Free The Frenzy by Francesca Lia Block Page B

either butthat is what I communicated to her. My dad …
    He won’t hurt you this time.
    How did she know? She didn’t know him. I lowered my head.
    As if she could read my thoughts, she said, It would be worse for him to see you like this. We’ll make sure you are safe.
    I looked at the pack of young wolves surrounding me. They were fierce and strong with thick fur and golden eyes. Victor, Sebastian, Felix, Marcos, Gregory, Frederick and Amorus. I now understood that they lived here as young men most of the time—the men I had seen on the road after the party and again last night—until they became animals. They watched their mother carefully.
    I’m not going away soon, I told her.
    I think you will, when everything comes to a head.
    What do you mean? How do you know all these things? Who are you?
    I am the daughter of Ivan, the one your mother killed from the helicopter with her father, Sasha said. He was the largest andthe strongest of them all. Everyone loved him. He and my mother, Elena, were inseparable.
    Ivan was running through the snow when she shot him from her helicopter. She shot him again and again. The snow was stained with blood.
    After his death Elena used the curse. She had never resorted to it before. It can destroy the lives of everyone it touches. But Elena felt she had no choice. She came to your grandfather one night and told him but he pretended not to hear her, pretended she was a dream. But none of it was a dream. You are the result.
    Of your mother’s curse? I asked.
    Sasha nodded.
    I looked down at my body. Of course. I was a curse. That was all I was.
    Sasha went on: You were born cursed but your mother didn’t know. Your grandfather could have told her but he didn’t and she probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. Some years later my mother was dying. She called Peter and me to her bedside and told us to go kill your mother. The curse wasn’t enough. She wanted the ultimate revenge.
    My mother killed your father. Your mother wanted to kill my mother. I didn’t pose these as questions. It was clear to me, as if I’d heard it all before .
    Yes.
    Who is Peter?
    Sasha turned her head away and stared into the darkness. Her eyes glowed brighter. Peter was my husband , she said. He’s gone now .
    What happened to him? I asked, dreading the answer.
    Peter, Sasha said, was killed, too.
    I heard a low growl come from the large wolf beside me. Victor.
    I shook my head. I don’t want to hear it.
    Yes. By your mother. Four years ago. We had come looking for her and he couldn’t get close enough to do what we had to do. She wore the silver cross. Sasha shivered violently. And she shot him.
    I could see the dead wolf in the back of my mother’s truck. I could see him as clearly as if he were bleeding to death in front of my eyes. But he wasn’t a wolf. He was what I was.
    That was when I changed, I said.
    Sasha nodded. I know, she told me. I was there. And now you have changed again.
    Why? Why has it only happened twice? I felt like it was going to happen more than that but it didn’t.
    It’s different for everyone but for most of us it’s connected to powerful emotions, Sasha said. For female shape-shifters there is also the menses factor. And the moon, of course. These things have to be working in concert. The rage can be controlled in various ways but not the other things, obviously.
    Shape-shifters? You mean …
    Lycanthropy.
    Werewolves? I had read books and seen movies and TV shows about them. I knew that they changed during the full moon, that they could be destroyed with silver. It couldn’t be true—they weren’t real—but if it was true then suddenly everything made sense. All the memories I had tried to keep at a distance, repress, send back to the dark place where they had come from rushed back at me. The wolf in the truck. The smell of blood. The hair on my body. The pull of the moon.
    The rage in my soul.
    Sasha nodded. But I prefer to call it the frenzy. One can be born