Chapter 32
I was more of a danger than ever knew. The words of that wolf echoed in my mind. It was just me, that was it. Never any beast crawling inside of my skin. How much I had blamed on it made me sick to my stomach every time I tried to think about it.
Sylvia would never forgive me and neither could I.
My own will to live had been attached so fundamentally to the concept of the beast. Was I just supposed to take my own life now? I couldn't.
But what else could I do?
I wandered the forest aimlessly in my wolf form. Much like before but this time I was fully conscious and aware, events swirling around my head like ghosts. This time I also wasn't fully aimless. I moved further and further south. Away from my town, away from people.
Retrospectively, Juno, Sylvia and her friends had the patience of gods for me. I was ripping apart vampires for reasons they understood far better than I did. Still they kept me around and tried to steer me on the right track. Maybe Juno had seen some kind of goodness within me.
Oh how she was wrong.
How much did she regret her kindness?
Maybe they were all terrified of me. That could have been why they kept me around. They didn't want to face me. Sylvia could have taken me down at any second though. That thought still chilled me. The whole time I had known her she was a snap decision away from ending me.
And how much better the world might have been if she lost her temper.
It was difficult to keep track of time in my wandering state. One morning I did wake up and the humidity didn't cling to me. Looking around much more carefully the flora was completely different here. This was a new climate.
Was I even in Queensland anymore?
It didn't really matter where I went, as long as I wasn't around people.
As I continued my journey ever southward that morning I was plagued with the memory of murdering Juno's friends.
I had turned on Lalla first, she probably was the only one who even slightly deserved my anger. What I did could not be justified. I had turned around and bit into her shoulder. So vicious and vile that my bite cleaved through her delicate witch body. I could feel the firm muscle of her heart under my canines and I bit down harder. A shock wave went through the group, Ilona was first to act, getting closer to me to try and tear me away from Lalla. I went for the throat. Tearing her whole jaw off and tossing it away. Orvar blasted me with light but I ducked and weaved around Ilona's body, he was caught in a bind there and with a bite to the back of the neck I severed his head. Sabnius was in so much shock, his bird face might not have had much expression but those beady bird eyes were not believing what they saw. Then I jumped on him ripping the fragile wings from his body, his claws raked big lines of blood down my wolf body but it was too much for him.
I left out a big sorrowful howl and collapsed to the ground.
I didn't move that day.
***
The climate grew colder and colder. I was ok with that because of my fur but it was my only indication that I was still going south. After all I was just a giant wolf keeping to forest lands though I did have to cross through a number of farms at times.
It was my own little tour of the East coast of Australia. There were some truly beautiful mountainous views and the terrain varied so much. This journey must have taken me months, maybe a whole season as my only means of transport was just myself. There was no hurry but I was a giant wolf.
One night when I curled into a ferny burrow a memory not so haunting struck me. My three goals. To kill William, done. To find the werewolf who had bitten me, done. The last was to find this woman with bizarre eyes. She would bring me peace.
What would this peace look like? Would she just erase all of my memories? That would be peaceful but I didn't want that. Maybe she would help me become a better person. Find some kind of inner peace. Or was it love and acceptance that would bring me peace?
Whatever it was I had to respect Juno's last words and find this woman.
There were my own selfish needs in there as well.
But where to start. Juno had found me. Mythical beings seemed to be elusive, even Sylvia's house I couldn't find with any kind of certainty.
The southern states of Australia were much more populated than Queensland. Surely that meant there were more myths there too. I didn't want to get too close to the mortals though and vampires... they were probably a problem.
Finding this one woman with bizarre eyes seemed like a mammoth task. Like right to find a needle in a haystack. But I had nothing but time.
I continued ever southward this time keeping my nose open for any scents of myths. I wasn't even sure if I was in New South Wales or Victoria but judging by the level of cold I assumed I had come to the latter.
All I knew about Victoria was that its capital city was Melbourne which was highly populated and that ALF was a huge deal there. Embarrassingly I wasn't completely sure where the city was within the state. Not that I had much navigation as a wolf.
One day I came across a thick forest, I had seen a lot of forest in my travels but this once smelled different, there was just a hint of magic here. Wandering around it I was a little more confident that I would run into another myth here.
As I continued wandering this forest, the trees and everything living seemed to die away. Only the empty husks of trees remained.
This filled me with dread. I wanted to find myths and surely I could in that direction but they were not who I wanted to find.
I bolted another away but my nose caught something. A somewhat human scent, but it wasn't human. I stopped in my tracks and took more of it in. Ash. It smelt of burning.
Curiosity overwhelmed me and I followed its trail. As the scent became stronger and stronger I came to a clearing but there was nothing there.
Suddenly there was a noise from behind me, I hadn't heard something like this in a long time, a person's voice. A female voice though low and grumbly, "What do ya want, wolf?"
I felt a point in my hide. I turned my head back to look at her. Before me was an extremely buff woman, she had short orange asymmetrical hair but her eyes were a dull green. She stared into my eyes expecting an answer.
I shifted back, though very worried about my human form, it wasn't quite as bad as last time as I had not had the shit beaten out of me before, my clothes were intact, I must have looked at least a little dishevelled.
My voice was so incredibly rusty, "I don't want anything and I'm not here to hurt you."
She lowered her sword cautiously but didn't put it away. "What pack are you from?"
"I'm not from a pack," I backed away a little, giving her some space.
"A lone wolf then?" she raised an eyebrow at me.
"I guess so," I mumbled. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about this woman. She fell into the box that Ilona had made, of women I was afraid of.
"What are you doing around here then?" She kept looking me up and down, "No offence but ya look lost."
"That might be a little true, I'm not really doing anything," I tried to flatten my hair a little.
She watched the movements of my hands. Her voice was a little softer this time, "vampires chase you would of home?"
"Yeah," I nodded in agreement. It wasn't completely untrue.
"Huh well, the name's Devil," the woman held out her non sword holding hand.
I grabbed her hand and in that moment all I could hear was my mother using my name with such love. Torsten was a name she chose for me, her boy who was destined to be better than his father, who would make her proud. That boy was dead and only I existed. I couldn't use his name. I was worse than my father but also exactly the same. He could never accept any accountability. His name was Mikael and mine...
"I'm Mik," I shook her hand.
Suddenly another woman emerged from the bushes. As I beheld her my first impression was beauty that radiated off her. Long golden brown hair flowed gently down by her shoulders, she too carried a sword with her and was clothed in leather armour that showed off a slender yet muscular body. Then she looked at me.
Big highlighter green eyes.
How bizarre.
Meow myths,
Thank you so much for reading! I can not express how grateful I am to you for getting this far into this novel. It truly is one of my favourite books that I've ever written and now it has an ending!
If you would like to follow along with Torsten or Mik's story I have many drafts of The Hotel which takes place 2 years after the events of this novel.
If you haven't read the other 2 books in this before the Hotel Series, there is A Drop of Purple and Becoming the Cheetah
Or if you're looking for a werewolf romance because let's face it the romance in this novel was completely in Torsten's head, I have She Wolf will not find her mate; I curse the Spring that came too quickly. I won't fall in love!
First published - 18/8/2022
Meow for now