just as fatal for me
as those kinds of injuries would be for him.
It was a sobering possibility. Taggart was more experienced
than I was inside of the dream and he was naturally stronger and
harder to kill as a result of being a shape shifter, but even so
we'd lost several days of travel time not too long after he'd found
me. He'd tangled with someone or something in a dream that had nearly
gotten the better of him. It had been a chilling lesson in just
how deep the waters I was now swimming in were.
"Okay,
you're right."
Taggart
nodded and turned away as if to unzip his suitcase, but I wasn't done
with him yet. If he was in the mood to talk then I wanted to get as
much out of him as possible.
"Why
did you leave your pack then? Is it because of Kaleb and the rest of
the…Coun'hij?"
"I've
been on my own for more than two hundred years. Kaleb is practically
a child. He's been part of the Coun'hij for less than two decades.
No, he didn't have anything to do with my exile."
I
waited for several seconds, hoping that he'd choose to tell me, but
growing more nervous with each heartbeat. I wanted to know, but I
also didn't want to push and cause problems between us.
"You
don't have to tell me if you don't want to. There's just so much I
don't understand."
Taggart
sighed and then sat down on his bed. He looked even older when he was
hunched over like that. I'd seen his hybrid form. It was still huge
and unbowed despite the silver mixed in with his fur. It was hard
sometimes to view the two forms as being the same person.
"I'm
by myself because I couldn't be trusted to control my beast. I hurt
some people when I wasn't much older than you, and my pack drove me
away."
"I'm
so sorry."
I
wasn't sure it was the right thing to say, but then again I spent
most of my time these days uncertain of how I was supposed to be
responding to things. Taggart had said he'd hurt people, he hadn't said that he'd killed anyone, but even if he had, I could tell that he was sorry for what
had happened.
"Don't
be, Adriana. It was no less than I deserved. I was as bad as the men
and women I've spent so many years fighting. I was completely sure of
myself, confident that whatever I wanted was right simply because I
wanted it."
"I'm
not saying it's right, but that's not that uncommon for a
seventeen-year-old. Most of us tend to be pretty self-centered."
Taggart
shook his head, refusing to meet my eyes. "Most
seventeen-year-olds aren't killing machines who weigh four or five
hundred pounds. It was worse than that, I was addicted to the thrill
of the fight. My alpha had told me repeatedly that I needed to call
my beast to heel, that I needed to control it rather than letting it
control me, but I refused to listen. I thought my beast made me
strong."
He
stood and walked over to the window, still refusing to look at me,
still determined to put as much distance between us as he could.
"He
was right. There was a girl and another boy who was competing with me
for her affections. Things were different back then. There were
places where we weren't completely in hiding. They were both humans,
but they knew what I was. The boy thought I should stick to my own
kind, that I shouldn't be chasing after a human, that I wasn't safe for her to be around."
"What
happened?"
"We
got into an argument and I lost control of myself. It had happened
before against other hybrids, but that was the first time I'd given
into my beast when facing off against someone who couldn't possibly
stand up to me."
"I'm
sorry. I know you said I shouldn't be, but I am."
Taggart
shrugged. "I tried after that. My pack kept me imprisoned until
they knew whether…well, until they knew whether I was a
murderer, but I knew I was probably going to be exiled, turned into
one of the dispossessed. I tried to control myself, tried to master
my beast in the hopes that they would recant and let me stay, but it
was so hard."
Taggart,
the terrifying apparition that other shape shifters
as those kinds of injuries would be for him.
It was a sobering possibility. Taggart was more experienced
than I was inside of the dream and he was naturally stronger and
harder to kill as a result of being a shape shifter, but even so
we'd lost several days of travel time not too long after he'd found
me. He'd tangled with someone or something in a dream that had nearly
gotten the better of him. It had been a chilling lesson in just
how deep the waters I was now swimming in were.
"Okay,
you're right."
Taggart
nodded and turned away as if to unzip his suitcase, but I wasn't done
with him yet. If he was in the mood to talk then I wanted to get as
much out of him as possible.
"Why
did you leave your pack then? Is it because of Kaleb and the rest of
the…Coun'hij?"
"I've
been on my own for more than two hundred years. Kaleb is practically
a child. He's been part of the Coun'hij for less than two decades.
No, he didn't have anything to do with my exile."
I
waited for several seconds, hoping that he'd choose to tell me, but
growing more nervous with each heartbeat. I wanted to know, but I
also didn't want to push and cause problems between us.
"You
don't have to tell me if you don't want to. There's just so much I
don't understand."
Taggart
sighed and then sat down on his bed. He looked even older when he was
hunched over like that. I'd seen his hybrid form. It was still huge
and unbowed despite the silver mixed in with his fur. It was hard
sometimes to view the two forms as being the same person.
"I'm
by myself because I couldn't be trusted to control my beast. I hurt
some people when I wasn't much older than you, and my pack drove me
away."
"I'm
so sorry."
I
wasn't sure it was the right thing to say, but then again I spent
most of my time these days uncertain of how I was supposed to be
responding to things. Taggart had said he'd hurt people, he hadn't said that he'd killed anyone, but even if he had, I could tell that he was sorry for what
had happened.
"Don't
be, Adriana. It was no less than I deserved. I was as bad as the men
and women I've spent so many years fighting. I was completely sure of
myself, confident that whatever I wanted was right simply because I
wanted it."
"I'm
not saying it's right, but that's not that uncommon for a
seventeen-year-old. Most of us tend to be pretty self-centered."
Taggart
shook his head, refusing to meet my eyes. "Most
seventeen-year-olds aren't killing machines who weigh four or five
hundred pounds. It was worse than that, I was addicted to the thrill
of the fight. My alpha had told me repeatedly that I needed to call
my beast to heel, that I needed to control it rather than letting it
control me, but I refused to listen. I thought my beast made me
strong."
He
stood and walked over to the window, still refusing to look at me,
still determined to put as much distance between us as he could.
"He
was right. There was a girl and another boy who was competing with me
for her affections. Things were different back then. There were
places where we weren't completely in hiding. They were both humans,
but they knew what I was. The boy thought I should stick to my own
kind, that I shouldn't be chasing after a human, that I wasn't safe for her to be around."
"What
happened?"
"We
got into an argument and I lost control of myself. It had happened
before against other hybrids, but that was the first time I'd given
into my beast when facing off against someone who couldn't possibly
stand up to me."
"I'm
sorry. I know you said I shouldn't be, but I am."
Taggart
shrugged. "I tried after that. My pack kept me imprisoned until
they knew whether…well, until they knew whether I was a
murderer, but I knew I was probably going to be exiled, turned into
one of the dispossessed. I tried to control myself, tried to master
my beast in the hopes that they would recant and let me stay, but it
was so hard."
Taggart,
the terrifying apparition that other shape shifters
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