Wolves' Bane (The Order of the Wolf, #3)(18)
He motioned for me to sit, but I shook my head. Crossing my arms, I moved to gaze out the window instead, too wired for anything else. I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to ravage Cal right where he stood. I didn’t want to touch him with a ten-foot pole.
“What the hell is going on here? I feel like there’s some inside joke and I’m it!”
“You are far from a joke, Morgan.” His words were rough, almost a growl. “You are a Huntress. Or at least, you will be.”
I clenched my jaw. Cryptic answers—that was all Cal had given me. Promises of information to come but nothing that made any sense. I turned toward him, my anger burning. “Okay Cal, listen, I’ve been a pretty good sport so far—going along with you and your decisions without having all of the information, but that stops now. I need to know why I’m here and if you don’t tell me, then I’m going to walk out that door and get on with my life.”
Cal’s eyes grew wide as he moved toward me. “You can’t leave, Morgan.”
I took a step back, my hands raised to ward him off. “What does that mean?”
Cal sighed and took a few steps back. “Will you just sit down? Please.”
He moved to a wingback chair and sat, his huge body dwarfing it in a ridiculous way. I stifled a bitter chuckle, shook my head and sat across from him, eyeing him suspiciously as he rubbed his hand over his face.
“Okay, so we told you about Lazarus and the werewolves. You know about The Order of the Wolf.” He ran his hand along the tattoo on his arm.
I leaned forward. “Cal, what I want to know is what the hell is bonding and why did Candy seem to think it should have happened already?”
Cal sucked in a breath, swearing as he released it. “When did Candy…” He waved his hand. “Oh, never mind. I should have told you.” He sighed. “The Order of the Wolf has been in existence for centuries. We are Hunters, born from an ancient bloodline. Our purpose is to protect the Huntress—our Huntress. We are marked, we spend our youth training, and when we are called forth, when our Huntress is found, we must locate her before the wolves do. It is the Huntress, and only the Huntress, who can kill the beasts.” He motioned toward me. “You are a Huntress.”
I gawked at him, for once totally speechless, my mind reeling. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him—hell, I’d swallowed the existence of werewolves whole and didn’t even choke. But to suggest that I was somehow an integral part of this new world was beyond me.
“It has been a long time since we’ve succeeded in finding a Huntress. Up until we had the Oracle, we relied on these ancient texts to help us locate the next girl and we weren’t usually successful. For years, we consistently arrived too late. The beasts are drawn to their Huntresses on instinct, stumbling into encounters by accident, usually. But that’s not the case with Lazarus and his pack. We’re not sure how, but it appears that he’s able to locate Huntresses just as we are, sometimes more efficiently. There have been twenty-four girls, before you, who have been found by Lazarus and his pack first.”
“Wh-wh-what happened to them?” I stuttered, my mind slowly working through the fantastical information.
Cal shook his head. “Dead. All of them. That’s why you’re so special—we got to you first. And there’s a link between you and Lazarus, something in you that he wants. If you fight and defeat him, you could save us all. Without their king, the other wolves will be easier to dispatch. And we need to get control over this situation. The wolves’ ranks are growing. Lazarus’s pack is huge, with lieutenants heading smaller packs under his command all over the U.S. They’ve begun attacking humans, killing the ones they don’t select as additions to the pack. It’s the role of the Huntress to protect the humans from the wolves—with her Hunter’s help, that is.”
“Okay, this is very hard to accept. I mean, look at me.” I raised my arms out in front of me and scanned my body. “I can’t fight, I can’t kill anything. I can barely fend off a bee. How am I supposed to battle a werewolf?”
Cal sighed again. “You’ve been chosen. It’s part of your DNA. You were born to be a Huntress, but you won’t feel like one until we’re bonded. The bonding that should have happened between us already.” He clenched his jaw briefly, clearly picking over his words, deciding what to tell me.
I reached over and touched his hand. “Cal? Will you please just tell me the truth?” Words from Cal, truthful words from him, seemed to be easier to take, and to believe for some bizarre reason.
Cal locked eyes with me again. “Okay. The truth.” He ran his hand along the back of his neck. “So the truth is, when we bond you take on my powers, and you adopt part of my strength as well. You become infused with my knowledge. You will know everything you need to know.”
I pulled my hand away. “How exactly does one bond? I mean, it sounds like some kind of union…like sexual…are you saying I have to have sex with you to realize my full potential…because if you are, that’s the lamest…”
“It’s not necessarily about sex, Morgan.” He paused and frowned. “Although one usually comes with the other.”
When I opened my mouth to speak again, he shook his head and continued, stealing my words before I could utter them. “I know it sounds like a shitty pick-up line or something, and technically, I suppose we don’t have to have sex to bond…but it’s kind of…unavoidable. When the bonding process begins, we’ll both be overwhelmed by the desire to be with each other in every possible way. I don’t know why it works that way—it’s not explained very clearly in the texts. It’s something to do with both a spiritual and physical connection that helps a bonded pair to defeat the beasts. It’s meant to be a deep connection. I’ve been told that it’s the strongest relationship you’ll ever have.”