Of Wings and Wolves

nineteen


Light and heat built around Summer. She knew that she was screaming because she could feel the rawness of her throat, but the sound didn’t reach her ears. All she could hear was her heartbeat as it slowed. Each beat took longer than the last. Minutes passed between each thud.

She was blind, bloodless, dying.

Then there was solid earth beneath her feet again, and Summer smacked into the ground. Dirt scraped against her palms. Her hair hung in her face. She looked up, chest heaving with breaths. She was in another cave, much like the one under the lake, but this one was a mess of rubble.

Dust tickled her sinuses and made her sneeze. Summer wiped off her face and took a sniff. There was the smell of rain, just like she had left behind on the other side. She smelled gunpowder and blood, too. That couldn’t be a good sign.

There were so many new scents that it was almost overwhelming. The pictures it splashed through her mind were confusing.

A firefight. Injuries. There was saliva, pheromones, fur. Were those other wolves she smelled, too?

Summer sneezed again.

Once she got past all of those smells, there was also a familiar musk, something that reminded her of Gran. It was a feminine perfume, and just a whiff of it made Summer’s heart slow immediately as a calm settled into her bones.

And she smelled Abram. He had appeared beside her in the same instant that she had.

“You okay?” she asked, which triggered a bout of coughing. It felt like the dirt and dust had gotten into her lungs.

He didn’t respond, which probably wasn’t a good sign. He groaned and pressed a hand to his ribs.

Summer pulled his fingers away to take a look. There was no visible blood, so it must have been the impact of landing. Judging by the heat she felt in her knees and palms, she had probably hurt herself, too, but her shapeshifter body was already knitting itself back together again.

She twisted to look behind her. There was nothing but a blank wall and a handful of petroglyphs, which had been cracked down the middle.

No Leliel. No Gran. No Nash.

“Where are we?” Abram asked, sitting back on his heels and offering a hand to Summer. She used his grip to steady herself on her knees.

“I don’t know.”

The air in the cave was thick and dusty. It looked like there had been some kind of collapse, but people must have been attempting to clean it up because there was a path to a door on the opposite wall.

Between the sight of the rubble and all of those smells, Summer was getting a sick sense of being on the scene of a disaster. Death. Destruction.

“Where’s Gran?” Summer asked. “Where’s Nash?”

The grim look on Abram’s face was answer enough. If they hadn’t already crossed over, then something must have happened. Leliel changing her mind. Maybe another fight, or the fissure closing.

It was too terrible to contemplate, so Summer tried to put it out of her mind and focus on what she did have—a whole new world waiting for her.

“I guess we’re stuck here,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. It totally failed. Her chin quivered. “Now I’ll never get to see your painting.”

Abram pulled her into a hug. “I know,” he said, cheek pressed to her hair. “I’ll paint another one for you.” Using each other as leverage, they stood, and the shift in air brought that comforting smell washing over Summer again. He caught her expression. “What is it?”

“It kind of smells like…” She trailed off. She had been about to say “it smells like Mom,” but how could she know what their mother would smell like? They had never been in the same universe before, much less the same room.

But he seemed to understand what she wasn’t saying. His gaze sharpened. “Were they here?”

“I think so,” Summer said slowly.

She took a few steps forward. The smell was stronger toward the door.

Her heart sped. “Actually…I think they’re here right now,” she tried to say, but her voice failed her.

Abram took her hand and held it tightly. He might not have shown his emotion, but he was her twin, the other half of her soul. She knew that his nerves were ringing, too.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She leaned her forehead into his arm and shut her eyes. Was she ready to see their parents? The people that she had been waiting to meet for her entire life? Was she ready to set foot in a new world, so much bigger and more dangerous than the one she had left behind?

“Yes,” Summer said. “I’m ready.”

They stepped through the door and climbed to the surface.

The forest waiting for them was sensory overload. Summer could hear squirrels, rabbits, the rustling of bushes, the swaying of trees. She smelled a dozen new people she had never met before. Summer felt a powerful sense of cognitive dissonance. This was the forest that she had seen in the photos on that archaic computer in Nash’s office.

There was a woman standing just a few meters away, facing the trees. She had long blond hair, skinny legs, and big eyes, just like Summer had seen in the photo. But even if Summer hadn’t seen her before, the smell would have been more than enough to identify her.

The woman turned to face them, and Summer was shocked to see how young she looked. Rylie Gresham must have been Summer and Abram’s age. Nash had been right—time did flow differently between the Haven and Earth.

Rylie’s eyes widened and her lips parted at the sight of them. Her irises were as gold as the sun. The straps of her dress bared the faint, silvery hint of scars over her breast.

“Hi, Mom,” Summer said, trying to smile.

Abram sucked in a hard breath beside her.

Rylie’s legs wobbled. Her hands flew to cover her mouth, and she glanced back at the car behind her. There were two men sitting there—both of whom had been in the pictures. They smelled dangerous, like gunpowder and leather, but there was something equally familiar about them.

Summer knew what all of it meant. She had found her family.

And then Rylie was moving forward, and so was Summer, and they all but fell into each other’s arms. Abram hugged both of them tight, and they were all a tangle of arms and tears and smells that Summer already knew. It was so much better than she had ever dreamed.

Rylie pulled back and cupped Summer’s face in her hands to look at her. There was so much heartache in her golden eyes. “You look just like him,” she whispered. Then she turned to Abram and gave a wet sob. “And you—you look like me.”

Abram’s chin trembled, almost imperceptibly. “I know,” he said. There was so much emotion in those two words. A thousand things that he wanted to say, but which couldn’t escape him.

“What did she…” Rylie licked her lips. Swallowed. “What’s your name?”

His jaw tightened. “Abram.”

“Abram,” she whispered, and tears tracked down her cheeks. “That’s perfect. It’s nice to meet you, Abram. I’m Rylie.”

There was nothing any of them could say to that. Rylie embraced him again, tighter than before, and Summer could hear his bones creak. He didn’t protest. He wrapped his arms around her and returned the hug with the same ferocity.

A deep voice spoke. “Summer.”

She turned. The men from the car stood a few feet away.

Summer drank in their features. The one on the left was shorter, and his hair was longer—a lot like Abram’s had been before he shaved it, actually. The one on the right was big and mean-looking. Gran had said that was Abel. Her father. Which meant that the other had to be his brother, Seth.

“Hi,” Summer said. She was strong enough to rip trees out of the ground by the roots, but she couldn’t seem to find the strength within her to say anything other than that. She had no idea how to speak to these men. And they seemed to feel the same.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Seth finally said, extending a hand.

Twenty years apart, and he wanted to shake hands? Summer burst out laughing.

She grabbed both of them around the necks and pulled the brothers close, hugging them with all the vigor she could manage. Summer planted kisses on their cheeks. “I have waited so long to meet you guys,” she said, dropping back on her feet. Abel touched his cheek. He looked stunned.

Seth raked a hand through his hair. “One week.”

“Practically a lifetime,” Summer replied.

Rylie was smiling as she watched them, but her expression slipped. “But where’s Aunt Gwyn?”

“Who?” Abram asked.

Something scraped within the tunnel before Rylie could respond, and Summer’s heart swelled. Hope and fear warred within her belly. Was it Leliel, come to take revenge after all?

But then she saw two figures rise from the dust, and the fear was instantly gone.

Nash stepped into the light, his wings curled protectively around both him and Gran, who looked like she was holding him up. Silver blood stained his arms. The sight of his wings elicited gasps of shock from the others, but she couldn’t have cared less—not when he looked like he might be on the verge of falling over.

Summer rushed to their side and grabbed one of Nash’s biceps. It wasn’t until she heard a yowl that she realized he wasn’t gravely wounded.

He was trying to hang onto a cat.

“Sorry for the delay,” Nash said, giving her a faint smile. “I had to get someone for you.”

He opened his arms…and Sir Lumpy jumped to the ground.

Sir Lumpy, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be quite as pleased by the transition between universes as Summer was. He was much too old and set in his kitty ways to put up with that kind of bullshit. She scooped him off of the ground before he could shoot off into the trees, and he thrashed in Summer’s hands, claws out and ears flat to his skull.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” Summer cooed, trying to cradle him to her chest to calm him down. Mostly, all that accomplished was getting twenty claws sunken deep into her flesh.

“The Chevelle,” Seth said. “Quickly.”

He opened the car door, and she practically had to throw her cat inside. His entire body was puffed up to three times its usual size, and he still hadn’t retracted his claws. After a few angry hisses, he darted under the passenger’s seat, tearing up the leather in his wake.

“Man, Abel’s going to freak about the upholstery,” Seth said.

Summer put her hand to the window, but there was nothing she could do for Sir Lumpy now. “We’ll just have to freak him out more as a distraction. I’m sure I can think of something properly shocking.”

He laughed, but cut off almost immediately. “Jesus,” Seth said, staring at her. Summer realized with a jolt that she was actually an inch taller than him—and he was wearing hiking boots. “It’s really you. You’re seriously here.”

Summer took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air.

“I seriously am,” she said.



The bonfire they built that night was huge. It probably wasn’t safe to have in a forest, realistically speaking, but the trees were still wet from the last rain, and Summer was grateful to have the light chase away the darkness.

The werewolf pack had obviously been camping by the cave for a while now, since they easily fell into a routine of collecting dry wood and preparing food. Summer sat back on the hood of the Chevelle to watch them work, drumming her heels lightly against the car’s bumper. She wanted to help, but she had no idea how to jump in.

“Join them,” Gran said.

Summer hadn’t even noticed her grandma creeping up from behind. She bit her bottom lip as she took in Gran’s body language—her pink cheeks, the smile affixed to her lips, the way she seemed to stand up straighter. It was like twenty years of weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Someone has to keep Sir Lumpy company. I’m still waiting for him to come out from under the seat.”

“Sir Lumpy is fine, and if your brother’s not having any trouble jumping in, it should be easy for you, too.”

Summer scanned the clearing until she found Abram helping Seth toss dry branches onto the pyre. But Gran was wrong—it was actually a lot easier for Abram, since he didn’t feel like he needed to talk to people. Summer wanted to know them. She wanted to know them all. But she had no idea where to begin.

“I’m scared, Gran.”

Gran kissed her on the forehead. Her lips were cool and dry. “And the sooner you get past that, the sooner you can start catching up on the twenty years you’ve missed.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to catch up on that,” Summer said.

A figure broke away from the others and ambled toward them. Summer sniffed the air. It was another werewolf, and he smelled like gunpowder. It could only be Abel.

“Hey, son,” Gran said with a smile warmer than the sun. Abel stooped so that she could give him a hug around the neck.

“You had us worried there for a while, ma’am,” he said.

“You should have had more faith in me,” Gran said. “I’m going to have a talk with Rylie.”

She vanished, and Summer expected Abel to go with her. But instead, he sat next to her on the trunk.

Summer had been through some pretty awkward experiences in her life. Her first date with the guy that she met while troubleshooting a failed server, where they had no common interests except for programming? Awkward. Watching her brother heal after that incident with the bear when Summer knitted up in seconds? Super awkward.

But none of that beat the awkwardness level of trying to talk to her dad for the first time. There just weren’t any words to begin with.

“So you’re a werewolf,” Abel finally said.

Summer focused on toying with a tiny pinecone. “I guess so. I’ve always called myself a shapeshifter.”

“Can you change whenever?” he asked. She nodded. “Does it hurt?”

“Not unless I’m rushing it.”

“That’s good.” A pause, and then, “I don’t know if you know, but…”

“You’re my dad,” Summer said.

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

Okay, enough of this. She tossed the pinecone into the darkness and hopped off the trunk. “I’m a computer sciences major. I like cats, the color yellow, and hanging out in the forest when I’m bored. Now you know me. Your turn.”

Abel’s eyebrows lifted. “I could blast a can off a fence at a hundred yards with a six shooter before I could drive a car.”

Well, it was a start. Summer chewed on her thumbnail as she thought. “I tried to rip off an angel’s wing with my bare teeth,” she said helpfully. “It wasn’t Nash’s.”

That looked like it impressed him. “What’s angel blood taste like?”

She dropped her voice into an exaggerated, monstrous growl. “Like suffering.”

Abel burst into laughter, so loud that everyone by the fire stopped to look at them. Summer grinned.

Awkwardness gone.

She was home.