaches behind me.
“We need to get him inside, I’m not sure what’s wrong, but he’s definitely injured, so I don’t think he can shift back.
“We won’t hurt you, but we need to get you inside so we can take a look at where you’re hurt, okay?” I say to the unknown wolf. He nods his head and makes a pained whimpering sound. To have made it to our house as wounded as he looks must have been a mission unto itself.
Between us, we manage to manoeuvre him into the kitchen where the floor is tiled so blood is less of an issue. Cee holds the wolf’s face between his palms and calmly tells him he’s safe with us; we will try and help. He slowly begins to apply light pressure down the wolf’s back.
“Let me know when I reach somewhere that hurts, okay?” he asks, and the wolf nods. When he reaches the wolf’s hind leg closest to him, he lets out an almighty great howl of anguish.
Shit, he must be really hurt.
We heal so fast as wolves the most likely thing is for a bone to have healed too quickly and be set in the wrong position. Breaking bones and re-setting them is no laughing matter, and I can’t help but wince on his behalf.
“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay. Are you injured anywhere else?” Cee asks, and the wolf shakes his head and whines.
“What should we do?” I ask Cee, who I’m grateful seems to be taking control of the situation.
“We need a witch.”
I try calling Noah, but his voicemail informs me he’s currently canoeing in Peru, of all places, and he won’t have any signal for a few weeks. Next, I try Nina Fenwick; she’s not a healer, but I hope she knows someone who can help.
Fortunately, she gives me the contact details of a witch on this territory, so things are starting to look up. I dial the number I’ve scribbled on a piece of paper and pray someone answers.
“Hi, is this Natasha Richardson?” I ask when the call connects.
“Who’s asking?”
“Um, my name is Phoenix Campbell. I got your details from Nina Fenwick? She said you’re a healer, and you live in Yorkshire?” There’s silence for a beat, and I wonder if she heard me, but then she lets out a resigned sigh.
“Why do you need a healer?” she asks sceptically.
“I don’t personally. We had a wolf show up on our doorstep. His scent is beta, so he should be able to shift back, but he can’t. One of his back legs is injured, and he’s covered in blood. We don’t know who he is, and we don’t know to what extent he’s hurt, but it has to be pretty bad if he can’t shift back,” I explain, hoping to elicit some sympathy.
“He’s definitely not part of your pack?” she asks, I’m not sure how that’s relevant.
“No, he’s not. We’ve never met him before.”
“I can’t come to you. You’ll have to bring him to me.” She rattles off an address in Malham Cove, and Cee and I just barely manage to bundle the wolf into the back of my car.
Connor Kelly
When I glance over at Fee, he’s white-knuckling the steering wheel and driving well over the speed limit. The road we’re currently on is pretty uneven, and the wolf in the back whimpers every few minutes. The Satnav says the drive will take around fifty-five minutes, but we’ll be there in forty at this rate.
I reach over and gently squeeze Fee’s thigh; tension is rolling off his shoulders in waves. It takes a lot for our kind to be injured this severely, and it doesn’t look like an accident. I really hope this witch knows what she’s doing because I don’t think this will be a quick fix.
“We’re almost there,” I tell the strange wolf. I can’t explain it, but I feel overwhelmingly protective of him. He’s not pack; I’ve never met him before, and I’ve no idea who he is, but he sought us out to help him, and I feel responsible for him for some reason.
Fee turns left onto a long dirt road with thick conifer trees on either side, making it appear darker than it really is. The downpour of rain all day has made the ground muddy, and I’m grateful we have four-wheel drive. As we near the end of the driveway, a small thatched cottage comes into view. Fee pulls the car up as close to the gate as possible so we have less distance to carry the wolf.
The door to the cottage swings open as we’re trying to get him out of the car, revealing a woman who I’m assuming is Natasha. She walks quickly along the garden path towards us and stares us down assessingly. She scrunches her nose like our scent offends her. She’s quite small, around five foot three, with long, bone-straight blonde hair and sharp hazel eyes that could burn a hole through you.
“He can come inside. You two will have to wait out here,” she says without any sort of greeting.
“He can’t walk. We have to help him inside,” Fee explains, although I think that fact is pretty evident after she watched us manhandle him out of the car. She narrows her eyes at us mistrustfully.
“You can help him inside, but then you have to leave,” she retorts in a tone brokering no room for negotiation.
“We can’t just leave him in there. We don’t know you. At least one of us needs to stay,” I try to reason with her.
“You said you don’t know him, said he’s not pack, what’s it to you?”
“He’s not pack, but he came to us for help, and we promised to keep him safe.” She briefly seems to evaluate my response and then sniffs the air.
“Fine. The beta can stay inside and wait. Alpha-beta waits outside.” She’s making no sense.
“Who are you talking about? We’re all betas,” I say, getting impatient with her, considering we’re carrying the weight of a very heavy and injured wolf right now.
“You’re an Alpha-beta,” she says, pointing a finger at me. “You can help bring him inside, but then you leave. The beta can wait inside.” I still have no idea what she’s talking about, but we don’t have time to argue over semantics, so I agree and help Fee carry the wolf inside.
The stone path to her front door is narrow, with a wild, overgrown garden on either side. We’re too wide for the space, and by the time we make it inside, I’ve got nettle stings all down my left leg and scratches covering my arm from the brambles.
The moment we’re over the threshold, she steers us into a small room with a treatment bed in the centre. As soon as we place the wolf down, I’m ushered quickly back out of the house, and Fee is left to sit on a bench in the hallway outside.
Filled with adrenaline and worry, I spend the next hour pacing up and down the long driveway. When the rain begins to really pelt it down, though, I go and sit in the car. I’m restless, and my brain is firing off hundreds of questions I can’t possibly get the answers to. Unable to concentrate on the book I stuffed in the glove compartment last week, I resort to playing sudoku on my phone. I try texting Fee, asking for updates, but I think he must have left his phone back at the house—we did leave in a hurry.
What feels like hours later, Fee finally re-appears. His eyes are wide, and his skin is drip white with beads of sweat along his brow. Judging by the awful sounds that came from the cottage, I dread to think of how bad it was inside. The entire time, my brain was screaming at me to go inside, to make sure they were both okay when they clearly weren’t. I step out of the car to meet him.
“He’s shifted back, but she’s given him a heavy sedative, so he’s still out cold,” Fee tells me as he approaches.
He opens the boot of the car and starts rummaging through a duffel bag. Before I can open my mouth to ask what the witch did, Fee’s low whisper interrupts me.
“I don’t think our conversation is private. Let’s talk when we get home.” I raise my eyebrows in confusion and look back towards the cottage where Natasha is lurking in the doorway, obviously keeping an eye on us. Fee pulls out some gym shorts and a t-shirt and heads back towards the cottage.
“Can I come and help carry him back out?” I shout to Natasha.
“If you must,” she replies before heading back inside.
Fee gets to work dressing the man on the table with his spare clothes. He looks quite tall, around six foot, with shoulder- length wavy red hair and a full beard. His skin is pale and freckled. Judging from looks alone, I’d guess he came to us from a pack in Scotland. I can’t help but speculate over what must have happened to him and how he ended up on our doorstep, of all places. Seeing him shifted back and no longer in pain eases some of my nerves.
“Did you find out anything about him?” I ask Fee.
“Nope. He was still screaming when he shifted back, so she put him to sleep. Don’t even know his name.” His soft brown eyes are sad and filled with concern and empathy for this strange wolf we appear to be taking under our wing.
“Okay. Let’s get him home then.”
With him safely strapped into the back of the car, I head back to the cottage to settle up with Natasha. Her home is not as witchy inside as I expected. I’ve only ever been inside one witch’s house before, my great grandma Orla’s place in Northern Ireland. She’s ninety-eight now, and she’s been our pack witch for almost seventy years. Her house is old and creaky, filled with trinkets and the sides are covered in jars of suspicious-looking substances. I always loved visiting her as a kid; I still carry my keys on a rabbit's foot keyring she gave to me for good luck when I was twelve.
Natasha’s cottage is shockingly minimalist in comparison. Everything is… sterile, cleaned within an inch of its life, judging by the pungent smell of bleach lingering in the air. If it weren’t for some scattered photo frames on the walls, you’d think it was a show home. I scan the pictures as I wait for her to finish writing out the invoice. One, in particular, stands out to me; Natasha must be only around five years old in the photo, but you can still tell it’s her. She’s standing between two women, who I’m guessing are her mother and grandmother, considering the resemblance.
I wonder briefly if they used to be pack witches for the Yorkshire territory. It’s unusual to have a coven like this that’s completely separate from a wolf pack.
“What made you think I’m an Alpha-beta?” I ask her, curiosity getting the better of me.
“Because you are an Alpha-beta,” she replies, as though I’m wasting her time with asinine questions.
“I’m not, though. I’m just a beta with a dormant Alpha gene.”
“Yeah, well, these lands have an annoying habit of waking things up that should be left well alone.” I’m not sure what to do with her response. I still feel completely beta. I think I’d notice if I’d suddenly become an Alpha-beta; after all, my brother Sam is one.
“What does that even mean?”
“Here’s your bill,” she says, ignoring my question and handing me the piece of paper. Seven hundred quid—ouch. I quickly pull out my phone to do a bank transfer; once it’s gone through, I show her the screen as proof and say goodbye. She doesn’t respond, and I hear her locking her front door the second I’m outside.
On the drive back home, I mull over everything Natasha said, which was somehow both a lot, and not quite enough. Maybe I should speak to Sammy when I get home; he might know more about this. Fee and I barely exchange a word on the drive home. The ginger wolf shifter is still unconscious in the back, and Fee seems a bit shell-shocked by the whole ordeal.
As I’m fiddling with the invoice Natasha gave me, I spot some green writing on the back.
‘ You aren’t safe on these lands.’
Weird.
Who isn’t safe on these lands?
Is the note intended for me? Or for the runaway wolf in the back?