Lycanthropy

“Who are you?” I asked the woman, who still stood in the dark shadows.

“Can’t you sense that, honey?” She asked me.

I wasn’t expecting that question, but I tried to use all my senses to figure out what she meant. While taking a step forward, a little breeze waved over from her to me, and I could smell a distant scent of a wolf coming from her.

First I thought that she had one of my wolves in her custody, and that his or her scent came from this woman. But somehow I knew that it wasn’t that. I don’t know how to explain this to anyone, but the scent that she emitted, smelled awfully familiar.

My brows pulled together and my head tilted in confusion. I took a step closer to her, and Aron pulled at my arm at first, but when I looked at him and shook my head, he had let me go.

I took an inhale of air to catch her scent even better and-

“Her scent? She isn’t supposed to have a scent! She is a Nightstalker!” Dakota yelled.

“I know. It doesn’t make sense, but I know that she is no threat to us somehow.”

While continuing to take her in, I closed my eyes and all sorts of emotions flashed through my head. I am never afraid, I am hard to amaze, I don’t flinch in danger and I am not able to love someone. I’m a cold hearted bitch, and barely show my emotions. Yet these emotions that I feel right now, are those that I have put away a long time ago.

Cosy hugs, warm embraces, butterflies and tears of joy.

I couldn’t understand why I was feeling these things, or even remembering how my mother’s arms felt when she hugged me tightly, or how she had looked at me when I had hurt my knee as a little child.

But this scent was so familiar and so similar to hers, that there couldn’t be another explanation. I don’t know how this was possible, or why it had happened, but it suddenly made a lot of things, a lot more understandable.

I now knew who the female voice was that had spoken to me, the one that Dakota had heard too. And her being a Nightstalker as well as a Lycan, made clear to me, why Radu and Marius weren’t able to use their commanding stares on me.

But some other questions rose to the surface as well.

I opened my eyes and found myself touched by the woman in front of me. We stood in the moonlight and tears were rolling down her cheek.

Her brown braided hair hanging loosely around her neck, to the front of her body, as her matching brownish-grey eyes glimmered from the tears that still were there.

She lifted her hand and I flinched for a moment, until I realized that she was putting it on my cheek.

“Your hair is the same as your mother’s.” She said, with a gentle smile.

“But she got her cheekbones from you.” I replied.

I heard Aron gasp for air and I chuckled.

“Meet my grandmother.” I said to him.

Aron blinked his eyes a few times and he cleared his throat. “Nice to finally meet you, after all those years. But how is this possible?” He asked with confusion written all over his face.

“We have much to talk about, why don’t we go inside your mountain, and talk over some coffee. Does that sound good?” She asked us both, and we nodded.

“So, to make things short.” Frida started to explain in English so Amy could understand too. “Your grandmother isn’t dead, in fact she is some sort of hybrid between a Lycan and a Nightstalker. She has given birth to your mother, but because she had mostly inherited the Nightstalker genes, she didn’t receive the mark your grandfather has. But as faith will have it, you have inherited both?” She asked and explained my grandmother’s story in a very easy version of it.

She has told me about her Lycan life that started over ten-thousand years ago, when Lycans were still purebreds and hadn’t mixed in with other wolf species, as apparently there were more then only normal werewolves and Lycans. And apparently there were more marks like that of my grandfather’s as well, but aren’t existing anymore.

But somewhere back in history, when she was about twenty-five, her pack had gotten attacked by Nightstalkers who were led by Radu’s master. Eventually when Radu had seen her go to ‘The Forge’, there where they would chop up their victims, he had taken her away as pet.

She foolishly had believed to be in love with him, and as Dimitri had explained already, she had drunk his blood and committed suicide. But instead of her becoming a full Nightstalker, she had become the first hybrid alive, and stayed this young beautiful woman forever.

As her strong original Lycan genes wouldn’t commit to the Nightstalker life completely, which resulting her in becoming a hybrid, she kept her scent and could still shift. But she also can use the same flashes, like the Nightstalkers can, and she can live on either food or blood.

Some years after transforming, Marius had taken her away from Radu and had kept her at different places around the world to keep her away from him. She has been living secluded, until she became tired of it after thousands of years, and finally fell in love with my grandfather.

“Who she commanded to be quiet about all of this…” Dakota sneered. She was right, it was her fault that my grandfather couldn’t tell anyone about the whole situation.

“But Emerson, hadn’t Dimitri told you that Nightstalkers can’t reproduce?” Amy asked me now.

“Yes, that is true, but since I still have my strong Lycan genes, I guess that I was still able to get pregnant. It was a surprise for me as well, when I started to grow a bump.” My grandmother answered smiling and in English.

I chuckled at her ability to talk English, but she has been roaming around for centuries already, so I guess that this is just normal to her. She must have gotten bored at some point in life, and started to learn other languages.

“And you have your grandfather’s mark, because your mother has mated another wolf. So the dormant mark has resurfaced, as well as the dormant Lycan genes from your grandfather.” She explained.

“But if I’m the third hybrid alive, how can I not be burned by Dimitri’s blades then?” I asked her.

“Why do bananas grow towards the sun? How can we shift into Lycans?” She said and shook her shoulders.

Her words reminded me of Marius and when he had said words of the same meaning. Some things just happen, because they are. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Maybe it’s just because you are the third hybrid, and your Lycan genes have the upper hand. Who knows?” She continued.

My grandmother and I sat at the edge on top of my mountain, looking at the view.

She had told me about the fact that she was forced to leave my grandfather, as soon as she had found out that my mother was a hybrid as well. She knew that Radu can look into someone’s past and it was safer for any future pups, like me, that Radu couldn’t see who my grandmother was.

It hadn’t had helped, unfortunately. Otherwise Radu wouldn’t have become so angry in the first place.

“So, when can we expect my first great-grand-pups?” My grandmother smiled and bumped my shoulder.

I shook my head and looked towards my lap. “There won’t be any.” I said softly.

“What?” She asked me.

I was a bit reluctant to tell her, especially now that I know what I truly am.

A Queen of six packs, Queen to-be of the northern continent, a descendant from the original Lycans, a descendant from a royal Nightstalker and the third hybrid alive on this planet. So strong, yet so weak, as I’m not capable of creating children…

“Let me start, by telling my story.” I said.