Page 13 of No Potions Needed

“The boy would have to talk to a girl for that to happen, you dumb---” Dad started.

“No need for that,” the doctor cut him off. “I really must insist that you both wait in the hallway. It’ll be up to Dern to share his diagnosis or not.”

Only the doctor was a liar. He had no intentions of letting me tell anyone anything. He expected me to go along with his games, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I always got ahead of myself when I tried to explain these times.

“What’s wrong with me, doc?” I asked, knowing it as nothing. Whatever he thought it, he was wrong. I’d already seen myself as an old man living on my own and handing out apples to younger wolves. Apples that I’d enchant first, of course.

“Dern, you have to understand, we’ve never seen anything like this and it’s something that requires treatment straight away. We’ll go ahead and get you to sign these papers while we talk,” Doctor Jenkins said and pushed a stack of papers over in my direction.

“UH… Not to be too forward, but I’m not signing anything until you tell me what youthinkis going on,” I said and pushed the papers back to him.

“Sign the papers, Dern. I’ve already discussed this with Elke, and he agrees with me. This is the only way forward. We can’t let any of the other packs find out that you are a freak of nature. You would embarrass every last one of us. We’d never be able to arrange another cross-pack mating. The survival of our pack depends on this.”

Elke was our pack leader and thought he owned everyone’s balls. Maybe he did because most of the wolves in our pack listened to him. Most of the mated pairs were of his making. I never thought Elke was all that impressive. For all his bulk, it looked like one good spell cast at the correct time might knock him to another world.

“What the hell are you talking about? Why don’t you slow down and tell me what’s up, doc? I’m not here to ruin anyone’s life. I just want to know what’s wrong with me and what the hell you’re trying to get me to consent to,” I said, doing my best to keep my wolf’s growl out of my words.

“We don’t need your consent, Dern. It’s just a formality. It’s just our way of giving you a chance to fix what you’ve broken. Elke’s word is pack law.”

“Broken? What the fuck do you think I’ve broken?” I stood up, knocking the chair back in the process.

“We should’ve told Dad to knock his lights out,”my wolf chimed up in my thoughts as his claws forced their ways out of my fingernails. I held one clawed hand in front of me as I reached for the doorknob.

“Look at this scan,” Doctor Jenkins growled, his eyes shifting to that of his wolf’s as he wrenched open the topmost drawer of his desk. He jerked out a scan and slapped it onto the table like he was playing hot hands instead of showing me sensitive medical information.

I almost didn’t look down. Keeping my eyes on him was more important than seeing whatever was on the scan. He smelled erratic like the wolves at the parties where drugs floated around that made you see and hear things. I took two big steps backward toward the door before glancing down. There it was in black and white. I didn’t need him to point out what shouldn’t have been there. The whole scan looked like something someone might’ve drawn up for a comic book. There was something on my scan that shouldn’t have been there, but the doctor was right. It wasn’t cancer. It was extra reproductive organs. The type of organs generally found in women with some extra things added in. Things I didn’t understand yet and wouldn’t really wrap my head around for years to come.

“Dad!” I shouted as Doctor Jenkins lunged across the table.

I should’ve never have let him bully my parents out of the room. A thud sounded in the hallway too and my mother’s shriek for help was the last thing I heard before the world faded to black at the jab of on little needle that doctor had hidden deep within his pocket. I’d never see my parents again. Only later would I discover they’d been executed for being so brazen as to bring an abomination like me into the world.

Chapter Eight

Ormund

Many years ago on Pharenos

I sighed as I swooped down to fly under a cloud. Sometimes I didn’t bother avoiding them but I didn’t feel like being covered in tiny ice crystals would make this day any better. I was up to my ears in the needs of others and wanted to spend my off shift relaxing. So, I avoided the clouds but dipping lower meant I heard more of what was going on with the furry people below me. I usually avoided them. We all usually tried to avoid them. They were bad news through and through. Angry little puppy people that they were.

But that day, I flew lower than the clouds and the wolves were definitely up to something again. We always heard them shriek and howl when something was going on. It was hard to predict what the furry ones would get up to. They were always angry and growling about something. They liked to take chunks out of each other and still each other’s kids and mates.

That’s why we stuck to ourselves for the most part, us phoenixes. It was easier that way. Wolves weren’t a threat to us even on the few occasions all eight packs of Pharenos managed to get along. Which was one time, decades ago, for six and a half hours.

They couldn’t fly and they couldn’t run for long at the altitudes which we lived with few exceptions. Some of the birds had wolf mates but those were few and far between. The packs had not evolved enough to have the alpha/omega genes running in their family lines yet. So that meant the possibilities for matches were fewer for our peck which was mostly populated by alphas. We didn’t often let our omegas fly over the lands of the angry dogs alone anyway. We’d done well not to burn their settlements to the ground but if they somehow managed to harm one of our omegas, that would have to change.

Still, sometimes the lands of the wolves had their uses. Usually, that was only to fly over when you wanted a break from all the squawking going on back home. It was a nesting season for us. Everyone with a mate who managed to lay or sire an egg were tucked into the nesting grounds. The rest of us brought them whatever they needed. I didn’t mind the job and never skipped out on my shifts but that day I needed to revel in the wind ruffling through my feathers. I needed a taste of freedom, and the wolves never bothered to look up often. So, they would’ve never noticed me if something had drawn me onto their terrestrial territory. What can I say? I was always a sucker for an omega in distress.

There wasn’t a war going on that I had heard about and the peck knew everything about the wolves. We had to keep an eye on them to ensure they weren’t burning down the whole planet on us which they were bound to do some day. There weren’t any inner pack squabbles going on either unless I was hearing the first shrieks of one.

Usually, the women only shrieked during mating season. So, when a shewolf shrieked for help I took notice. This wasnottheir mating season. This was feed your babies and hide them before some jackass eats them season. Was a jackass actually eating someone else’s pups? It was so fucking barbaric, but we’d seen it happen before. It was one of the few times the laws of the peck allowed us to intervene. The eating and slaughtering of young was too barbaric for us to allow. There were a few historical examples of us swooping in and stealing cubs that were nearly gobbled up by jealous wolfmen and raising them as our own. Perhaps, it was time to do that again. The shrieks went on and on as if they were contagious and all the shewolves joined in to try to help whoever had started the chain.

The racket radiated from one of their silly little butcher shops. They called them hospitals but mostly they used them to cut each other up. Usually, we stayed out of the way while they did that because from the outside it seemed like most of the wolves who were hacked up actually agreed to be test subjects. If someone agreed to be hacked on and was old enough to make that choice, it was none of our business. As for us, we’d stick with proper medicine. There wasn’t much a night burnt up in a hearth or cooking fire wouldn’t fix.

The glass doors open as I stood before them as if some invisible greeter invited me inside. Inside smelled like blood, sweat, cleaners, and something oh-so much sweeter. I had to duck my head and pull my wings in tight to my body so that I could step through the door, but I managed. The shewolf had fallen silent but my beak was on the trail of something much more interesting. I opened my mouth, taking in the scent. My flames burnt high and bright inside me.

“Ours!”My bird called out inside me, lighting up his eternal flames until my eyes glowed.“I might finally get to burn down this butcher shop after all.”

Wolves scattered out of the way like mice under the feet of giants. I wouldn’t have bothered with stepping on them or even setting them ablaze with my mind. They were of little consequence. There was a single wolf I sought out and unless they remained in my path no harm would come to them. I passed by wolf after wolf. They all smelled different but somehow almost exactly the same: Fur, fear, and pack. It was almost ridiculous as if they hadn’t bothered to rub up against something new in centuries.

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