Embry's Secret

[Tiffany Call-Black]

To say finding out that the legends of the Quileute tribe were real was a surprise would be an understatement. The biggest surprise, though, was finding out that the father of my son was a carrier of the gene that forced my son to become a wolf. Not a werewolf, although that term has been thrown around. He is not affected by the moon. His trigger is something much colder and much closer in proximity; the vampires.

 

He had first changed years before I found out. He hid it from me, for what reason, I’ll never be sure. I don’t think he was ashamed of it at all, because as I watch him now, a confident young man, I know he is proud to be a protector of the people. I think he worried that I would be ashamed, scared, worried. I do get scared and worried, it is a dangerous lot in life to hold. As far as being ashamed, the only thing that I am ashamed of is myself for the circumstances of his conception. But never will I be ashamed of my son.

 

The night I found out started like so many before. I had a long day of working at the gift shop and classes and I came home to find him surly and full of questions, again. I put his attitude down to typical teenager-itis for the past few years. Some days he was my loving son, and some days he was an angry young person peppering me with questions, getting angry and storming out. At first I worried where he went, but I found out from Chief Black that usually he would come to his house and hang out with Jacob.

 

This night though, he stood there screaming at me, demanding to know who his father was. I tried to change the subject and calm him down, but my own tired anger flared up. I had just about had enough of it all. He kept digging at me until I turned the questions on him.

 

“Why? Don’t you love me anymore? Do you want to go live with him? He left us…am I not enough of a parent for you?”

 

He paced, and thrashed, and swung and stormed around our living room, shaking. I started to hear an odd noise coming from him, a low growl, mixed with a sound of agony. The room got so hot, and I realized the heat was radiation from him. Terrified he was sick, all of my anger left me and despite the body heat in the room, I went ice cold inside. Fear welled up in the pit of my stomach as I stretched out a trembling had to him. I feared he was going to fall down and die in front of me.

 

Instead, so fast that had I blinked I would have missed it, he was gone and in his place was the largest wolf I had ever seen. It swung its face around and was nose to nose with me and a scream lodged in my throat. Then I saw his eyes. The beautiful eyes that I had looked into for almost 20 years looked back at me, but were so full of anger this time.

I stood frozen, afraid to move, not knowing what would happen next when he spun and shot out the door.

 

I barely felt my legs and slid down to the floor, my mind racing faster than I thought it could. All of the stories and legends I had heard from the elders of this tribe. They were real! I was confused, then angry. How dare they pass these off as stories when they knew! They had to know it was truth. When I was finally steady enough, I grabbed the phone and dialed. Someone was going to give me answers. And that someone was going to be Chief Black, whether he liked it or not.