Eyes Like a Wolf Read online

  Clenching the green glass marble the color of our eyes tightly in my fist and lulled by the rhythm of my brother's heart, I slept.

  Chapter Three

  “We're having a special dinner tonight.” My father's voice was big and hearty, but the look my mother shot him wasn't nearly so cheerful. Still, she nodded her head and gave me a small half-smile when she turned from the kitchen sink to face me.

  “Your father's right, darling. Tonight we're having a—a celebration.” The word seemed to stick in her throat, and she swallowed hard before she continued. “So I made your favorite dinner.”

  “Mmm! I can smell it!” I lifted my nose high to catch the tantalizing scent of bloody raw steak that permeated the air. I knew that other people cooked their meat before they ate it, and I even ate cooked meat myself, as did Richard, for lunch at school. My mother didn't dare send raw meat in our lunches for fear of attracting attention. But even though I could stand the burned, flavorless lumps of animal flesh I had to eat at school, I never really enjoyed them. Not the way I relished the raw delicacies my mother prepared for us at dinnertime.

  “Filet mignon. Your favorite cut, Rache.” Richard had slipped silently into the big, sunny kitchen and was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Yours, too, I thought, son.” My father smiled at both of us and then became serious. “Do you know what we're celebrating tonight? What we're going to be doing after supper?”

  I looked at Richard at once. I had no idea what my father was talking about, but Richard was never without an answer, even to the most confusing question. My big brother was silent for a moment, his pale green eyes very serious.

  “The bonding ceremony,” he said at last. “Is that what we're celebrating? But…isn't Rachel a little young for it, Dad?”

  “She'll be fine,” my father said a little too heartily, cutting off whatever my mother was about to say. “Rachel's a trooper. And besides, it's better you be bonded young as you're the only two of our kind left. Alone among the humans with no other outside Amon-kai besides your mother and I to curb them, your, ah, instincts may rise hard and fast.” My father sounded almost embarrassed, as though he was talking about grown-up matters that were hard to say. I saw Richard's face get red as he nodded briefly. Then my mother dropped the knife she'd been using to carve meat in the sink with a clatter, breaking the strange silence.

  “I'll not have her taken before her eighteenth birthday, Nathaniel,” she stormed at my father. “I don't care what you say or how fast and hard his instincts rise. He'll just have to wait to take her!”

  I looked at them, confused and concerned. “Take me where?” I asked innocently. “Where is Richard going to take me? Why can't we go now?”

  Richard was so red now he looked like the delicate cuts of raw meat my mother had arranged on her best china platter. “Never mind, Rache,” he mumbled, tugging at my hand. “C'mon, let's go set the table so Mom can finish making dinner.”

  I let him lead me into the dining room with its wide, dark, oval table topped with my mother's best lace tablecloth, but I still didn't understand the strange fight that had just gone on in our kitchen. Only one thing was certain—both my mother and father thought they knew what was best for me, but clearly they disagreed on what that was. Was there any way that both of them could be right at once? I didn't see how that was possible, but my life was becoming more complicated all the time. I decided that the safest thing to do was to just stick close to Richard, no matter what. Let my mother and father fight over me and my confusing future all they wanted. As long as they let me stay with my big brother I didn't care.

  * * *

  Dinner was a silent meal, a strange kind of celebration if you asked me. Christmas and Thanksgiving, which we celebrated just like the normal kids at our school, were always times to gather at the table and laugh and talk together. Usually my father and Richard tried to out-do each other with corny jokes, and my mother and I laughed until tears stood in our eyes. But tonight there was a tension in the air I didn't understand and that no one, not even Richard, would explain to me. It caused a knot of fear to form in my stomach and kept me from enjoying the tender, bloody delicacy my mother had prepared. What exactly was the bonding ceremony, and what lay in store for me?

  Looking at Richard, I wasn't surprised to see that he seemed to have lost his appetite, too. He was barely picking at his food, but when he looked up and caught my eye, at least he tried to smile at me. That was more than my mother or father seemed willing to do. Both of them ate in stony silence, never once looking at Richard or me.

  As soon as we all finished eating, I got up to help clear the table, but my father shook his head. “Leave it, Rachel,” he told me. “The moon is rising in the sky outside—I can feel it. It's time for the ceremony to begin.”

  When I thought about it, I realized that I could feel the moon, too. It felt like icy fingertips skating along the nape of my neck, raising prickles and goose bumps all along my spine. I had never stopped to ask myself if other people—normal people—could feel that, too, but I guessed that they probably couldn't. Like seeing in the dark and eating raw meat, feeling the moonrise was just another peculiarity reserved exclusively for the Amon-kai.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, but Richard already had me by the hand and was leading me out into the large garden that filled our backyard. The cool air was perfumed by the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine and the green, growing smell of the grass and trees. And, as always when I was with him, I could smell the warm scent of the Amon-kai. It was on nights like this that my father sometimes took us hunting, an event both Richard and I looked forward to, even though we didn't use guns or nets the way a human hunter would have. We ran down our prey on foot, delighting in the chase. But tonight was not for hunting; it was for the mysterious ceremony I didn't understand.

  I held on to Richard and stepped carefully. My mother loved to plant new flowers but wasn't too particular about getting them in any certain order or keeping them in check. So the garden was a tangle of vines and bushes, some with thorns that would snag my skin if I wasn't careful. But despite the roots and clumps of flowers in the way, not a single one of us stumbled once or made any noise. Not a twig snapped under our feet; not a leaf crunched under our shoes. It didn't occur to me that a normal person would have been crashing around in the darkness, trampling the delicate blossoms my mother cared for with negligent grace. I only knew that this was normal for us—for the Amon-kai. We were silent in the darkness because we were at home in its velvety depths. At home in a way that only wild animals can be.

  At last we reached the clearing in the middle of the sweet-smelling wilderness, a little bare spot left free of flowers where only the soft, whispering, sweet grass grew. Richard stopped and stood, still holding my hand, in the center of the grassy circle. My parents came to face us, and for the first time, I noticed that my mother was holding the sharp silver knife she had been using earlier in the kitchen. My heart started to beat triple time, and I squeezed Richard's fingers hard. He squeezed back reassuringly and murmured in my ear that everything would be all right. I wanted to tell him I was scared, but just then my father began to speak.

  “Tonight as the full moon rises, we gather not as a family, but as a pack. In the old days, there would have been hundreds of us here instead of only four. But numbers do not matter to us now. We gather as Amon-kai to bind this male to this female,” he intoned in a deep, solemn voice. “It is a night for promises made, promises to be kept in the future when you, Rachel, and you, Richard, are ready to fulfill them. It is a night of oneness. A night of magic. And on this night only, until years from now when you are grown and the time grows ripe for you to seal the bond between you, will you feel the pain and pleasure of the other and know that you are one. Richard.” He turned toward my brother, his pale green eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. “Do you wish to take Rachel as your Lana-zeel?”

  Richard nodded, as solemn a