***
The park was busy. People weaved in and out of it with screaming children despite the early morning rain. I guess the moisture didn’t deter anyone, for rarely was it ever dry in the city of Temple. I wanted to laugh when I eyed the ever-present clouds high above the towers. Where was the sunshine, the life-giving light? How did these people live here and not notice what they were missing? It truly baffled me.
At least the fog wasn’t in the park. It wasn’t even lingering on the horizon. The clouds were up high after the drizzle and appeared exhausted of their load. Wrapping my coat around my body, I waited by the central fountain for any sign of the fog or Grayson. What if it didn’t come during the day? I shaded my eyes and stared up at the thick cloud cover. It darkened the city enough that it could be dusk if I didn’t know any better. Frowning, I decided to walk farther into the park where people tended to not wander. In places, the forest was too thick for comfort.
Once I’d entered the dense canopy of deciduous trees, I felt the shift. It hardened like crystals solidifying in thin air. The cold penetrated my coat, and I started to shiver. Tightening my coat and crossing my arms to hold in heat, I stepped farther down the path, feeling the woods watching me with a thousand pairs of eyes. I could still hear the distant murmur of the crowd, but it faded the farther I walked until only the haunting silence of the woods embraced me.
I thought I’d feel afraid, but I didn’t. The agitation in my blood calmed with the sway of the trees and a strange sense of tranquility I’d been lacking since I’d met Grayson.
With the snap of a twig I jumped, spinning around, searching for anyone nearby. I could feel them, which was strange. It felt familiar, like the connection I had with my sister Rafaela. She wasn’t there, though, and it wasn’t exactly the same.
“Hello?” I called out to the forest. Only the lonely rustle of leaves returned my call as I waited for an eternity to hear anything else. Then, a faint scent found its way toward me. I had smelled it before, and I knew who was coming.
“Grayson? Are you there? I need to speak to you.”
Silence. Why was he hiding from me now when he’d been the one to seek me out the other day? I swallowed hard, my mouth dry in spite of the moisture in the air.
“You have not kept your side of the bargain.” The disembodied voice echoed through the trees as if it was part of them, the leaves, even the sky, and not of Grayson KelHan.
“What bargain?” I demanded of the emptiness. “You tricked me! You did something to me, and I want you to fix it!” The scent and feeling of a presence grew stronger as the wind lashed at my hair and froze my face, causing my eyes to tear up. I was shivering madly as the temperature dropped with each passing moment. The clouds could barely be seen beyond the thick canopy of branches and leaves swaying above. It was then that I realized I’d gone farther into the woods than I’d thought, and I was no longer on a path but deep in the forest without a way of knowing in which direction I had come.
How had that happened? I studied the woods, looking for any sign of the path, but there was nothing, no landmarks to be seen beyond the gigantic trees. They weren’t as big as the redwoods I’d visited as a child, but they were definitely distant cousins of the giant trees. There was no hiding from whatever was coming. The branches were high above my head and out of my reach unless I shifted.
I didn’t want to shift, but the icy wind was wearing me down. I’d have frostbite in no time if I didn’t leave soon. Stumbling over some rocks, I began moving in the direction I thought the city was. No one was coming, so why wait for death?
“Don’t go.”
I paused, hearing Grayson’s voice in the wind like a howl of pain.
“What do you want?”
He stepped out from behind an enormous tree on my right, wearing nothing but his shirt and dark jeans. His feet were bare and stark white while his hair flew up in wisps, making him look younger than he was. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but something told me he was not mortal. This man was older than my grandparents. But how did I know that?
“I’m sorry for the discomfort you’ve felt as of late, but I’ve only awoken your own dormant magic. It calls to our blood now and won’t rest until you know who and what you are.” He tipped his head, watching me with studious eyes. “I only put a mere suggestion in your mind to bring Ephrem to me, though I see you’re much too strong for that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I backed away. I’d never been one to scare easily, but what he was saying felt like he was telling the truth. What did he know about me?
“Your parents, are they living?”
“My mother is. Why?”
“I’m surprised she never told you. Your father might have, perhaps, if he was still alive….”
“What about him? What did you do to me?”
I tripped on a stone, hitting my arm against another hard rock on the ground. The terrain under the leaves was treacherous, and I’d been naïve to not pay attention. Now my arm was burning with a violent pain.
“Shit!” It was broken. I could feel the bone shifting underneath my skin. It would heal faster than a human’s would, and even faster if I shifted, but I wouldn’t shift unless I had to. It was too draining to shift completely. I couldn’t risk it yet.
“It should be fine in moments. The magic you’ve awoken is more powerful than any shifter’s blood.” He knelt down beside me and reached for my arm.
“Don’t touch me!” I snapped. I tried crawling back, but my arm was badly broken. I pulled it out of my jacket with great effort, wincing at the jolt of agony but barely feeling the cold air because of the adrenaline coursing through me. Holding my arm out, I pushed my sweater up and noticed it was broken in two places, with a blossoming bruise already taking up half the arm.
Then a fire ignited in my blood, starting in my chest, and rushed toward my arm. I had just enough time to grip onto Grayson’s arm and scream. He held fast, using his other arm to keep me upright as he pulled me in against his chest, cradling my arm with his own.
“Shh ...” He rocked as the inferno within my arm sent me into a state of panicked convulsions. I could feel the beckoning loss of consciousness tugging at me as I clamped my mouth down and moaned through my teeth. “It’ll be over soon. I promise. Then I can show you what you really are. You’ll be all right.”
His words were anything but comforting. The pain was too much for me to attempt to speak, so I concentrated on staying and crushing Grayson’s hand was a plus. The who’d done this to me was now saying it was my own magic? He must have his head screwed on wrong because there was no way my own powers could do this.
I heard a crack, and my arm shook. Just as suddenly as it had begun, the pain tumbled away until there was only a dull heat left in the spot where I’d broken the bone. Catching my breath, I let myself relax. I closed my eyes, exhausted from the pain, and barely noticed that Grayson was still holding me.
“What did you do to me?” I whispered. There was no energy left for harsher words, so I submitted to resting against Grayson. I’d deal with him later.
“I didn’t do anything. You’re a KelHan. Blood calls to blood. Our curse hadn’t touched you since your family left before we were banished, but the powers we have still live inside you, once dormant but now very much alive. You, however, do not suffer its consequences.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. What powers?” My energy began to return. I’d never healed this fast. I was able to sit up within five minutes from something that would have knocked me out for days before all this happened. I reached up to feel my arm. It was perfectly straight and smooth; no swelling or bruising at all. How was it possible? I hadn’t even shifted.
“Your family defected before the curse was placed upon us. The KelHan pack was aligned with the MarkTier pack for centuries. We thrived and lived in harmony. One day, our leader Gregory put into motion events that would change us forever. He stole an enchanted artifact from the MarkTier royals,
which had been given to them by powerful magi.
“When he took it, he used its powers to try and overthrow the MarkTier royals and claim the queen as his own. But he wasn’t yet strong enough, and when he used the power, the power of flight, he cursed his entire family. In exchange for the skies, we were made to spend the daylight in the guise of stone, frozen and unable to move… forever cursed as gargoyles. Even when we roamed the night, we were no longer beautiful wolves but grotesque monsters with wings.”
I pulled out of his arms now that I could move and was feeling better. Still unable to get to my feet because of dizziness, I gave him a cold, pointed stare.
“You’re insane to think I’d believe this garbage. You don’t know my family at all!” I reached down to my belt and yanked out my hunting knife. I was still unable to move my injured arm fully, but I could use my other one quite well.
“It’s the truth,” he offered. He held his hands up in a show of peace, but I wasn’t going to let my guard down around him again. Bad things happened around Grayson.
“How do you know that?”
He sighed, obviously thinking I’d be easier to convince. He quietly thought to himself before holding his hand out. “Give me your hand.”
I hesitated, but after what I’d been through, I figured why not? I gave him my left hand, my good one. He cradled it in one hand and traced a symbol on my palm. The moment he lifted his finger from my skin, a rune began to glow in an eerie, bright yellow color.
“This is the mark of the KelHans. All descendants have it.”
“What―?” I gasped.
My eyes widened as he showed me his. It was a different rune but had the same glow as mine.
“Yours is different,” I pointed out, pulling his hand toward me to get a better look. It was a square with curved spikes extending inward and outward from each corner. Glancing at mine, I saw the same spike shapes but with a circle.
“Most of us are not from the exact same family. Like the MarkTier and ArcKnight packs, the KelHan pack consist of hundreds of families. Not directly related but part of the same pack.”
I peered up into his eyes. They were a shiny, dark gray, like polished stone. There was no malice there now, but a deep-seated sadness which emanated from them, penetrating my soul. That look was a cold draft in the already frozen forest, but in spite of it, I felt warm.
“I’m not cold anymore,” I said. I pulled away, swinging my eyes around to study the forest. It was still frigid, and the bite of the wind was still there, but it no longer bothered me. I held out my palms and stared down at them. My skin was not as pale as it had been earlier, but a faint hint of grey-blue could be seen beneath the surface. “What’s happening to me?”
“Your gargoyle blood has stirred. The cold does nothing to us, but the stone color is from the curse. You’ll look pale, but not as bad as the rest of us. We’ve dealt with the curse every day for centuries.”
I looked at my hands again. “And what does this mean?”
“You can transform at will now.”
“Transform into a gargoyle?”
He nodded. “A wolf-gargoyle.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight