Wild Wolf

by R. J. Blain

  “That’s what we did, too,” Sanders said.

  “You two,” Elliot complained. “What’s the head count of bitches?”

  “I’ve got twenty-three,” Richard announced. “Four of those are imports this year.”

  “Sixteen here,” Sanders said. “I have two imports.”

  Desmond laughed. “I already volunteered to help Sanders, and Richard called in favors from every water witch he knows and some fire witches, too. They’ll be fine, Elliot. Vegas is off season and their dominant wolves are on call if Richard and Sanders need help. Los Angeles is trying for six this year, and they’re doing good so far. They’re being coached. San Francisco is off season and on call to help. The other packs on the west coast are limiting to no more than four. We’re monitoring the situation. Every pack has at least one import, on or off season, since one is easy for any of our Alphas to handle. We had a really strong breeding season.”

  Elliot sighed. “You’re killing me here.”

  Desmond grinned. “We’re just keeping your stress levels down. We haven’t had any losses of puppies yet, either. The witches seem to think unless there’s a shift, we should have a perfect season. If the Russians want to learn how to handle the puppies, this is the year. And Declan, you’re going to be working with me so you can learn the ropes. If you have any Omega traits, you’ll be invaluable for the bitches.”

  “How so?”

  Richard glanced at his father-in-law, who nodded. “A pregnant Fenerec can’t transform. If she transforms, the puppy will die. There’s only one exception to that, and that’s if she’s having a True-born, and that’s not a guarantee. You’re a True-born.”

  “Because I was born bonded with my wolf?”

  “Yes. It’s pretty rare. We don’t have our bitches go to hospitals for checkups because it’d be pretty bad for us if they did an ultrasound and discovered a human woman carrying a wolf puppy.” Richard got himself a plate of rabbit and sat beside his wife. “Amber will probably sleep for about an hour, and then she’ll get sick again. One of us has to be on hand so she doesn’t redecorate your cabin with that crap she’s hacking out. Once she’s done throwing up, we’ll get her into the tub and soaking, feed her, and then we’ll rinse and repeat. Tomorrow morning, we’ll take her to the city, and we’ll likely be pulling over every ten minutes. Not much we can do about that. Frankly, I’m impressed she was ready so quickly. I was convinced I’d be watching her sleep for the next two months while participating in the dumbest fucking dance ever to be danced.”

  “I’ll have the restrictions on witches being turned into wolves eased, and I can use Amber as a case study, as Declan’s cabin is still standing and there isn’t even a hint of soot anywhere,” Elliot promised. “I need to wait for a conclave. This plan was put together because it was the only legal way I had to do it. And sorry for using you like that, Declan, but it was my only option. Of all the Inquisitors, I’m the one who can’t break any of the rules.”

  “Because you’re the leader.”

  “Precisely. But there are exceptions in place now for desperate men saving helpless women.”

  “I heard that, you bastard,” Amber said from my bedroom. “Helpless woman my fucking ass.”

  The smiles from everyone in the room told me everything I needed to know about where the woman fit in the strangest family I’d ever been exposed to.

  Richard set his food aside, hopped to his feet, and strode into my bedroom. “Distressed damsel.”

  I debated going into my bedroom to rescue Richard from the woman’s wrath. “Think he’s going to survive?”

  Desmond’s grin broadened. “Probably, but she’s going to make him pay for that.”

  Petra lifted her head from her corner with interest, staring at Richard’s abandoned food.

  I chuckled before clucking my tongue at the wolf to indicate she couldn’t steal Richard’s dinner, but to ease the sting of my refusal, I fetched a new bone from the fridge for her, offering it to her along with some of her raw meat. “Sorry, Petra. You get this bone and some raw meat, but I’ll see about having those big, bad wolves take you on a real hunt later.”

  “Do you hunt with her?” Nicolina asked.

  “As often as I dare, yes. She’s a good hunting partner. I think I’ll wait until we’ve found out more about what’s going on here before taking her out again. She’s adapted well to general captivity, but I try to make sure she’s comfortable, and that means hunting.”

  A lot of those hunts I’d done as a human, helping Petra flush out prey and letting her get the kills. As always, change came when I least expected it, although I looked forward to seeing my new future.

  “Probably wise.” Nicolina got to her feet and went to check on Amber, peeking into my bedroom. “I’m notifying you that I am your slave for the next seven days, but only if you swear you’ll let me help when you kick Richard’s ass.”

  “If you want to have a puppy, just seduce him. He’s not going to say no.”

  Desmond bowed his head, and his shoulders shook.

  “Traitor!” Nicolina stormed out of my bedroom, shooting glares over her shoulder. “I offered myself into slavery for you, and you say that?”

  Richard followed his wife out of my bedroom, smirking. “We’ll have a very nice suite in Beijing. Offer to be my slave instead.”

  “I will kill you,” Nicolina promised.

  “But what will you be wearing when you kill me?”

  In my bedroom, Amber giggled, and the woman’s mirth broke Desmond, who groaned his laughter.

  “Don’t worry about them, Declan,” Elliot told me, and like everybody else, he grinned. “We have fun at their expense all the time. When Nicolina decides she’s ready for a puppy, Richard will be dragged out back and used, and he’ll like it. Richard is happy to wait for her leisure, as he has a lot of pack puppies he gets to coddle, and Nicolina wants to learn how to be a good mother before taking the dive. They’re okay with being teased, so don’t fret.”

  Her pout implied dismay, but when she stomped her foot, all I could smell was the sweet undertones of amusement. “Why are you all ganging up on me today?”

  “We can’t gang up on Amber,” Elliot replied. “Her memory is long, as is her reach. She’ll add interest, and with her wolf backing her? We’ll lose even worse than we already do. You, however, are an easy target, because you love us too much to actually kill us, and the worst we’re getting from you is a jolt or some threat about no cookies, which Richard tends to ignore.”

  Nicolina flung her hands into the air. “If he’d stop with that free-willed Alpha nonsense, that would actually work.”

  With his smirk softening to a smile, Richard caught his wife in his arms and kissed her brow. “I like cookies too much to stop baking them, you know this.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Nicolina whispered, soft enough I doubted Amber could hear her.

  “She’s going to be fine. If you want to take the first watch, go sit with her, and remember that the ritual sickness is going to be worse than normal.”

  “Worse than mine?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Nicolina grimaced. “How should I feed her? We killed Richard’s stew. Is there going to be enough rabbit? I can take the first watch.”

  “I’ll work with Declan to make sure she’s fed, so don’t you worry. We’ll all take turns, and once we’re meeting with the Russians, it won’t be too bad. There’ll always be someone with her.”

  “I’m not dead or dying,” Amber announced from my bedroom.

  While Nicolina grunted and scowled, she said nothing. Richard gave her a push in the direction of my bedroom. “Finish your dinner and go take care of your witch while she figures out how to cope with having a fur coat. Declan and I will make certain she’s fed. I know you’ve been worried, but you need to start cooling that temper off some. Take your bag with you, because you’ll want the cards and books if she can’t sleep, and you’ll want to catch up on your re
ading while she is sleeping.”

  While she complained and protested, she did as told, taking her plate into my bedroom. Aware things would go sour, I took one of my trash cans into the room with fresh liners and left it within easy reach. “The water heater can handle filling the tub, but after that, it needs half an hour before it’s ready again.”

  “On the outside, this is a cabin without luxuries. In the back, there is evidence a spoiled rotten wolf lives here,” Amber said, her voice muffled from her place under my blankets and hiding her head beneath my pillow. “Do you have blackout curtains?”

  Poor woman. I stepped into my bedroom and drew the curtains closed. “Yeah, they’re blackout curtains. I got them because I didn’t want the locals peeking into the windows. I’ll close the door and make sure everybody stays quiet for you.”

  “Brownies?” Amber asked.

  “If brownies are what you want, that’s what you’ll get,” I promised before leaving my bedroom. “Richard, there’s a good stock of stewing meat in my freezer, but I can also do solyanka. I’ve everything for it.”

  “Make the solyanka,” Richard replied. “Just tell me what to dig out, and I’ll fetch it for you. We’ll probably be up half the night cooking for Amber. She’s going to go from sick to ravenous and back again in a relentless circle. Well, that’s usually what happens. Sometimes, luck happens—or general unconsciousness. General unconsciousness does a fairly good job of mitigating ritual sickness.”

  “Will we be able to talk with the Russians when she’s that sick?”

  Richard’s smile had a sharp edge to it. “She’ll be one of the lynchpins of our talks, and she’ll enjoy her role, so don’t you worry about that. Tonight, we worry about making sure she’s fed. Tomorrow, the real fun begins.”

  As Richard warned, Amber suffered throughout the entire night, although she handled it with more grace than I expected for someone who couldn’t stop throwing up. She got a respite every time she ate, as though whatever magic tore through her paused its efforts to rearrange the woman’s body to its liking long enough for her to digest her meal.

  However, the general composition of what she expelled fueled my concerns above all. The dark brown and black of old, dried blood accompanied other matter, which I worried consisted of organs most people needed to survive. Richard didn’t seem concerned, and neither did Desmond or Sanders, but Nicolina paced the cabin enough Petra went to hide with Amber.

  The last time I’d checked on them, Petra had joined Amber in bed, keeping the woman warm when she wasn’t in the bathroom or trying to eat.

  Between waves, Richard leaned against the wall near my bedroom door, observing his wife with a raised brow. “Nicolina, she’s fine. She’s supposed to be doing that. She’s digesting well, she’s expelling everything as normal, and she’s able to sleep. Even Declan’s wolf is taking care of her. Amber is going to be fine, and it’s only a few days of this.”

  “She’s so sick.”

  “You were just as bad when you were recovering from the plague. Now look at you. You couldn’t be healthier if you tried.”

  Nicolina paused, and she considered me with interest. “We’re stupid, Richard. We would have figured out he’s True-born just from asking him about the plague.”

  “What plague?” I asked, wondering what I had missed—and how I could have missed something as devastating as a plague.

  “It’s a sickness that tore through Fenerec populations a while back. Only True-born are immune to it, although reverse True-borns are also immune to a degree. Reverse True-borns are carriers but don’t get ill from the virus. Elliot’s mate is one. She has to be checked for the virus every six months now. If it infects her again, she could spread it a lot before anyone realizes it. We’ve figured out how to treat it, but prevention is better than having to cure. I had to deal with it because of a sorcerer. Normally, I can’t contract it.”

  “Sorcerer? Is this a case where ignorance is bliss?”

  Sanders grunted, scowled, and muttered, “Yes.”

  “Don’t mind Sanders. He has reason to dislike sorcerers even more than I do. A sorcerer is a practitioner of magic who uses pain, blood, suffering, and negative energy to fuel their power. They’re torturing, rapist assholes basically. I have a hobby of killing them whenever possible. The Inquisition has a few sorcerers on staff, but they’re decent people. They’d be dead if they weren’t. One works in an ER, and he saves everyone he can. He mercy kills those who can’t be saved, and he uses the power he gets to save those who’d otherwise die. It’s morally questionable,” Nicolina informed me. “But that said, his ER? It’s the top-rated ER in the world for survival, so is it that morally questionable? A lot more people live because of what he does, and there has never been a case he has killed someone who might survive. If anything, he’s making their deaths a lot more merciful than drawing out a battle they just can’t win.”

  I considered that, frowning. “Are you telling me he can identify when someone is too far gone to be saved? With his magic?”

  “Yes, he can. He can use his magic to do a full check of the human body. He’s very smart, educated, and experienced. But there comes a point where the victim simply can’t survive. He’s also got the best success rate for organ transplants, so if one of his vics is a donor, he’ll often handle the transplant operation himself whenever possible. He prefers to personally escort the organs to the recipient. I like him a lot.”

  Huh. “That sounds like one hell of a hard job.”

  Richard smirked at Elliot. “Elliot’s favorite sorcerer is a bastard of an old man he uses as an enforcer. Alfred’s interesting. The sorcerers who walk the line usually are. Most sorcerers? The Inquisition eliminates when they’re discovered. The same goes with wizards. Amber and Nicolina had some trouble to start with, because Amber had some bad history with a wizard, but they sorted it out. Nicolina’s so pure she makes nuns look bad.”

  “Hardly,” the woman muttered. “Do not make me zap you.”

  “If you zap me, you finally might get tired enough to pass out for a while. Then I’ll toss you in with Amber and we’ll enjoy some quiet for five whole minutes.”

  According to Nicolina’s expression, Richard’s lifespan would extend for no more than ten more minutes at most. “Care to repeat that?”

  Richard grabbed the cushion from my rocking chair and prowled towards his wife. “Go to sleep.”

  Desmond rubbed his forehead. “Things like this make me question why I keep wanting more children. You would think after they grew up and were independent adults, life would become easier. But no. I worry my daughter might kill her mate whenever he decides to be assertive. Or worse, suggests she should be quiet for a while. He’s not wrong about that, but there are some things we don’t say to our wives, and that happens to be one of them.”

  “Father,” Nicolina growled.

  Richard pounced, and pressed the cushion against his wife’s face. “Go to sleep, my beautiful. Sleep.”

  She turned her head, and she giggled, pushing her husband away. “Don’t smother me, you bastard.”

  “I wouldn’t be trying to smother you if you’d just go to sleep already.”

  The two settled into their scuffle, with Richard making mock attempts to smother his wife while she struggled against him. It took all of a minute of observing them to realize neither had any interest in winning.

  Desmond scooted away from the pair. “When she finally passes out, don’t be alarmed, Declan. He prefers to fight with her before giving her a nip. It’s our version of what Dante did to you when we were getting growly before.”

  I nodded, regarding the earth witch with a raised brow. “What do I have to do never to have you do that again, by the way?”

  “Behave,” he replied. “If you furballs behaved, we wouldn’t have to put you in your place. It just happens Richard is a pain in the ass, so I used too much force with you. If it makes you feel better, Sara hates when I do the same thing. Every Omega I’ve had to handle g
oes down like a rock. Your wolves just don’t put up a fight like pigheaded Alphas.”

  “I resemble that remark,” Nicolina complained, and she grabbed hold of her husband’s wrists in her effort to contain him. Richard grinned, jerked free, and snatched her wrists in retaliation. Ignoring her struggles, he transferred both of her wrists to one hand before pulling her onto his lap. “Damn it, Richard!”

  “I know the flight was hard on you, and I know you’ve been worried about Amber, but you need to calm down. I know your wolf is probably upset Amber isn’t in our pack, but she’s better off with your father right now. Declan and his wolf will keep Amber’s wolf calm, and that means she can heal and rest. Dante and Elliot can handle you if you have problems with your wolf, too. You’ve been doing a lot better on that front lately, so you’ll be all right. You don’t have to let her go quite yet, but it’s Amber’s turn to fly for a while. I know change is hard, and chances are, Amber will end up floating between Yellowknife and Seattle, but this is really for the best.”

  With a sigh full of pain, Nicolina nodded. “I know, I know.”

  “Declan promised he’d give me his brownie recipe.”

  “You can’t have it. Declan, don’t give it to him. If you have the brownie recipe, you have to bring Amber home often so I can have your brownies.”

  Under no circumstances could I laugh at the woman, not when her voice wavered and her eyes teared up. “I promised him my brownie recipe, but I have other treats that are even better than my brownies, so you can pick one of those that I will hold close to my chest so you have excuses to invite Amber over. And isn’t she still your witch?”

  Nicolina’s shoulders slumped, and she relaxed in Richard’s hold. “She won’t be allowed to work with anyone for at least a few years. Learning to live with the wolf can be hard, especially for the witches. We got lucky her witchcraft didn’t go off and start a bad fire.”