“She hasn’t healed yet. She doesn’t know our ways. Would you blame her if she feared you? Is keeping your distance too much for her to ask?”
I hadn’t said anything about them keeping their distance. Yes, they made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t care for how Winifred painted me. I wasn’t a weak coward.
“It’s not the distance that worries me,” I said, looking at Winifred. “It’s the teeth.”
A man stepped forward from the rest.
“I am—”
The man behind him reached out and grabbed his arm. The first man growled, turned, and morphed in one fluid motion. Shredded pants flapped around his furred loins as he launched himself at the man who’d grabbed him.
After that, I lost my patience. Didn’t they just hear me? I searched for the threads of their wills and grabbed them. The strands slipped away from me. I tried again.
The male bodies piled on one another as they continued to fight.
On my second attempt, I held tighter. The unyielding firmness of their thin wills surprised me as each one slid from my grasp as if oiled. Panic set in. I’d counted on being able to control them. If I couldn’t... My breathing grew harsh, and my throat tightened.
A hand clapped over my shoulder and pulled me backward just as a male body flew past me.
“Come on, Charlene,” Mary said as she continued to guide me back toward the door. My hands shook as terror set in. They were human enough to have wills, to reason with, but not to control. And they were animal enough to hurt me. Badly.
“Enough,” Winifred shouted.
Her will caught my attention, and I stopped moving. Wills weren’t something I could actually see as much as I could sense and visualize. But what she did amazed me. She split her will.
The single fiber of her resolve divided into twenty, like a tree with branches. Each branch whipped out toward a fighting man. The threads flew so fast I thought they would pierce the men. Instead, at the last moment, they slowed; and the glowing end of her determination touched the center of each man's forehead. It happened in less than a second. All of the men stopped fighting as if listening to her command. Yet, it wasn’t just that. She’d implanted the need to listen.
The branches of her resolve shrank as she pinned the men with her narrowed gaze.
“It’s not enough,” one of them said. “You’ve already taken away our right to Claim her. You cannot take away our right to speak with her.”
Chills swept through me as several of the men glanced my way. Mary’s hand tightened on my shoulders, but neither of us moved closer to the door.
“Of course not,” Winifred said. She didn’t sooth or try to persuade them with words. Again, her will whipped out and tapped their foreheads, fast and brief.
She wasn’t trying to grab their will as I had. She was doing something else. Hope and excitement filled me, and I tried to puzzle out what exactly she had done.
“Have you determined an order?” she asked.
The men started shuffling and shoving. The air filled with growls again. While they moved about, Winifred glanced at me.
“Charlene, you look pale. How many do you think you can meet before you need a break?”
Zero. I wanted to finish backing up so I could slam the door shut. Instead, I studied her. Her promise to protect me hadn’t been idle. She really could control them, and I wanted to know how. Learning meant staying right where I was. So, I scanned the yard. There had to be around forty men now.
“All of them, I suppose.”
Winifred’s brows rose, but she didn’t contradict me. The first man in line stepped forward, keeping the required three feet away.
“I’m Stephen,” he said.
“Hello.”
He didn’t look familiar but stood there watching me as if expecting some type of reaction.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said when he still didn’t move away.
He looked disheartened by my words, gave me a last look, and walked away. The next man stepped forward.
Mary sat across from me at the table. We were supposed to be eating a late lunch. I could feel her gaze but didn’t look up. The half-eaten cookie on my plate and the flat Coke by my elbow no longer interested me.
“If you choose one, it will stop,” she whispered.
I snorted and rubbed a hand over my face. Sounds of fighting drifted in through the closed door. They fought for a place in their imaginary line up. It was as if they hadn’t heard me say I would meet them all. Their persistent fighting was turning an already long morning of awkward introductions into a longer afternoon.