Wolf of War

A Patricia Briggs werewolf fanfiction

Chapter Twelve:

Trial by Fire

Despite his confrontation with Tamara, Ares found himself still rather influenced by his wolf's restlessness, and despite his growing ease with being able to communicate with his wolf, he felt the need to get a breath or three of air. But he knew that he wasn't yet done with dealing with Tamara; even if she were out of control, the Marrok seemed to be testing his mettle, and so he didn't think it would look very positively upon him to leave one of his wolves potentially in harms' way. Perhaps in nature, she would have been left to either fend for herself or die, but while his wolf was a part of nature, he wasn't quite so cruel. And he wouldn't let himself be that way, unless there was no other choice.

He'd let go of her arm and had taken a couple steps back, letting her know that the challenge was over with, but he'd kept an eye on her to make sure that her wolf knew that the challenge was over with as well; now, he stepped back closer in, and reached down to touch her.

At the instant his hand touched her shoulder blade, Tamara and her wolf turned and looked back at him, a mixture of fear, wariness and some residual anger found waiting in her wolf eyes. Ares gave her shoulder a light slap, which made the young woman recoil in pain. The wolf in her seemed to want to growl back at him for that, but didn't seem able to do more than whimper pitiably.

"You may not see me as your Alpha," he offered softly to her, "but until the Marrok says otherwise, I am your Alpha, and you will listen to me." He paused for a few moments, to give both Tamara and her wolf time to pay attention to his words. "Now…I'm going to help you up, and we'll see if we can get something done about your dislocated shoulder."

And with an ease that surprised him, he helped her up to her feet; she swayed a bit in pain and perhaps some lightheadedness, but she stayed on her feet. Once she was stood up, everyone else seemed ready to follow him, and so Ares led them out of the pole barn and towards the house, though the Marrok just about led them all. Ares was actually relieved that the Marrok seemed to be directing them to where they needed to go next; while he didn't mind being put in charge of the new wolves, he still felt more than a little uncomfortable with the idea of the Marrok deferring to him in any regard.

Unfortunately, his test of leadership wasn't over with.

Garrak—the Marrok's problem child, as Ares was beginning to think of him—was just reaching the intersection of paths as he and the Marrok were approaching it on their way back to the main house. It was almost comical to Ares, the way that Garrak nearly snapped his own neck to avert his eyes and turn his head to expose his neck to the Marrok and himself, but he kept to his own counsel; something about the young wolf seemed to antagonize him, and at least briefly he wondered if that was his own dislike for the wolf, some amorphous feeling from his own inner wolf, or perhaps just a bias that shouldn't exist.

He watched the other wolf as they approached him, and heard Garrak take an exploratory breath, sniffing the air. Momentarily, he was surprised all over again at how his senses seemed to have expanded, being able to hear such a generally quiet sound over what was a vastly greater distance than the normal human ear could hear something like that, but that surprise was blown away in the wind when he saw the other wolf's head swing back around—and avoided casting his gaze at either himself or the Marrok with an almost quiet, violent jerk—and come to rest on one of the other wolves behind him.

He turned to look at who the 'problem child' was looking at, his gaze coming to rest on Penelope, who was briefly looking wide-eyed back at Garrak. Also, seemingly about the same time that he had spotted the beginnings of trouble, another of 'his' wolves, Christopher, also seemed to take notice of Garrak's attention to her, and stepped in front of the young female, blocking his view.

Garrak offered a dark grin towards Christopher now, staring at the newer wolf. And then the newer wolf stopped, and stared right back at him.

Trouble, 'Ares' said to him, almost at the same time he was thinking it himself.

"You eyeballin' me, boy?" Garrak chuckled darkly, his light hazel gaze shifting towards the lighter, golden yellow color of the wolf within.

"Sure looks like it, boy," Christopher spat back at him, staring him down, his own blue eyes becoming greener as his own wolf fought to gain some measure of control.

"Who you callin' boy?" Garrak almost growled at him.

"There ain't no one else I'm lookin' at," Christopher shot back. "Does it offend you?"

Ares turned to give a look to the Marrok, cocking an eyebrow. Do I say or do something? he tried to convey through his glance.

"I can show you just how it offends me," Garrak retorted, a full growl at the back of his words, the wolf in his eyes.

The Marrok gave him a quirked smirk back, and a 'go ahead' gesture with an briefly outstretched arm, palm up.

"Just name the time and place, buddy," Christopher snarled, his own eyes showing that his wolf was almost as close to the surface.

"Enough!" Ares just about growled at the two wolves; neither one seemed intent on breaking eye contact with one another, and so he stepped up beside the both of them, grabbing Garrak at the shoulder.

Garrak's head whipped around and he gave a very brief snarl at him, before his wolf seemed to understand that the person in front of him was no longer the one challenging him. Ares gave him his best penetrating glare, letting the expression on his face soften from visible anger to something almost unreadable. Garrak seemed to be briefly mesmerized by that gaze, before he suddenly dropped his gaze and seemed to almost crouch a little bit, putting himself lower than Ares; the tiniest sigh, almost a whimper, seemed to escape him.

Ares mentally dismissed him, and turned to look at Christopher, who barely even let him catch his eye before he too ducked his head submissively.

The challenge has been set, his wolf spoke, It would not be wise to undo it.

"I have a feeling that I can't stop what they've started, can I?" Ares spoke over his shoulder to the Marrok.

"You could," the Marrok replied, "but I certainly wouldn't."

Implied in his message, among other things, was that he was going to leave this up to him to consider. But why?—And then Ares remembered that he was being…tested. Considered. Evaluated. The Marrok thought that there was something about him, about how he seemed to come into his dominance, that was worth paying attention

to.

Ares grumbled wordlessly under his breath, before he refocused his attention to the two males stood before him.

"Children," he muttered, though he made plenty sure enough that Christopher and Garrak could both hear him easily.

"Garrak," he began, "you're one of the Marrok's wolves; you should know better than to challenge a new wolf, I'd imagine. To make matters worse, you already tried to challenge me, even before I was Changed, and we saw how that matter was dealt with. What is it—do you feel like you have to challenge every new wolf you see? show that you're a dominant wolf? Are you overcompensating for something? is that it?"

He shook his head and continued, "Strangely enough, the Marrok seems to be giving me leeway over you for the moment, and while I want to knock your head in for what I think is pretty gross stupidity, I'm not going to push the leeway he's given me over you by doing so. Just know, Garrak, that from now on, I'll be paying a great deal of attention to you." He gave the young wolf a glaring gaze, before he turned towards the other new wolf.

"And you," he tossed at Christopher, just a touch harsher than his tone with Garrak, "I can't even begin to know how in control of yourself or your wolf you are, or how not in control you are; you're barely days into your connection with your wolf, and you decide that you have to beat your chest and challenge another wolf, someone who likely has more control than you do, and who will likely humiliate you if you don't somehow get you and your wolf working together—did joining with your wolf somehow make you forget to think?" Again, he shook his head, this time with some measure of disgust. "I can only hope that the most that happens is a stare-down between the two of you. But you ran right into this mess, and I'm not about to rescue you from it."

He turned away from the two males, and then paused; he turned towards the other three.

"Diana, Darius, Penelope," he called them each by name, getting the attention of each of the three, "Please don't let your new wolf write a check for you that your ass can't cash, like it seems that Tamara and Christopher have done; if you think you need help in some way with your new wolf, or in figuring some things out about who you are, now that you've been Changed, come to me; I don't guarantee that I'll know what the answers are, but since the Marrok thinks that I'm Alpha material right now and that I'm good enough to be Alpha for you, then that means you should come to me, and if we need to, we will then go to the Marrok to figure out what needs to be figured out. Got it?"

"Yes, Alpha," the three wolves answered, almost in chorus.

The youngest female is stressed, 'Ares' told him, It might be wise to consider speaking with her, to find out what is the matter.

Ares frowned a tad, his gaze focusing on Penelope, who was just about to turn away from him, but almost seemed to sense him looking at her, and returned to very briefly lock eyes with him before she averted her eyes and ducked her head submissively. His frown deepened minutely.

More—many more—than one thought flitted through his conscious thoughts in the space of a few heartbeats, as he gave thought to how he could—how he should—handle Penelope—

You think too much, 'Ares' groused lightly. She is no longer merely human; the wolf in her will respond to your dominance.

"But she still has humanity in her," he countered, "and I can't solve every problem by handling it like how a wolf would."

He turned to look at the Marrok, who seemed to be waiting for him, and he silently gestured for his 'pack' to follow him as he turned to follow the Marrok back to the main house. He paused at the door, holding the screen door for the members of his 'pack', letting them go into the house before him.

"Penelope," he called to her, his voice quiet but commanding; she stiffened just a bit, just enough that he noticed, as she was at the end of the line by then. "Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?" he asked in a softer tone. She stopped moving, but didn't look at him, or even towards him, holding in place as though his words had frozen her. "After food, we'll go for a walk, you and I."

She kept still for perhaps another couple of heartbeats, before she gave a jerky nod of her head, and then continued into the house.

Ares followed her into the house. "Is there someone here who can help me reset a dislocated shoulder?" he called out.

In the time that it took for he and Penelope to go from the main house to the firepit area, Ares had already begun to feel like he was beginning to roast in the heavy coat he was wearing, and he had a momentary flashback to thinking about how cold it had felt to him, just a couple of weeks ago when he had first arrived in Aspen Creek, and of his brief conversation with Sean Cornick about the cold. He'd thought the other man—the wolf—to be just a bit touched in the head. Now, he wasn't sure if he wasn't touched in the head, too. He was almost ready to strip off his coat, no matter the fact that it was as cold as it was, as far north as they were and as relatively close to winter that it was.

He gestured for Penelope to have a seat on one of the circular benches surrounding the firepit, and took a seat himself. Penelope seemed to wait until he sat down before sitting down, herself—and sitting down on the same bench.

The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, until Ares prodded her to speak.

"I'm willing to listen to whatever you have to say," he offered quietly. Her slightly startled jump let him know that she had heard him.

"Where do I start?" she offered in a bare murmur, her tone sounding somewhere between sad, forlorn and frustrated.

"Generally, at the beginning is the best place," he offered back, a twinge of humor in his tone.

"I feel like I'm spinning like a top," she blurted, shoving her hands into her face, covering her cheeks and her eyes, "Just running running running but not going anywhere." She heaved a heavy sigh.

"Allen's dead," she then grunted. "He…he was my…my boyfriend. Well, kinda. He mostly just played at being my boyfriend." She sniffled. "But he's dead. He's dead, and it's my fault."

"How is his being dead, your fault?"

"Because if I hadn't come to try and be Changed, he wouldn't have come either. Coming here was my idea, and he had tried to talk me out of it, but noooo, I just wanted to…to…to give it a try."

"And did you have to talk him into coming here with you?" Ares asked.

Penelope shook her head. "Once he realized that he couldn't talk me out of it, he told me that he was coming with me, that he was gonna try to be Changed, too. He didn't want me to be alone through all this."

"So before I say anything about that, tell me what you mean by "playing at" being your boyfriend?"

"Oh," she blurted, and he could almost hear a bit of embarrassment in the tone of her voice. "Well, I'm….I'm….er…gay?" he could almost hear it as a question, and at the same time, it rang like a off-key note in his ear, dischordant with the melody of the rest of her words. He winced at that almost obvious lie, but he didn't call her on it. "Yeah…well….something like that, anyway," she continued, and while it was another jarring note against the harmonics of her voice, it wasn't quite so much so as the previous lie.

Maybe a little bit of a lie, and a little bit of a partial truth? he wondered to himself.

"He's…well, in LGBT circles, he's kinda like a…a beard," she offered. "It's like—"

"I do know a bit about that," Ares interrupted her with a slight smirk. "So your relationship with Allen—"

"Wasn't sexual," she replied.

Not what I was even thinking of asking, he thought to himself, but I guess that works for an answer as well as any other.

"He…he helped…let's just say that he helped keep me out of trouble," she temporized. "But now I'm in even bigger trouble—"

"One thing at a time," he interrupted her for a second time, trying to calm her down. "We'll get to that in a moment. First, we gotta put this guilt you have to rest."

Ares was quiet for a few moments, letting Penelope sniffle a little while he took a moment to think. "Now it sounds to me like he made his own choice to come here with you, and his own choice to try to be Changed," he offered gently. "I don't think it's your fault, or your responsibility for his choices that ended with his death. He chose this particular path. You didn't choose it for him, and you didn't make him choose it, either.

"This is not your fault, Penelope," he finalized, "I can understand how you would feel that way, but there was nothing you did to make this happen, or that you could have done to prevent it."

"But I—" she began with a gentle sob.

"No," he growled, low, quiet, but with an edge. "He could have made any number of other choices, than to come with you. And even then, he could have chosen to wait for you to be Changed, and not go through with the Change, himself. He made those choices. Not you. This was not your fault."

He fell quiet for a few moments after that, and let the woman quiet and calm herself before he pulled her back into the conversation.

"Now you say you're in bigger trouble," he resumed. "What do you mean by that?"

Penelope blushed, visibly enough that he could see it without trying.

"I won't try to judge you," he offered, trying to assuage her embarrassment, "but tell me." He laced his words with a touch of intention, not only ordering her to tell him, but intentionally trying to use his wolf to speak to the wolf inside of her.

She nodded, with reluctant enthusiasm, but she was quiet for a short while before she spoke.

"Ah-Allen was…like I said, he wasn't really my boyfriend…h-he was…kinda…protecting me." She paused, glancing up at him, before lowering her eye and her head again. "H-he was protecting me from…from being taken advantage of."

A light seemed to turn on in his thoughts.

"You're a submissive," he stated, almost positive that he was correct.

"Huh?" She looked up at him, a slight bit of confusion on her face.

"You…you tend to follow others, rather than lead. Most of the time, if you had to choose between making a choice or following someone else's choices, you'd go along with someone else's choices. You don't like to tell others what to do, and when you have to do it, it's agonizing and sometimes even hurts you a little bit. And doing things for others makes you happier than folks doing things for you to make you happy." He paused. "I'm right, aren't I?"

She nodded, ducking her head again.

"I'm sure there's more, but that's part of what being submissive means," he offered in explanation.

"My wolf is just like me," she blurted. "She's….she's submissive, too." She was quiet for a moment, but Ares could tell that she wasn't quite finished. "She…she's more powerful than I am; when I shifted for the first time, she almost took me over; she didn't want to change back. Ah-And…I mean…ih-it's k-kinda like…like she's a big sister, w-wanting to prot-tect me, s-so she's trying to…I dunno, keep me safe…but then earlier today…"

"Garrak," Ares tossed. "He sniffed you out, you and your wolf, and when he looked at you—"

"She…if Chris hadn't stepped in the way, I…I think she would have taken over, and let…us, do anything he wanted us to do."

"Are you attracted to him?"

She shook her head, almost violently. "B-but he's…he's stronger than she is, than we are," she returned quietly. "Buh…but you're stronger than he is."

"And you want me to be your protector now?"

Penelope nodded.

"I can do that," he offered with a slight smirk. "As long as you see me as your Alpha, and for as long as I can be your Alpha, I will protect you." He paused again, and then added, "Will that help make you feel better?"

"Yeah," she nodded, and seemed to relax a bit after a single, massive bout of shivering.

"Are you going to be alright?" he asked her after a moment's thought.

She nodded, tentatively. "I will be," she temporized, "I still miss him, though," she continued, and looked back at him, her eyes glistening with yet unshed tears. "He was my best friend."

Ares gave Penelope a solemn nod, and gently opened his arms, gesturing for her to slip into his embrace. Without hesitation, she shot into his arms, hugging him tightly, as her composure broke and she began to cry, sobbing heavily.