Broken Moon: Part 1 (3 page)

"I won't be any
trouble," Cyan said. "But I can't promise I'll be much help with
your feral problem either."

"We'll see. In the
meantime you can get yourself dry and find something to eat.
Blackthorn will show you to one of our empty cabins. Stick to the
main camp, and if you have any questions make sure you ask. We have
rules, and you'll be expected to obey them while you're here."
Ingrid rubbed her hands together against the cold and turned back
towards her cabin. "Try and get a fire started before the snow gets
too heavy, I don't want to spend all day hiding indoors from the
cold."

Blackthorn nodded once
more and gathered his group to clear away the soaked ashes of the
central fire and bring in dry wood. Cyan watched as they erected a
sturdy gazebo of stitched animal hides over the area with an open
flap at the top to let out smoke, the Highland wolves carefully
kindling a fresh blaze to life beneath its shelter.

He shivered in his wet
clothes, leaving the others to go about their work with the routine
efficiency of a group well-used to battling the elements.

He'd been lying when he
told Ingrid he wouldn't be able to help her. There had been many
times over the years, even before he was a loner, that the urge to
give in to his wolf had risked driving human reason from his mind
permanently. The grim memories chilled him more than the freezing
wind blowing through his clothes.

He wouldn't share those
experiences with anyone, nor how he had managed to deal with
them—if "dealing with them" was what he could even call it. He
could barely stand to think about it himself, let alone speak of it
out loud, and to strangers.

Everyone was a stranger
to him, these days.

He snorted and eased
the thick hunting jacket off his shoulders as the fire blazed to
life, drawing on the aggression of his wolf for just a moment to
dispel his unpleasant thoughts. The irony that his feral side was
both the source of and the solution to his greatest demons wasn't
lost on Cyan.

He noticed Blackthorn
keeping one eye on him at all times, but besides that none of the
other Highland wolves seemed interested in approaching him. A few
came over to the fire once it was burning, but none shared his log
bench.

That was fine by Cyan.
He was used to it.

* * * * *

"I'm going to go and
say hello," April whispered to Harper in the doorway of her
cabin.

"Really? What for?"

"He's an outsider,
think of all the stories he might have to tell! He could even have
come from one of the other packs."

"Why would we need to
know about them? It's not like it matters to us."

April
rolled her eyes at him. "
Because
there's more to the world than just this little
mountain. It'll be interesting! Besides, who else is going to talk
to him?"

Harper gave her a
shrug. "Okay then, if that's what you want. I'm going to go get
something to eat. See you on that patrol of ours later?"

April hesitated as he
leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Aren't you even a little bit curious
about who he is?"

"Nope," Harper said.
"If it matters Ingrid will let us know. If not, I'd rather spend
today doing something worthwhile."

"Yeah, sure." April
poked out her tongue at him as he stepped away. "I'll just waste my
day being nice to strangers, I guess."

Harper chuckled and
waved her off. "I'll see you later."

Perhaps it really was a waste of her time. Harper had only
been joking, but she couldn't help but feel a pang of frustration
at his dismissive attitude, especially after the uncomfortable
moment they'd shared inside. She'd gotten in trouble before when
her curious streak had led to her flaunting the pack's rules, but
there was nothing wrong with just
talking
to an outsider,
surely?

Blackthorn's stern gaze
followed her all the way down the path from her cabin to the
central fire, and she made sure to give him a nudge with her elbow
as she passed by. He cleared his throat audibly and tried to
correct his flinch without making it obvious, but she saw the smile
on the newcomer's lips as he looked their way.

"Don't worry about
Blackthorn," she said as she sat down on the bench beside the
weatherbeaten, dark-haired man. "He used to boss us all around when
we were little, too. He was the big boy, so he had to be all
"responsible" for everyone."

The outsider smiled
again, and Blackthorn turned away as though he hadn't heard the
comment.

"Well it's nice to know
there's at least one friendly face here," he said. "I'm Cyan." He
held out his hand and she took it with a grin, a little surprised
by the firmness of his grip, the hard callouses of his fingers
digging into her skin like claws.

"April. Pleased to meet
you!"

He looked a few years
her senior, but couldn't have been older than thirty. A rough
coating of stubble lined his jaw, and his eyes shone a light,
almost amber shade of brown. Though his thick black hair was a
little wild and long, she thought it suited him nicely. After all,
if he was a wild lone wolf he might as well look the part.

"Are you from one of
the forest packs?" She asked, curiosity tingling inside her.

"Take your pick," he
replied. "I've been with just about all of them at one point or
another. I take it you don't get much news from the outside world
up here?"

She shook her head. "I
was a teenager the last time we had any outsiders come to
visit."

Cyan whistled. "And
there was me thinking the forest was cut off from
civilisation..."

"Hey,
we can't all be world travellers. Some of us have homes to go to."
April winced. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean
—
"

"It's fine. I'd have a
home if I wanted one. Sometimes it's just hard to settle down."

"Try telling that to
everyone here," she said. "Settling down's pretty much the story of
our lives. Not that that's bad, of course," she added hastily.

Cyan nodded, gazing
into the fire as he held out his hands to warm them. Thin scars
traced his muscular forearms, and when April's eyes flicked up to
his face she saw the firelight glinting off what looked like faint
claw marks running across his nose and cheek.

She shivered, wondering
again whether Harper had been right about avoiding this man. There
was nobody like this in the Highland Pack.

"So... what are the
other packs like?" She piped up again, her curiosity getting the
better of her.

"Full of werewolves."
Cyan turned towards her with a disarming smile. "In all honesty
they don't seem much different to your pack from what I've seen so
far. Some of them like the comforts of home, some prefer tents and
bushes, but... They all keep to themselves, for the most part.
Everyone tries to dig out their own little corner of the
world."

"So what are they like?
C'mon, I want to know! Tell me about the Wood Pack, they're the
largest, right?"

Cyan
let out a sigh, but it seemed reflective rather than perplexed.
"They're the largest, and the oldest so far as I know. Good people.
They make camp in an old logging ground, and if there's anything
close to a civilised society of werewolves, they're it. I learned a
lot while I was with them. Then there's the Wild
Pack
—"

"I haven't heard of
them before," April cut in. "Are they new?"

"Yes," Cyan nodded,
then moved quickly on. "We'll have to wait and see how they turn
out. Anyway, the River Pack are the closest ones to the mountain
here. They managed to find a huge waterfall cave to make their den
in. I was almost tempted to stay there just for the ambience, but
they barely know how to hunt. I didn't feel like settling down as a
fisherman werewolf." He nodded at one of the others carrying over a
skewer of rabbit ready for roasting once the fire burned down. "You
like to hunt?"

"Only when I don't have
to use my teeth." She pulled a face. "I have one of those weird
inner wolves who isn't fond of the taste of blood."

"Maybe that's a good
thing," Cyan said. "You don't seem like the bloodthirsty hunter
look would suit you."

April snorted in
amusement. "Whereas you probably know all about it?"

"My wolf's always
enjoyed a good hunt." He bobbed his head. "Anyway, those three are
the main forest packs right now, all going strong."

"Isn't there one more?
What about the Mine Pack?"

Cyan grimaced. "Not a
pack worth remembering. They're as good as gone now, ever since
they got greedy for more territory and started making enemies. Just
count yourself lucky you didn't start out as one of them." His face
darkened, and he went back to staring into the flames.

April's apprehension
returned as she watched him. From the bitterness in his voice, it
didn't take much to figure out which pack Cyan had come from
originally. The Highland Pack might have had its flaws, but there
were certainly far worse places for a werewolf to end up. Not
everyone was able to cling to their grip on humanity like her
people were.

"It sounds like you've
been through a lot," she said."

"I'm sure your pack has
too." He shook his head. "Don't worry about me, I'm nothing
special."

"Are you planning on
staying with us?"

"Maybe." He paused,
pensive. "At least for a little while. I'll probably move on again
before long, I always seem to these days."

April nodded, a little
disappointed. It had been so long since anyone new had joined their
community, she would have been glad for the opportunity to welcome
a new face. She wasn't sure what to make of Cyan just yet, but he
seemed like a seasoned and mature werewolf. Despite the cautious
nature of her pack mates, deep down she didn't feel as though they
had any real reason to be afraid of this newcomer.

"About your pack," he
said, leaning towards her and nodding in Blackthorn's direction.
"Any touchy instincts I should be worried about?"

April grinned and shook
her head. "Nothing you need to tread on eggshells for. Blackthorn
just likes structure and orders, but he's not a bad guy."

She thought back fondly
to the time she and Harper had first learned about instincts, the
overriding, single-minded desires that manifested themselves
differently in each werewolf. It was almost a coming of age for
those of them who were born this way, learning to commune with
their inner wolf and feeling one animal instinct grow stronger than
the rest until it became a defining part of their personality.
Harper's instinct was the desire to prove himself, to one-up
whatever he'd done before, to conquer new goals. In their childhood
years he'd always wanted to climb higher and higher up the
mountain, take the more perilous paths, race to get home just a
little bit quicker than the last time. When one of their adventures
together had left him with a broken leg, Ingrid had sat them down
and explained patiently that his developing instinct was going to
be a part of him for the rest of his life, and that he would need
to learn to rein it in if he didn't want to end up with any more
broken bones in the years to come.

These days it was why
he was so eager for their mating, so ready for children even though
they were still young. He wanted to take the next step in his life,
to prove to himself that he would make a good mate and father, and
to satisfy the niggling urge of his instinct.

"And what about you?"
Cyan said. "Or is your instinct just to be friendly?"

April flushed, caught a
little off balance by the directness of his question. Instincts
were a very intimate thing to ask someone about up front.

"If you don't want to
tell me that's fine," Cyan added. "I understand it's personal."

"No, it's not that."
April shook her head. "It's just..." She looked his way, biting her
lip. "Mine's not very fun."

"Not
very
fun
? I've
never heard that one before."

She
sighed. "I mean, it isn't very interesting. Everyone's instinct is
always
— I don't know, it feels like
it's
them
, while
mine is a whole bunch of... bleh."

Cyan waited for her to
carry on, and she gave him a sheepish look before continuing.

"I just like to nest.
You know, make a home. Get cosy. Have everything be just right. It
agitates me when things don't fit into my world view the way
they're supposed to."

"That's a good
instinct. I'd be much happier if that was all my wolf ever
wanted."

"Yeah, that's what
everyone here says too." April sighed. "But I'm still interested in
other things. I'd love to visit the other packs some day, even go
down into the city with all the regular people, but it's like my
wolf just wants to be a good little stay-at-home girl for the pack.
Every time I get the urge to try something new I end up reminding
myself that it's best to just settle down and keep things the way
they are. I don't know, maybe it's better that way. At least I
don't end up getting into trouble as much as I did before my
instinct was there to hold me back."

"You're probably
right," Cyan said. "It sounds like you've got a good life here. Was
that your mate I saw you with earlier?"

"No,"
April responded quickly. "
Well— yes. I
mean, he will be. We're not mated yet."

"Everything a young
werewolf could want."

"Yeah..." April tucked
in her boots against the bench, giving herself a reprimanding huff.
"Sorry, I probably sound silly going on about it to you. I guess my
human side still has some growing up to do. I've spent half this
time talking about myself."