Feral Passion

“He said he was a wolf, only the difference Was, a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside, His on the inside”

The Dutchess of Malif (5.2. 16-18)

Every day of the last thirteen years had been a bad day for Robin Lovel. And somehow, today descended to new and exciting lows.

The cold that had settled into the man’s fingertips was blistering, and the pain of not-quite deadened nerves sent his hands into an involuntary tremble. His palms were no warmer, nor the crooks of his elbows, nor armpits. Hell, even when Robin leaned against the low brick wall behind him and released a sigh of breath into the bitter sky, the white plume of warm air seemed weaker and more fleeting than it should be in New York, in the end of January, and in the dead of night.

Dead is what you’re going to be soon, if you don’t find yourself some shelter.

The voice of reason did not make him feel motivated to move. What the hell was the point? Sure, he could grow his fur, possibly find his way back to the quieter areas of Central Park, maybe even bury himself in some snow to keep warm. And then tomorrow? And the next day?

He supposed he could just exist as a wolf. Until someone assumed he was a rabid dog and shot him.

Dramatic.

It was.

The truth was Robin was just too tired to give a shit anymore. For thirteen years he had lived in isolation. Thirteen years he had struggled to live outside of the Neutral Grounds and the network of support those places provided to wolves. Thirteen years, without family or friends. Where he had struggled to live as an animal, and failed to live as a man.

And now he was so tired.

And it was all his fault.

Seanna, I am so sorry that I let you down. If I die from the cold tonight, can you at least wait until the morning to be mad at me?

Somehow, he didn’t think his dead wife would care.

The approach of the two drunken men had interrupted Robin’s musing. They trudged through the snow, rancorous laughter echoing before them in warning. The laughter gave Robin more insight into their level of intoxication than the gentle, meandering sway that both of the men seemed oblivious of as they clung to each other in the night.

Central Park was full of drunks. Most of them were like Robin: homeless, lonely men and women who desperately wanted the burn of alcohol to keep them warm.

These two were not among that number. Their thick coats should have kept them warm enough that they wouldn’t have needed alcohol.

For a moment, Robin assessed the pair, determining how useful it would be to reach out his hand and to ask for some change. Would the almost sure rejection be worth the risk of losing a finger to the cold?

But the men who approached would not make good marks. Robin smelled them even before they were within ten feet of him. Booze, and sweat, and sick clung to them in a miasma. Here was a pair who had spent most of their night in clubs, spending their cash on drinks well over what a frail human body should be able to hold.

The phrase ‘puke and rally’ slipped unbidden into Robin’s mind, and he decided that it would be best to make himself invisible and wait for the pair to make their way back into the night.

It was when two other men joined them suddenly from another path that Robin’s senses pricked and his instincts sharpened.

A fifth trailed behind, joining the group which had lost its momentum and now huddled together. Five dark, well bundled figures merged in the shadows of the dimly lit park, and as fresh snow fell, Robin heard the words that would end up being his death sentence:

“We’ve all done it. And he’s just some homeless guy…”

Thirteen years of bad luck crescendoed, and Robin tried very hard to care.

He continued to try as the man weaved across an icy path to Robin’s brick wall, where he had hidden himself against the bolted down garbage can.

He tried to care as the dim yellow light of the lamps overhead revealed the glint of metal in a gloved hand.

He tried to care. He really did. But he was cold, and his breath didn’t even create a cloud thick enough to hide the fact that the barrel of the gun was pointed directly at him.

And he really, really should have just let the kid pull the trigger.

“How are you going to aim, holding your gun like that?”

The words croaked out of a dry, cold throat, and Robin swallowed hard before licking his lips and trying again with a little more volume, “Look down your sights, for goodness’ sake. You can’t see what you’re fuckin’ shootin’, Short-stop.”

The man with the gun, who was more of an adolescent now that the light had hit his face, looked with uncertainty at his weapon and then back over his shoulder at his friends. They jeered and gestured, and when he turned back, the boy with the gun bared his teeth and said, “Hey, shut up! Don’t you see I got a gun to your face?”

Robin nodded. Or shook his head. He wasn’t sure which gesture he’d actually managed. “I see that when the gun kicks back, you’re gonna shoot about four inches high and to the right, because you’re holding that thing like you’re scared pullin’ the trigger’s going to shoot you instead.”

And even knowing that he should have laid down and died, quietly and without complaint, Robin pulled himself to his feet. It was a motion that took tremendous effort, and he gestured listlessly for the gun that still pointed in his direction. “Gimme that. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

To further his point, the boy stepped back and shook the gun instead of pulling the trigger. “Hey, I said get back!”

Robin didn’t have anywhere to retreat, because the wall was behind him, but he raised his hands as if to say that he meant no harm. Of course, he didn’t, but the kid didn’t know that. “All I’m sayin’ is that if you want to shoot me, you need to hold your gun, not limp-wrist it.”

“I said back!” Another wild gesture, another step backward from the wrong individual. More taunts from the group behind.

They and their words were a blur. Unimportant. What was important was the boy in front of him. The boy who was scared. Scared of him. But more than that, scared of the gun and the men behind him.

Robin felt his skin prickle and grow warm as the craft that lived inside of him churned and considered which part of himself was best suited to handle this particular situation. He fought it. Five sets of eyes was one thing. Five wagging tongues would get him into more trouble than he was already in. And he was so tired of being in trouble.

The gun went off. Robin’s hand gripped the trembling hand of the youth, the barrel of the weapon pointing upward, toward an empty sky.

He expected he would get to the youth before he could pull the trigger, but he also expected that he’d have been able to wrestle it away from him before the kid fired the shot.

Somehow, the sound of the gunshot, more than his movement, seemed to spur the others of the small group into action, and they descended like wolves.

Which was ironic, actually, and Robin couldn’t help but laugh at the image even as they wrestled him from the boy and knocked roughly to the ground. Five sets of feet kicked hard and heavily into his body. He curled into a ball, not entirely out of a desire to protect himself as much as because being back on the ground was cold and wet.

Good thing he was so cold. If he was thawed out, they might actually do some real damage to him.

The absurdity of that thought sent him laughing as well, and his laughter put more force behind the kicks that found their marks.

A boot kicked his head and sent his ears ringing and his eyes funny. So much so that Robin almost missed the moment when the sound started.

Almost.

Somewhere under all the grunting and cursing came a low, jagged snarl. Mean, feral, and deep.

“Hey, stop, stop, stop!” One of the group grabbed at the others, looking around even as he pulled them up on their assault. “Hear that? What’s that?”

Again, the sound, and one by one, the scents of Robin’s five assailants shifted from violence into fear.

“That’s a big dog, man…”

“Man, that ain’t a dog.”

If it weren’t for the incessant, rippling snarl, the night would have been silent.

From where Robin lay, he could not see what had caught their attention, but he could smell the newcomer, and Robin hoped to god that it would just leave him to die.

No such luck. A sudden burst of movement. First from the thing lurking in the darkness. Then from the five young men who had nothing better to do with their night than to commit murder.

Had they been less drunk, the situation might have played out differently. Perhaps one of them would have remembered the gun. Perhaps one of them would have tried his luck with the thing that had lunged into the pale, flickering light of the lamp.

As it was, the warning growl became a violent and angry sound, tearing through the bitter night. The high, frightened scream of one of Robin’s assailants punctuated the sound.

Robin did not look up. He didn’t need to look up to know that they ran. Nor to know that the wolf now sat neatly in front of him, the pair of them lit by the low light of the lamp.

When Robin bothered to look, untangling his arms from around his head and blinking up into the lamplight, he was confronted by a steady, knowing gaze. The animal that was not an animal heaved a sigh at Robin’s expense.

Its breath plumed, Robin noted jealousy as he pushed himself into a seated position. His ribs twinged painfully, and bones ground together uncomfortably. He coughed and wheezed, a warm, new penny tang coating his mouth, and assessed the damage. Fatal, if he had been human, at least without medical aid. As a wolf, he would live, albeit uncomfortably for the next few days.

“Funny meeting you here,” he wiped his mouth and scooted away from the wolf to press his back against the brick wall. The wall and the trash can shielded him from the worst of the winds.

The wolf stared at him unblinkingly. Tawny and rusted fur caught large and sticky flakes of snow, suspending them away from the wolf to create yet another layer of insulation in the cold. One ear flicked at Robin judgmentally.

Robin made a sound of disgust. “You’re a long fuckin’ stretch from your own club, Oisin.”

“Aye, but still within my own reach, aren’t I?”

The shift from wolf to man was a difficult thing to comprehend. To say “shift” implied all manner of anatomical rearrangement. To say “phased” implied some sort of magic mist. And “change” suggested it was an act akin to donning a coat. But it was none of those things.

A wolf was neither Homo Sapien, nor Canis Lupus. He was both, and he was more.

A wolf did not have a separate form. A wolf always was exactly what he was, and words such as shift, or change, or phase, or transform only complicated the very simple fact that where there had been a large wolf, there was now a lean, wiry man with a broad Irish lilt.

“You look a state an’ a half,” the man complained. “What the hell have you been doin’ to yerself the last thirteen years?”

“Struggling.” Robin pressed back against the wall and closed his eyes as he reached into his coat to rub at sore ribs. “You?”

“Runnin’ my club, ye twat.” Oisin flopped himself into the snow next to Robin, his back also against the wall, legs bent. He adjusted his scarf and complained idly about his missing hat.

“Never get a witch yer shit, laddie, let me tell yeh that now. Even just to try it on. You’ll not get it back. She’ll walk off an’ leave ye hatless quicker ‘n ye can say free feckin’ cupcake.”

Robin ignored the rambling speech, its lack of context making it of little interest to him.

He did not ignore the way Oisin fished inside his interior coat pocket, however. Nor the gloved hand which emerged with a small bottle of whiskey.

“Here, lad. That’ll warm yeh.”

Robin took the bottle, shaking his head as he pulled off the top and took a swig. The liquid was a thick, golden burn down all the way down his throat and into his belly. It lit an artificial fire, and Robin shuddered at the fake warmth that spread slowly into his extremities.

A small part of him from thirteen years ago woke up and informed him it was a very nice bottle of whiskey. The part of him that existed solely in the present informed that small part to be quiet, and to stop trying to make him care about things that would be gone before he could draw a breath.

“That rough, eh?”

Robin almost spit at the question. “You think?” he bared his teeth at the wolf next to him, bristling as Oisin did not even give him the courtesy of responding in kind. But then, why would he? Robin was weak, injured, underfed and probably a few more cold winter weeks from freezing to death. Oisin was the wolf that had garnered the respect of every wolf, vampire, and spellcrafter on the East side of the States.

He was also the bastard who had sentenced Robin to a slow and uncertain death thirteen years ago.

As if knowing his thoughts, the Irishman shook his head and sighed. “I didn’t want to banish you, Robin. Yeh know I didn’t. But yeh broke the rules, mate. And not a little rule that I could ignore. The big feckin’ rule wrapped up in neon signs that I built my entire establishment on from the start. That rule. And yeh broke it knowingly and willingly.”

Robin didn’t need the reproach. Not on top of everything else. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t remember the day.

“Why are you here, Oisin?” His own defeat resonated in his ears as he gave the man next to him a long suffering look. “Was exiling me not enough? Did you decide you needed to check on me to make sure I wasn’t too comfortable in my isolation?” His laugh was bitter and caused him to cough. “I can assure you that there’s no danger of that. I’m just as fucking miserable as when I left Nola.”

Just as lost. Just as full of sorrow.

Oisin remained silent as Robin took another swig of the whiskey. He still wasn’t warm, but with almost half of this bottle down his gullet, he could at least pretend he was warm now.

When he finished, Oisin said, “I’m not here to talk to yeh about why I banished yeh, Roe. And I’m not here to compound yer misery.”

“You sure about that? I was just about to find the end of it there, before you intervened.”

Oisin looked into the darkness, in the direction that the boys had scattered. Dark eyes glinted yellow as they reflected the light of the lamp overhead. Ears flicked, and the wolf licked his muzzle before the man sat back in thought.

Whatever occupied his mind, however brief, Oisin didn’t share. But then, the man never did. If sixty-five years of dealing with the Irish tosser had taught Robin anything at all, it was that no one really knew what was going through the mind of Oisin Mactir. No one but Oisin. And sometimes not even him.

The Irishman turned back, his gaze landing on Robin with a canine grin. “Yeah, I’m sure it was. And I’ll be happy to let yeh get back to it, if yer desperate. But I think you’ll want to hear me out before I do.”

“I’m listening, Oisin.” He had no choice. He was too cold and too tired to move again. Still, he closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the other wolf’s breathing, and pretended that he didn’t mind the man sitting there.

“I’m gonna give you an opportunity that I’ve never given anyone before, laddie,” Oisin nudged him once to make sure he was paying attention. “I’m gonna let you back in.”

Robin opened one eye and said nothing as Oisin stood and brushed snow from clean cut brown trousers. He said nothing as the other wolf offered him a hand.

“You’re lifting my banishment?” He tried to keep the hope out of his voice. To replace it with suspicion and anger. But all he wanted was to have the stability of the Grounds and the network of wolves to acknowledge that he existed again. He wanted to feel safe, to know that he was among his own kind, and that there would be a place for him that wasn’t against a wall in a snowbank next to an old trash can in Central Park. “After thirteen years of being out in the cold? You’re letting me back in.”

“Aye.” A hand had never looked so much like a snake.

“And what’s the catch?”

Oisin chuckled and tapped his nose with one finger of the opposite hand. “That is a conversation for when you’re fed, showered, dressed, and warm. Don’t you think?”

So there was a catch.

Robin looked at the hand still outstretched, and he asked himself how much he wanted to walk into the unknown.

He asked himself whether that unknown was worth risking the certainty of his own death.

I’m sorry, Seanna. I won’t be home tonight after all. Best to tuck the girl into bed. To promise I’ll see her another day…

He gripped the hand and let it haul him up. “I assume you’re buying.”

Oisin chuckled. “Aye, lad. I’m buyin’.”