My Lycan Mate of Suicide Forest

"I can understand why you would wait," Sylvia smiled at August. "It is a lot to tell."

"Thank you, Sylvia," August chuckled. "It's just that… hearing it from me seems so… wrong in a way. I'm not part of this history," she shrugged and set down her fork. "I feel like hearing it from all of us—especially you and Greta—would have more of the impact it deserves."

August made herself busy arranging the napkin on her lap as Graeme kept his gaze on her. She was magnificent. Everything about her. It never got old, and he doubted it ever would.

"Understandable, my dear," Sylvia said. "Though Charlotte was telling you. Greta and I were just fortunate enough to be in the room."

"So the undocumented history…" Graeme started, leaning back in his chair without taking his eyes off of his mate across from him, "let's hear it."

Everyone became quiet, and August glanced up from her lap to see all of their eyes on her. "From… from me?" she asked.

Greta winked at her while twirling a water glass in her hand.

"Okay," August cleared her throat. "Charlotte told us about a Pueblo myth. Or not a myth… a story," she started. "Of La Loba."

Graeme's eyes squinted slightly in recognition. "La Loba? The old woman who collected wolf bones?"

"You know it?" Greta asked, surprised.

Graeme nodded. "I heard it a few years back now. I was tracking some strays. Two of them. They went… far. I followed them all the way to Texas. When I finally caught up to them, they said they were looking for La Loba." His eyebrows threaded together at the memory.

"They were looking for her?" Greta repeated, her mouth dropping open. "So she still exists?"

"Two strays were together?" Sam asked, surprised.

Graeme nodded. "They usually travel alone, but two together isn't necessarily out of the ordinary. Although these were two males…" For that reason, they had been more of a threat.

"Did they tell you the whole story?" August asked.

"No," he replied and dropped her gaze. He hadn't told August what his role as advisor entailed when he tracked strays. The truth was that those two males didn't get much of a chance to tell him anything. They were a threat that he had to take care of.

"What does the La Loba myth have to do with the alyko?"

August considered how to give the story the justice it deserved. The way Charlotte told it had been riveting. There was no way August could duplicate it.

"According to Charlotte, La Loba was said to be a wild woman who kept the bones of all kinds of creatures in her cave. She had a… power," August's eyes slid up to meet Graeme's. "And once she had collected every bone of a creature, she would arrange them together, build a fire, and basically sing this creature back into being. Charlotte said they were the creatures most in danger of being forgotten by the world."

"On one particular night," August glanced at Sylvia who was resting her arms on the table, listening, "when it was a full moon, La Loba did this ritual with her favorite creature of all: a wolf. She sang her song, and life was breathed back into the wolf. When the wolf began to run off into the distance, the moonlight transformed her into a woman. The very first lycan."

Graeme, still leaning back in his chair, worked this over in his mind. How had he never heard this before? "La Loba… made the lycans?" he said slowly and glanced between his sister, Sam, and Sylvia.

"She made a lycan," Greta corrected. "The first. A lycan who would go on to mate with a human, though Charlotte doesn't have detailed information about who."

"Perhaps most importantly, according to Charlotte, La Loba was alyko," Sylvia added.

"A very powerful alyko," Sam muttered.

"Well alyko is hardly an appropriate term now, but it will do," Sylvia sighed.

"Right, because this changes what we know of the alyko. Alyko did not come from lycans. It's really the reverse. So it's not like they are just lycans without wolves—they are not some flaw in the heritability of lycanthropy," Greta said animatedly. "They are those of us who more closely resemble the one who had this gift of life—La Loba—who created lycans to begin with."

"Can they be evil?" Graeme asked then, which seemed to hush everyone. August's expression became pained. She had read the stories Graeme brought home from the council. Was it possible that they were true?

"If you are asking whether or not Maggie was in fact responsible for our parents' deaths, then the answer is no," Greta spoke up. "It is not possible. I refuse to believe that. No one here believes that. And Charlotte, who gave us this oral history, doesn't believe that."

"Did she say that?" Graeme asked, turning to his sister.

"She didn't have to, Graeme. She has mourned more than most in this pack. Would she mourn if the killings were just?"

"People mourn for those who are justly killed, Greta," Graeme pointed out.

Greta rose from the table suddenly, causing the silverware to clang against the plates. "Are you saying you believe it now?"

"No, no," he put his hands up. "I don't believe it, but this is the first anyone here has heard of this La Loba origin story. What else do we not know? I mean, according to Charlotte, the first lycan was breathed into being by an alyko. We have never witnessed power like that. What else can they do?"

"This reaction of yours is the root of the prejudice against them," Greta said, fuming now. "Why do people fear what they don't understand?"

"What reaction? I'm just asking questions," Graeme said defensively.

"You're acting as if they were guilty," Greta became more upset. "You're acting as if Maggie… could have actually done that to us. To mom and dad." A sob escaped her, and Sam put a hand on her waist. August's mouth dropped open in surprise. She had never seen Greta upset like this.

"That's not what I'm saying. Greta, please sit down," Graeme replied, his voice softening. She remained standing and crossed her arms in front of her. Graeme sighed. "The fact is, we still don't know what happened to mom and dad. We don't know what happened to the alyko bodies after they were burned…"

"What?" Sylvia gasped.

Graeme stopped when he realized what he had said. Sylvia wouldn't know that bit of information. He hadn't known it until a few days ago.

"When I was looking at mom and dad's file, I saw a note about how the alyko bodies had disappeared. There was no explanation. Just a small note jotted down. The bodies had vanished."

"Maybe—the fire…" Sylvia's eyebrows were threaded together as she tried to make sense of this new information.

"No," Graeme shook his head. "It didn't burn that long. They put it out when the—when the screaming stopped." His hands curled into fists as a muscle feathered in his jaw.

Sylvia nodded.. "You're right. Then how?"