The Black Pine Forest

How the tale begun

A rising wind whipped long strands of Rowan's hair into stinging ebony ribbons that slashed at her cheeks and filled her mouth. Impatiently she tucked the offending mess into the collar of her navy mouton coat. Securing the top button, she looked into Lyall's unfathomable eyes and said, "take me there."

"Tonight!?"

"Yes tonight!" she insisted.

Frowning, Lyall watched clouds scuttle across the pitted face of a gibbous moon. 

'It's going to rain soon."

 "I don't care," said Rowan. Her nostrils flaringd slightly as she tested the dampness in the wind. "It won't be for awhile yet. There's still plenty of time."

Eyeing his profile, so solemn and still, Rowan's heart fluttered as it always did when she looked at him. His countenance seemed to solidify into stone; so economic of movement were his habits. Tonight, just like a statue he resembled, Lyall would feel cool to the touch. His fine blonde hair was ivory in the moonlight and shone with a glow of untouchable beauty.

 

"Rowan," he whispered

Looking into Lyall's bottomless black eyes, Rowan felt time slip away, and they were children again. She recalled the day it all began. Together they had disobeyed the "one great rule' and wandered into the depths of Black Pine Forest that crouched menacingly southeast of their tiny village. It had been deemed strictly off limits to the both of them. A thrill tremored through her slender body as that memory re-surfaced. 

Lyall's dark eyes glittered back at her.

 "What is it Lyall?"

 

His hunger was a punishment; heavy, dark and cloying.

 " I feel the change coming."

 "The moon is far from full Lyall."

 "I know," he answered, "but now it burns well before the final waxing."

 A sense of footsteps treading upon her grave caused Rowan to shiver and draw her coat more tightly about her.

 She had been thirteen and Lyall fifteen when they first saw it in a small clearing deep in the belly of the forbidden woods. In a hidden barren spot where vegetation refused to grow, there was a lone grave with naught but a rudely fashioned evil eye to mark the spot. 

Just that and nothing more.

Rowan hadn't been frightened; only curious. In this place Lyall clasped her hand and kissed her for the very first time. His breath had been warm and his tongue tasted sweet. He smelled of freshly cut hay and clover. Rowan remembered reveling in the uniqueness of him. A rush of almost over powering need for him required restraint, and quieting... instinct warned her it was not yet time.

" My mother lies there Lyall," she said.

 

"I know," he answered, pulling her even closer, his sinewy strength a warm comfort. Lyall's desire was evident but he held himself in check. 

They didn't become lovers until her sixteenth birthday and that was the day she died and the same day that Lyall became much more than just a man.

 

What drew her to that place no one will ever know. Rowan thinks it was imbedded in her soul awaiting her birth. A legacy perhaps from a mother she never knew. Visiting that spot became an obsession. Time after time she would beg and as always, Lyall acquiesced.

 

On the night of her sixteenth birthday the moon was full. It was June. The sky was a black velvet quilt shredded by the jaggedness of a million stars. They were in the tiny clearing and Lyall had built a fire. In the distance a wolf howled his acknowledgement of life and Rowan used it as an excuse to snuggle even closer to Lyall. She remembered seeing figures come alive in the roaring blaze and watched them dance and grimace like living entities. Rowan felt Lyall’s arm tighten around her shoulders and lifting her chin, her mouth opened to meet his ...they made love until embers turned to ash. And then it happened.

 

Lyall didn't stand a chance. The monstrous wolf came out of nowhere as silent as a wraith. It shook him like a rag doll and he would have become just another meal if it wasn't for a pale figure emerging from the forest. One word and the wolf obeyed.

"Cease!" it said. An unconscious Lyall was dropped in a bloody heap upon the forest floor.

 

"Do you love this boy?" whispered the commanding voice.

Without hesitation Rowan answered, "Yes!"

"More than your own life?"

"I'd have no life without him," was her reply.

"Then give me blood"

"How?" she answered, "I'll do anything!"

"Show me your neck"

 

Rowan did as asked and shut her eyes. She did not want to see this face up close, knowing, somehow in her heart just who it belonged to. The pain was intense lasting but a few heart beats. It was what happened next that truly amazed her. Pictures flashed before her eyes and the entire history of her clan was revealed. Looking up, she gazed into her mother's face for the first time.

 

She was beautiful. Piles of deep auburn hair flowing next to the smooth porcelain tumbled to the small of her back. the whiteness of her skin was set off by a pair of deep set eyes greener than the most prized emeralds.

 

"I don't always look this good" her mother stated after a quick, rather intimidating appraisal. "If you want the boy to live, you must also give him your blood but be quick before it's too late."

 

Rowan felt befuddled, her brain cloudy and slow. Oblivious to her nakedness, she stumbled over to Lyall and knelt down beside him without a clue how to accomplish the task.

 

"Use his knife," her mother instructed.

 

Without hesitation Rowan found Lyall's bone handled knife hidden beneath their pile of discarded clothing. Withdrawing it from the deer-hide sheath she slashed her wrist, and dribbled her life blood into his open mouth.

 

"How much?" she asked , looking back over her shoulder, but her mother was gone. In the silence of the forest Rowan was left alone in the aftermath of a horrific and overwhelming evening. Her bones turned to jelly and she began to weep.  What in God's name was she to do now?

 

"God has nothing to do with it," said a voice inside her head. "We are linked now." her mother continued in that commanding, unemotional tone Rowan already recognized. "By the way, you shall die soon."

 

Rowans heart froze, "Die!" she exclaimed, "I thought you were a witch!"

 

"I was," her mother answered, "but now I am one of the undead, just as you shall be in a matter of a few hours. We all have our crosses to bear darling. They come part and parcel with the choices we make. I made mine and perhaps one day I will enlighten you to them, but for now, you have made yours and must exist with the consequences of your actions."

 

"What of Lyall then, what will become of him?"

 

"Lyall will be fine. He will heal but he is short on choices. Fate is unkind. You made the choice for him...hmmm ...supper versus lycanthropy. Frankly Rowan, I think you chose well. I do so abhor the finality of death. There is a catch though that under the circumstances was quite unavoidable, Luke is tainted . Tainted with the blood of the vampire. He will be rejected by his kind because of it. However his is such a weak taint, given your newness, that he shall not become a vampire. I hope your love is mutual as well as strong, for Lyall is now a werewolf. Of that there is no denying but he is, hmmm, how shall I put it, a werewolf with a little something extra. He will have no one in this world but you. Even I do not know how it will all unravel. Nor do I care. As I said those consequences fall upon your shoulders daughter dearest, not mine. Remember this... you cannot be in direct sunlight, avoid beheadings and stakes through the heart, as well as fire; Lyall changes during the full moon, silver can kill him and there is something about running water...that's all I can remember right now but anyway, I must be going. Oh, and you'll need him to ensure your safety during the daylight hours...for the first while anyway. I am so glad your blood freed me from my prison, darling. It took so very long ...I was so sure it was going to happen when you were thirteen. I never counted on the wolf thing though...as I said before, fate can be so unkind. Until later then my love...be strong. I think your going to need it."

 

And just like that she was gone. Rowan sat in shock until the first blush of dawn burnished the tips of the surrounding Douglas firs. Realizing with a start that she had work to do she left Lyall by the spent fire and scoured the forest for a place to hole up in. Potential shelter was found in the rotted hollow of a large log. Dragging Lyall inside she laid him within its dark musty depths and blocked the entrance with boughs of fragrant pine. Well, she thought, settling in, this is it. I guess. We'll just have to see what happens next.

　

　

What happened next was horrible. The pain unimaginable. As Lyall slept, her body underwent a metamorphosis tof pure agony. Retching and vomiting, she vacillated between fevers and chills. Moaning and clawing at her skin she felt she was on fire one minute and the next caught in the throes of a moonless January night when the Jack Frost went on a rampage furiously chomping her flesh. Every bone , every muscle, every fibre of her being strummed with pain until the sun slept deep in the folds of the western horizon and wood doves heralded the coming of twilight. 

Through it all Lyall slept. Weakened and still feeling ill, Rowan pushed aside the pine boughs and emerged into the shadows of night. She felt neither cold nor warm. The word comfortable came to mind because there really were no words to describe the feeling... it was rather a absence of feeling that prevailed. Looking down at her hands she first marveled at their smooth whiteness then noticed the knife wound on her wrist had healed without a trace. Hearing stirring from inside the log, Rowan crawled back in to tend to Lyall.

Author's Note

Ist Chapter