Inherent Instinct (In Another Life Part Five)

Chapter Six

When Serana returned with Salem and a satchel of useful herbs and roots, Elayn was staring off into space and didn't notice she was there until she was nearly two feet from her. Serana could tell because she jumped about a foot in the air when Serana cleared her throat.

“Oh, hey,” she said when she recovered, rubbing the back of her neck. “I didn't see you.”

Clearly, Serana thought with some amusement, but didn't say it out loud. The bond gave her the feeling it wouldn't get the effect she wanted. And there was something else, what it was specifically she wasn't sure, but Elayn clearly had a lot on her mind.

“Where's Claude?” she asked, glancing around.

The question brought a spike of something across the bond, but it was gone again for she could focus on it clearly. All Elayn said was, “Hunting.”

Serana hummed, and arranged her skirts so she could sit beside her werewolf. “Got something on your mind?”

Elayn grunted.

“Want to share?”

She aimed a look at Salem, who disappeared from view.

Serana frowned and turned her body to look directly at her.

Elayn sighed and dragged a hand over her face. “Just… I'm learning that the way I looked at my life, what I am, might be completely different from what I thought.”

Rather than asking for clarification, she waited for her werewolf to find her words and go on.

And Elayn knew it, from the half-fond, half-exasperated look she gave her, before she went back to frowning as she put her thoughts together.

“My pack… Did not treat the weak well,“ she said slowly, picking her words carefully. “And as a child, I was weak. It turns out that the way my pack did things was very wrong, for werewolves. Which means… I'm not fighting a legacy of violence. Not really.”

“What do you mean?” Serana asked gently.

Elayn looked at her hands, closed them into fists and opened them again to stare at her palms. “I'm not… bound to become a monster. That changes things.”

She frowned at her werewolf. “My love, I told you before, you're far from a monster.”

“But I'm even farther than I thought,” she explained. “It's not something I have to fight. The opposite, really, from what Claude told me.”

When Serana still looked confused, she smiled tiredly and reached out to cup her face. “It just means I've got some things to rethink,” she said. “But, I think, it's in a good way.”

“It'd better be,” Serana said, reaching up to put her hand over the one on her face. “Do you need to talk more?”

“I'll be fine,” Elayn said, and it sounded like something she could believe. “Now tell me what you found.”

—————

The materials Serana had gathered were good for a soporific poison. If they packed a corpse full of it, the Monster would poison itself while it ate, hopefully making it easier to fight.

There was a lot Elayn was putting to faith. She tried not to think about it too hard.

Claude came back with the carcass of a deer with red-tinged fur. By the time he did, Serana had mixed the ingredients together as well as she was likely to manage without access to her lab. But, she assured Elayn, it should be powerful enough subdue something six times the size of Elayn's wolf form, so hopefully it would work.

The next trick was finding a good place to stage the ambush. To that end, Elayn went out with Claude's instructions to find a ravine with a sheer drop on one side, and a gentler incline on the other side. There were many trees in the ravine, and one in particular seemed big enough to hold the three of them while they waited for the Monster to show.

But how to make it appear? Claude had an idea for that.

“The Monster came while my pack sang to the moon,” he explained. “If we sing, it should be drawn to us.”

This was going to be tricky. For one thing, she and Claude would have to be in their wolf form to sing, and then change quickly to climb the tree to be out of danger when the Monster came.

“And how do we even know it will come?” she asked him.

“You'll know,” he told her gravely. “The birds will flee the trees and the moon will glow red. Then we will have to hurry.”

If it helps, Salem added. I can cloak us in shadow once we're in the tree. It shouldn't notice us then.

By the time they had all this worked out, it was nearly dawn again, and they had to return to the cave to sleep. At least, to try to. While Serana fell unconscious as soon as the sun peeked over the trees, Elayn couldn't find the peace within herself to lie down. Even her four legged form brought no respite. So she sat as far from the others as she could, so as not to disturb them, alone with her thoughts.

Who had been that strange old man she found? And what about that story? It certainly sounded like a werewolf origin myth, so reminiscent of the situation she faced now with the Monster. Had he known what she was? And how had he disappeared so readily?

One thing she knew, she would not be able to fight the Monster. Not if it had the power to control her four legged shape. It seemed it was either the power of the alpha or a shape that protected Claude from the madness, and she hoped fervently that it was the second. But there was no way to know until the time came. That sat ill with Elayn.