11. Separation Anxiety
Alcide tried to break free from his grip, but Eric's fingers were like cold steel bands. "I need to explain to her. To help her understand-"
Eric stopped and faced him, "You cannot reason away rejection."
"I'm not rejecting her," Alcide argued. "I'm protecting her."
"Not from her perspective. If you are determined to leave her, then do it. Shit or get off the pot, werewolf. She's never going to see it as anything other than rejection, no matter what you say or do."
Just like that, Eric was gone.
Alcide realized that he needed a run. He walked outside and into the woods, finding a decent spot to hide his clothes. Then he called up the ancient magic that allowed him to shift and run as the wolf.
Nothing happened.
He felt a disoriented moment of panic, and then calmed and centered himself. He sought to shift again. Once more, nothing happened. He searched his mind and found no trace of Marrok at all. He staggered, grabbing the tree behind him. He'd only once heard a legend about one man's wolf abandoning him. In fact, it was well known that in reality, 'weres were intrinsically linked to the point where the death of one was the death of the other. They couldn't leave one another!
But he was alone within the silent vault of his mind. He still possessed the keen senses of a werewolf, but he was a 'were without a wolf. He should be happy. He should be glad that the dangerous half of him, the part that had for all intents and purposes killed Sky—saved only by a vampire—was gone.
Instead, he felt diminished. Broken. Vulnerable. He threw his clothes back on and stalked into the mansion. Trotting down the stairs, he opened the door and walked into the room with the woman named Marnie, who was possessed by the witch named Antonia.
"What did you do to me?" he snarled at her in rage.
She crossed her arms. "I forced your transformation. I thought you knew that. Did you have a lapse of memory?"
"What did you do to my wolf?" he demanded.
"Nothing. He bit me."
"Force the transformation again."
"No."
"Do it, damn it."
"No," she refused again. "That would be suicide. I saw what you did to that other woman, but I know the vampires won't save me as they did her."
"Get up on the bunk, then, and force the transformation. Or I will rip you apart with my bare hands!" In that moment, he wasn't sure he wouldn't.
She sighed and complied. As she chanted, he waited for the transformation. Nothing happened. Marrok didn't even stir inside him.
Her chant ended and she shrugged. "It seems you are no longer in possession of a wolf," she told him.
"Because of you," he snarled. "You did this!"
She shook her head. "If you have lost your wolf, young man, it is your own doing." She smiled smugly at him. "I have no such powers over you, beast. This is your own responsibility."
She laughed openly as he left the room.
He got a few paces down the hall before he found himself lifted off of his feet and slammed against the wall. Bill held him easily, despite being smaller and much lighter than Alcide.
"You dare go in to confront my prisoner without my permission, 'were?"
"She stole my wolf!" Alcide objected, choking.
He was tossed negligently onto the ground. "Then you are of no further use to us. Leave." When Alcide made to protest, Bill's fangs snapped out.
"Wait," Alcide argued. Bill's eyes narrowed, but Alcide pressed on, "She still has no power over me. And now she cannot control me as she would a human, but she also can't force a transformation."
Bill stared at him for a few long seconds. Then he snapped his fangs in. "Very well. You will go stay at a hotel and you will return when and if you are needed."
"But-"
"You have upset my human guest enough. Since she has medical knowledge, however limited, she is of more use to us than you are. You will not remain here to distress her further."
Alcide turned and walked up the hallway. But in his heart, he had to admit that, without his wolf, he was afraid. Afraid to go out into the world. Afraid to be alone. Afraid of what might happen if he was attacked. Afraid that he would never recover what he had lost.
And part of him burned with anger, too. He'd seen her standing at her car with Eric, his hand on her face. He'd bent forward to kiss her and she hadn't pulled away or objected in any way. He had smelled it when she'd been aroused by Sam, too.
It was Debbie all over again. Except worse in its own way, because Debbie had never denied it once she got caught. Sky, on the other hand, denied it, even though she'd had Eric's blood and Alcide had seen her at the car with him. He knew what vamp blood did. If she had just been honest, he could have explained it and maybe she'd be able to resist Eric.
But she lied and she kissed another man the very evening she'd made love to Alcide. The knowledge burned in him like a blood-red coal. He had lost his wolf, yet another woman cheated on him, and he was afraid of his own shadow.
He got into the rental car and pondered the wretched mess his life had become.
As he drove to find a hotel to stay at, racking up the bill with Eric, of course, he realized something. There was supposedly a man still living in New Orleans who had lost his wolf. It was said that he'd lost it for several years, and then it had come back.
Alcide feared his wolf was too far gone for retrieval, but he needed to know. So he went instead to a computer store, the only one in the area that catered to vampires by being open at night.
After an exhaustive eight hours of research, he found what he was looking for online. A name. With that, he packed up and headed to New Orleans. He missed Sky already, and he wanted to go to her and apologize and beg her forgiveness. But he feared life without Marrok. He feared even being with her, without Marrok. He was half a man by himself.
With no rest, he climbed in his car and headed down to New Orleans. When he got there, he finally stayed at another hotel when exhaustion won over his desire to find him and the search seemed fruitless. When he rose the next day, he searched again. A week passed and he gave up hope.
He stood on the balcony of his hotel room, looking down on the woods behind. Restless and unhappy, he packed his things and went into the woods. Twenty minutes later, he realized he was alone in the woods without the senses of the wolf to guide him back again. Suddenly inexplicably panicked, he turned to go back and found himself watched.
The quiet man, leaning negligently against a tree, simply stared at him without moving. After long moments had ticked by, he said, "I hear you been lookin' fer me."
"I'm looking for a man who lost his wolf," Alcide said cautiously.
"Ain't nobody alive what lost his wolf and lived to tell of it, boy," the man said.
"I have," Alcide answered honestly. "I need Charles's help."
"Hmm, ye have, have ye? What makes ye so sure?"
"I can't feel him anymore. I can't turn."
"Been a full moon since it happened?"
"No."
"Then ye don't know fer sure yet, do ye?"
"I know," Alcide said. "I can't find him inside at all."
"He just ain't answering yer call. Happens a lot."
"No, it's more than that. He's gone. I can't feel him. How did you get yours back?"
"What you want him back fer? Ain't ye happier without him?"
"No," Alcide admitted. "I feel... vulnerable."
Charles—Chuck, as the locals called him—stood up from the tree. "He ain't gonna come back just cause yer scared wit'out him, boy. Ye loved him, didn't ya?"
Alcide looked away. He wasn't going to admit to this man that Marrok had been more than just the servant that other 'weres treated their wolves like.
"It makes them more human," Chuck said. "If ya love them, they love ya back. If ye loved him, and then ye took that love away, 'e won't do what a wolf'd do, e'll do what a human would do. His love will drive him to give ye what ye want—a life without 'im."
"I don't want a life without him!" Alcide argued.
"Yes, ye do. If ye didn't, he would be with ya. Ye just want a life without him where you ain't scared or lonely. That's what ye really want. He can't do nothing with the scared or lonely part, but he can give ye the life wit'out him. And that's what he done."
"But, I didn't want him to leave. I can't live without a wolf, I don't know how. How did you get yours to come back?"
"He won't come back til you want him back." When Alcide made to speak again, Chuck raised his hand. "Ye just don't want to live without a wolf. If ye ever want yer own wolf back, then he might, maybe, come back. But ye gotta want him, pers'nally. Ye can't just wish ye didn't have to be human-like no more. Would ye go back to a person ye loved, only 'cause they didn't want to live alone, but even though they still hated ye?"
"I..."
Alcide sighed. He had been about to lie and say he didn't hate Marrok. But he couldn't say it. It wasn't true. Marrok had almost killed Sky and had cost Alcide that relationship. He wasn't certain that he hated him, but he knew he didn't welcome him.
"There's good things, and there's bad things 'bout lovin' yer wolf and respectin' him. He lets you be more human in all the good ways. But if ya hurt him and reject him, he's too human to keep crawlin' back. 'E loves ye too much ta force hisself on ye."
"He does it every full moon," Alcide growled.
"That ain't him, that's the magic. If the magic don't bring him up, though, then ye know he done buried hisself deep. Ye might never get him back, then." With that, Chuck stepped back into the darkness and Alcide saw his silhouette shift and flicker away into the night.
On the bright side, he could go back now to Sky and be with her. Marrok no longer endangered her. But he couldn't go back because he had already burned that bridge and because he couldn't face her and admit that Marrok was gone. That it was all his fault and that no matter how much he tried to do the right thing, it always blew up in his face.
But it wasn't his fault, some part of him said. It was Marrok's fault. Marrok attacked her and almost killed her. Marrok destroyed his chance for happiness as completely as if he had completed the deed. Alcide clenched his fists and hit the tree beside him until it and the knuckles of both hands were bloody. Then he stood with his forehead against it and let the misery course through him.
He hated life. He hated what was happening to him and he hated the way the world seemed to tilt crazily every time he tried to put it back to rights.
And god help him, but he wanted to hold Sky again. His arms ached with an emptiness that he'd never felt before. Sky was not only elegant and beautiful, she was kind and gentle and compassionate. Goofy and awkward and well-meaning and sweet. And he had screwed it up so badly that he didn't know what to do.
He knew that Sky blamed Eric for what had happened, but he blamed Marrok. There was no excuse. So he would learn to live without his wolf. If that was how it had to be, then that was how it had to be to keep the people in his life safe.
He got back in the rental car and went back to Shreveport. He paced, considering. What was he going to do now? He had to resume some sort of life. He couldn't keep on like this.
But he did for another three weeks.
Finally, he sat down one day and began to look through the area for a house for rent. He would start a new life. But not too far away. What if Sky needed him? He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. She didn't need him.
He tried so hard to be considerate of her feelings and all he did was upset her. It had been that way with Debbie, too. He grunted. Must be nice to just feed a woman your blood and next thing you know you're kissing her in the driveway like Eric had Sky. Minutes after she walked away from another man.
Then he shifted uncomfortably. He had almost kissed Sookie, right after her fiance-to-be had been kidnapped from under her nose, so who was he to judge?
He got up and walked around, unable to focus. At last he sat back down and tried again. He found a likely house in Marthaville. He called and made an appointment to visit with the owner. Hanging up, he reached up to turn the monitor off when something caught his eye.
For rent: 2 bed, 2 bath, Bon Temps. $350 month/ $350 deposit. 555-328-5538 S. Devoe
He sat down hard. She was leaving. Renting out her little house that she dreamed of putting a fireplace in, and leaving. Going where? He had no idea where she might go. What she might do. Well, besides being a vet. He couldn't see her giving that up.
But he had walked away. He didn't have the right to ask, to want to know. He didn't care. He could feel her slipping even further away and the thought crushed his heart like the Coyote's anvil from the Road Runner show. Only this was real life and his heart wasn't going to get up and give chase again. It was now or never.
He rushed out the door. She'd be at her clinic. He had to at least tell her he was sorry.
But she wasn't there. The sign was gone, the windows were boarded, and the front door was taped over from behind with brown paper to protect the carpet from sun damage. A small flower tried to bring a bit of cheer to the place, straggling weakly in the pale, watery light of Bon Temps's Spring.
He walked around it and thought of little Piddles and felt the misery of how deathly silent the place was. It had the air of something long abandoned, as if in only a few short days it had grown stale and tried to go home to the swamp it had sprung up from.
A chill came over him and he walked back to his car. There was one place left to go, so he turned and headed up towards the vampire headquarters of Louisiana. The guards knew who he was and let him go in.
Sookie came into the room while he was sitting there silently contemplating how much Sky must have liked staying there. There was a fire burning in the hearth.
"She's gone, you know."
He looked up. "Gone where?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. She didn't tell me or Bill. For the first two weeks, though, she thought you'd come back."
He looked at her in surprise. "She said that?"
Sookie shook her head. "She doesn't talk much if you don't prod her to it. But she thinks a lot. She lived here with us for two weeks, I was bound to hear her thinking at some point."
"I wanted to," he told her honestly.
"You should have. Personally, I think you're being stupid, myself."
"Thank you, Sookie, you're very kind."
"You're welcome. So how are you going to find her?"
"I don't know. If she didn't tell you where she was going, and she's still hiding from the Shreveport pack, I think I've lost her. She's even boarded up the clinic."
"You're so quiet," she said suddenly. "Usually your wolf is—"
"He's gone."
"What do you mean, 'gone'," she asked with a disbelieving laugh. "You're a werewolf, your wolf can't be 'gone'. Can it?"
"It's rare. Extremely rare. But apparently it can happen."
"Well, how?" she leaned forward. "Is it a cure?"
He shook his head. "Debbie wanted children and I refused. It's so hard to be a 'were in this day and age. I used to think it was the worst curse imaginable. But being without my wolf is even harder."
"What happened with you and Debbie, anyway?" Sookie asked. "Did you get back with her, even after Cooter?"
"Yeah," Alcide answered her. "When I moved to Shreveport, I wanted to make a new life right after you and her fought. She came around a few months later. She had really reformed. She found religion and she was cleaned up and off of the V. But it was only six months or so before we started fighting again. She left me for Marcus. He's the Shreveport pack leader. I let her go, but for whatever reason, she hates me. They won't leave me alone now."
"Why does she hate you? She left you!"
"I think she blames me. If I'd been willing to give her children, she'd have the house I bought and the life she dreamed of. But now she's just another one of Marcus's groupies. And still not pregnant."
Sookie sat back in her chair. "So how did Sky get involved in all of this?"
"Well, you know that night a while back at the cemetery when Bill tried to offer Marnie a truce? I was there to help, right?" At her nod of remembrance, he went on, "Well, the Shreveport pack was there, too. Now, this is speculation. I'm not sure about it. I think they were there to help Marnie—er, Antonia—but they might have been there to try to kill me. In the confusion, I know you guys caught Marnie, but I got shot."
"You think the Shreveport pack is in league with the witches?" Sookie looked alarmed.
"Now, Sookie, don't get ahead of things here. I have no proof-"
"You didn't think to mention this to Bill?" she demanded, jumping up.
"I have no proof, and they've been trying to kill me for months! It's as likely they were there for me as on the witches' behalf. I don't know for sure." He ran his hand through his hair. "Are you sure you never even caught a stray thought of where she was going?"
"She went to a hotel," Sookie said. "I don't know which one, but I know it's not the vampire hotel. Eric told her not to go back there, because she was too much trouble for the staff."
At Eric's name, Alcide bristled.
"Oh, stop that. Eric's been a perfect gentleman to her."
"I'm sure he has," Alcide growled.
"She's scared of him, you know."
"She should be. You should be, too," Alcide answered, still filled with white-hot rage.
"Bill won't let him hurt me," she answered.
Alcide shook his head. "I don't think anyone can stop him if he wants to hurt you, or Sky."
"You should go find her," Sookie said. "And I should go to work."
They each went their separate ways, Alcide giving her a quick hug. It had been hard for him to watch her go back to Bill after everything that had happened. But he no longer regretted it. She was genuinely happy with Bill, and he couldn't begrudge her that.
Three days later, he found himself sitting in front of the house in Marthaville, waiting for the landlord to show. An hour late. Finally, he tried the number one more time. When the woman picked up, he said, "Mrs. Wilson. I believe we had an appointment for you to show me the house in Marthaville?"
"Oh, sweety, I am so sorry!" the woman said, "I already rented that one out just yesterday!"
He said the proper things and hung up, disappointed. It seemed to be just another in a long line of disappointments.
He cranked the engine over and prepared to leave when he saw a car pull into the drive. A woman got out and for a second, she looked so much like Sky that his heart skipped a beat. She turned to get a box out of the back seat and he was overcome by emotions deeper than he could have expected.
It was her.