Page 42 of Rabid
The goats smell like heaven, and our stomach growls impatiently as we move higher up the mountain to where we think the old, injured goat will run. The wind changes slightly, and the mountain goats finally catch a hint of Tyran’s and my smell. They start frantically running, but Tyran is on the injured one, driving him up toward me, as if we planned this ambush in advance.
Adrenaline and need race through my wolf and me as we bolt for the goat, chasing him up the cliff face and teetering dangerously on the edge of a brutal drop off. Tyran and I are one step away from plummeting to what would be a painful and crushing death, but it’s as though the danger adds a whole other delicious element to this hunt.
My wolf and I have never done this before, but we move like these mountains have always been our home, like we know this rocky incline wouldn’t dare to throw us off. With a powerful leap that has awe flashing through us, Tyran slams into the goat just as we pass a flat ridge in the side of the mountain.
He sinks his teeth into the flanks of our prey, keeping it from moving until I get on even ground with him and take over. I bite into its thick hide, anchoring it in place while Tyran moves up and expertly seizes its throat. He completely avoids any threats from the animal’s horns, and we both stay fixed to our spots as the goat slowly suffocates. It isn’t a massive animal, not like some of the other healthier beasts in the herd, but it’s certainly enough for the two of us, and just as soon as the goat gives up, we tear into it, our wolves gorging themselves.
I take the back end while he starts on the stomach, and we eat, burying our faces in the blood of our kill, snarling and posturing whenever one of us gets too close to what we’re gnawing on. I barely have time to be proud of this insanely dangerous feat, too focused on filling our empty belly and trying to ignore what’s been left in the wake of my rabid rage.
Eating next to Tyran, sharing our kill, it relaxes my wolf. He’s given her something to focus on, and all motions of ripping the goat apart makes her less willing to want to do that to her brown wolf. The other female scents still piss us off, but it feels less pressing with a full belly than it did back at the house.
Tyran was right, running it off helped the savage frenzy, but what’s peeled away beneath each layer of temper and mania isn’t much better.
Everything I said to him, everything he said to me...
By the time my wolf finishes eating, my chest is aching. It feels like a heavy rock’s been dropped in my belly, weighing me down. Tyran’s wolf is still eating, but we slink away further up the mountain so my wolf can clean up and clear the evidence of our hunt from her face and paws.
She licks her fur clean as the wind whips around us, the smell of our kill down below. When I ask for control over our body, she doesn’t hesitate in giving it back. Bones crack and reform as fur is pulled back inside of me. The wind goes from teasing my fur to lifting the long strands of my hair and tangling them around my face and shoulders.
I stare out at the gorgeous scene in front of me, of rolling mountains as far as I can see. Larger peaks dwarf the one Tyran and I are on, and I can only imagine how high up we are. As I stand there, desolation seeps through me like venom, slowly poisoning our veins, and I move closer to the edge of the cliff, my heart hammering with each inch I take.
My bare toes look so stark against the rock, my body small against the plunge just a step away. I close my eyes against the wind and stare inward at the agony that’s been left in the wake of my anger.
I’m rabid because of the constant fury sitting underneath the surface of who my wolf and I are. But we’re always a snap away from fury, because of the anguish that sits at the center of it all.
The loss of my dad, my mom, the safe pack I grew up in. I stopped socializing in an effort to avoid Burke and to keep my mother from having to put herself between us all the time. I stopped going to pack hangouts so I could avoid attention or the possibility of being cornered, but it only seemed to make Burke seek me out even more. The harder he pushed, the more I drifted away. In the end, nothing helped me at all.
He killed my mom when he got tired of waiting. Tainted my Flux with his unwelcome bite. Tried to rape me, tormented me, and then threw me away like garbage when he didn’t get what he wanted. But what I’ve realized is that it wasn’t just him that broke us. It was my fault too.
It was all the anger I trapped inside. All the times I made myself small, thinking it kept me safer. The submitting to others who were unworthy of the action. Staying quiet when everything inside of me was storming. Holding in the tears instead of letting them flow. Yes, what was done to us shattered our defenses and affected the way we respond to perceived threats. But what I did to myself fractured us just as badly.
I can see it all so clearly, the hurt thrumming at the center of it all. The foundation for this fucked up connection with my wolf, the reason we exist on a hair trigger...it’s thepain,not the rage, that stokes it all.
“What are you doing?” Tyran asks from somewhere behind me, his voice deep and commanding, but I don’t miss the tiny hint of disquiet in it.
I tilt my head back as a cloud moves away from the sun, and light strokes softly against my cheek. It’s cold up here, making goose bumps blanket my skin, but I feel like I’m beyond caring.
“Vicious, what are you doing?” Tyran demands again, more dominating this time as he moves closer to me.
Opening my eyes, I shoot out a hand that demands he stop where he is, and inch closer to the edge of the oblivion I’m staring at. “I’m broken,” I admit, my words caught by the wind and thrown back at him as if he didn’t already know. “I was before my wolf came down to join me, and then after that, they made sure to crush everything else.” Pain and memories flash through my mind. “They took my family, my pack, my choice, my future...and I won’t let you do the same,” I tell him, my throat constricting on the words as grief and hurt spill from my lips.
“You think I’m like your previous alpha?” he asks, derision in his tone.
I turn to look at him over my shoulder, to stare into those tawny eyes and see what my words coax out of him. I expect hurt, maybe outrage, but all I see is stone cold rigor as though he wasn’t born, he was forged, and no words or insults I fling his way will make him question what he knows about himself.
“I’m not your old alpha, Vicious,” he tells me matter-of-factly, his eyes gleaming. “Like you said, I’mworse, right? A savage monster.”
I turn around to fully take him in, feeling the drop at my back as I cross my arms in front of me as though it will shield me from his words, protect me from the effect his very presence has on me.
“What am I supposed to think?” I counter. “I don’t know you. You just confirmed the rumors I’ve heard about your pack. You think I’m supposed to beexcitedfor my circumstances?”
He laughs humorlessly, running a hand through his messy brown hair. “Right. So you’re throwing yourself a pity party? Going to throw yourself off this mountain because life didn’t give you what you wanted?” He moves forward, ignoring my demand for space, taking up all of mine as he stands like a chiseled king with corrosive words to disintegrate the rest of my defenses.
“News flash, everyone in Ruin Falls has shit that’s happened to them. Maybe instead of listening to gossip and making assumptions, you shouldaskme.”
I blink at him. “Ask you what?”
He holds up his arms. “You think you got it so bad being brought here to my pack, that I claimed you? So find out if you’re right. You want to know about us, about me, so ask.”
