I stood at the top of the stairs, just outside the front doors of the cabin that made up the House Werewolf home, and watched the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen.
Viktor stood just behind me, not touching me but still offering comfort. Which was ridiculous really. It's not like I had lost a family member, I was just feeling emotional, I guess.
Mourning was something that was both very private but also very public at the same time. Each person dealt with things like death in their own way. Some hide and licked their wounds in private while others sought the comfort of others. The wolves had their private time to mourn the killing of so many pack members, and now was time for the public funeral.
Vlad had an excuse and left, leaving Viktor and me as the only 'humans' to witness how wolves mourned. Lucas slammed open the door right beside me, giving me a quick glance before he started ripping off his clothes as he launched himself down the steps to the waiting wolves.
Not a single one of them maintained their human form for this was not the time for human emotions.
I was told once that life as a wolf was much simpler than that of a human. They worried about their pack, about having food, about having a mate, but concepts like the future were never at the forefront of their minds like it was with their human counterparts.
To a wolf, death was another fact of life. They didn't dwell on it, they mourned and then moved on.
Lucas, the biggest, blackest wolf I had ever seen tilted back his head and let out a howl that seemed to echo off of the trees and rose to the very moon itself. There must have been over 1,000 wolves that took up the song, their voices harmonizing better than any human singer could.
The melody started out small, hollow. Like the empty feeling that you get when you first heard that someone you loved died. Then the song increased in volume as the rage and denial clearly grabbed hold of them and they couldn't believe what had happened.
The song continued, this time dropping off, almost sad. Lucas's voice was the only one to sing this part, the other wolves simply hung their heads, their ears twitching back and forth and their tails swished on the ground. I could feel the tears in my eyes start to fall as I continued to listen.
The melody changed again, this time raising up in joy and happiness, the rest of the pack joining Lucas as their body shook with excitement and eagerness. With a final yelp, the wolves stood up and shot into the forests, their barks and cries no longer sad.
"Fie ca tu să vânezi pentru totdeauna în cer,
Fie ca burțile tale să,
fie pline și fericirea să te găsească mereu."
The words Lucas spoke created goosebumps over my skin as I watched him looking up at the moon.
"May you forever hunt in the skies,
May your bellies be full,
and may happiness find you always."
I translated out loud, the magic of the words wrapping me up in their embrace. "That is how wolves mourn," said Viktor as he placed a hand on the small of my back and guided me down the steps toward his men and the waiting SUVs. "They will run until they can't take another step and when the sun comes up in the morning, the dead will be at rest and the pack will move on."
"Seems so much better than the human way of doing things," I said with a smile. It was… peaceful… the way they did it. They mourned for their dead like it was their own hearts that had been ripped out, but then it was over, the spirits of the dead were sent off and that was the end of it.
"Everything is better than the human way of doing it," chuckled Viktor as he opened the SUV and helped me inside. When the door closed after him, I turned to look at him.
"Do you truly believe that Vlad has nothing to do with it?" I asked, searching his face.
"I know you don't understand, you still remember him as he was when he was human. But a lot has changed after he became a vampire. The things… this is the way he copes with the darker side of his nature. But that doesn't mean he would be willing to kill so many wolves. No, it has to be someone else."
I nodded my head. He was right, he knew the Vampire Vlad better than I ever could. But I knew serial killers and psychopaths. And that vampire was not playing with a full deck of cards.
I would let Viktor look into different possibilities, but I was not going to ignore Vlad simply because he had a hard time dealing with his monster.
'Any clue about Vlad through the threads?' I asked my monster. If I could see the taint, then I would be able to do something about it.
'The universe is moving as it should,' was the answer my monster gave me.
'All those deaths, and they didn't impact fate?'
'They died when they were supposed to die. We are simply the keepers of fate; we cannot save anyone from theirs.'
'Then what does this mean?' I asked. If things were progressing as they should, then what on Earth was going to come next?
'It means that some people need a hard lesson to learn, and others are the hard lesson.'
Have I mentioned that I really hated it when my monster got all cryptic and philosophical? It really sucked. Taking in a deep breath, I thought about what she said. The most important thing was that we were all on the correct path, everything was happening just as it should. And that this was going to be a lesson for someone or someones. I just had no idea who.
'Everything will become clear,' my monster reassured me before she retreated back into the recess of my mind.
I huffed out a frustrated breath, not bothering to ask the questions that burned in my gut.