Hidden in Sheridan (Tainted Series: Book 1)

Moon: WAXING CRESCENT

Levi - “I was ten the first time I was in there,” Sterling explains, he hadn’t been asked but I failed to hide my expression. For some reason, the cage had a magnetic hold on me.

“Oh-Yeah? Why?”

Sterling leans over, his elbows on top of the table. “I accidentally bit somebody as a wolf. It was a small bite, but I broke the skin, tasted blood. When I think back on it, that was a scary feeling. The taste was exciting, and I felt like I was as strong as an alpha. I wanted to keep feeling like that.”

I try to imagine Sterling as a young bloodthirsty cub, but the image doesn’t process. “Who’d you bite?”

“He was the town hermit. Out in the woods digging for mushrooms or maybe growing cannabis, I can’t remember. I was out running and he startled me. I only bit his finger.” He tries to play it off casually but Sterling’s face turns red at the memory.

“I’m guessing this hermit never changed into a werewolf.” I say, half as a joke and half as - well research.

Sterling almost laughs but it doesn’t come out fully.

“No, he went to the hospital and reported a wolf attack. Our family went into lockdown until the authorities cleared the woods of wolf activity. Then at the full moon I went crazy. Mom locked me up with Rory who was struggling with his strength at the time.” He sighed, “I coward in the corner while he spent all night trying to escape.”

Trapped with Rory as a human, I can imagine. Trapped with Rory as a wolf … I can only guess that Wolf Rory is probably much more aggressive.

A phantom tightness enters my chest, and I try to rub it away. “Has anyone ever escaped it?”

“Of course. That’s why that hidden door exists,” he points to the large metal wall we’d entered. “It can only be opened and closed from the other side, plus the padlock on the outside of the cellar doors. You saw how heavy they were? They’re reinforced against alpha strength. Plus, we have a second entrance behind us.” He points to a staircase tucked behind a wall just off from the library. “Mom’s always at the top of those stairs ready to knock us back down.”

“So you’re only put in here when you lose control?”

“Actually, the triplets will be inside soon. It’s around puberty when our strength overpowers all logic.”

“Right, puberty.” I nod. Sensing the jokes that were steadily filling my mind, Sterling glares at me. Then using a stapler, he quickly redirects my attention away from the cage by throwing it at my face.

I catch it and I have to admit I’m loving my new reflexes. Maybe I should reconsider my stance on High School sports.

“What I’m saying is, it’s obvious we’ve bitten humans in the past but no human has ever changed.

“We’re animals not demons. We only kill humans when the pack is in danger. If word got around that we exist, then we’d be hunted.”

“The way you talk about hunters makes me think you’re not referring to some rich guy out hunting for sport.”

Sterling stands and walks to the farthest point of the bookcase. Tracing his fingers along the spines until he finds what he’s looking for. He pulls out a book and tosses it to me. I catch it like I did the others. It’s a smooth cover, made of paper. No writing on the front and it’s wrapped closed with a think leather rope.

“I’ve never met a hunter, but there are all kinds. Mom says the Hollywood craze brought out even more types, but there are specific kinds that are a threat to the supernatural.

“We used to know the names of families but over the years they changed their names or they died off. One of my ancestors, from my mom’s side of the family,” he points to the book in my hands, and I open it, looking through the pages as he continued to explain. “He followed a hunting family until they figured out who he was. He hid his family among the Spanish for many years. Came across the sea after some of Columbus’s ships.”

“But the hunters followed?”

“How could they not? A new world opened up with new creatures to hunt. Turns out another set of Lycanthrope were already here. My dad’s side,” Sterling was again looking through the book spines for another book as he talked, but I know what he was looking for.

“The vikings.” I say and he stops looking.

“That’s right. Bo Ulf was his name, he lead his family across with the some of the viking settlers 500 years earlier.

“They evaded the hunters for the most part but Dad says the lure of hunting demons instead of a bunch of wolves, was more enticing, so we’ve been left alone. As long as we don’t draw their attention back to us.”

“And I might catch their attention.” I say partly to myself but Sterling nods.

“You’re not shifting. You smell a bit different, and you have some abilities but that’s it. It could wear off in a few days.”

It seems Sterling is really convincing when downplaying a crisis. I felt myself smiling while starring deep into the pages of a journal written in the 1600s, by a Lycanthrope named Peter. He followed a family he called Bloodhounds. They possessed a rare ability to sense a lycanthrope from miles away, but he never understood how.

It’s pretty ironic, canines calling humans bloodhounds. I close the book and drop it on the desk in front of me. Dust billows from that spot causing myself and Sterling to cough. “Will understanding this keep me alive?”

After fanning the dust from the air he nervously scratches his chin, “Compassion is not really a pack trait.” The glare sets so easily in my face I don’t realize I’ve done it. Sterling returns to me a fake grin, speaking through clenched teeth, “okay okay. Don’t kill me with your eyes. Compassion may not be my fathers ‘Go To’, but he does look for usefulness. If you’re useful in protecting the pack, he will keep you alive.”

“Your father, the Alpha.” I repeat absently.

Suddenly a sharp pain pokes deep in my gut. It’s brief leaving a lingering hot patch after it passes. I must have winced because Sterlings eyebrows knit together, “Are you okay?”

I shake off his question and pull another book from the shelf. This one had a red cover and a medieval symbol on the front. Like a crest or family mark, the Wolf and the spear. The combination of the two is unsettling. The texture of the book is rough and grainy, more like it’s made of sandpaper and not the tough leather it obviously smells like. I open the cover to see the first pages, cream and textured much like the cover, with flowery words scribbled with mixed up letters. Simple and elegant handwriting, but I feel impossibly dyslexic trying to read it.

I want to know what it says. I even strain my eyes as if looking at it harder is going to magically make me understand it. For the record, it didn’t, and I’m not surprised.

Due to my expression, Sterling notices my internal struggle. Glancing over my shoulder he shakes his head.

“I have no idea.” He says.

“But it’s your book.”

He shrugs and goes about finding another book. I looked back down at the book, turning it over a few times in my hands. No revelation came from it, so I placed the book carefully on the corner of the desk and picked out another.

This one is a deep brown, as if it has been conditioned over the years. It smells strongly of cedar and buffalo-hide. My stomach grumbles at the thought of meat, and that hot pain flickers again in my gut. My hand raises and rests on the place where the bite had once been. The heat fades again.

I open the book and there it was, the name Bo Ulf, in blue ink with English markings in the margins. This is the journal Sterling had mentioned. Someone in the Wolfe family had been dedicated enough to study this book. Though I wish he’d have learned to write in print instead of the elegant cursive which they stopped teaching in elementary school.

‘Being a wolf on water is not an easy thing. The waves one night were particularly treacherous. They tossed unrelenting hoping to throw our families from our haven below deck. Knowing the moon would be full, caused my wife worry. But the girls were strong. To remain in human form . . . ’

This time the pain shot up my back. The book in my hand slams closed and I fall forward. Barely able to brace myself against the stone bookcase with my elbow. I press my head against my arm, the pain again fading but this time leaving spots across my vision. By the time they did, I notice Sterling at my side. He’s repeating my name, however his voice doesn’t reach me until his blurred features come into focus.

“Levi, are you okay? What happened?” It’s clear he’s been repeating those words several times. Worry lines adding years to his face. I wave at him to stop, “What was that?”

“I have no idea.” I moan, standing upright, my body responding as if nothing had gone wrong.

Sterling glances toward the secret opening in the metal wall, still open and letting the warm glow of the late afternoon light in. “Is it in your stomach?”

“Uh, Yes?” I say, knowing full well it wasn’t in my stomach but in the general vicinity. “You think, I’m just hungry?”

Sterling nods, “We haven’t eaten since breakfast. I’ll go get something from upstairs. Are you okay being here alone?”

I reopen the book and shuffle back to a page that looks familiar, “Do you have any ham? I could really go for some ham and bacon.” I joke. I can hear the smirk but Sterling doesn’t say anything. He just leaves the way we came.

The cellar, or library, if that’s what it’s called, is much quieter without him. I can hear my own pulse and my hot breath connect with the air in front of me. I’d completely forgotten about the cold. With no heater in the basement and the doors open, I know it’s several degrees colder inside then it was out in the snow. Yet it’s not uncomfortable. I’m not shivering nor do I need a coat. I pull up my long sleeve to reveal my skin, smooth. No goose pimples or shivers across it.

“What is going on with me?” I ask aloud. Possibly hoping one of the books would shout out the answer. Thankfully they didn’t speak. That level of shock would have stopped my heart.

I hold the old book in my hands and scan my eyes over the others in the Wolfe collection.

The smell of food and the sound of a tray setting down on the hard wood of the desk pulls me out of my trance. Sterling is standing over a pile of cooked meats. Hotdogs, Ham, shredded turkey, cheese and bread.

“Are we making sandwiches?” I ask

“If you want to,” Sterling laughs, “I’m just going to eat it in peaces.” He grabs a piece of bread, a piece of turkey, a piece of cheese and shoved it into his mouth. “Did you find anything?”

I laugh, joining in the meal, “Of course not, you were gone for five seconds.”

Sterling stops chewing and swallows before he speaks. “I was gone for fifteen minutes, man. Mom made me cut up the ham.”

My heart hiccups. I lost fifteen minutes … what was I doing?

I glance over my shoulder at the bookcase again. I hadn’t moved and I had only one thought in my head. There is no way it’d taken fifteen minutes to think it. I look back down at the ham. It’s shredded, as if he pulled it apart instead of cutting it with a knife. “It took you fifteen minutes to do that.”

Sterling rolls his eyes but he decides to own it, “And you’re welcome.”

It’s good to laugh. We ate the entire plate of sandwich pieces. I don’t think meat has ever tasted this good to me before. But the comfortable feeling of a full stomach is short lived. The pain returned, shooting up my back and this time, it doesn’t leave.

This time I fall to the ground, and scream.

CHAPTER END