Pack Ties Read online

  Pack Ties

  An Elisade Short Story

  Ceillie Simkiss

  Contents

  Trigger Warnings

  Pack Ties

  Also by Ceillie Simkiss

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Ceillie Simkiss

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Trigger Warnings

  Mention of maternal death;

  attack by werewolves leading to disability;

  internalized ableism;

  werewolf transformation in front of small child.

  If you have any questions about any of these, please contact me at [email protected] or @ me on Twitter as @CandidCeillie and I can give you more details. Please stay safe while you read.

  Pack Ties

  It felt like I had been squatting in the bushes for hours. My entire squad had been tracking a trio of wolves for weeks, and we had finally narrowed down the boundaries of their general territory. However, the actual showdown between us humans and the wolves was a lot less exciting than I had made it out to be when I’d explained it to my five-year-old daughter, Violet. Instead of actively hunting anything, it mostly involved sitting around and wishing I was home with my queerplatonic partner, Jackson, and Violet.

  Everyone who had spent any time in Wolvington had a healthy respect for the animals our duchy was named after. Wolves typically did their best to avoid humans whenever they could, but I’d spent my fair share of time hunting them as a Duke’s Guard. Many of the families around me raised sheep and goats to make their livings, which weren’t exactly easy prey for a lone wolf. If there was nothing else available, like was common during the long, cold winters, it made sense for them to try and get some food for the rest of the pack.

  Attacking soldiers, however, was extremely uncommon. This particular trio had attacked three different patrols in as many months, resulting in serious injuries and a few deaths. They had to be stopped before they harmed someone who wasn’t prepared for them.

  The sounds of my fellow soldiers howling like female elk and other animals had filled the air at irregular intervals all day. They were trying to convince the wolves that there were dying animals ready for the eating in the clearing that I had been staking out. To help with that, there was plenty of food spread around the clearing. We’d turned the previous day’s hunting into bait traps strategically placed on the edge of each of our lines of sight. Wolves were smart, but hopefully, we had been smart enough that they would come for the food without seeing or smelling us.

  All we could do now was wait, but I was tired of it already. I smelled distinctly of elk piss, my muscles ached from spending the day on the ground, and all I wanted was to be at home cuddling with Violet for her birthday. Most animals were giving the clearing a wide berth because of the smell, but I had to admit that it was peaceful in a way.

  Until it wasn’t. We’d been there long enough that dusk had fallen, and a chilling howl split the air. A shiver ran up my spine as two other lupine voices joined it. The wolves had found us.

  Before I could react any more, the sound of racing footsteps filled my ears. I was in trouble. I cursed, trying to draw my sword and move at the same time. The wolves were too fast. I screamed, calling out for help from anyone who could hear me, but I didn’t hear a response before the trio of wolves cornered me. I couldn’t believe they’d gotten the drop on me so easily, but these wolves weren’t like any I’d faced before.

  The largest of the three stood directly in front of me. It was terrifying. It stood nearly as tall as I was with its hackles raised and a snarl ripping out of its throat while the other two circled behind him silently. I couldn’t hear anything from my fellow soldiers, nor could I see them in the few darting glances I managed to get past the wolves. I was trying my best to avoid challenging these wolves any more than I apparently already had. If I could just get a tree behind me to protect my back, I would be all right.

  Except when I stepped back, there was a tree root in the way. I stumbled and fell hard. The wolves circled tighter, and even my sword wouldn’t do me any good at this point. I was alone, and the almost human look in these wolves’ eyes terrified me.

  All I could do was curl up as tightly as I possibly could. The wolves lunged, tearing into the flesh of my arms and legs. I knew they were trying to get to the soft meat of my stomach. A scream ripped from my chest as I prayed that my companions would save me. The last thing I felt was the hot, searing pain of sharp teeth tearing through the back of my neck before the world went black.

  When I woke, I didn’t recognize any of my surroundings. I also had no idea how I’d gotten to wherever I was. The room was far too bright and the thin cot underneath me was uncomfortable. The only sounds I heard as I cataloged the aches and pains in my body were the hushed voices of people I didn’t know.

  The seed of a migraine was germinating behind my eyes, and I was more sore than I had ever been in my life. I could smell the sharp scent of antiseptic cutting through the overpowering musk that I was pretty sure was my own body odor. I desperately needed a bath if so.

  “Daddy? Daddy, are you awake?”

  My eyes snapped open at the sound of Violet’s voice. I found myself staring into my daughter’s cornflower blue eyes. She was leaning against the side of the bed, her entire being almost vibrating with excitement. When our eyes met, she squealed loudly and jumped onto the cot with me. “Daddy’s awake! Jackson! He’s awake!”

  “Hey, flower,” I murmured, noticing that my voice was rough. “It’s good to see you.”

  Before she could answer, the shadow of a tall, stout body fell over both of us. No matter how sore I was, nothing in the world could keep a smile off of my face at the sight of my partner’s face. I loved them differently than I had my late wife, but there was no difference in the love that swelled in my heart. Violet curled her face into my chest, and with a wince, I wrapped my free arm around her body. Jackson smiled and draped the indigo blanket she’d had since infancy over us both. My nose filled with the scent of chamomile and Violet. At that moment, I didn’t care where I was. My family was here, which meant almost everything was fine by me.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Jackson said, their deep voice as gentle as a kitten’s fur. “Welcome back to the world of the living. You had us worried there.”

  I smiled up at them, noticing for the first time that their eyes were red-rimmed with dark blue circles underneath them. It looked like they hadn’t shaved in several days, which I couldn’t believe. Jackson never went without shaving, sometimes even shaving midday and before they went to bed, depending on how feminine they were feeling that day. To see them looking the way they did… it worried me.

  “How…” I cleared my throat. “How long have I been in here? And where is here?”

  “Three days, Daddy!” Violet chirped. “You had a lot of ouchies and Jackson said you had to do a lot of sleeping here at the hospital so you’d get better. Right, Jackson?”

  “That’s right, flower.” Jackson gestured for her to get off of the bed. “I need to talk to your daddy right now. How about you go and pick lots of flowers so that everybody who got hurt will have something nice to wake up to?”

  She beamed up at them and pushed herself up. I couldn’t help but flinch at the pressure of her full weight on my damaged body. Clambering off of the cot, she tucked me back into the blankets with a smile.

  “I promise I’ll save the best ones for you, Daddy!” Without another word, she skipped out of sight, humming
loudly. As soon as she was gone, Jackson stepped closer to the bed and pressed their lips together.

  “I’ve been in the hospital for three days?” I asked, chewing on my bottom lip.

  “You’ve been in this hospital for three days.” Their voice was clipped and tired. “You were in another hospital for a week before that, but I didn’t tell her that. I knew that would scare her.”

  “A week?” I rubbed one hand over my face, and was surprised by the amount of hair on my chin. “Nobody shaved me?”

  That brought the ghost of a real smile to their face for the first time since I had woken up.

  “We did. Yesterday.”

  “Huh.” Something about that didn’t feel right, but my brain was too foggy to process it.

  Jackson folded their tall frame into the rickety chair by the bedside, dropping their head in their hands. I longed to reach over and run my fingers through their flattened curls, to bring a spark of happiness back to their tired eyes. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have that kind of freedom of movement with the scabs and stitches I could feel that covered my skin.

  “You were pretty messed up, Si. They weren’t sure you were going to make it. Hell, I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it.”

  “I promised you I would always come back to you, Jacks. Nothing would keep me from coming home to you, not even a vicious pack of wolves.”

  A moment of silence passed before Jackson met my eyes for the first time, their face serious.

  “These weren’t natural. This was a pack of werewolves, Silas. On the full moon.”

  My breath left my chest in a whoosh. I couldn’t have been attacked by werewolves. We would have known that. Wouldn’t we? “Did… am I…?”

  Jackson’s hazel eyes never left mine, but they didn’t respond. My mind whirled, going over the information I had at my disposal.

  I’d been attacked by werewolves during the full moon. I was growing hair much faster than usual. My arms, and most of my body, were scarred from the attack, but all of the wounds were closed. The room around me was too bright; the smells too intense. I had survived.

  “I’m… I’m a werewolf,” I whispered. I was reeling. Jackson chewed on the inside of their bottom lip, and I couldn’t help but reach out to them. It hurt worse than I remembered the original attack being as my stitches pulled on partially healed muscles, but I needed the human contact right then. That was when I remembered my daughter.

  “How are we going to tell Violet?”

  The rest of the day blurred together in a gray haze of pain with sharper moments when Violet crawled back into bed with me and the doctor visited. The next time I woke fully, it was dark outside and I could hear hushed voices that I recognized - the doctor’s light tenor and Jackson’s deep baritone. They huddled together at the foot of the bed while Violet snored against my chest. Despite the pain, it felt good to have my daughter’s weight on me. It made everything feel much more real. I needed that right now.

  “What’s going on, Jacks?” I murmured, trying to keep from waking Violet or anyone else nearby with my voice. Luckily, she was a deep sleeper. Jackson loped over, running a gentle hand along my forehead before scooping Violet up with ease. They tucked her into the bed next to mine and closed the curtains around the bed for some privacy.

  “We didn’t realize you were awake,” the doctor said. “I hope we didn’t wake you.”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you remember Doctor Lan?” Jackson asked. When I shook my head again, Jackson explained. “Ze’s in charge of your welfare while you’re here.”

  The doctor spoke again, glancing between us.

  “Sir, I’d like to talk to you about what these changes to your body will mean for your day-to-day life. Is now a good time to do that or would you like me to wait until we have some time to ourselves?”

  My mouth went dry with fear of what ze might say. Now it was my turn to glance between zem and Jackson. They both watched me with a worried wrinkle on their faces.

  “I’m happy to go if you’d like to be alone with zem, Si. I can take Violet home and put her to bed.”

  “Stay. Please?” I hated how scared I sounded, but honestly, I was scared. When Jackson nodded, the doctor sat in the chair next to the bed. Jackson perched on the end of the bed near my feet, pulling out a pad of paper and a stick of charcoal. They nodded at the doctor, who began to speak to us both.

  “So, you might have noticed that you’ve healed far more than you really should have at this rate. From what your fellow soldiers have told me, your senses of smell, sight, and hearing are also more intense than they used to be. Is that what you’re experiencing?” Jackson was taking quick notes, something they had always been good at. I just focused on processing everything ze was saying.

  “Well, it has been a long time since we’ve had a werewolf attack on this scale, but Duke Avery has been working with two of the palace’s finest healing scholars to figure out how this will affect you and your squad.”

  “What do you know so far?” Jackson asked softly.

  “We anticipate that those effects will not fade. Wolves are nocturnal and natural hunters, so we expect that some of their traits will transfer to those who turn into werewolves,” ze explained. “What we know for sure is that if you are injured, you will need to see a healer or doctor immediately, due to the speed of your healing process. If you don’t, you risk needing to be re-injured to fix the problems created by natural healing. Do you understand?”

  Jackson and I both nodded, our eyes not leaving the others. I knew my eyes were wide with fear, but Jackson’s were focused as they took down everything the doctor was saying.

  “Based on the research we have, you’ll also want to avoid wolfsbane and anything made of silver. We found out yesterday by accident that even the slightest contact can force a transformation outside of the full moon.”

  I grimaced. Now the shouting and sobbing the day before that I hadn’t connected to anything made sense. I wish it didn’t.

  “What do I do to keep from hurting people?” I asked bluntly. “Those wolves were hunting us, not game. I can’t live like that. I won’t live like that. My daughter deserves a father who’s able to take care of her, not one who isn’t sure when he might burst out of his own damned skin and turn into a monster in front of her.”

  I paused, but I wasn’t done. I saw Jackson’s hands stop moving.

  “She’s already lost her mother,” I told zem, my voice low and plaintive. “I don’t want her to lose me, too, but if I need to leave to make sure that she’s safe, I will.”

  “Silas!” Jackson’s voice was sharp. “Stop that right now. You’re not a monster and you’re not going anywhere.”

  “How are we going to explain this to her? ‘Oh, sorry honey. Daddy can’t help you because you smell like food to him right now.’ That’s not fair to anybody, especially you, Jackson. She deserves to have a parent who doesn’t have to worry about shit like whether he’s safe to be around her or not.”

  Jackson pinched the bridge of their nose and breathed in deeply. The doctor was looking at us both with concern creasing zir face. When ze spoke again, zir voice was calm.

  “I don’t see any reason why, as long as you take precautions against your triggers and explain them to your daughter, you shouldn’t be able to remain at home, Silas. You will need to make a plan for the night of the full moon, but other than that, you’re not going to be any more dangerous to her than you were before.”

  “We can make this work, Si. I promise,” Jackson’s voice broke, and it broke my heart. “Violet needs you. I need you. We’ll figure it out together. Just come home. Please.”

  The terror they felt when they looked at me was clear in every line of their face as tears ran down their own face.

  “Okay,” I whispered. Maybe it was selfish, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Jackson and Violet. “We’ll try.”

  It was a bright, warm day when I was discharged from the hospital. The doctors h
ad loaded me into a cart and cushioned me with what felt like every pillow and blanket in the duchy before giving the driver directions my home. Despite the cushions, I felt every bump and tree route that the cart passed over on the gravel roads that went through the village. The doctors may have deemed me fit to return home, but I was nowhere near the level of fitness that I had kept up before I’d been injured. It seemed like it had been months, not a mere three weeks since the attack. It didn’t seem right that it was still mid-spring and the birds and squirrels chattered amongst the tree branches above my head.

  The closer I got to home, the more nervous I got. Neighbors I had known since before I was married waved and called out in welcome. I waved back, but I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t belong among them. Jackson might’ve wanted me home despite these changes, but it didn’t mean everyone else would when they found out what I had become. A werewolf.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Doctor Lan and I had talked about this, about needing to redirect these thoughts. They weren’t helpful in any way and probably weren’t even true.

  They won’t hate you just because you’re a little more scarred, a little different than you were before. They are your friends and your family. They will still want you around.

  What I saw when I opened my eyes affirmed exactly what ze had told me. I found myself staring at a crowd of people in front of my small stone cottage. I could smell fresh flowers and several different types of baked goods inside the house, even through the strong scents that came from a dozen of my neighbors.

  Jackson and Violet stood at the front of the crowd with matching smiles wide on their faces. I couldn’t help but smile back. Violet bounced in place, only keeping her feet on the ground because Jackson had their hand firmly on one of her shoulders. Behind them stood half a dozen members of the squad and a few of our closest friends. Tears filled my eyes as I met each of their gazes. I couldn’t believe they were all here. Maybe Jackson was right after all and they wouldn’t mind me being slightly different. Maybe I belonged here still.