ARE YOU OUT of your mind, Jamie?” Jaja asked. He was astounded.
“What? My boys are missing…”
“If you walk into the Fey Kingdom and accuse them of kidnapping your son and nephew when they didn’t… you’re just calling for war. You know kidnapping is a huge offence, you might even call up another meeting.”
“Sir, Jaja is right.” Claude said.
“Beside, we don’t have any evidence that Fey was involved. We will just be acting on a hunch… and you will be made to look very ridiculous.”
“I never thought I’d say this Jaja, but you actually made sense.” Jamie said.
“I always make sense Jamie boy.”
“So what do you propose we do?” Claude turned to Jaja.
“We wait.”
“Wait?” Both Jamie and Claude asked.
“Yes. We wait. Let’s head back to your place, Jamie. We’ll talk strategy and put out word for the boys.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me. What do you think, Claude?”
Claude shrugged and said, “Do I have any other option?”
They walked back to Jamie’s house in relative silence. Each men deep with their individual thoughts when Claude said, “Tonight’s a full moon.”
“Yeah.” Jaja checked his gold wrist watch. “Less than 20 hours away.”
“Have you ever spent a full moon alone?” Jamie voiced out the question that was in their minds. He directed the question at Jaja.
But it was Claude that spoke first. “I think you’ll feel like an omega.”
Jaja nodded. “Yes. That’s how it would feel. You’d feel alone. Not complete. And because you feel no real connection to anything, you don’t partake in that strength that runs through a pack starting from the alpha, your wolf might just go rogue.”
The other two men-Jamie and Claude-went white with fear and shock.
“Rogue… like wild… untameable. You wouldn’t be able to shift back to human form?” Claude asked in a quite tiny voice.
“Yes.” Jaja nodded solemnly.
“How is it you know so much about these stuffs?” Jamie asked.
Jaja’s normally happy face had a sad glint in his eyes. He turned to Jamie, “Some things are better not spoken, kid.” He paused and sighed before he continued. “My past life was tough. After I left the lunar initiation, the thoughts of being Alpha was overwhelming. The pressure became so much that I balked and ran.”
“You mean you-”
“Yes Claude. I ran from my pack. I became an omega. It was horrible.”
“How did you return?” Jamie asked. They had gotten to his front door.
“That…” Jaja said, his face becoming smiley and comical again. “… is a story for another day.” He opened the door and they walked in.
THE SUN HAD ALMOST dropped below the horizon and we still hadn’t gotten anywhere. We followed the stream for close to 3 hours and just when we had thought that it was getting clearer, it started getting muddy again.
I got some fruits for us to eat while Jake looked for where we’d camp for the night. I was sure he was nervous about this full moon. I hoped to find a way to make him comfortable. I half filled the bag with a variety of fruits I could find and pluck, I had no idea if they were edible or not.
I got back to where Jake was making a clearing and shared the fruits between us.
“These won’t kill us, would it?” Jake said, holding up a weird looking fruit.
I raised eyebrows. “I don’t know. If it will, I hope it would be a fast death.”
“Yeah me too.” He said and bit into the fruit.
I got a bundle of sticks and piled them in a corner. I brought out my magnifying hand lens and held it over the sticks. The sun was about to go down. Fortunately after a while of holding the magnifying lens, it finally got the fire going.
We sat around the fire and let the silence and sounds of insect envelope us.
Jake laid down and watched the fire. It was cackling and burning with high intensity, sending up bright orange flames and ashes.
Suddenly, I felt something. Like a tug on my abdomen. Only one thing can create that kind of pull on me. A maternal presence.
“Jake.” I nudged him up. “I feel something… like my mom is somewhere close.”
“It’s probably nothing.” He yawned. “You’re feeling homesick. That’s all.”
“No, I don’t think so.” I stood up and watched the bushes around us.
“Sit down, Jason.”
I heard a rustle and crushing of dry leaves behind me. I turned sharply. That must have shaken Jake up too, because he sprang to his feet with agility and crouched, ready to shift and fight at any sign of danger.
A white wolf sauntered in from my left. It wasn’t exactly solid. It looked more like the ghost of a wolf to me. It was pale and had a white glow to it. It lit up everywhere brighter than the fire I had set up. But it was kind of transparent too. I could see through it.
It moved and stopped in my front.
Jake stood straight and was looking on curiously, his hands dropped by his sides.
I looked closely at the wolf and realized that it looked just like my mother.
“It’s your mom, Jason.” Jake whispered behind me. He voice was filled with awe.
“Yeah…”
Just then the wolf spoke. It was the soft and sweet voice of my mother. “Jason…” She said. “Jake.”
He moved closer and stood beside me.
“I know you both are well. You’re smart and strong boys. You’ll hold your own in the Outlands and for that alone, I am proud of you both.
Jason, you must know that you are in grave danger right now. The Vampires put a price on your head. And your heart. Jake, you as well, is not safe. The Vampires would want nothing more than to end the alpha line of our Pack.
Watch each other’s back out there. Be safe. There’s a war brewing because of you both.
I love you.”
With that, the wolf dissipated into the air and flew away with the wind. And the place became dark again except for the fire which was dying off now.
“That… was so so cool.” Jake breathed.
“I know right… what was that?” I asked.
“I’ve only read about it in books…” He sat down and struggled to find a comfortable position. “I mean, it was not even supposed to be real. Something just like a myth.”
I sat down beside him and looked at him. The question was written all over my face.
“It’s something like astral projection… only very few and powerful alpha wolves can do it. I doubt my dad can do it.” At the mention of his Dad, the Alpha, he went glum. He slouched and looked deflated.
“What do you think he’ll do to us when we get home?” He asked in a depressed tone. He looked like someone had just sucked all the juice from inside him.
“Then, let’s not go home. We can just keep on walking and walking till we start our own new pack.” I said light heartedly.
“Sounds like a good idea. But He’ll just come finding us… and the punishment would even be worse.”
He laid down and was tossing some little sticks into the smouldering fire and was watching them burn.
I sat on the root of a huge tree and rested back and looked up at the sky. The moon was coming out late tonight. The first night of the cycle was usually the toughest for most wolves.
I was watching him throw in some sticks. I was counting the sticks he tossed in and at the same trying to separate each insect sound that filled the forest.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know I was starting to droop sideways and then I awoke with a shock and a soft gasp.
And I started directly into the gold eyes of a Werewolf.
Jake.