Quinn Shalom...

I scrambled away from the Gray Raver, rolling onto my hands and knees to get up, being over seven months pregnant and the largest I had ever been, made moving an exercise in whale-like clumsiness. I backed away from him toward the gaping hole where the large picture window had been. The Ravers' howls and Mr. Black's unearthly bellows echoed off the mountains as I rushed out into the snow beyond the empty frame. They had him down in the snow and I screamed at them to stop. I was surprised that they actually backed away from him. I knelt over the mangled demon. His wings were torn apart. One of his hands was missing. His whole body was clawed and bitten. Black blood oozed out of his missing eye and from the deep, ragged bite wound on his neck.

I knew he was evil, but it still broke my heart to see him dying this way. "Mr. Black, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry they killed you," I sobbed.

His dark eye stared at me from his confused gargoyle face. "Youuu came," he wheezed out as I cradled his head. The demonic form of his beast melted away into his human-looking body, making his wounds look so much worse. The Ravers prowled around us but didn't interfere.

"Of course, I came, I care. I didn't want you to suffer and die this way," I whispered to him honestly.

He wheezed, coughing black blood weakly. Reaching out, he clutched the shoulder of my cloak. His strange deep voice sounded faint and far away, "Missstrrresss, thank you forrr yourrr kindnesssss. Do not let the Massssterrrrr find you." Strange wisp of dark smoke swirled over the surface of my crimson cloak leaving dark marks. "He wantsss... to consssssummme... yourrrr sssssoul. Keep... cloak... will... hide... you."

His last word was more of an exhale than a spoken word. His hand dropped, and he evaporated into a dark mist, floating away toward the shadows of the night. His blood was gone from my hands, but my crimson cloak was now covered with strange swirls and symbols. Mr. Black's last act was to make something to hide me from someone more evil than he.

A low growl made me look up at the monstrous wolf head of the Gray Raver. Suddenly, I was more angry than afraid, and shouted at it, "You didn't have to kill him!"

The monstrous beast roared at me in a way that vibrated my whole body and terrified my wolf, but I didn't look away. I just stood there, fists clenched like a fool, challenging a monster that could end me in a heartbeat. Snarling, he picked me up bridal-style and stalked into the dark forest. The other Ravers followed. Mr. Black wounded most of them. I bitterly wondered if this had been some form of redemptive suicide, he had to know there was no hope of winning. Behind us, strange black and purple flames consumed the mansion where I lived the last several weeks.

In truth, I had no idea how long I had been there, it was all such a haze until I stopped drinking the tea. Tears ran down my cheeks, but I didn't wipe them away. I said a prayer for Mr. Black that he found peace in whatever afterlife was given to his kind. He was a creature of darkness and shadow, but in the end, I believed he too deserved grace. He was my captor and not my friend, but he didn't deserve to die like that. No one did, yet so many had, and I feared more would follow.

The big red Raver whined, as if sensing my distress, but the Gray just snapped his maw at him. I was trapped, terrified and alone, with no hope of escape or rescue. All I could do was pull my crimson cloak tighter around me and wonder where they were taking me. They were moving faster across the dark terrain than I would have believed possible for nearly blind creatures. I tried to stay awake, but I was exhausted in every way. The rocking motion of being carried was lulling me to sleep. The dark trees flew past the view allowed by my hood. I pulled it lower as the wind started blowing. Clouds hid the stars and moon; a storm was coming.

VvvvvV

When I woke, a different Raver was carrying me. The Gray had two slightly smaller, and wounded Ravers over his shoulders as he stomped through the forest ahead of us. It was a startling thing to see Ravers caring for their own. I had watched the monsters eating wounded Ravers alive in the cities. I looked around. the storm was almost touching the ground. Everything was a hazy shade of winter; the snow blew so thick around us. The trees were groaning from the force of the wind and the air hurt to breathe because it was so bitterly cold.

I looked up at the Raver carrying me; it was the rusty red one who saved me from the vampire Raver in the parking lot of the school. I turned my face toward his shoulder trying to catch the heat radiating off him in my hood, but something in his fur caught my eye. On his left shoulder was the same pack tattoo as Saul, Will, and Jacob had, as all Monarch Mountain wolves had, but on his right shoulder was a number. A year surrounded with cursive script. I traced the swirling looping writing with my fingertip, JULIA above the number and RICHARD below. I knew those names. I knew who this Raver once was. Saul told me their story, and, for a moment, I wanted to weep.

"Are you Richard? Julia's big red bear?" I don't know why I asked, I knew the answer, but I wanted to know if he knew the answer. I wanted to know if the Alpha of Monarch Mountain was still somewhere inside this monster.

He stopped and looked down at me, trembling. I could see that his eyes were green behind the cloudy white corneas. He made a whining sound in his throat. I could feel his grief at the mention of her name. It made my heart hurt.

"I helped Saul bury your family's ashes. We burned all the bodies we found and put the ashes in the grotto where the dead are kept. I'm sorry she died, Saul said she was a wonderful person."

A lot of wonderful people died that night, I thought bitterly.

We didn't die that night, my wolf reminded me.

He raised his head and howled like a dying soul as he sunk to his knees, clutching me tightly against him. He bowed his head, making strange chuffing sounds between whines. All I could do was rub his cheek. How does a person comfort someone who was probably the murderer of his wife and unborn child under the influence of a biochemical weapon?

The Gray started growling at us, so Richard stood and started walking again. I realized that these Ravers weren't like the others or maybe they were. Some of the Ravers I had seen hunted together, fought together, but they would hunt any and everything, including other ravers. I tried to make sense of the behavior I witnessed then and now, but then, I never let one live long enough to see if they were anything more than mindless killing machines.

All these Ravers were the survivors of the Monarch Mountain Pack, I knew the big gray one must be related to Saul, Will, and Jacob. He looked just like them, especially how Jacob looked that night. The ring and the mark on my neck were my only connection to Jacob Vanguard, beyond the child he left in my body that night. I had never met him, or even heard of the Alpha Commander, or the North American Werewolf Monarchy before the week after the Revelation Night.

I fingered the ring on the chain around my neck. Was it because they considered me one of their pack?

Yes, we are the Alpha Female, my wolf insisted, The Luna as Molly would say. I decided loony was a better term than Luna.

I wondered why Jacob and Will recovered and these had not. We still didn't know why Clark and Rand recovered. Greyson thought it had to do with the concentration of exposure. I needed my laptop and my notes, I wished I could talk to Greyson about their behavior, if he was still alive. I hoped these Ravers weren't just taking me somewhere to kill me the way Julia died. The thought of her mangled body, with the baby torn out and eaten, made me cringe.

Had Richard done that, did he remember?

After Will showed up and I heard his story, I tried to see him and his brother as victims, like fellow survivors, but after what they had done to Molly and me, it was so hard. The thoughts of that night and Molly led to thoughts of Miles, and then Kenneth. The child that was meant to be my husband's, the baby brother Molly and Miles always wanted, kicked me. I couldn't stop the tears that ran down my face as I rubbed my belly. Richard sniffed the bump and whined. He lost his mate and children that night as well.

"I lost my family too. Jacob and Will killed them that night, then Jacob raped me and marked me. It wasn't his fault, they didn't mean to, but they did. I was on fertility treatments that's why I got pregnant." I didn't know if he could understand me, so I stopped talking, but he nudged my head with his giant snout. A warm tongue licked the tears from my cheek. He whimpered so I started talking again.

"We thought it was a hoax, a Halloween hoax..." And so, I told my story to a monster I wasn't even sure could understand it.

While he carried me through the snowstorm, I noticed the other Ravers moving closer like they were listening. As I talked about what happened, some whined and whimpered. Richard kept rubbing his cheek on the top of my head, making small upset noises as he walked. The heat from Richard's body and the enchantment of my cloak kept me warm while the Ravers traveled through the blizzard. Hours later, the storm abated. The evening glow painted the sky a thousand shades of intense lavender, magenta, and orange. We were below the ridges of the mountains, navy lines creasing the freshly fallen white snow. Looking around, I realized exactly where I was. Richard set my feet on the porch of the house Saul and I stayed in during the week we burned and buried the dead of his pack. The Ravers had brought me back to Monarch Mountain.

In the morning, I found Richard asleep on the porch of the house. His house. There was a fresh rabbit by him. Its neck was broken but the skin wasn't punctured. Somehow, he knew I couldn't eat something he had bitten. I took the rabbit inside, but when I came back out to cover him with a blanket, he was squatting in the usual hunched over sitting position that I had seen so many Ravers use. Sniffing it, he whined and backed away from the blanket, lumbering into the forest with his head down. I smelled it, faintly there was the scent of someone soft and feminine, something like daffodils and baking bread. I didn't know if I was ever going to get used to my new senses. I carried the blanket inside and put it in a large Ziplock bag along with several of what I knew were Julia's clothes, and in other bags, their daughters' clothes. I wanted to save the smell for him because Saul had told me how important smell was to wolves who were grieving. I wondered if we could ever help him, help the Ravers return to normal. Thinking about Rand, Clark, and Will's PTSD and what they went through with the Rage, I wondered if they would want to go through it to be normal without the ones they loved and killed.

Julia had been a scrapbooker. They had a lovely family that she turned into books of beautiful memories. I sat in the living room with a morning cup of cocoa, looking through the pages of pictures, and wiping away tears for the family I didn't know. The last picture in the album broke my heart. Richard was a large male with a bushy red beard and a toothy smile. Golden blonde Julia was grinning with a glint of mischief in her sky-blue eyes between two girls, twins, maybe ten or twelve. They were holding out a blue blanket that said, It's A Boy, and pointing at Julia's stomach. The page was covered in flourishes and had an ultrasound image in the corner. The prepared pages after it would forever remain unfinished and photographless. I wrapped my arms around my son in my belly. It wasn't fair, none of it.

VvvvvV

After skinning and cleaning the rabbit and placing it in the oven to bake, I made oatmeal for brunch. I was about to do dishes when there was a loud scratch at the door. The Gray Raver was in front of the porch, by the door was a bundle of blankets. They smelled musky, masculine, and slightly of cedar. The scent made me feel strangely calm and giddy at the same time. There were pine needles and snow on the bedding.

"Do you want me to wash these?" I asked because I didn't understand why he brought them.

He huffed, and picked me up with the blankets, carrying me to the far end of the housing area. I could see the tracks of other Ravers through the snow to different houses. He followed what I assumed was a road buried under a few feet of snow until we reached a modest log cabin. He carried me through the open front door. He tracked snow through the main room and straight to a bedroom where he gently put me on my feet. The whole house smelled of the wonderful cologne. I stared at the bed wondering why he stripped it and brought me the blankets, everything in here was clean and neatly ordered. The Raver had to hunch slightly to walk under the ceilings.

There were pictures on the walls, mostly landscapes, so I assumed whoever lived here was a photographer. In an office was a large family portrait. Julia's neat script labeled everyone. I easily picked out Saul first, then Will, who was labeled as Jonah, and was wearing a cap and gown. I guessed it was his graduation. Richard, Julia, and their girls, Jennifer and Josephine stood on Will's right. My fingers paused over one person. He was tall yet muscular, with short sandy blonde hair, a strong jaw, and a slightly crooked nose that looked like it had been broken and set many times. He had a genuine smile and the most intense gray-blue eyes.

Jacob.

My brain could not accept the person I was staring at was the same as the one I remembered from that night. Suddenly, I realized I was in Jacob's house, and the Gray Raver wanted me to live in this house, not at Julia and Richard's. The home of my nightmare was not the werewolf capital as Saul led me to believe, it was Monarch Mountain.